[Arashi] all's fair
[Title] all's fair
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG-13
[Notes] For iverin, who told me to write something for her, even if it was people she didn't really care about. XD
It started with the hair, really.
Jun walked in, his new extensions perfectly styled and curling delicately around his collarbones, and Nino merely snorted.
“Geez, Jun-chan. You’re such a girl.”
And one thing lead to another in a way that neither of them remembered clearly, until they were in Jun’s apartment, in varying states of undress.
It was a weird way for Jun to start a relationship.
It was pretty standard for Nino.
~
Jun ended up getting used to finding Nino’s stuff in his apartment. He was surprised to learn that despite the usual state of Nino’s bedroom, he was generally speaking a tidy sort of person. He had a lot of small clutter, but it stayed more or less in one area, and he was good about not dropping things in walkways, and would start to clean up after himself without needing much prompting.
“I keep expecting you to be a slob,” Jun commented after coming home to a cleaner living room than he’d left.
“I keep expecting you to be tender and loving,” Nino replied brightly. “Sometimes life surprises us.”
Nino did not tell Jun that his habits were formed by a mother who believed in punishing messy boys by 1. putting padlocks on the fridge, 2. hiding the video games, and 3. piling all the unwashed laundry directly in front of the perpetrator’s door.
Jun found out anyway, and he didn’t stop laughing for a good twenty minutes.
~
At first, Jun had worried that Nino was going to drive him crazy. Nino liked people, and he liked hanging off them and being around them as much as possible. But it turned out that while presence was appreciated, direct attention wasn’t actually required. Nino was more than happy to sit on the couch and play video games while Jun read and drank a glass of wine. He would even mute the sound if the battles were disrupting Jun’s focus.
They spent several nights a week like that, just sitting quietly with each other and doing what each found relaxing. It was unexpectedly comfortable, and Jun was almost worried about how easy it was for him to admit that.
~
Nino didn’t really know how to ask Jun what he wanted to ask. He spent an entire week turning the idea over in his mind, testing phrasing and tone in the mirror, trying to decide whether he should be trying to overcome Jun’s sense of privacy, or Jun’s attempts to keep people at a distance. In the end, he hadn’t needed to worry over it.
“Don’t you get tired of waiting for me to be home to let you in?” Jun asked one evening. Nino was leaning back against him, pounding at his DS in a way that suggested he was on his last life and only 40 HP away from beating the final boss.
“Kind of,” Nino admitted. “Especially if you get into the bath right away, ‘cause then you don’t hear when I call.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jun said. He reached to the side table and picked up his keys, pulling one off. “If you share this with Aiba, I will kill you, and no one will find your body.”
“Afraid of late-night molesting?”
“I’m afraid I’ll come home to a litter of puppies,” Jun answered. Nino grinned, and hooked the key onto his own keychain.
“Your castle is safe from puppy besieging, Princess,” he chirped. Jun did not feel bad about shoving him off the couch.
~
Nino was a pretty good cook. Jun knew this to some extent, in the back of his mind; not only had he played chef roles twice, but his own father was a culinary school teacher. It made sense that Nino knew his way around a kitchen.
At the same time, Jun hadn’t really expected Nino to actually cook for him, and the first time he came back to his apartment to a full, hot meal, he’d been so surprised he blurted out, “What’d you do that for?!”
Nino’s eyes had shuttered, and his smile turned tight.
“Sorry,” he’d said softly. “It was stupid.”
Jun felt guilty immediately, and caught Nino’s wrist as he moved to scrape the plate into the trash. He grabbed a spoon and scooped up some of the curry roux, taking a wary bite, before smiling.
“Well, it looks like you didn’t mess it up too badly,” he said, and he felt the tightness around his heart loosen when Nino laughed.
~
They both had habits that at first baffled the other. During extreme weather, Nino tended to either wrap himself in every blanket in the place (in cold) or strip down to his underwear and sometimes less and lay down in front of the air conditioner (in hot). The first time Jun came home to Nino naked and flopped on the floor, he’d panicked and assumed Nino had had a stroke coming out of the bath.
“YOUR HANDS ARE COLD,” Nino shrieked as Jun checked his pulse.
“YOUR HEART IS COLDER,” Jun responded when he realized Nino’s nudity and collapse was entirely voluntary.
Jun had a deeply ingrained need for the dishes on the table to all be from the same set, right down to the utensils. Considering he had six different sets total, Nino found it entirely too much work to dig through the drawer and find two spoons that both had little dots around the handle, rather than one with dots and one with a square. But Jun would get up and find the pairs before he could even begin to eat. He also needed the sides to stay separate from the main dish at all times. And for the drink glass to always be on the right.
