Magic in the Trees
Magic in the Trees
Pairing: Aimiya, Arashi gen
Word Count: ~6000
Summary: Aiba has known Nino since they were young, but Nino isn't quite like anybody else.
Notes: Written for honeyporridge for the ninoexchange! Huge props to still_ciircee for helping me structure this world--without her I would still be floundering and the ninoexchange would've been LATE LATE LATE. Also thank you to my betas, elfiepike and lover_youshould.
Aiba lives far out in the middle of nowhere, on a daikon farm at the edge of a forest that stretches back towards the mountains. It's summer, and everything is choked with life, clovers blooming thickly in firework blossoms at the toes of every tree. Jasmine crawls over the rickety old fence that lines the deer trail, and up in the branches the cicadas drone out summer's song.
Aiba, intrepid explorer, fully intends to catch each and every one of them. He has hours and hours of daylight before dinner, a homemade bug net, and the whimsical determination that only a child of six is truly capable of.
It doesn't go according to plan, but things with Aiba never do. Most of the cicadas are endlessly out of reach no matter how he climbs, because he is only a boy with a boy's limbs and agility. The rare times that he does get in range, the cicadas zoom away with a frightening buzz before he can untangle his net and catch his balance back.
But it's exhilarating. Aiba loves the hunt, the thrill of finding, and the promise of eventual capture stays strong even after two hours of failure.
It's just after he whacks at another cicada, this one low enough on a mossy tree trunk that Aiba still has his feet on the ground, that he hears a dubious voice. "You're awfully bad at that."
Aiba whirls around, startled, but there's no one there, not even a wriggle of leaves to suggest someone had been. "Hello?" he says. He pokes at a few bushes, peering underneath in the hopes of spotting shoes. Nothing.
Not until he looks up. There's a boy, curled in the fork of a precarious branch, and he's staring down at Aiba, his eyes unblinking and round. Aiba stares right back, because the boy has cat ears and a tail and Aiba has never seen anyone lounge like that in a tree before, not ever. "Wow," he breathes.
The other boy breaks the staring contest first, glancing away in a manner that is probably meant to be aloof but just seems more irritated. "You weren't supposed to look up."
"I'm sorry," Aiba says automatically, since his mother taught him it was the polite thing to do and everyone would always forgive him. But he is too entranced to stop staring, so he doesn't, because he's never seen a boy around here before, and the nearest house is the Uchida's miles and miles away, and they don't even have any kids. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" the other boy retorts, and sits up with such easy gracefulness Aiba doesn't even doubt he's not going to fall out of the tree. If only he could climb like that! Maybe the boy will teach him.
"I'm Aiba!" he announces, and tries to size up the tree. To his experienced eye, it will be entirely impossible to climb. The trunk is pencil straight, and the nearest branch is well over his head. But Aiba is nothing if not up for trying the impossible, which is clearly not impossible if this other boy managed, and so he drops his net in a patch of clovers and jumps, clinging to the trunk with all the tenacity in his little body.
He slides right back down, butt thumping against a particularly gnarly root before he lands flat on his back with an 'oof', staring up at the leafy canopy.
The boy is still sitting just where he was before, looking unaffected, though interested. "Can't you do anything?" he says.
"How'd you get up there?" Aiba sits up, rubbing at the sore spot on his butt. Maybe he'll bruise, and he can tell his mom it's an honorable wound from chasing dinosaurs.
"I climbed," says the boy as if he is doubtful of Aiba's intelligence. He moves suddenly, his tail lashing out behind him before he leaps to a lower branch with only a hint of undignified scrambling. The next leap is more graceful, and it occurs to Aiba that maybe the other boy is trying to show off. He's doing a good job of it. Aiba wants to whisk through the air like he does, but when he tries again, he only gets a scraped palm for his trouble.
"Teach me how!" Aiba demands, almost desperate in his admiration.
"You don't have claws," says the boy. He's much closer now, and Aiba can see the way his eyes glint and narrow. And then his head turns sharply, and he darts again, furiously quick so that the branches bow and spring up again in his wake, the leaves rustling in protest before there is sudden silence. When the boy reappears on a low branch, Aiba is flabbergasted to see him holding a cicada.
"Whoa!" he says again. It seems to be all he can think.
"Open your box," the boy says suddenly, and Aiba realizes that he's just standing there gawking. The boy's lips and nose are all wrinkled up, and he's holding the bug away from himself, shrinking back as if he's afraid.
Aiba fumbles the box open, and the boy jets down the tree and nearly throws the bug inside. Aiba snaps the lid shut just as it takes off and cracks around against the plastic walls like a ping pong ball on speed, buzzing angrily.
The boy is back in the trees already when Aiba looks back up from his prize. It's disappointing to see him so far away--Aiba had wanted to look at his ears close up, but capturing the cicada had been all important. "Thank you!" he says, waving around the box so that the cicada inside buzzes in protest. "But… don't you like bugs?"
"I hate them," the boy informs him, emphasizing his point with an irritated flick of his tail. And then he squashes himself flat on his perch as a cicada whizzes by, narrowly missing his head. He looks ridiculous and unreasonably discomfited, his tail curled around the branch like a monkey's. "So you better learn how to catch them yourself because I'm not catching you any more."
"How?" Aiba says. "How can I?"
The boy's directions are impossible to follow. Aiba doesn't have back legs that spring, but he tries anyway. He pounces all over the forest and up trees, nearly falling out of two before the boy confines his practice to the forest floor. Aiba pounces on clover, on tufts of grass that tickle his nose, on fallen logs and pinecones until he's got dirt under every nail and up to his elbows.
"Not bad," the boy says loftily when Aiba falls over on his back, drawing in big chestfuls of air. His legs burn and his feet are sore inside his old shoes. He's glad his mother never asks him anymore how it is he always comes home with sticks in his hair.
When he looks up, the boy is higher up in the trees, so high that Aiba can't make out the features on his face. "Are you leaving?" Aiba says, sitting up abruptly. "I haven't caught a cicada for myself yet!"
"If I waited until you did, I'd be here until they all died and fell to the ground," the boy calls back.
Aiba doesn't want him to go. The forest is wide and full of magic and color, life and beauty, but sometimes Aiba feels so alone in it. "What's your name?" he shouts, his hands cupped to his cheeks.
For a moment, he's not sure the other boy heard him. The drone of the cicadas presses against his ears, and just when he's sure he's been left on his own again, the boy's voice comes one more time.
"Nino."
-
Aiba expects--hopes, really--to see Nino again the next day, but Nino doesn't show up. Aiba pounces his way up and down the forest paths and neglects to catch any cicadas, but he does catch several ladybugs and almost gets a cricket. He shows them off proudly to his mother when he gets home, before she makes him wash his face (twice, because he missed the mud spatters under his nose.) A week goes by, and Aiba starts to despair. He doesn't know where to find Nino, and the forest goes for miles all the way up into the mountains or he'd launch an expedition to recover his lost friend.
Because that's what Nino is, Aiba has decided. A friend.
"Cat people aren't real," Sho informs him in the lecturing tones of someone who is convinced he knows everything about the world. Sho probably does, though. His father is the mayor, and mayors know everything.
