The Girl Within the Cage - Chapter 4
Title: The Girl Within the Cage / 籠女籠の中 / Kagome Kago no Naka
Chapter: 4 / -unknown-
Author:
rendezvous22
Rating: R
Genre: Erotica, Angst
Warnings: Worksafe
Pairings: Kyo (Dir en grey) x Jamie (OFC –female–)
Summary: The first time they met, things were different; they were different. But a year has gone and passed since then and meeting Kyo now, Jamie just didn’t know how to face him.
Disclaimers: I do not own any members or associated staff members of Dir en grey. Any misinterpretations and ambiguities are at the fault of this author. I do own my original characters and imagination.
Author's Note: Let me know what you think! And as always, enjoy the story. Also, now that I have more time, I will try to release on a regular weekly/bi-weekly basis. No promises though!
Table of Contents: Ch01 / Ch02 / Ch03 / -Ch04-
Chapter 4. Beginnings
By the time Jamie woke up, it was already noon. Somebody was up in the front of the bus but whoever it was left her undisturbed in Kyo’s bottom bunk, just barely concealed by the privacy curtain hanging around the bunk and the thin blanket wrapped around her naked body.
Riffling around the bed, she searched for her carelessly discarded clothing, trying to push the memories of last night aside. After the whole bathroom fiasco, Kyo had proceeded to take her until she’d passed out. The next thing she knew, Jamie was back in the tour bus, seemingly alone, and she was glad for it. Somehow, she didn’t want to see Kyo right now. She wouldn’t know what to say.
Unwillingly, she recalled his words from last night: You’re mine, Jamie. Never forget that. Everything inside her rebelled at the words on principle alone; what right did he have to say that to her? Even so, she felt confused; at him and at her own reaction. Jamie just didn’t know anymore. Sighing, she pulled her clothes on, but looking at the sorry state of both her bra and panties, she shimmied into her day-worn clothing completely commando. Thank God for small breasts, Jamie thought wryly to herself. She really needed to grab some fresh clothes from her bag but that was in the bus storage area and God knew she wasn’t ready for any sort of company at the moment.
As she walked out of the tour bus, she surveyed the area; they’d already arrived in the next town. Just as she was about to stretch herself out, Die called out to her in Japanese, apparently too tired to try English just yet, “Morning, sleepy head.”
Jamie turned with a smile, knowing from that weary tone that he had a hell of a hangover. The deadpan look he gave her almost made her laugh. “Die, stop smoking when you have a hangover,” she lightly admonished back in Japanese.
“It makes me feel better,” he admitted with a frown.
At that she only smiled, falling into silence. As her thoughts turned darker, she looked over at Die, asking him jokingly, “Hey, can I bum a smoke?”
He looked back at her, surprised. Jamie never smoked unless she was well and truly drunk and she sure as hell wasn’t drunk now. But despite her easy smile, he could see the tightness around her eyes, and he nodded, pulling out one of his cigarettes and lighting it for her.
As Jamie took the cigarette, she wondered what she was doing. She hated smoking, she really did. But she took it nonetheless, taking in that first pull, registering the faint tickle in her throat and eventually, a slight dizziness as her nerves began to calm. They smoked in companionable silence, both not ready to speak just yet.
Alone with her thoughts, Jamie felt herself come back to the same question that’d been haunting her for days: How had it come to this? Everything had all begun so simply a year ago.
Just before their last US tour, Jamie had been hired on as a second translator. Unbeknownst to the Dir en grey band members, she had been hired temporarily as a favor from Inoue Atsushi, the band’s manager, who coincidentally was an old friend of Jamie’s father.
The favor in question had come in just in time too. Jamie was just about ready to run away from her problems yet again, and this new job was the perfect solution. As she left for Tokyo, Jamie was ready to begin a new adventure and more than ready to forget.
The first time she met the band was in October, a month before they would depart for America. All the band members had re-grouped in Tokyo in preparation and in the midst of company meetings, Inoue dragged her along to formally introduce her to the band and staff members.
After a somewhat awkward introduction, Inoue proceeded to take them all out to dinner to what Jamie knew was a welcoming party for her. Although her addition to the tour had been on extreme short notice, Jamie noticed that her gender more than her sudden appearance seemed more of an issue than anything else.
As the group of nearly twenty people crammed into the izakaya, Jamie took her seat near but not next to Inoue-san, the only person she knew. Earlier that day, he’d told her to deny any sort of relationship to him, just in case anyone misunderstood. Now, however, she could see a bit of the consequence of that as the people around her nervously glanced in her direction, trying to figure out what to do.