“You’re like a really anal-retentive cat,” Nino commented. “Only more crazy.”
“Your peas are touching the steak again,” Jun answered, helpfully separating them with his fork.
~
Sex was always something sort of special for them. The first time had lead to the relationship, but each time it seemed to hold just as much weight. Jun had always thought Nino engaged in relatively casual sex, but he’d learned pretty quickly that Nino didn’t so much take it lightly as he did try to experience it with a variety of people he cared about. Nino treated sex like a way to not only show his affection, but bring them closer by learning things about them.
Jun treated it as a place to let go of his control for a while. It wasn’t often that he felt safe enough with someone to indulge in an activity that made him so vulnerable, and even rarer that he enjoyed it. But Nino was nothing if not good at adapting, and he was able to read and keep up with Jun’s shifting moods throughout. They tried different things and usually found entirely new ways to drive each other crazy.
But no matter how many times Aiba asked for details, Jun was not sharing.
~
Jun quickly realized he sort of liked taking Nino shopping. For all the obnoxious commentary, Nino had relatively good taste and brutal honesty. He also was a demon for finding sales.
“What about this one?” Jun asked, holding up a metallic blue shirt.
“Great, if your intention is to look like a beetle,” Nino responded, shooting Jun an exaggerated double thumbs-up. “It’s perfect for those Bug Shows we go on all the time.”
“Well, fine,” Jun sniffed, putting the shirt back on the rack. “I don’t see you offering any other options.”
Nino held up a low v-neck charcoal sweater. Jun raised his eyebrow in practiced casual interest.
“It’s really, really soft. Pet it. No, seriously, pet it!” Nino insisted. Jun touched it: cashmere.
“Do you have any idea how expensive cashmere is?”
“This is forty percent off because they’re clearing stock for the season change,” Nino replied. “And it’s really soft.”
Jun regretted the purchase; whenever he wore it, absolutely everyone kept touching him.
And Aiba had wandering hands.
~
“NINOMIYA.”
“Yes, darling?”
“You. Touched. My. Shampoo.”
Jun was pleased with the guilty expression on Nino’s face as he curled into a tighter ball on the couch. He looked down, clearly ashamed.
“Just once,” he said plaintively.
“I believe my instructions indicated you could touch my shampoo never,” Jun insisted.
“Well, yes, but.”
“But what?”
“But you have drama filming for the next two weeks,” Nino said, fiddling with the magazine he was holding. “And I’ll hardly see you at all except for when you pass out all dead next to me.”
“…And?”
“And it smells like you,” Nino said softly. “I like it.”
“…You use no more than the size of a 100 yen coin,” Jun instructed. “And after you rinse, you do not repeat.”
“Okay,” Nino said, offering Jun a hesitant smile.
“And you buy the next bottle,” Jun added, grinning as Nino whimpered.
~
Nino didn’t actually mean to say it.
He’d been saying it to himself for a month or so; it just sort of naturally played through his mind. It felt easy, like saying something he knew to be completely true. Like something real. And Nino liked being honest with people about how he felt.
But he also knew Jun shied away from that sort of thing. Jun took words very seriously, and he didn’t believe in saying things unless he meant it. And Nino did mean it, but that didn’t mean Jun would necessarily believe him.
It just slipped out when they were lying in bed, mumbling sleepily to each other.
“If you tell Shun any of that,” Jun threatened half-heartedly. “I will make sure he also hears about that stuffed dog of yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Nino gasped in mock-horror.
“I am a man of my word,” Jun sniffed.
“You’re mean,” Nino said, his words betrayed by the following snicker. “I love you.”
The dead silence after the statement felt impossibly long to Nino’s ears. He stiffened, grasping for a way to repair the situation somehow.
“Sorry,” Nino said quickly, his panic edging into his voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Not to say it,” Jun asked softly. “But did you mean it?”
“Yeah,” Nino said, fidgeting with the sheets. “Is that bad?”
“No,” Jun answered, brushing Nino’s bangs out of his eyes. “It’s not.”
“Oh,” Nino sighed, exhaling in relief. “Okay.”
“I love you too.”
Nino grinned into the dark, his small hand searching out Jun’s under the blankets.
“I can’t really blame you for that,” Nino chirped. “I’m pretty damn loveable, really.”
“I am going to smother you with this pillow,” Jun said calmly. “And everyone will agree that it was truly self-defense. My sanity was endangered.”
“Do you really want my dead-germs all over your pillow?” Nino asked sweetly.
