Title: Night and Day
Author: colorless_landscape
Chapter: One-shot
Word Count: 975
Rating: G
Pairing: Akanishi Jin/Okada Junichi
Warnings: fluff?
Genre: fluff, RP-based, AU
Prompt: “I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort where we overlap.” - Ani Difranco
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own these boys; I just like to take them out on occasion and play with them.
Author's Note: As always, this is for my beloved Miha (_defyingtheodds); based on an AU RPG, don't go sending the hounds after me!






Funny how Life has a way of changing what you think you want. All I ever wanted, as far back as I can remember, was to dance. I wasn't one of the lucky few to be born beautiful or be born into the lap of luxury. I wasn't even born with the so-called social graces. No, everything I wanted, I had to work for.

First it was taking control of my asthma rather than letting it control me, just so that I could dance. So many tried to dissuade me, and yet, I persisted. My parents never tried to tell me that I should just give up, that it wasn't meant for me. They were there to support me. When the doctors said that it was unlikely I'd be able to dance due to my asthma, my parents looked into ways to strengthen my lungs so that I could fulfill my dream. And then they, too, were taken from me in a harsh twist of Fate. I couldn't let that stop me, though. I couldn't quit then, not when they'd given so much, just so that I could dance. I had to continue, had to make them proud of me, by whatever means necessary. I had to become the best dancer that it was within my power to become. And if that meant that I had to sell myself just to achieve that, then so be it.

Not even when the scandal broke did I falter. Oh, I wanted to disappear, to be sure, when the rumors started. But I couldn't. I knew my parents wouldn't be proud of what I had become, an online callboy, and that knowledge only served to strengthen my resolve as a dancer. And so I withdrew into myself, pretended not to notice the stares and whispers, even when they felt at times like physical blows. I threw all of my pain and energy into dance. Onstage, I became invincible, a god. But offstage, I withdrew more and more into myself and became a recluse.

And then came the day that something happened that would forever change my life. You happened.

You burst into my class, and it was hard not to notice you. You made it clear that you already knew all you needed to know, that this class was only a college credit for you. You were loud and obnoxious in your own refined way. You were the flirt, the tease, whatever you needed to be to get what you wanted. And you were accustomed to always getting what you wanted because that was the type of fairy-tale life you had been raised in. You balked at every attempt at instruction, because you thought you knew it all. In short, you were everything that I should hate.

And then you started to change. Or more accurately, to mature. You began to fight less, and to listen more. I could always see in you the talent, and the love of dance, and I wanted to bring out that potential in you. Even now, I don't know why I felt that need, but it became a very real desire. And so, when you pushed, I pushed back. And slowly, that potential started to become a reality.

And still, I made no effort to reach out to you beyond classes. I suppose it was my fear of people in general. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that. Your world wasn't mine. Your world stood for all the things that had hurt me in the past, and if I just steered clear of you outside of the teacher-student relationship, then you couldn't hurt me. And then you reached out to me, offering nothing more than a hand of friendship when I needed it, not expecting anything in return from me. I didn't know what to expect, didn't know why you were even bothering to reach out to someone so much a polar opposite of yourself.

You're watching me in the mirrors again. I know you are, because I can feel your eyes on me. And as our eyes meet in the mirror, and you give me that smile that I now realize I never saw you share with any of the others you have flirted with, I understand at least part of it.

We're like night and day, it's true. But even between night and day, there are those moments that overlap. Without the day to balance it out, the night would be too dark and lonely. Conversely, without the night to balance it, the day would be too bright and burn itself out far too quickly. It's like that with us, different on the surface, but for those moments where our souls meet. You crave attention where I crave fading into obscurity. And yet, we've found a happy medium. You don't force me to get involved with others, and yet never leave me to feel starved for attention. There are moments when we are alone, and even increasingly frequent times when we're not alone, that you let down the defenses that you've built, and I can see in you many of the same things that I had come to learn to live with. The loneliness. The isolation. The need to be accepted for who you are.

Those are the moments that I treasure the most. Those are the times that I realize just how truly alike we are, despite outward appearances. Let them say that two such dissimilar people could never find happiness together. In those moments, I know that's not true. Not even my own insecurities can argue that. I know that it's not true. Our differences complement one another. As separate entities, we are but a sum of our weaknesses. But together, we balance one another, and can both draw from those weaknesses, and turn them into strengths. For ourselves, and for each other.