#25b: fic: Triptych, NC-17
Centre
On Thursday, Ohno returns.
Sho is awoken by the sound of the door opening and shutting, and when he shuffles out to the living room he finds Ohno standing in the entryway with a plastic bag in hand. He's toeing his shoes off and nudging them straight like he always does, as though it's any other morning and he hasn't been absent for four days.
"You're back," says Sho, unable to hide his relief. Ohno doesn't look at him.
Even now it's hard to acknowledge the fact that things will be different now, harder to accept that this is his doing, but he also remembers Jun's words, unamused and matter-of-fact on his answering machine: 'These things don't resolve themselves on their own.'
Sho tries again. "Where have you been?"
Ohno crosses to the coffee table in six steps and sets the bag down on top of it. Sho follows him despite himself, pauses when Ohno pauses, lets himself be guided onto the sofa by Ohno's palm against his chest. Ohno's face is a mask; he's moving, he's kissing Sho, he's climbing on top of Sho like he's made a decision, except that the last time they'd done this on the sofa, Ohno had smiled as Sho pressed kisses against the side of his face. They had laughed, that evening, as Ohno fumbled with the buttons of Sho's jeans and Sho had made a comment about doing the laundry for a week if Ohno would stop messing around and just-
This morning, Ohno just takes. He strips Sho of his pyjamas with a methodic sharpness, works his cock like it's mere muscle memory and not months of exultant exploration that enables him to make Sho groan and shudder under him just like that. When he looks up at Ohno's face Sho finds him staring right back at him, the dull heat in his eyes making Sho's chest clench.
"I'm sorry," he gasps, hands flying up to clutch at Ohno's shoulders. "Satoshi-"
Ohno wrenches Sho's orgasm from him.
Ohno doesn't disappear again, after that morning. On their days off he gets buns from the nearby shop and leaves them for Sho before heading off to go fishing. They watch television. He eats the meals Sho buys for him when he returns from shooting a drama, lets Sho leave the light on for him in the early hours of the morning.
"That should be more than enough," says Jun. The expression on his face leaves Sho with no alternative but to nod in agreement.
It's different, though; of course it's different. Sho finds himself longing for the moments when they're in the studio together - in front of the cameras Ohno seems to return to his old self, nudging Nino on their couch during Shukudai-kun and attempting to trick Ogura-san into trying another horrific delicacy; on VS Arashi he even congratulates Sho on his winning streak for Falling Pipes.
Off-camera, they don't laugh as much, don't touch as much, don't talk. Every day they retrace their steps silently in a familiar routine that makes Sho wish he'd broken something other than themselves.
"Can I kiss you?" Sho asks, one night. They're in the kitchen having instant ramen straight from the pot, chopsticks bumping more than once over the surface of the broth.
"Maybe," says Ohno. Nothing about his body language is relaxed, and Sho finds himself unable to remember with any clarity a time when they could lean into each other with no hesitation, when he needed neither permission nor forgiveness.
When Nino comes over during the pockets of time in which Ohno is out, Sho still gets the sense that he's doing something wrong. It's just drinks, though, and video games; just someone who will speak to Sho without Jun's reproach or Aiba's hurt confusion, not the furtive groping that Ohno had stumbled upon; stumbled upon and taken flight.
When Ohno returns to find Nino in the living room, however, Sho knows he's wrong anyway. A better person would let Ohno leave, would give him time instead of courting confrontation. Sho isn't that person.
"Please."
Ohno pauses, but doesn't turn around. For a long moment they remain like that, Ohno still clutching the canvas bag Sho had given him to replace the old one, Sho wondering if another apology would be one too many.
And then Nino is there, taking Ohno's face in his hands and repeating Sho's, "Please," plaintive and hesitant. His face seems somehow young with hope - and then Sho realises it's a different question altogether, thinks he can see Nino trembling as he leans in to kiss Ohno.
His heart sinks as Ohno stumbles backwards in shock, but when Nino tries again something changes in Ohno's expression.
"Please," says Nino for the second time. It's directed at the both of them.
That night, Sho lets Ohno take him while Nino watches. Every touch burns, every harsh breath Ohno takes unravels him.