“…”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Go to sleep, brat.”
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG-13
[Notes] For iverin, who told me to write something for her, even if it was people she didn't really care about. XD
It started with the hair, really.
Jun walked in, his new extensions perfectly styled and curling delicately around his collarbones, and Nino merely snorted.
“Geez, Jun-chan. You’re such a girl.”
And one thing lead to another in a way that neither of them remembered clearly, until they were in Jun’s apartment, in varying states of undress.
It was a weird way for Jun to start a relationship.
It was pretty standard for Nino.
~
Jun ended up getting used to finding Nino’s stuff in his apartment. He was surprised to learn that despite the usual state of Nino’s bedroom, he was generally speaking a tidy sort of person. He had a lot of small clutter, but it stayed more or less in one area, and he was good about not dropping things in walkways, and would start to clean up after himself without needing much prompting.
“I keep expecting you to be a slob,” Jun commented after coming home to a cleaner living room than he’d left.
“I keep expecting you to be tender and loving,” Nino replied brightly. “Sometimes life surprises us.”
Nino did not tell Jun that his habits were formed by a mother who believed in punishing messy boys by 1. putting padlocks on the fridge, 2. hiding the video games, and 3. piling all the unwashed laundry directly in front of the perpetrator’s door.
Jun found out anyway, and he didn’t stop laughing for a good twenty minutes.
~
At first, Jun had worried that Nino was going to drive him crazy. Nino liked people, and he liked hanging off them and being around them as much as possible. But it turned out that while presence was appreciated, direct attention wasn’t actually required. Nino was more than happy to sit on the couch and play video games while Jun read and drank a glass of wine. He would even mute the sound if the battles were disrupting Jun’s focus.
They spent several nights a week like that, just sitting quietly with each other and doing what each found relaxing. It was unexpectedly comfortable, and Jun was almost worried about how easy it was for him to admit that.
~
Nino didn’t really know how to ask Jun what he wanted to ask. He spent an entire week turning the idea over in his mind, testing phrasing and tone in the mirror, trying to decide whether he should be trying to overcome Jun’s sense of privacy, or Jun’s attempts to keep people at a distance. In the end, he hadn’t needed to worry over it.
“Don’t you get tired of waiting for me to be home to let you in?” Jun asked one evening. Nino was leaning back against him, pounding at his DS in a way that suggested he was on his last life and only 40 HP away from beating the final boss.
“Kind of,” Nino admitted. “Especially if you get into the bath right away, ‘cause then you don’t hear when I call.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Jun said. He reached to the side table and picked up his keys, pulling one off. “If you share this with Aiba, I will kill you, and no one will find your body.”
“Afraid of late-night molesting?”
“I’m afraid I’ll come home to a litter of puppies,” Jun answered. Nino grinned, and hooked the key onto his own keychain.
“Your castle is safe from puppy besieging, Princess,” he chirped. Jun did not feel bad about shoving him off the couch.
~
Nino was a pretty good cook. Jun knew this to some extent, in the back of his mind; not only had he played chef roles twice, but his own father was a culinary school teacher. It made sense that Nino knew his way around a kitchen.
At the same time, Jun hadn’t really expected Nino to actually cook for him, and the first time he came back to his apartment to a full, hot meal, he’d been so surprised he blurted out, “What’d you do that for?!”
Nino’s eyes had shuttered, and his smile turned tight.
“Sorry,” he’d said softly. “It was stupid.”
Jun felt guilty immediately, and caught Nino’s wrist as he moved to scrape the plate into the trash. He grabbed a spoon and scooped up some of the curry roux, taking a wary bite, before smiling.
“Well, it looks like you didn’t mess it up too badly,” he said, and he felt the tightness around his heart loosen when Nino laughed.
~
They both had habits that at first baffled the other. During extreme weather, Nino tended to either wrap himself in every blanket in the place (in cold) or strip down to his underwear and sometimes less and lay down in front of the air conditioner (in hot). The first time Jun came home to Nino naked and flopped on the floor, he’d panicked and assumed Nino had had a stroke coming out of the bath.
“YOUR HANDS ARE COLD,” Nino shrieked as Jun checked his pulse.
“YOUR HEART IS COLDER,” Jun responded when he realized Nino’s nudity and collapse was entirely voluntary.
Jun had a deeply ingrained need for the dishes on the table to all be from the same set, right down to the utensils. Considering he had six different sets total, Nino found it entirely too much work to dig through the drawer and find two spoons that both had little dots around the handle, rather than one with dots and one with a square. But Jun would get up and find the pairs before he could even begin to eat. He also needed the sides to stay separate from the main dish at all times. And for the drink glass to always be on the right.