Except about cat people, apparently. "Are too!" Aiba says. "Right, Matsujun?"
It's a hot day, like all summer days, but they're out on the playground anyway instead of in the shady classroom. Aiba doesn't want to read books through break time. He wants to spread his arms wide and cartwheel through the grass, crash into his friends and fall to the earth giggling.
Matsujun crosses his arms, his fluffy eyebrows drawing together expressively. "I don't know. What do cat people do?"
"They climb trees," Aiba says immediately. "Nino can jump, like a squirrel almost, except obviously I mean like a cat. He could jump from there to there!" he says, pointing from one end of the school yard to the other.
Sho scoffs. He has an old ball, so old it's impossible to tell what kind it is under all the wear and tear. Sho uses it for kicking, but his aim is bad and more often than not it beelines for Matsujun. "Yeah, right. Not even a real cat could jump that far!"
"He taught me how to pounce," Aiba says, "like a cat. Like a cat person." He shows them, his butt up in the air and waving back and forth like he has an invisible tail. His wouldn't be ink black like Nino's, he decides. His would be golden with a tuft of white at the end.
"What are you doing?" Matsujun asks in disbelief, and then, when Sho's ball comes out of nowhere to knock him in the ankle again, he grits out, "Stoppit already!" and kicks it hard enough to arc across the grass and roll down the hill. He looks very satisfied with himself afterwards.
"Hey!"
"Your fault," Matsujun shrugs. Sho goes running off after it with a dark look.
Aiba has pounced his way into the shade of the school yard's ancient, gnarled tree. The branches cling to the sky, ripe with leaves that look like frogs' feet in all shades of green. Matsujun joins him as he looks up, longingly, imagining what it would be like to be able to fly through the air. If only he had claws.
"Wanna climb?"
Matsujun understands him. Aiba flashes him the brightest bright smile he can, the one that makes Matsujun smile back with equally white, if slightly more crooked, teeth. He's always up for anything, for all the mischief that Aiba inspires, unlike Sho.
Aiba hops up the trunk. The bark is smooth under his hands from generations of children climbing, and he gets easily up into the boughs, scooting and pulling himself up, Matsujun helping to push him from below when he can afford to. Aiba wants to pretend to be Nino, to jump from here to there with collected, cool confidence, but he's too high off the ground to bring himself to do it. Instead, he kicks his legs out, holding on with grubby hands.
"We can go higher!" Matsujun says. Aiba looks down at him, at Matsujun's sweet cheeks and pouty mouth that's ringed in grape juice. If he had ears, Aiba thinks, maybe they'd be the color of cinnamon.
They do climb higher, and when Sho finally gets back to the base of the tree with his ball in hand, he has to shout to get their attention, because Aiba is too busy pretending to be a pirate up in the crow's nest. He's spotted land (lots and lots of land, the rest of town in fact, but no water) and is telling Matsujun to turn about, arr matey, avast!
"C'mon up!" Matsujun calls down. Aiba can just see Sho's round face through the maze of crooked-finger branches. He doesn't look so sure.
"Tell him he can be first mate," Aiba says.
"I'm first mate," Matsujun complains. "He can be the captain."
"But he doesn't have a hat," Aiba points out.
It turns out that doesn't matter, because Sho doesn't even get halfway up to where they are. Aiba looks down just in time to see Sho reaching for his next handhold and missing completely. Aiba laughs, because it's just like Sho to be bad at climbing trees too. He's laughing even when Sho takes a tumbling dive towards the ground, and he makes a thump when he hits, like the sound his ball had made when Matsujun kicked it hard and it flew across space.
Sho cries. He sits up and he cries, and that's when Aiba realizes that maybe something is really wrong.
-
Sho ends up with a broken arm, and refuses to climb trees ever again. Whenever Aiba suggests it, or talks about heights of any kind at all, Sho goes pale and quiet, and Aiba learns not to bring it up.
Still, Aiba draws a cat with big, big, big claws on the the cast, just in case Sho ever changes his mind.
-
There are snail trails everywhere. Aiba follows them, the twisty, turning silver that bubbles like a treasure map in fancy code. Occasionally he even finds a snail, its antennae out and waving as it trudges determinedly across a fallen, mossy log, or the humid underbrush. He's hunting down his fifth (the fourth had been tiny enough that Aiba had been very careful picking it up, lest he crack its shell) when Nino appears.
It's kind of like a tornado. He's never seen a tornado, but he's read about them enough to be certain in his comparison. Nino tumbles in out of nowhere, and there's another cat on top of him. He's orangey and tabby and the longer Aiba watches, the more sure he is that this strange cat has the upper hand on Nino as they wrestle, skitter, and catapult themselves through the ferns.
And he's laughing.
Aiba should probably be loyal to Nino, but he likes the sound of that laugh. So when the new cat pins a scowling, wriggling Nino down in a bed of sunny-faced dandelions, Aiba doesn't go push him off.
(Plus, claws, okay.)
"Gotcha again," says the new cat, and he falls off of Nino to sprawl out in the flowers, his narrow chest huffing and puffing. Aiba can see the prick of canine teeth behind his crooked smile.
Nino runs up the nearest tree trunk into the branches as soon as he gets the chance, sulking magnificently. "Now see if I introduce you," he says.
"Are you Nino's friend?" Aiba says, taking matters into his own hands, almost as excited to see a new cat as he is to finally see Nino. "That was awesome! And you have ears too."
He expects the new boy to run away like Nino does when he gets close, but that doesn't happen. And Aiba gets pretty close if crossed eyes are any indication. "I'm Ohno," he says. "Nino told me a lot about you, so I decided I had to meet you myself."
"A rare moment of decisiveness," Nino mutters from overhead.
"Can I touch your ears?" Aiba asks hopefully. They're right in front of him, little tufts at the tips, and when Aiba asks, they flicker. Ohno looks confused.
"No," says Nino, just when Ohno says, "Okay."
Aiba tries anyway, but as soon as he does, Nino hisses. Ohno's ears pin to his head abruptly, and then he looks sulky too. "Nino says no."
It's not really fair, but Nino's baleful glare is pretty effective, so Aiba has to give up. He forgets about it seconds later, though, when Ohno agrees to help him find all the best throwing rocks in the forest, and even help him experiment with the best places to throw them.
"That's dumb," Nino chimes in, but he's watching them intently, the tip of his tail flipping this way and that, and when Aiba and Ohno start searching for all the best palm-sized rocks he uses his birds' eye view to help while pretending not to. They find so many in the first five minutes that Aiba's pockets are laden down, pulling his pants down his hips. He decides they don't actually have to go through the whole forest after all.
The rest of the afternoon turns into a game of crazy rock throwing, mostly with Aiba choosing what to throw at and Ohno promptly taking aim. Nino stays in the trees while they pelt rocks at dark musky roses, hopping little birds with orange breasts, unripe fruit hanging low in the trees, and mushrooms capped with red-gold hats.
They even find a hornet's nest tucked under the arm of one branch far off the path of the deer trail. (Aiba's pretty sure he remembers how to get back to it, and back home. Maybe.)
"Oh, no," Nino says. He leaps away, his hands skittering over the branches as he high-tails it. "I'm having no part of this."