Finally, Jamie made the decision for them, taking her seat wherever. She was surprised to see two of the band members readily approach her, taking their seats beside her. Without waiting for a reply, they reintroduced themselves and she turned to them with a welcome smile.
Die, the one with lustrous pin-straight dark brown hair started first, smiling easily in a way that Jamie knew he was a born and bred flirter. “Kanazuki Jamie-san, right?” he asked in confirmation.
With a barely suppressed smile, Jamie nodded wordlessly, waiting for him to continue.
“So where are you from, Kanazuki-san?”
Hearing the title, she winced a little. It was the proper Japanese way but for Jamie… “Please,” she confessed, “Just call me Jamie. I feel more comfortable that way.”
Widening his eyes, Toshiya, the other band member who sat to her left, finally spoke up. With his fair skin, Jamie couldn’t help but think of him as boyishly good looking, despite his carelessly permed black locks. At the moment however, he looked comically surprised, shocked out of his silence, “Really?”
Glancing between two men, she answered their unspoken question. “Well, I’m a half. My mother’s Irish American and my father’s Japanese. I’ve also spent the last couple years of my life in America so I’m just more used to American customs now,” she explained, noting the exact moment they accepted her quirk as “just one of those foreigner customs”. She didn’t have to wait long for their next question.
“Is that why you’re so fluent? Did you grow up in Japan?” Die began again.
Jamie nodded a little as she replied. “I grew up in New York and Tokyo actually. My father’s job kept moving us back and forth for several years so I learned English and Japanese almost at the same time. Plus, with both my parents…” she trailed off, leaving it to them to fill in the blanks.
Almost immediately, Toshiya took over, exclaiming in excitement, “Really!? Say something in English then!”
Jamie laughed and answered in clear, accent free English, long used to this sort of treatment, “Well, I don’t know what you want me to say though…”
There were a few seconds of silence before Die cracked a wide smile. “Wow, you’re really good! You sound like an American.” He sounded vaguely envious.
Jamie laughed again and thought, well, technically, I am American. Or so my passport says.
“Which schools did you go to?” Toshiya asked curiously.
“Since I moved around so much, I always went to the international schools in Tokyo. There were a lot of travelling kids like me so I guess we all fit in that way?”
They nodded, making noises of agreement. “Have you ever been a translator before? Our current translator, Nora over there,” Toshiya pointed at only other female at the table sitting across from Jamie, “started her first job as a translator with us and she’s been with us ever since.”
Looking over, Jamie noted the other woman’s features, guessing almost immediately that the woman was Malaysian, Thai, or Filipino. She also noted the woman’s hostile glare with more than a little surprise. Jamie had hoped to become friends with what seemed like the only other woman going on the tour and wondered at the hostility. Turning back to the two band members, Jamie answered, “Well, I used to translate at the US embassy in New York a long time ago.” When their eyes grew wide, she hurried to explain, “It was nothing really; I was mostly just a tour guide for Japanese tourists especially during Golden Week*.”
They nodded again, calming down a bit. Taking advantage of their momentary silence, Jamie jumped in to ask first, “I’m really sorry but I have to confess. I’m terrible at remembering names so could you please point out everyone to me again?”
For a moment they looked at her in shocked silence then Die asked her slowly, “So… you’ve never heard of Dir en grey before?”
“Umm…” Jamie looked between the two of them, cautiously choosing her words now, “No, I’m sorry?”
“Hah!” the outburst came from Toshiya and although he seemed shocked as well, he happily crowed, “See! I told you, Die!” slapping the other man across the arm for emphasis.
Die frowned at the bassist, rubbing the sting away from his arm, muttering, “Shut up,” under his breath.
Still laughing, Toshiya turned to Jamie and reintroduced himself for the third time, dramatically stiffening his posture and demeanor. “Hello. I am Toshiya, the bassist of Dir en grey. Please take care of me,” he said formally, bowing slightly as he did so.
Taking in his devilish grin, Jamie smiled and bowed back, reverting back to officious politeness, saying lightly, “Please take care of me too.”
Catching on, Die reintroduced himself as the second guitarist and they all grinned at each other like fools as they bowed back and forth to each other.
Then turning to the rest of the table, they pointed out the other band and staff members to her. “That’s Kaoru, our first guitarist and band leader,” Toshiya said as he pointed at a black-haired man with tattooed arms sitting red-faced at the end of the table, talking avidly to some other male staff members. Out of the entire group, Jamie thought he looked the most handsome with his shoulder-length side-swept hair and light goatee.