“You’re like a really anal-retentive cat,” Nino commented. “Only more crazy.”
“Your peas are touching the steak again,” Jun answered, helpfully separating them with his fork.
~
Sex was always something sort of special for them. The first time had lead to the relationship, but each time it seemed to hold just as much weight. Jun had always thought Nino engaged in relatively casual sex, but he’d learned pretty quickly that Nino didn’t so much take it lightly as he did try to experience it with a variety of people he cared about. Nino treated sex like a way to not only show his affection, but bring them closer by learning things about them.
Jun treated it as a place to let go of his control for a while. It wasn’t often that he felt safe enough with someone to indulge in an activity that made him so vulnerable, and even rarer that he enjoyed it. But Nino was nothing if not good at adapting, and he was able to read and keep up with Jun’s shifting moods throughout. They tried different things and usually found entirely new ways to drive each other crazy.
But no matter how many times Aiba asked for details, Jun was not sharing.
~
Jun quickly realized he sort of liked taking Nino shopping. For all the obnoxious commentary, Nino had relatively good taste and brutal honesty. He also was a demon for finding sales.
“What about this one?” Jun asked, holding up a metallic blue shirt.
“Great, if your intention is to look like a beetle,” Nino responded, shooting Jun an exaggerated double thumbs-up. “It’s perfect for those Bug Shows we go on all the time.”
“Well, fine,” Jun sniffed, putting the shirt back on the rack. “I don’t see you offering any other options.”
Nino held up a low v-neck charcoal sweater. Jun raised his eyebrow in practiced casual interest.
“It’s really, really soft. Pet it. No, seriously, pet it!” Nino insisted. Jun touched it: cashmere.
“Do you have any idea how expensive cashmere is?”
“This is forty percent off because they’re clearing stock for the season change,” Nino replied. “And it’s really soft.”
Jun regretted the purchase; whenever he wore it, absolutely everyone kept touching him.
And Aiba had wandering hands.
~
“NINOMIYA.”
“Yes, darling?”
“You. Touched. My. Shampoo.”
Jun was pleased with the guilty expression on Nino’s face as he curled into a tighter ball on the couch. He looked down, clearly ashamed.
“Just once,” he said plaintively.
“I believe my instructions indicated you could touch my shampoo never,” Jun insisted.
“Well, yes, but.”
“But what?”
“But you have drama filming for the next two weeks,” Nino said, fiddling with the magazine he was holding. “And I’ll hardly see you at all except for when you pass out all dead next to me.”
“…And?”
“And it smells like you,” Nino said softly. “I like it.”
“…You use no more than the size of a 100 yen coin,” Jun instructed. “And after you rinse, you do not repeat.”
“Okay,” Nino said, offering Jun a hesitant smile.
“And you buy the next bottle,” Jun added, grinning as Nino whimpered.
~
Nino didn’t actually mean to say it.
He’d been saying it to himself for a month or so; it just sort of naturally played through his mind. It felt easy, like saying something he knew to be completely true. Like something real. And Nino liked being honest with people about how he felt.
But he also knew Jun shied away from that sort of thing. Jun took words very seriously, and he didn’t believe in saying things unless he meant it. And Nino did mean it, but that didn’t mean Jun would necessarily believe him.
It just slipped out when they were lying in bed, mumbling sleepily to each other.
“If you tell Shun any of that,” Jun threatened half-heartedly. “I will make sure he also hears about that stuffed dog of yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Nino gasped in mock-horror.
“I am a man of my word,” Jun sniffed.
“You’re mean,” Nino said, his words betrayed by the following snicker. “I love you.”
The dead silence after the statement felt impossibly long to Nino’s ears. He stiffened, grasping for a way to repair the situation somehow.
“Sorry,” Nino said quickly, his panic edging into his voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
“Not to say it,” Jun asked softly. “But did you mean it?”
“Yeah,” Nino said, fidgeting with the sheets. “Is that bad?”
“No,” Jun answered, brushing Nino’s bangs out of his eyes. “It’s not.”
“Oh,” Nino sighed, exhaling in relief. “Okay.”
“I love you too.”
Nino grinned into the dark, his small hand searching out Jun’s under the blankets.
“I can’t really blame you for that,” Nino chirped. “I’m pretty damn loveable, really.”
“I am going to smother you with this pillow,” Jun said calmly. “And everyone will agree that it was truly self-defense. My sanity was endangered.”
“Do you really want my dead-germs all over your pillow?” Nino asked sweetly.
“…”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Go to sleep, brat.”