Aiba goes home with a dozen stings, but a huge smile on his face.
-
Aiba will always remember the first time Nino came to him.
It's the end of summer, and heat still lurks in the stones Aiba sits on. The surface of the lake ripples, catching sunlight into bursts of light that dance in front of Aiba's eyes. He's only been here five minutes at the most, but already he can hear the tell-tale rustling that always prefaces Nino's appearance. "Do you like fish?" he asks, trying to tilt his head at a good angle to peer at Nino.
"Is that what you're doing? Fishing?"
"Yeah," Aiba says, and waves his fishing pole back and forth so Nino can see it. "If I catch one, promise to come down!"
Nino comes down before that, and before Aiba notices. He's so intent on staring the fish up out of the water that he almost completely misses Nino slipping onto the rock beside him, spreading out like liquid. Aiba finds himself holding his breath. He's been near Nino before, but Nino has always darted away before Aiba could even think. But Nino's tail is swishing, jet dark against the bare stone, and Aiba wants to touch it.
They've played nearly every day since the hornet incident, and most of the time Ohno comes along too. Right now, Aiba is forgetting to miss him.
"Nino?" he says. Nino is curled, his chin on his bare knees that are skinned just like Aiba's. "Can I… can I touch your tail?"
Nino actually thinks about it. Aiba is having a hard time keeping his grip on his fishing pole, what with how close Nino's tail flicks. Aiba has wanted to know for so long just what Nino's fur feels like, and the temptation of having it right there in front of him is almost too much to handle.
"Okay," Nino says. "But don't pull on it!" he adds, warning.
Aiba is silly with excitement when he reaches out, smoothing his fingers down Nino's tail. It's soft and wiry at the same time, and curls around Aiba's palm when he gets near the tip. Nino lets him pet it for a few minutes. It's the first time Aiba's seen him so relaxed, his eyes soft and lazy.
When Aiba actually does manage to catch a fish, Nino helps him haul it, flopping and struggling, up onto their perch. The fish is silver with rainbow shimmer, and its tail doesn't stop slapping. Aiba lets Nino have it. It's fascinating to watch the way he skewers it delicately with a claw, and he eats slowly and neatly and doesn't get any fish guts on his hands at all. He licks his lips when he's done, yawns, and then he nuzzles Aiba right on the mouth.
He's seen his mom and dad do something like this, and so he does it right back to Nino, kissing him happily.
Nino jerks back. "What was that?"
"That's what people do when they like each other," Aiba says. "My mommy always does it to my daddy when he picks her the prettiest flowers in the garden. Don't cats do that?"
Nino's ears twitch uncertainly. "Why would you pick flowers?"
"Oh," Aiba says. "I dunno. I guess they look nice when you put them on the table."
"Weird," Nino says, but he doesn't pull back when Aiba tries to kiss him again.
-
Little by little, they grow up. Aiba learns more about Nino--of course about Ohno too, like that Ohno doesn't always do what Nino tells him (he's kind of a rebel under all that placidness) and that he likes fish even more than Nino does. He can name them all, from the fat silvery ones to the darting, tiny-mouthed ones that hide in the still water. This isn't something Aiba would ever learn in school, and he says so.
"What's school?" Ohno says.
Aiba is flabbergasted. "It's where they teach you everything important."
"Obviously not," Nino points out, "since they never taught you not to throw rocks at hornets' nests." Aiba has to concede the point.
As for Nino, Aiba learns that he lives with his mother and sister in a run-down farmhouse even more in the middle of nowhere than Aiba's house is, because apparently the road has grown over, but that suits Nino just fine. Aiba is curious about it, but he never asks to go visit because he knows Nino would say no. And something about the idea of bringing Nino back to his own home, to see Nino sitting in the antique living room surrounded by his mother's crocheted blankets and all the dried herbs and flowers, just seems too weird.
Kissing has become a thing, and stays a thing. Aiba likes it, because Nino's mouth is soft and sometimes he purrs, but he learns right away that he's not allowed to kiss Ohno. The first time he'd tried Nino had interjected himself into the space between them and unapologetically knocked Aiba right over. That was okay, though, because Aiba would rather kiss Nino anyway. Ohno is for going on bug hunts with while Nino pretends he's not grossed out and camps out in his sunny spaces, taking cat naps. Some days, Nino needs more kisses than others to keep him from sulking too badly, like the day he discovers Aiba owns three dogs that are all cat chasers. He almost refuses to come down from his tree even after Aiba drags them all back home and ties them to their post, still yipping.
It takes Aiba many years before he realizes that kissing is something more than innocent. It's a conversation with Matsujun that does it. Matsujun has long liked the girl with the long black braid, the one that tucks flowers behind her ears at recess and likes to sing to herself. She's cute enough in Aiba's opinion, but for Matsujun everything she does is something to be remembered and talked about. Aiba is nothing if not supportive, so he says, "You should kiss her!" the next time he catches Matsujun gazing longingly across the field.
Matsujun turns around and stares at him. Aiba is used to the look: he's said something silly again, but this time he doesn't know what it is. "You say that like it's easy," Matsujun says.
"Isn't it?" It's always been simple to Aiba.
Matsujun sighs a sigh of teenage drama. His face has grown more refined as they've gotten older, the baby fat leaving to reveal handsome cheekbones. But to Aiba, Matsujun's toothy mouth and big smile are still his best features. He's not smiling now, though. "You wouldn't understand. Do you even like girls?"
Aiba thinks of the way Nino nuzzles, the way his nose bumps pleasantly to Aiba's with affection. That's better than kissing any girl, in his opinion. So maybe Matsujun is right and he wouldn't understand, because it seems everyone's interested in girls but Aiba. Sho even has an actual girlfriend, and they hold hands in public and laugh at jokes that Aiba doesn't get.
Maybe Aiba is supposed to like girls, too, and look at them when he thinks they're not paying attention so he can memorize the sounds of their voices. Maybe he's supposed to wonder what's under their dresses, and how soft their hands will be when he holds them. He's not.
"You're right," Aiba says, feeling a little like he's let Matsujun down. "I wouldn't understand."
"Then don't go giving me kissing advice," Matsujun grumbles. "I don't want to hear it from a guy who's never even done it. It's a big deal! That's what people do when they get married, you know."
Oh, thinks Aiba.
Oh.
-
Aiba has always been good with revelations: they hit him hard and fast but leave him elated, his life made richer by his new understanding - and then he gets on with things. (Sho has told him many times that this is weird, but Aiba thinks Sho's tactic of being stressed out and making groany noises is weirder.) So he's in love with Nino. That's pretty awesome in Aiba's opinion, because Nino is cute even when he's cranky, cuddles into Aiba's arms when he's happy, and makes Aiba's heart feel full every time they meet.
"You're thinking awfully hard," Nino says one day. He and Ohno are curled up in a yin-yang, Ohno fast asleep with his chin on Nino's thigh. It's early spring, and the warmth is starting to creep back into the breeze that ruffles their hair, but Aiba is still wearing a coat. "Either that or you aren't thinking at all. When you get all blank faced like that it's hard to tell."
"Oi!" Aiba says, but he grins along with Nino. "I was thinking. About you."