“That one over there is Shinya. He’s the drummer in our band,” Die explained as she leaned in to hear him better, turning back towards him. She took in the drummer, noting his thin, curved posture. Although he was definitely male, there was something almost delicate about him. At the moment however, the man seemed to be struggling to stifle a grin and Jamie knew almost immediately that that expression was a constant of his.
“And finally,” Toshiya dramatically announced, bringing her attention back to him, “Kyo, our vocalist!” he said, pointing out the only blonde in the sea of faces. Surrounded by some staff members, the vocalist seemed at ease with where he was, not jovial but avidly at attention, quiet and contained. She traced her eyes over the ragged blonde haircut that swept carelessly over his face in waves, briefly catching on the tattoos on his arms. Just as she was completing her perusal, the man looked up catching her gaze. In that second, all her impressions of the man flew out the window. For a moment, neither of them moved as the air seemed to tighten around them. Then it was over and he looked away. Jamie took in a quiet breath and shook her head. It was only for an instant but the intensity she felt from the man was almost too much.
Turning back to the men beside her, she pasted on a cheerful smile and asked them curiously, “So, how old are all of you guys?”
For some reason, the question seemed to send the men into a fit of giggles. With a snigger, Toshiya slapped a hand across Die’s arm again, saying loudly, “Why don’t you tell her, old man?”
Die glared back at Toshiya and answered her with a self-depreciating smile, “Thirty-five this year.”
Jamie turned to Toshiya with an expectant look. He answered readily, “A youthful thirty-one!” Then he turned back to her and asked her back, “How about you?”
“I turned twenty-seven not too long ago.”
“Gasp,” Toshiya looked over at Die with comically horrified eyes, “We’re so old, Die!”
Curious, Jamie looked at them with a questioning look. “But you guys are only a few years older than me…”
“Yeah,” Die snorted, “according to our ‘Bios’.”
“So... how old are you guys really?” Now, she was really curious.
“No,” the bassist said dramatically. Somehow, Jamie was beginning to see he was a bit of a drama queen. “We can’t tell you.”
“No,” Die agreed. “Our management would kill us.”
Taking that as a joke, Jamie laughed, giving in. “Okay, okay. I get it. I won’t force it out of you!”
“So, Jamie,” Die continued, testing out her name and throwing out a challenge at the same time, “Do you like to drink?”
Jamie cracked a smile at that, grabbing her own beer mug as she said, “Of course I do!” Making her own challenge, she looked at them both as she announced, “And I bet I can drink just as much or more than either one of you!”
They both looked at her and simultaneously grabbed their beer mugs, raising it up to clink cups with her, "We’ll see about that! Cheers!” With that challenge out in the open, the three of them launched into a loud drinking game that the rest of the party couldn’t ignore.
“—mie. Jamie!”
Startled, Jamie looked up, pulling away from her little trip down memory lane. Die stared down at her with obvious concern and she smiled, more for him than her. “Sorry, I was just thinking about the past.”
“Oh?” he questioned, trying to smooth the worry from his face. “And? What did you think of?”
Pushing away her thoughts, she thought of a happy memory, naturally smiling in reaction “Hah! Remember the ponytail night?”
Startled, he gave her a wide-eyed look then laughed. “Yeah. Though I try not to…”
Drolly, she looked over and elbowed him in the ribs, “Isn’t that all of our stories?”
“Hey!” he yelped, glaring at her. “No, we have…. You know that one with…. I mean, uhh….”
Pointedly staring at him now, she just looked at him, deadpan. “Yeah,” she drawled out, making her point. “Drunk, drunk and more drunk,” she laughingly said.
“Okay, fine,” he agreed, rolling his eyes.
Smiling from the memories, Jamie spoke softly, throwing the question out, “Hey, remember when we first met?” Some underlying wistfulness crept into her voice.
“Of course! I knew from that first second, you wanted me,” he nudged her playfully.
“You playboy!” she accused, swatting his arm lightly. “But… I was the most comfortable with you and Tot-chan. Really…” she turned to look him in the eyes, seriousness creeping into her voice, “really, really.”
He paused and moved toward her in concern, “Hey…”
Jamie turned away, hunching slightly into herself. If she let him comfort her, she’d break down. “You know,” she couldn’t keep the quaver out of her voice, “it would have been better if I fell in love with you.”
