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He was here for very specific reasons.
Helping Orange Cassidy was one of them but the chance to confront Bryan Danielson was certainly another. Kazuchika still struggled with that loss - with that submission. It was a failure and a fault and it had to be redeemed. Everything that he was hinged on that single phrase: the best wrestler in the world. It was the only thing that he was allowed to be. What he had pushed aside so many things for.
And he had lost it in a matter of seconds. In a moment of weakness to a man with a broken arm. It was something that he could only reclaim from Bryan Danielson - a victory of his own on a stage far bigger than an arena in a country neither of them claimed would be necessary. Nothing less would do.
However, an opportunity for curiosity had provided itself through circumstance. It wasn't necessarily one of those specific reasons but Kazuchika couldn't claim that with any sort of surety. It had certainly been in his thoughts as he had flown to the other side of the world. In the back of his mind, not heavy but not weightless either.
So he was in unfamiliar halls, avoiding his assigned handler because he didn't want to be asked what he was searching for. And he wasn't quite searching as much as he was wandering and wondering. But somehow, Kazuchika wasn't surprised that he heard him before he saw him.
Jay White.
The loud hollering that he was known for still didn't quite fit the quiet yet intense Young Lion he had the vaguest memories of. And it was yet further at odds with the man who had kept to himself in CHAOS's locker room. He hadn't bothered to try and draw him away from those solitary moments and Kazuchika sometimes wondered if it would have changed anything. If a hand on Jay White's shoulder would have been enough to guide him onto a different road or if some things would always happen.
His betrayal was old enough now that it no longer stung. He had been lost in those days - asleep in his own misery and doubt - and there was a part of him that would always be grateful to Jay White for waking him up. Helping him remember himself again. Not that those were words he would ever say.
Because this was Jay White in exile.
The gear was almost the same and his hair was askew like he had been the last time Kazuchika had truly seen him: clinging to his side in the middle of a ring in the Tokyo Dome. Holding onto him as if that grip was the only thing he had left. Had Jay White known in that moment what would happen in the weeks to come? That those emotions seemingly deeply buried and far too exposed at the same time would cost him somewhere that he claimed as his home?
I tried, Okada-san. I tried.
And those words. Spoken to him and him alone in a voice that was both broken and soft in a moment that was only for them. They had haunted him in all of the days since. Never at the forefront of his mind but never forgotten either. He had sounded younger and exhausted and honest. Jay White had tried and failed to retain his title but somehow, Kazuchika knew that those words had nothing to do with their match.
He was propped up on the edge of a tall chair that clearly didn't belong in the alcove he was in and something about the sight made one corner of Kazuchika's lips curve upward. Anyone who had ever stood backstage had heard Jay White rant and holler about needing a chair and there was something very nearly comforting that even in spite of his exile, that one little thing had not changed.
Jay White was alone, even though Kazuchika knew that he once again had found allies willing to guard his back. He was still talking out loud, however. The cardboard cutout of himself was beside him and Jay White seemed to be monologuing to it about something that he couldn't quite make out. These words didn't really matter. It was the fact that he was doing it at all.
Kazuchika couldn't say that he had been following what had happened to Jay White in exile very closely but he was probably more aware than he should be. His stolen title was on the ground beside him - forgotten when it was unneeded - as he talked to a piece of cardboard. It was funny, he supposed, that this newest iteration of Bullet Club treated it like it was actually part of their faction. And Kazuchika wondered if he would find amusement in it if he was someone else. Because all he saw when he looked at that cardboard cutout was a memory from years ago.
No one else probably looked at that piece of cardboard and saw balloons but he did. The outward symbol of his own spiral. Of feeling lost and uncertain of his own identity. Kazuchika listened as Jay spoke to a cardboard cutout like it could understand him and he wondered if he was all right.
"Jay White."
His reaction was a few seconds slower than Kazuchika expected it to be and it seemingly confirmed his almost fears. Their eyes met and the vulnerability wasn't immediately hidden away. It was a heartbeat at most but there was a flash of recognition in Jay White's eyes and Kazuchika couldn't do anything but take a step closer as he stood up and tried to make himself look important.
"Well, if it isn't my good old buddy, Okada. Here to get a little bit of revenge, I take it? Isn't that cute? You know, I was really disappointed to see you tap out to a man with a broken arm. Such a disgrace to your entire company."
That old itch to shake his hands in frustration surged through him but there was a quiet comfort to it. Kazuchika wondered if any of the musketeers chasing him had any idea that no matter how they pursued him, none of them would ever surpass Jay White. The ever-present thorn in his side, ripped away through no action of his own. Leaving a scar that was as much a reminder as it was a memory.
"And you are still annoying."
He was and he wasn't but Kazuchika had to suppress a smile as Jay White puffed himself up with pride. Not for the first time, he wondered if it wasn't pride in his obnoxiousness that he took but pride in not being forgotten. In being remembered. There were undoubtedly others that wanted the title that he had stolen yet he had insured the spotlight shown upon him because Jay White hid better in brightness and when there were thousands of eyes staring at him. Here in the barest of shadows, though?
Kazuchika saw the lines at the corner of his eyes and that hint of despair in his eyes. He was probably a tangible sign of his clearly painful exile and that had not been his intention. This was just curiosity. That's all.
"I suppose you're looking for the Bang Bang Lounge, huh?" Jay White's tendency to name and rename himself and others had always amused him as much as he had a feeling that it was just another form of subterfuge. "It doesn't open until after the show and you know… it's very exclusive but I think we could make an exception for the Rainmaker himself."