"A worthy topic," Nino says primly, and stretches his arms out, his claws extending too. He pierces them into the grass, creating holes in a carpet of green.
"You and Oh-chan and Sho-kun and Matsujun," Aiba elaborates, and hides a smile when Nino's ear flicks in irritation. "But especially you. How I'm glad I met you all. But especially you."
He has Nino's attention now. After all these years, Nino is so easy for him to read. If his ears and tail don't give him away, which they often do, Aiba can still see the interest that he's trying to hide. "You're such a sap," Nino sighs. "What's with you, all of a sudden?"
Aiba starts poking his own holes in the dirt. It's rich and loose, and easily makes furrows under his fingers. "I was thinking," he says, "that I want you all to meet. The people that mean the most to me in the world. It's not right to keep you all apart."
"It's not wrong either," Nino says pragmatically.
"You introduced me to Ohno," Aiba points out. "A long time ago."
"This idiot," Nino says, reaching out and tweaking one of Ohno's orange tabby ears. In his sleep, Ohno's nose screws up, and he tries to hide his face against Nino's flank. "He just followed me, didn't give me a choice."
Nino's insisted that their whole lives, but Aiba knows better now. If Nino hadn't wanted Ohno to come Ohno never would have found him. "Mmm," he says.
He feels the weight of Nino's stare, and meets it. And just like always, Nino looks away first, his pointy ears flickering in irritation. "Do what you want," he says, and he's flustered, his tail thumping the ground and lashing, curling around Ohno's shoulders. Nino's never lost a staring contest with Ohno, Aiba thinks. It's so strange that he always--
Aiba goes warm. It starts in the core of his chest and slides through his limbs till he's full up with giddy disbelief all the way down to his pinky toes. His grin feels large enough to encompass his entire face. Maybe it actually is, from the way Nino is eyeing him .
But Aiba has always been good with revelations.
"I'll bring them," he says.
-
Sho can actually drive, and Aiba has been bugging him to bring Matsujun along for a visit for years, but it's always this or that, but mostly "Your house is too far." They're busy people, and Aiba does live in the middle of nowhere, but he also has a forest full of magic right in his backyard. That should count for something.
Sho's pickup truck is red and clunky and has one headlight knocked out, and when he cuts the engine it coughs like it's dying. Matsujun slithers out the side door and clangs it shut before Sho manages to wrestle his side open, and he claps Aiba on the back when Aiba runs to meet them. "Man," he says, thumbing back the bill of his cap and staring at Aiba's house. "How long has it been since we were last here?"
"At least three years," Sho says, walking up to join them. He squints through Aiba's mother's picket fence at the yapping dogs, waving at them as they pull at their chains and skitter back and forth. "Hi Pepper!"
Aiba entertains them in the living room with mismatched teacups on handmade doilies, one of his mother's many obsessions. It's not a room Aiba uses often, but it's as imprinted in his soul as his own name is, and having Sho and Matsujun filling up the spaces seems right. "Where are your parents?" Sho asks, sipping carefully at his tea. He has a bad habit of burning his tongue on hot things, though he's not as bad as Aiba, which is why Aiba hasn't picked up his cup yet. "Working?"
"Yeah, they left this morning after breakfast. Mom made snacks for us, but I thought we could take it out into the forest for when we meet Nino and Oh-chan. They like her cookies."
Sho and Matsujun exchange a glance, and Matsujun's hands flip over in what looks like a shrug. "All right," he says. "Take us to this 'Nino.'"
Aiba makes Matsujun carry the cookies because he's fastidious enough not to drop them, and because Sho still jumps every time a bug appears. Matsujun is laughing at his folly (some things never change), and Aiba doesn't sense a hint of anticipation between the pair of them. But this time is different than the other times they've visited, because this time Nino and Ohno have promised not to hide.
And they're not. When the deer trail opens up into the sun-dappled clearing that they agreed on, Nino is there, sunning himself on a brown rock in a way that looks uncomfortable to Aiba but seems to be one of Nino's favorite positions. Ohno is chasing a butterfly, its yellow wings bright in the sun.
"Nino! Oh-chan! I brought them!" He hops through the grass, and it catches at his clothes, whispering against the fabric. "And cookies! Matsujun has the cookies."
Nino pushes himself up in a languid movement, staring over Aiba's shoulder, and when Aiba turns around Sho and Matsujun are frozen, still standing at the clearing's entrance. Sho's jaw has dropped, and he's staring at Ohno in unblinking amazement. Matsujun isn't much better. He's fixated on Nino, his eyes uneven with the incredulous slant of his brows.
"Do they talk?" Nino asks doubtfully. "I seem to remember you were louder than this when I met you."
"Guys! They don't--ah. You do bite, don't you?" Aiba says to Nino.
"You brought cookies?" Ohno walks right up to Matsujun, his ears pricked forward in earnest hopefulness. "Aiba-chan's mom's cookies are the best."
Leave it to Oh-chan, thinks Aiba. Sho is already exclaiming over his ears, reaching out to touch them with hearts in his eyes. Aiba sits down next to Nino and watches as Matsujun awkwardly hands over the small gingham sack, and Ohno starts to munch while Sho pets him.
"You're not hissing," Aiba murmurs, leaning towards Nino until their shoulders bump.
It seems like Nino's not going to answer, so it almost startles Aiba when he says, "They're not you."
Aiba ducks his head. He feels so full of happiness he doesn't know what to do with it, so he links his fingers through Nino's until Nino's claws tickle the backs of his hands, and waits for Matsujun, Sho, and Ohno to join them.
-
The day is just like any other day, with the sun playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds. There are cicadas coating the trees, buzzing like static electricity has taken over the forest, and Aiba remembers a long time ago, so long that it feels like another lifetime, when he was six and he met a boy with a tail who climbed the trees like it was in his blood. Aiba could count the years between that day and today, but one number alone couldn't contain all the memories that have shaped the way he feels about Nino.
Nino is resting curled in against him, the tips of his ears tickling at Aiba's chin. "You're thinking something," he says, and Aiba almost can't hear him over the melodic drone of the cicadas.
"You're not looking at me, how do you know?"
Aiba rests his hand on the small of Nino's back, and Nino looks up. His eyes are clear, serious in their curiosity. The places where their bodies touch are almost too warm.
Maybe Nino was going to answer, and maybe he wasn't. Aiba doesn't find out. He's drawn to Nino like gravity, until the space between them isn't a space any longer.
For all the times they've kissed, they have never really kissed, and as their lips slide together Aiba understands the difference. He hears his heart in his ears and feels his pulse in his fingertips, and he doesn't want it to end. Nino's fingers knead into his shirt, tugging the fabric tight, his claws pricking through to scratch Aiba's chest, and the moment stretches as the kiss doubles and triples, their mouths making soft sounds as they pull apart and seek each other again.
Aiba rolls Nino over into the clovers, and the sun paints over his back as they kiss until they're breathless. Aiba has forgotten everything else but the feel of Nino's mouth and the curve of his spine as he presses close.
It's a day just like any other day, but it's not one that Aiba ever forgets. Because it's the first day he says 'I love you.'
And Nino says it back.