Die stared sadly at her lonely back, whispering softly behind her, “Me too.”
Chapter: 4 / -unknown-
Author:
rendezvous22Rating: R
Genre: Erotica, Angst
Warnings: Worksafe
Pairings: Kyo (Dir en grey) x Jamie (OFC –female–)
Summary: The first time they met, things were different; they were different. But a year has gone and passed since then and meeting Kyo now, Jamie just didn’t know how to face him.
Disclaimers: I do not own any members or associated staff members of Dir en grey. Any misinterpretations and ambiguities are at the fault of this author. I do own my original characters and imagination.
Author's Note: Let me know what you think! And as always, enjoy the story. Also, now that I have more time, I will try to release on a regular weekly/bi-weekly basis. No promises though!
Table of Contents: Ch01 / Ch02 / Ch03 / -Ch04-
Chapter 4. Beginnings
By the time Jamie woke up, it was already noon. Somebody was up in the front of the bus but whoever it was left her undisturbed in Kyo’s bottom bunk, just barely concealed by the privacy curtain hanging around the bunk and the thin blanket wrapped around her naked body.
Riffling around the bed, she searched for her carelessly discarded clothing, trying to push the memories of last night aside. After the whole bathroom fiasco, Kyo had proceeded to take her until she’d passed out. The next thing she knew, Jamie was back in the tour bus, seemingly alone, and she was glad for it. Somehow, she didn’t want to see Kyo right now. She wouldn’t know what to say.
Unwillingly, she recalled his words from last night: You’re mine, Jamie. Never forget that. Everything inside her rebelled at the words on principle alone; what right did he have to say that to her? Even so, she felt confused; at him and at her own reaction. Jamie just didn’t know anymore. Sighing, she pulled her clothes on, but looking at the sorry state of both her bra and panties, she shimmied into her day-worn clothing completely commando. Thank God for small breasts, Jamie thought wryly to herself. She really needed to grab some fresh clothes from her bag but that was in the bus storage area and God knew she wasn’t ready for any sort of company at the moment.
As she walked out of the tour bus, she surveyed the area; they’d already arrived in the next town. Just as she was about to stretch herself out, Die called out to her in Japanese, apparently too tired to try English just yet, “Morning, sleepy head.”
Jamie turned with a smile, knowing from that weary tone that he had a hell of a hangover. The deadpan look he gave her almost made her laugh. “Die, stop smoking when you have a hangover,” she lightly admonished back in Japanese.
“It makes me feel better,” he admitted with a frown.
At that she only smiled, falling into silence. As her thoughts turned darker, she looked over at Die, asking him jokingly, “Hey, can I bum a smoke?”
He looked back at her, surprised. Jamie never smoked unless she was well and truly drunk and she sure as hell wasn’t drunk now. But despite her easy smile, he could see the tightness around her eyes, and he nodded, pulling out one of his cigarettes and lighting it for her.
As Jamie took the cigarette, she wondered what she was doing. She hated smoking, she really did. But she took it nonetheless, taking in that first pull, registering the faint tickle in her throat and eventually, a slight dizziness as her nerves began to calm. They smoked in companionable silence, both not ready to speak just yet.
Alone with her thoughts, Jamie felt herself come back to the same question that’d been haunting her for days: How had it come to this? Everything had all begun so simply a year ago.
Just before their last US tour, Jamie had been hired on as a second translator. Unbeknownst to the Dir en grey band members, she had been hired temporarily as a favor from Inoue Atsushi, the band’s manager, who coincidentally was an old friend of Jamie’s father.
The favor in question had come in just in time too. Jamie was just about ready to run away from her problems yet again, and this new job was the perfect solution. As she left for Tokyo, Jamie was ready to begin a new adventure and more than ready to forget.
The first time she met the band was in October, a month before they would depart for America. All the band members had re-grouped in Tokyo in preparation and in the midst of company meetings, Inoue dragged her along to formally introduce her to the band and staff members.
After a somewhat awkward introduction, Inoue proceeded to take them all out to dinner to what Jamie knew was a welcoming party for her. Although her addition to the tour had been on extreme short notice, Jamie noticed that her gender more than her sudden appearance seemed more of an issue than anything else.
As the group of nearly twenty people crammed into the izakaya, Jamie took her seat near but not next to Inoue-san, the only person she knew. Earlier that day, he’d told her to deny any sort of relationship to him, just in case anyone misunderstood. Now, however, she could see a bit of the consequence of that as the people around her nervously glanced in her direction, trying to figure out what to do.