It was an actual invitation. Kazuchika could tell by the way Jay White was standing. The set of his shoulders always gave him away. Perhaps he wanted to know that he hadn't lost everything when Hikuleo pinned him to the mat. His actual exile had come later but that had been its true beginning. That had been the true moment.
"How are you, Jay White?"
And there was the crux of his curiosity. A single question that he knew Jay White would never actually answer. He would holler and he would exaggerate. Grab his false championship and hold it above his head and proclaim himself something else. The Switchblade never lied and it was impossible that the answer to his question was anything but I'm not okay.
Kazuchika wondered if his new allies could see that. If they looked closer than CHAOS ever had. Jay White had entered their locker room already scheming but now he could remember a lonely young man with a face too soft for his plotting. Something he had noticed but hadn't seen and yet could still recall. What would have happened if he had seen? Would Jay White have not held as many championships but still stood on a cerulean blue mat?
Would he have shown Kazuchika his real smile in the days between then and now?
"I am the real AEW World Heavyweight champion! I am a truly elite champion unlike that phony, MJF. How do you think I am?"
He was predictable and yet he wasn't. But Kazuchika couldn't help but notice that the stolen title was still on the ground beside him as if Jay White knew that he would see through his boast and hadn't even bothered. They knew each other too well and yet not at all.
"Sad and lost."
For the briefest of moments, Jay White looked stunned. There was something gratifying about catching him unaware just enough to see the truth. Kazuchika had described him perfectly and neither of them knew what to do next. Yet the way he turned to that battered cardboard duplicate of himself made Kazuchika wince.
"Do you hear that nonsense, Cardblade?" He patted the top of the cutout's head and it really was his balloons. "My good old buddy can't see how the Bang Bang Gang is the only thing that matters in AEW."
Nothing but lies and bright lights. Avoiding his words like they hadn't even been said.
"Jay White…" Kazuchika took a few steps forward until they were within arm's reach of one another. That close but he didn't move. "... it is not the same without you."
Yet that was the truth in the shadows. New Japan had kept spinning and turning despite Jay White's exile and it would continue to do so. Others would rise up to take his place as if he had never been there at all. But Kazuchika had a feeling that he would always see the crack where Jay White was supposed to be.
"Of course it isn't… I am King Switch… the Catalyst of Professional Wrestling…"
The words were familiar but the hitch in his voice was something older and only half-remembered. A tell from days gone past. He was right at the edge then and Kazuchika wondered who here would be the one to finally break the Switchblade down. To push him past that one last ledge that he had scrambled away from time and time again. But it would not be him.
One last step between them and Kazuchika attempted something that maybe he should have tried back at the beginning but he would not have known how. Jay White didn't lash out the moment he started to pull him close and perhaps that said everything that they both refused to say. Arms came around him and he braced himself for another betrayal. Instead, Jay White settled against him - a body lean and honed and yet Kazuchika almost missed the way he used to look.
It was the warmth that made him ache, though. Not that fire made manifest in his voice - the thing that tried to burn his opponents to ash. And not that ice in his calculated moves - the thing that had lanced through his skin more than once. But this was warmth. Only the slightest hint of it could be found when they touched in a ring but there was no brightness for Jay White to hide in now. Just an embrace that exposed them both.
If they had met at different points in time, would there have been more warmth between them? Softness and smiles. Would that other Kazuchika have been brave enough to let himself put that hand on that Jay White's shoulder and try to make him smile or laugh? His own body reminded him of attractiveness in that way that curled down low but he brushed it away the same way he always had. They were too far past that possibility now but perhaps that other Kazuchika would have known that sort of touch as well.
As they stood together, his fingers couldn't quite caress. It wasn't who they were, despite his knowledge that Jay White likely needed it far more than he would ever admit to his gang. But the fingers on his own back were as still as still could be and that felt different somehow. Like staying was Jay White's own form of bravery. There was nothing to whisper in his ear. Nothing that he had enough time to say. Their lives would move forward as if this moment had never happened.
But it had.
Jay White was so close to relaxing - to letting himself truly be held - that Kazuchika wasn't surprised to feel him stiffen and pull back. Away. But that unpredictability of his graced his life one more time. A hand took hold of the back of his neck and Jay White forced their foreheads together, violently and yet gently.
"Show him, Okada-san." Eyes of an indefinable color stared into his and Kazuchika wondered if anyone else had ever seen this sort of beautiful light in them. "Toukon."
The pride of a Young Lion - the fire in his soul that had been buried but never extinguished. The respect never given and yet never asked for. This was the man that Kazuchika wished he had gotten a chance to know. Or perhaps he had when he had been unable to see it. His own hand found its way through that ever-tempting mess of hair - thumb sliding across skin.
"Earn that title. I know you can."
His words had nothing to do with having his hand raised in victory and everything to do with achieving that victory with pride. Standing on his own feet with no shortcuts and a neglected heart shining bright. And they both knew that. It was there in those eyes.
Kazuchika stepped back to give each of them space and he still wasn't surprised to see Jay White reach down and pick up his stolen title, draping it over his shoulder. It looked both right and wrong there but he could only smile ever-so-slightly at the sight. That was who they were both supposed to be. The best. The pinnacle. And yet neither of them could truly claim such a thing right now but they both would once more. That confidence in defiance of weakness was something they had in common.
"Rainmaker."
The light in those eyes had disappeared as if it had never been there.
"Switchblade."
He picked up that cardboard cutout as he walked away and for a long minute, Kazuchika stared in the direction he had gone. They no longer shared the same hallways but their echoes would probably always march side-by-side.
Take care of yourself, Jay.
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