Pairing: Aimiya, Arashi gen
Word Count: ~6000
Summary: Aiba has known Nino since they were young, but Nino isn't quite like anybody else.
Notes: Written for honeyporridge for the ninoexchange! Huge props to still_ciircee for helping me structure this world--without her I would still be floundering and the ninoexchange would've been LATE LATE LATE. Also thank you to my betas, elfiepike and lover_youshould.
Aiba lives far out in the middle of nowhere, on a daikon farm at the edge of a forest that stretches back towards the mountains. It's summer, and everything is choked with life, clovers blooming thickly in firework blossoms at the toes of every tree. Jasmine crawls over the rickety old fence that lines the deer trail, and up in the branches the cicadas drone out summer's song.
Aiba, intrepid explorer, fully intends to catch each and every one of them. He has hours and hours of daylight before dinner, a homemade bug net, and the whimsical determination that only a child of six is truly capable of.
It doesn't go according to plan, but things with Aiba never do. Most of the cicadas are endlessly out of reach no matter how he climbs, because he is only a boy with a boy's limbs and agility. The rare times that he does get in range, the cicadas zoom away with a frightening buzz before he can untangle his net and catch his balance back.
But it's exhilarating. Aiba loves the hunt, the thrill of finding, and the promise of eventual capture stays strong even after two hours of failure.
It's just after he whacks at another cicada, this one low enough on a mossy tree trunk that Aiba still has his feet on the ground, that he hears a dubious voice. "You're awfully bad at that."
Aiba whirls around, startled, but there's no one there, not even a wriggle of leaves to suggest someone had been. "Hello?" he says. He pokes at a few bushes, peering underneath in the hopes of spotting shoes. Nothing.
Not until he looks up. There's a boy, curled in the fork of a precarious branch, and he's staring down at Aiba, his eyes unblinking and round. Aiba stares right back, because the boy has cat ears and a tail and Aiba has never seen anyone lounge like that in a tree before, not ever. "Wow," he breathes.
The other boy breaks the staring contest first, glancing away in a manner that is probably meant to be aloof but just seems more irritated. "You weren't supposed to look up."
"I'm sorry," Aiba says automatically, since his mother taught him it was the polite thing to do and everyone would always forgive him. But he is too entranced to stop staring, so he doesn't, because he's never seen a boy around here before, and the nearest house is the Uchida's miles and miles away, and they don't even have any kids. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" the other boy retorts, and sits up with such easy gracefulness Aiba doesn't even doubt he's not going to fall out of the tree. If only he could climb like that! Maybe the boy will teach him.
"I'm Aiba!" he announces, and tries to size up the tree. To his experienced eye, it will be entirely impossible to climb. The trunk is pencil straight, and the nearest branch is well over his head. But Aiba is nothing if not up for trying the impossible, which is clearly not impossible if this other boy managed, and so he drops his net in a patch of clovers and jumps, clinging to the trunk with all the tenacity in his little body.
He slides right back down, butt thumping against a particularly gnarly root before he lands flat on his back with an 'oof', staring up at the leafy canopy.
The boy is still sitting just where he was before, looking unaffected, though interested. "Can't you do anything?" he says.
"How'd you get up there?" Aiba sits up, rubbing at the sore spot on his butt. Maybe he'll bruise, and he can tell his mom it's an honorable wound from chasing dinosaurs.
"I climbed," says the boy as if he is doubtful of Aiba's intelligence. He moves suddenly, his tail lashing out behind him before he leaps to a lower branch with only a hint of undignified scrambling. The next leap is more graceful, and it occurs to Aiba that maybe the other boy is trying to show off. He's doing a good job of it. Aiba wants to whisk through the air like he does, but when he tries again, he only gets a scraped palm for his trouble.
"Teach me how!" Aiba demands, almost desperate in his admiration.
"You don't have claws," says the boy. He's much closer now, and Aiba can see the way his eyes glint and narrow. And then his head turns sharply, and he darts again, furiously quick so that the branches bow and spring up again in his wake, the leaves rustling in protest before there is sudden silence. When the boy reappears on a low branch, Aiba is flabbergasted to see him holding a cicada.
"Whoa!" he says again. It seems to be all he can think.
"Open your box," the boy says suddenly, and Aiba realizes that he's just standing there gawking. The boy's lips and nose are all wrinkled up, and he's holding the bug away from himself, shrinking back as if he's afraid.
Aiba fumbles the box open, and the boy jets down the tree and nearly throws the bug inside. Aiba snaps the lid shut just as it takes off and cracks around against the plastic walls like a ping pong ball on speed, buzzing angrily.
The boy is back in the trees already when Aiba looks back up from his prize. It's disappointing to see him so far away--Aiba had wanted to look at his ears close up, but capturing the cicada had been all important. "Thank you!" he says, waving around the box so that the cicada inside buzzes in protest. "But… don't you like bugs?"
"I hate them," the boy informs him, emphasizing his point with an irritated flick of his tail. And then he squashes himself flat on his perch as a cicada whizzes by, narrowly missing his head. He looks ridiculous and unreasonably discomfited, his tail curled around the branch like a monkey's. "So you better learn how to catch them yourself because I'm not catching you any more."
"How?" Aiba says. "How can I?"
The boy's directions are impossible to follow. Aiba doesn't have back legs that spring, but he tries anyway. He pounces all over the forest and up trees, nearly falling out of two before the boy confines his practice to the forest floor. Aiba pounces on clover, on tufts of grass that tickle his nose, on fallen logs and pinecones until he's got dirt under every nail and up to his elbows.
"Not bad," the boy says loftily when Aiba falls over on his back, drawing in big chestfuls of air. His legs burn and his feet are sore inside his old shoes. He's glad his mother never asks him anymore how it is he always comes home with sticks in his hair.
When he looks up, the boy is higher up in the trees, so high that Aiba can't make out the features on his face. "Are you leaving?" Aiba says, sitting up abruptly. "I haven't caught a cicada for myself yet!"
"If I waited until you did, I'd be here until they all died and fell to the ground," the boy calls back.
Aiba doesn't want him to go. The forest is wide and full of magic and color, life and beauty, but sometimes Aiba feels so alone in it. "What's your name?" he shouts, his hands cupped to his cheeks.
For a moment, he's not sure the other boy heard him. The drone of the cicadas presses against his ears, and just when he's sure he's been left on his own again, the boy's voice comes one more time.
"Nino."
-
Aiba expects--hopes, really--to see Nino again the next day, but Nino doesn't show up. Aiba pounces his way up and down the forest paths and neglects to catch any cicadas, but he does catch several ladybugs and almost gets a cricket. He shows them off proudly to his mother when he gets home, before she makes him wash his face (twice, because he missed the mud spatters under his nose.) A week goes by, and Aiba starts to despair. He doesn't know where to find Nino, and the forest goes for miles all the way up into the mountains or he'd launch an expedition to recover his lost friend.
Because that's what Nino is, Aiba has decided. A friend.
"Cat people aren't real," Sho informs him in the lecturing tones of someone who is convinced he knows everything about the world. Sho probably does, though. His father is the mayor, and mayors know everything.