Finally, Jamie made the decision for them, taking her seat wherever. She was surprised to see two of the band members readily approach her, taking their seats beside her. Without waiting for a reply, they reintroduced themselves and she turned to them with a welcome smile.
Die, the one with lustrous pin-straight dark brown hair started first, smiling easily in a way that Jamie knew he was a born and bred flirter. “Kanazuki Jamie-san, right?” he asked in confirmation.
With a barely suppressed smile, Jamie nodded wordlessly, waiting for him to continue.
“So where are you from, Kanazuki-san?”
Hearing the title, she winced a little. It was the proper Japanese way but for Jamie… “Please,” she confessed, “Just call me Jamie. I feel more comfortable that way.”
Widening his eyes, Toshiya, the other band member who sat to her left, finally spoke up. With his fair skin, Jamie couldn’t help but think of him as boyishly good looking, despite his carelessly permed black locks. At the moment however, he looked comically surprised, shocked out of his silence, “Really?”
Glancing between two men, she answered their unspoken question. “Well, I’m a half. My mother’s Irish American and my father’s Japanese. I’ve also spent the last couple years of my life in America so I’m just more used to American customs now,” she explained, noting the exact moment they accepted her quirk as “just one of those foreigner customs”. She didn’t have to wait long for their next question.
“Is that why you’re so fluent? Did you grow up in Japan?” Die began again.
Jamie nodded a little as she replied. “I grew up in New York and Tokyo actually. My father’s job kept moving us back and forth for several years so I learned English and Japanese almost at the same time. Plus, with both my parents…” she trailed off, leaving it to them to fill in the blanks.
Almost immediately, Toshiya took over, exclaiming in excitement, “Really!? Say something in English then!”
Jamie laughed and answered in clear, accent free English, long used to this sort of treatment, “Well, I don’t know what you want me to say though…”
There were a few seconds of silence before Die cracked a wide smile. “Wow, you’re really good! You sound like an American.” He sounded vaguely envious.
Jamie laughed again and thought, well, technically, I am American. Or so my passport says.
“Which schools did you go to?” Toshiya asked curiously.
“Since I moved around so much, I always went to the international schools in Tokyo. There were a lot of travelling kids like me so I guess we all fit in that way?”
They nodded, making noises of agreement. “Have you ever been a translator before? Our current translator, Nora over there,” Toshiya pointed at only other female at the table sitting across from Jamie, “started her first job as a translator with us and she’s been with us ever since.”
Looking over, Jamie noted the other woman’s features, guessing almost immediately that the woman was Malaysian, Thai, or Filipino. She also noted the woman’s hostile glare with more than a little surprise. Jamie had hoped to become friends with what seemed like the only other woman going on the tour and wondered at the hostility. Turning back to the two band members, Jamie answered, “Well, I used to translate at the US embassy in New York a long time ago.” When their eyes grew wide, she hurried to explain, “It was nothing really; I was mostly just a tour guide for Japanese tourists especially during Golden Week*.”
They nodded again, calming down a bit. Taking advantage of their momentary silence, Jamie jumped in to ask first, “I’m really sorry but I have to confess. I’m terrible at remembering names so could you please point out everyone to me again?”
For a moment they looked at her in shocked silence then Die asked her slowly, “So… you’ve never heard of Dir en grey before?”
“Umm…” Jamie looked between the two of them, cautiously choosing her words now, “No, I’m sorry?”
“Hah!” the outburst came from Toshiya and although he seemed shocked as well, he happily crowed, “See! I told you, Die!” slapping the other man across the arm for emphasis.
Die frowned at the bassist, rubbing the sting away from his arm, muttering, “Shut up,” under his breath.
Still laughing, Toshiya turned to Jamie and reintroduced himself for the third time, dramatically stiffening his posture and demeanor. “Hello. I am Toshiya, the bassist of Dir en grey. Please take care of me,” he said formally, bowing slightly as he did so.
Taking in his devilish grin, Jamie smiled and bowed back, reverting back to officious politeness, saying lightly, “Please take care of me too.”
Catching on, Die reintroduced himself as the second guitarist and they all grinned at each other like fools as they bowed back and forth to each other.
Then turning to the rest of the table, they pointed out the other band and staff members to her. “That’s Kaoru, our first guitarist and band leader,” Toshiya said as he pointed at a black-haired man with tattooed arms sitting red-faced at the end of the table, talking avidly to some other male staff members. Out of the entire group, Jamie thought he looked the most handsome with his shoulder-length side-swept hair and light goatee.