In the morning Sho awakens to the exquisite heat of someone's mouth on his cock; when he opens his eyes Nino is beside him, making maddening, desperate little sounds in the back of his throat as he jerks himself off under the covers. Nobody speaks. They come at the same time, shatteringly. Ohno crawls out of bed and shuffles off to brush his teeth.
The next night, Sho enters Nino with the same set of short and vicious thrusts that Ohno uses, sinks into him like Ohno would, matches Ohno stroke for stroke. He holds Ohno's gaze until the last possible moment.
"I don't think you know what you're doing," Jun tells him.
"You're right," says Sho, "I don't."
Nino doesn't move in; it's not like that. He stays over for nights in a row, occupies a space in their bed and on their sofa, in their kitchen and in their bathroom. On mornings when Ohno has gone out fishing, he and Sho brush their teeth together in front of the mirror and exchange toothpastey smirks for no particular reason. Most mornings, though, Sho wakes up to the sound of Ohno warming up doughnuts in the microwave or boiling water using their unbearably noisy kettle, still blinking sleep from his eyes. He likes to kiss Ohno when he's like this, yielding and tasting of the pastry he's just eaten. Sho doesn't know what Ohno and Nino do when he's not around in the morning.
"Touch him," Nino says. Ohno's hands are hovering over the waistband of Sho's boxer shorts, but they still at the sound of Nino's whispered order.
"No," says Ohno, sitting back on his heels. His eyes are burning. "You touch him."
Nino looks at him for a long moment, before moving to obey. Sho moans, louder than he means to.
It takes Sho a week and a half to realise that Ohno doesn't touch Nino. He lets Nino blow him once or twice, tangles easily with him in post-coital exhaustion, but he never kisses Nino, never fucks him, never looks at him for more than a few seconds if he can help it.
He's kneeling on the bed, Ohno still hard inside of him when he says it. "I want to see you kiss each other."
Ohno pulls out with deliberate restraint and pushes back in again, the slow burn of his movement like a reproach. Nino is somewhere nearby, all quiet heat in the darkness, creeping forward hesitantly.
"I want you-" Sho repeats. "I want you to-"
The next thrust is a surprise, Ohno's hand moving to fist Sho's cock with grip that is almost cruel.
Sho's breath hitches in his chest. "Satoshi-"
Ohno drives into him a final time, leans forward to sink his teeth into the juncture of Sho's neck and shoulder. It's like electricity; Sho can do nothing but fall apart.
Ohno isn't there in the morning.
Sho wakes up to find Nino nibbling on a piece of dried fruit in the kitchen, a glass of cold water standing on the counter next to him.
"He's gone," Nino says, after an uncomfortable pause. "He's taken his mug, even."
He wonders how long it had taken Ohno to gather his things and how much longer it had taken Ohno to decide to do so. It's hard to pin this to a particular mistake; the past weeks have been riddled with those, transgression after transgression coiling heavily between them.
The management informs Arashi that Ohno has taken a few days' urgent leave; a separate memo from Johnny demands they 'stop messing around and get your act together'.
"Leader will forgive you," Jun tells Sho, but doesn't mention if he will do the same.
Nino becomes skittish around Sho; he speaks to no one and spends every other moment hunched over his DS. Aiba is busy filming a special episode for Tensai Shimura Dobutsuen, but even he doesn't sound pleased when he speaks with Sho over the phone.
Sho leaves the apartment empty and moves back to his parents' house; it's easier to mark time there, when he's not at work. He helps Shu with his math homework and eats oranges in the living room with his mother and father while conversing about current affairs. At night, he lies in his narrow bed and jerks off to sense-memories of Ohno - Ohno's face just before he comes; the way his eyes flutter shut when Sho kisses his collarbone; the easy manner in which he wraps himself around Sho, his breathing easy even as he pulls Sho apart with his touches.
He remembers evenings when Ohno would doodle on his newspapers, scribble names of fish and draw incredible caricatures of all of them, and wishes that he had thought to cut these drawings out, frivolous as they were. He remembers their conversations that were not conversations, where Ohno would simply smile and hum and Sho would go on and on, excited and earnest about something or other. Or Ohno's adventures with the refrigerator, where their busy schedules had left a wasteland of possibly-expired food items that Ohno had sampled nonetheless.
The regret, then, is paralysing. He doesn't sleep.
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