Except about cat people, apparently. "Are too!" Aiba says. "Right, Matsujun?"
It's a hot day, like all summer days, but they're out on the playground anyway instead of in the shady classroom. Aiba doesn't want to read books through break time. He wants to spread his arms wide and cartwheel through the grass, crash into his friends and fall to the earth giggling.
Matsujun crosses his arms, his fluffy eyebrows drawing together expressively. "I don't know. What do cat people do?"
"They climb trees," Aiba says immediately. "Nino can jump, like a squirrel almost, except obviously I mean like a cat. He could jump from there to there!" he says, pointing from one end of the school yard to the other.
Sho scoffs. He has an old ball, so old it's impossible to tell what kind it is under all the wear and tear. Sho uses it for kicking, but his aim is bad and more often than not it beelines for Matsujun. "Yeah, right. Not even a real cat could jump that far!"
"He taught me how to pounce," Aiba says, "like a cat. Like a cat person." He shows them, his butt up in the air and waving back and forth like he has an invisible tail. His wouldn't be ink black like Nino's, he decides. His would be golden with a tuft of white at the end.
"What are you doing?" Matsujun asks in disbelief, and then, when Sho's ball comes out of nowhere to knock him in the ankle again, he grits out, "Stoppit already!" and kicks it hard enough to arc across the grass and roll down the hill. He looks very satisfied with himself afterwards.
"Hey!"
"Your fault," Matsujun shrugs. Sho goes running off after it with a dark look.
Aiba has pounced his way into the shade of the school yard's ancient, gnarled tree. The branches cling to the sky, ripe with leaves that look like frogs' feet in all shades of green. Matsujun joins him as he looks up, longingly, imagining what it would be like to be able to fly through the air. If only he had claws.
"Wanna climb?"
Matsujun understands him. Aiba flashes him the brightest bright smile he can, the one that makes Matsujun smile back with equally white, if slightly more crooked, teeth. He's always up for anything, for all the mischief that Aiba inspires, unlike Sho.
Aiba hops up the trunk. The bark is smooth under his hands from generations of children climbing, and he gets easily up into the boughs, scooting and pulling himself up, Matsujun helping to push him from below when he can afford to. Aiba wants to pretend to be Nino, to jump from here to there with collected, cool confidence, but he's too high off the ground to bring himself to do it. Instead, he kicks his legs out, holding on with grubby hands.
"We can go higher!" Matsujun says. Aiba looks down at him, at Matsujun's sweet cheeks and pouty mouth that's ringed in grape juice. If he had ears, Aiba thinks, maybe they'd be the color of cinnamon.
They do climb higher, and when Sho finally gets back to the base of the tree with his ball in hand, he has to shout to get their attention, because Aiba is too busy pretending to be a pirate up in the crow's nest. He's spotted land (lots and lots of land, the rest of town in fact, but no water) and is telling Matsujun to turn about, arr matey, avast!
"C'mon up!" Matsujun calls down. Aiba can just see Sho's round face through the maze of crooked-finger branches. He doesn't look so sure.
"Tell him he can be first mate," Aiba says.
"I'm first mate," Matsujun complains. "He can be the captain."
"But he doesn't have a hat," Aiba points out.
It turns out that doesn't matter, because Sho doesn't even get halfway up to where they are. Aiba looks down just in time to see Sho reaching for his next handhold and missing completely. Aiba laughs, because it's just like Sho to be bad at climbing trees too. He's laughing even when Sho takes a tumbling dive towards the ground, and he makes a thump when he hits, like the sound his ball had made when Matsujun kicked it hard and it flew across space.
Sho cries. He sits up and he cries, and that's when Aiba realizes that maybe something is really wrong.
-
Sho ends up with a broken arm, and refuses to climb trees ever again. Whenever Aiba suggests it, or talks about heights of any kind at all, Sho goes pale and quiet, and Aiba learns not to bring it up.
Still, Aiba draws a cat with big, big, big claws on the the cast, just in case Sho ever changes his mind.
-
There are snail trails everywhere. Aiba follows them, the twisty, turning silver that bubbles like a treasure map in fancy code. Occasionally he even finds a snail, its antennae out and waving as it trudges determinedly across a fallen, mossy log, or the humid underbrush. He's hunting down his fifth (the fourth had been tiny enough that Aiba had been very careful picking it up, lest he crack its shell) when Nino appears.
It's kind of like a tornado. He's never seen a tornado, but he's read about them enough to be certain in his comparison. Nino tumbles in out of nowhere, and there's another cat on top of him. He's orangey and tabby and the longer Aiba watches, the more sure he is that this strange cat has the upper hand on Nino as they wrestle, skitter, and catapult themselves through the ferns.
And he's laughing.
Aiba should probably be loyal to Nino, but he likes the sound of that laugh. So when the new cat pins a scowling, wriggling Nino down in a bed of sunny-faced dandelions, Aiba doesn't go push him off.
(Plus, claws, okay.)
"Gotcha again," says the new cat, and he falls off of Nino to sprawl out in the flowers, his narrow chest huffing and puffing. Aiba can see the prick of canine teeth behind his crooked smile.
Nino runs up the nearest tree trunk into the branches as soon as he gets the chance, sulking magnificently. "Now see if I introduce you," he says.
"Are you Nino's friend?" Aiba says, taking matters into his own hands, almost as excited to see a new cat as he is to finally see Nino. "That was awesome! And you have ears too."
He expects the new boy to run away like Nino does when he gets close, but that doesn't happen. And Aiba gets pretty close if crossed eyes are any indication. "I'm Ohno," he says. "Nino told me a lot about you, so I decided I had to meet you myself."
"A rare moment of decisiveness," Nino mutters from overhead.
"Can I touch your ears?" Aiba asks hopefully. They're right in front of him, little tufts at the tips, and when Aiba asks, they flicker. Ohno looks confused.
"No," says Nino, just when Ohno says, "Okay."
Aiba tries anyway, but as soon as he does, Nino hisses. Ohno's ears pin to his head abruptly, and then he looks sulky too. "Nino says no."
It's not really fair, but Nino's baleful glare is pretty effective, so Aiba has to give up. He forgets about it seconds later, though, when Ohno agrees to help him find all the best throwing rocks in the forest, and even help him experiment with the best places to throw them.
"That's dumb," Nino chimes in, but he's watching them intently, the tip of his tail flipping this way and that, and when Aiba and Ohno start searching for all the best palm-sized rocks he uses his birds' eye view to help while pretending not to. They find so many in the first five minutes that Aiba's pockets are laden down, pulling his pants down his hips. He decides they don't actually have to go through the whole forest after all.
The rest of the afternoon turns into a game of crazy rock throwing, mostly with Aiba choosing what to throw at and Ohno promptly taking aim. Nino stays in the trees while they pelt rocks at dark musky roses, hopping little birds with orange breasts, unripe fruit hanging low in the trees, and mushrooms capped with red-gold hats.
They even find a hornet's nest tucked under the arm of one branch far off the path of the deer trail. (Aiba's pretty sure he remembers how to get back to it, and back home. Maybe.)
"Oh, no," Nino says. He leaps away, his hands skittering over the branches as he high-tails it. "I'm having no part of this."