“That one over there is Shinya. He’s the drummer in our band,” Die explained as she leaned in to hear him better, turning back towards him. She took in the drummer, noting his thin, curved posture. Although he was definitely male, there was something almost delicate about him. At the moment however, the man seemed to be struggling to stifle a grin and Jamie knew almost immediately that that expression was a constant of his.
“And finally,” Toshiya dramatically announced, bringing her attention back to him, “Kyo, our vocalist!” he said, pointing out the only blonde in the sea of faces. Surrounded by some staff members, the vocalist seemed at ease with where he was, not jovial but avidly at attention, quiet and contained. She traced her eyes over the ragged blonde haircut that swept carelessly over his face in waves, briefly catching on the tattoos on his arms. Just as she was completing her perusal, the man looked up catching her gaze. In that second, all her impressions of the man flew out the window. For a moment, neither of them moved as the air seemed to tighten around them. Then it was over and he looked away. Jamie took in a quiet breath and shook her head. It was only for an instant but the intensity she felt from the man was almost too much.
Turning back to the men beside her, she pasted on a cheerful smile and asked them curiously, “So, how old are all of you guys?”
For some reason, the question seemed to send the men into a fit of giggles. With a snigger, Toshiya slapped a hand across Die’s arm again, saying loudly, “Why don’t you tell her, old man?”
Die glared back at Toshiya and answered her with a self-depreciating smile, “Thirty-five this year.”
Jamie turned to Toshiya with an expectant look. He answered readily, “A youthful thirty-one!” Then he turned back to her and asked her back, “How about you?”
“I turned twenty-seven not too long ago.”
“Gasp,” Toshiya looked over at Die with comically horrified eyes, “We’re so old, Die!”
Curious, Jamie looked at them with a questioning look. “But you guys are only a few years older than me…”
“Yeah,” Die snorted, “according to our ‘Bios’.”
“So... how old are you guys really?” Now, she was really curious.
“No,” the bassist said dramatically. Somehow, Jamie was beginning to see he was a bit of a drama queen. “We can’t tell you.”
“No,” Die agreed. “Our management would kill us.”
Taking that as a joke, Jamie laughed, giving in. “Okay, okay. I get it. I won’t force it out of you!”
“So, Jamie,” Die continued, testing out her name and throwing out a challenge at the same time, “Do you like to drink?”
Jamie cracked a smile at that, grabbing her own beer mug as she said, “Of course I do!” Making her own challenge, she looked at them both as she announced, “And I bet I can drink just as much or more than either one of you!”
They both looked at her and simultaneously grabbed their beer mugs, raising it up to clink cups with her, "We’ll see about that! Cheers!” With that challenge out in the open, the three of them launched into a loud drinking game that the rest of the party couldn’t ignore.
“—mie. Jamie!”
Startled, Jamie looked up, pulling away from her little trip down memory lane. Die stared down at her with obvious concern and she smiled, more for him than her. “Sorry, I was just thinking about the past.”
“Oh?” he questioned, trying to smooth the worry from his face. “And? What did you think of?”
Pushing away her thoughts, she thought of a happy memory, naturally smiling in reaction “Hah! Remember the ponytail night?”
Startled, he gave her a wide-eyed look then laughed. “Yeah. Though I try not to…”
Drolly, she looked over and elbowed him in the ribs, “Isn’t that all of our stories?”
“Hey!” he yelped, glaring at her. “No, we have…. You know that one with…. I mean, uhh….”
Pointedly staring at him now, she just looked at him, deadpan. “Yeah,” she drawled out, making her point. “Drunk, drunk and more drunk,” she laughingly said.
“Okay, fine,” he agreed, rolling his eyes.
Smiling from the memories, Jamie spoke softly, throwing the question out, “Hey, remember when we first met?” Some underlying wistfulness crept into her voice.
“Of course! I knew from that first second, you wanted me,” he nudged her playfully.
“You playboy!” she accused, swatting his arm lightly. “But… I was the most comfortable with you and Tot-chan. Really…” she turned to look him in the eyes, seriousness creeping into her voice, “really, really.”
He paused and moved toward her in concern, “Hey…”
Jamie turned away, hunching slightly into herself. If she let him comfort her, she’d break down. “You know,” she couldn’t keep the quaver out of her voice, “it would have been better if I fell in love with you.”
Die stared sadly at her lonely back, whispering softly behind her, “Me too.”