Aiba goes home with a dozen stings, but a huge smile on his face.
-
Aiba will always remember the first time Nino came to him.
It's the end of summer, and heat still lurks in the stones Aiba sits on. The surface of the lake ripples, catching sunlight into bursts of light that dance in front of Aiba's eyes. He's only been here five minutes at the most, but already he can hear the tell-tale rustling that always prefaces Nino's appearance. "Do you like fish?" he asks, trying to tilt his head at a good angle to peer at Nino.
"Is that what you're doing? Fishing?"
"Yeah," Aiba says, and waves his fishing pole back and forth so Nino can see it. "If I catch one, promise to come down!"
Nino comes down before that, and before Aiba notices. He's so intent on staring the fish up out of the water that he almost completely misses Nino slipping onto the rock beside him, spreading out like liquid. Aiba finds himself holding his breath. He's been near Nino before, but Nino has always darted away before Aiba could even think. But Nino's tail is swishing, jet dark against the bare stone, and Aiba wants to touch it.
They've played nearly every day since the hornet incident, and most of the time Ohno comes along too. Right now, Aiba is forgetting to miss him.
"Nino?" he says. Nino is curled, his chin on his bare knees that are skinned just like Aiba's. "Can I… can I touch your tail?"
Nino actually thinks about it. Aiba is having a hard time keeping his grip on his fishing pole, what with how close Nino's tail flicks. Aiba has wanted to know for so long just what Nino's fur feels like, and the temptation of having it right there in front of him is almost too much to handle.
"Okay," Nino says. "But don't pull on it!" he adds, warning.
Aiba is silly with excitement when he reaches out, smoothing his fingers down Nino's tail. It's soft and wiry at the same time, and curls around Aiba's palm when he gets near the tip. Nino lets him pet it for a few minutes. It's the first time Aiba's seen him so relaxed, his eyes soft and lazy.
When Aiba actually does manage to catch a fish, Nino helps him haul it, flopping and struggling, up onto their perch. The fish is silver with rainbow shimmer, and its tail doesn't stop slapping. Aiba lets Nino have it. It's fascinating to watch the way he skewers it delicately with a claw, and he eats slowly and neatly and doesn't get any fish guts on his hands at all. He licks his lips when he's done, yawns, and then he nuzzles Aiba right on the mouth.
He's seen his mom and dad do something like this, and so he does it right back to Nino, kissing him happily.
Nino jerks back. "What was that?"
"That's what people do when they like each other," Aiba says. "My mommy always does it to my daddy when he picks her the prettiest flowers in the garden. Don't cats do that?"
Nino's ears twitch uncertainly. "Why would you pick flowers?"
"Oh," Aiba says. "I dunno. I guess they look nice when you put them on the table."
"Weird," Nino says, but he doesn't pull back when Aiba tries to kiss him again.
-
Little by little, they grow up. Aiba learns more about Nino--of course about Ohno too, like that Ohno doesn't always do what Nino tells him (he's kind of a rebel under all that placidness) and that he likes fish even more than Nino does. He can name them all, from the fat silvery ones to the darting, tiny-mouthed ones that hide in the still water. This isn't something Aiba would ever learn in school, and he says so.
"What's school?" Ohno says.
Aiba is flabbergasted. "It's where they teach you everything important."
"Obviously not," Nino points out, "since they never taught you not to throw rocks at hornets' nests." Aiba has to concede the point.
As for Nino, Aiba learns that he lives with his mother and sister in a run-down farmhouse even more in the middle of nowhere than Aiba's house is, because apparently the road has grown over, but that suits Nino just fine. Aiba is curious about it, but he never asks to go visit because he knows Nino would say no. And something about the idea of bringing Nino back to his own home, to see Nino sitting in the antique living room surrounded by his mother's crocheted blankets and all the dried herbs and flowers, just seems too weird.
Kissing has become a thing, and stays a thing. Aiba likes it, because Nino's mouth is soft and sometimes he purrs, but he learns right away that he's not allowed to kiss Ohno. The first time he'd tried Nino had interjected himself into the space between them and unapologetically knocked Aiba right over. That was okay, though, because Aiba would rather kiss Nino anyway. Ohno is for going on bug hunts with while Nino pretends he's not grossed out and camps out in his sunny spaces, taking cat naps. Some days, Nino needs more kisses than others to keep him from sulking too badly, like the day he discovers Aiba owns three dogs that are all cat chasers. He almost refuses to come down from his tree even after Aiba drags them all back home and ties them to their post, still yipping.
It takes Aiba many years before he realizes that kissing is something more than innocent. It's a conversation with Matsujun that does it. Matsujun has long liked the girl with the long black braid, the one that tucks flowers behind her ears at recess and likes to sing to herself. She's cute enough in Aiba's opinion, but for Matsujun everything she does is something to be remembered and talked about. Aiba is nothing if not supportive, so he says, "You should kiss her!" the next time he catches Matsujun gazing longingly across the field.
Matsujun turns around and stares at him. Aiba is used to the look: he's said something silly again, but this time he doesn't know what it is. "You say that like it's easy," Matsujun says.
"Isn't it?" It's always been simple to Aiba.
Matsujun sighs a sigh of teenage drama. His face has grown more refined as they've gotten older, the baby fat leaving to reveal handsome cheekbones. But to Aiba, Matsujun's toothy mouth and big smile are still his best features. He's not smiling now, though. "You wouldn't understand. Do you even like girls?"
Aiba thinks of the way Nino nuzzles, the way his nose bumps pleasantly to Aiba's with affection. That's better than kissing any girl, in his opinion. So maybe Matsujun is right and he wouldn't understand, because it seems everyone's interested in girls but Aiba. Sho even has an actual girlfriend, and they hold hands in public and laugh at jokes that Aiba doesn't get.
Maybe Aiba is supposed to like girls, too, and look at them when he thinks they're not paying attention so he can memorize the sounds of their voices. Maybe he's supposed to wonder what's under their dresses, and how soft their hands will be when he holds them. He's not.
"You're right," Aiba says, feeling a little like he's let Matsujun down. "I wouldn't understand."
"Then don't go giving me kissing advice," Matsujun grumbles. "I don't want to hear it from a guy who's never even done it. It's a big deal! That's what people do when they get married, you know."
Oh, thinks Aiba.
Oh.
-
Aiba has always been good with revelations: they hit him hard and fast but leave him elated, his life made richer by his new understanding - and then he gets on with things. (Sho has told him many times that this is weird, but Aiba thinks Sho's tactic of being stressed out and making groany noises is weirder.) So he's in love with Nino. That's pretty awesome in Aiba's opinion, because Nino is cute even when he's cranky, cuddles into Aiba's arms when he's happy, and makes Aiba's heart feel full every time they meet.
"You're thinking awfully hard," Nino says one day. He and Ohno are curled up in a yin-yang, Ohno fast asleep with his chin on Nino's thigh. It's early spring, and the warmth is starting to creep back into the breeze that ruffles their hair, but Aiba is still wearing a coat. "Either that or you aren't thinking at all. When you get all blank faced like that it's hard to tell."
"Oi!" Aiba says, but he grins along with Nino. "I was thinking. About you."
"A worthy topic," Nino says primly, and stretches his arms out, his claws extending too. He pierces them into the grass, creating holes in a carpet of green.
"You and Oh-chan and Sho-kun and Matsujun," Aiba elaborates, and hides a smile when Nino's ear flicks in irritation. "But especially you. How I'm glad I met you all. But especially you."
He has Nino's attention now. After all these years, Nino is so easy for him to read. If his ears and tail don't give him away, which they often do, Aiba can still see the interest that he's trying to hide. "You're such a sap," Nino sighs. "What's with you, all of a sudden?"
Aiba starts poking his own holes in the dirt. It's rich and loose, and easily makes furrows under his fingers. "I was thinking," he says, "that I want you all to meet. The people that mean the most to me in the world. It's not right to keep you all apart."
"It's not wrong either," Nino says pragmatically.
"You introduced me to Ohno," Aiba points out. "A long time ago."
"This idiot," Nino says, reaching out and tweaking one of Ohno's orange tabby ears. In his sleep, Ohno's nose screws up, and he tries to hide his face against Nino's flank. "He just followed me, didn't give me a choice."
Nino's insisted that their whole lives, but Aiba knows better now. If Nino hadn't wanted Ohno to come Ohno never would have found him. "Mmm," he says.
He feels the weight of Nino's stare, and meets it. And just like always, Nino looks away first, his pointy ears flickering in irritation. "Do what you want," he says, and he's flustered, his tail thumping the ground and lashing, curling around Ohno's shoulders. Nino's never lost a staring contest with Ohno, Aiba thinks. It's so strange that he always--
Aiba goes warm. It starts in the core of his chest and slides through his limbs till he's full up with giddy disbelief all the way down to his pinky toes. His grin feels large enough to encompass his entire face. Maybe it actually is, from the way Nino is eyeing him .
But Aiba has always been good with revelations.
"I'll bring them," he says.
-
Sho can actually drive, and Aiba has been bugging him to bring Matsujun along for a visit for years, but it's always this or that, but mostly "Your house is too far." They're busy people, and Aiba does live in the middle of nowhere, but he also has a forest full of magic right in his backyard. That should count for something.
Sho's pickup truck is red and clunky and has one headlight knocked out, and when he cuts the engine it coughs like it's dying. Matsujun slithers out the side door and clangs it shut before Sho manages to wrestle his side open, and he claps Aiba on the back when Aiba runs to meet them. "Man," he says, thumbing back the bill of his cap and staring at Aiba's house. "How long has it been since we were last here?"
"At least three years," Sho says, walking up to join them. He squints through Aiba's mother's picket fence at the yapping dogs, waving at them as they pull at their chains and skitter back and forth. "Hi Pepper!"
Aiba entertains them in the living room with mismatched teacups on handmade doilies, one of his mother's many obsessions. It's not a room Aiba uses often, but it's as imprinted in his soul as his own name is, and having Sho and Matsujun filling up the spaces seems right. "Where are your parents?" Sho asks, sipping carefully at his tea. He has a bad habit of burning his tongue on hot things, though he's not as bad as Aiba, which is why Aiba hasn't picked up his cup yet. "Working?"
"Yeah, they left this morning after breakfast. Mom made snacks for us, but I thought we could take it out into the forest for when we meet Nino and Oh-chan. They like her cookies."
Sho and Matsujun exchange a glance, and Matsujun's hands flip over in what looks like a shrug. "All right," he says. "Take us to this 'Nino.'"
Aiba makes Matsujun carry the cookies because he's fastidious enough not to drop them, and because Sho still jumps every time a bug appears. Matsujun is laughing at his folly (some things never change), and Aiba doesn't sense a hint of anticipation between the pair of them. But this time is different than the other times they've visited, because this time Nino and Ohno have promised not to hide.
And they're not. When the deer trail opens up into the sun-dappled clearing that they agreed on, Nino is there, sunning himself on a brown rock in a way that looks uncomfortable to Aiba but seems to be one of Nino's favorite positions. Ohno is chasing a butterfly, its yellow wings bright in the sun.
"Nino! Oh-chan! I brought them!" He hops through the grass, and it catches at his clothes, whispering against the fabric. "And cookies! Matsujun has the cookies."
Nino pushes himself up in a languid movement, staring over Aiba's shoulder, and when Aiba turns around Sho and Matsujun are frozen, still standing at the clearing's entrance. Sho's jaw has dropped, and he's staring at Ohno in unblinking amazement. Matsujun isn't much better. He's fixated on Nino, his eyes uneven with the incredulous slant of his brows.
"Do they talk?" Nino asks doubtfully. "I seem to remember you were louder than this when I met you."
"Guys! They don't--ah. You do bite, don't you?" Aiba says to Nino.
"You brought cookies?" Ohno walks right up to Matsujun, his ears pricked forward in earnest hopefulness. "Aiba-chan's mom's cookies are the best."
Leave it to Oh-chan, thinks Aiba. Sho is already exclaiming over his ears, reaching out to touch them with hearts in his eyes. Aiba sits down next to Nino and watches as Matsujun awkwardly hands over the small gingham sack, and Ohno starts to munch while Sho pets him.
"You're not hissing," Aiba murmurs, leaning towards Nino until their shoulders bump.
It seems like Nino's not going to answer, so it almost startles Aiba when he says, "They're not you."
Aiba ducks his head. He feels so full of happiness he doesn't know what to do with it, so he links his fingers through Nino's until Nino's claws tickle the backs of his hands, and waits for Matsujun, Sho, and Ohno to join them.
-
The day is just like any other day, with the sun playing hide-and-seek behind the clouds. There are cicadas coating the trees, buzzing like static electricity has taken over the forest, and Aiba remembers a long time ago, so long that it feels like another lifetime, when he was six and he met a boy with a tail who climbed the trees like it was in his blood. Aiba could count the years between that day and today, but one number alone couldn't contain all the memories that have shaped the way he feels about Nino.
Nino is resting curled in against him, the tips of his ears tickling at Aiba's chin. "You're thinking something," he says, and Aiba almost can't hear him over the melodic drone of the cicadas.
"You're not looking at me, how do you know?"
Aiba rests his hand on the small of Nino's back, and Nino looks up. His eyes are clear, serious in their curiosity. The places where their bodies touch are almost too warm.
Maybe Nino was going to answer, and maybe he wasn't. Aiba doesn't find out. He's drawn to Nino like gravity, until the space between them isn't a space any longer.
For all the times they've kissed, they have never really kissed, and as their lips slide together Aiba understands the difference. He hears his heart in his ears and feels his pulse in his fingertips, and he doesn't want it to end. Nino's fingers knead into his shirt, tugging the fabric tight, his claws pricking through to scratch Aiba's chest, and the moment stretches as the kiss doubles and triples, their mouths making soft sounds as they pull apart and seek each other again.
Aiba rolls Nino over into the clovers, and the sun paints over his back as they kiss until they're breathless. Aiba has forgotten everything else but the feel of Nino's mouth and the curve of his spine as he presses close.
It's a day just like any other day, but it's not one that Aiba ever forgets. Because it's the first day he says 'I love you.'
And Nino says it back.