Imperfect Sheep
Imperfect Sheep
Pairing: Sakumiya
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: In a world where Computers make all the decisions, Sho has lived his whole life trying to fit in and stay under the radar. But then he meets Nino, and he starts thinking things he shouldn't...
Notes: This was written about a year ago for one of the ShoNeen contests and I just never got around to posting it afterwards. OOPS. Well, here it is!
Sho really doesn't know why he's so bad with directions, and it doesn't help that Jun's map is so badly drawn, but he's pretty sure he's finally on the right track. The corridors are getting darker, the generator lights spottier. He hasn't passed anyone in the last five minutes, by his mental count. Seems promising.
The box that he's carrying has gotten heavier, no matter how many times he switches hands, and even despite the fact that it has a very uncomfortable handle that digs into his palm. He'll be glad to finally get rid of it.
He almost misses the turn, but there's an arrow chiseled into the stone wall with a mark underneath that looks marginally similar to the one that had been outside Aiba's shop (and nothing like Jun's catastrophic drawing. He folds the paper up and puts it in his pocket.)
"Hello?" Sho says, putting down his burden and flexing his fingers in relief.
There's a large window, and Sho can see... well, stuff. Lots of stuff with names he doesn't know all crammed into shelves and corners and on top of other stuff, spilling out at the sides, gears and metal and fabric. It's just as colorful as Aiba's shop had been, and Sho gets the momentary urge to go instead and poke through things. But that's not good, so he ignores it. "Hello? Anybody here?"
"Just a minute!" comes a voice, and from behind a shelf pops a small man with a pointy chin and slick black glasses. He wipes his hands on a rag but it doesn't do much to erase the grease on his fingers.
"You're new," he says, his eyes flickering over Sho in a way Sho finds unnerving. He has a feeling this guy sees a lot more than most people do. "How did you find us?"
"My old pawn shop closed," Sho says, and the guy grimaces, maybe out of sympathy. "Someone pointed me this way."
"Yeah, well, I don't take bodies. They reek, and they don't sell. You'll have to figure out something else to do with that." The man makes vague shooing gestures at Sho's box, already turning away.
"Do people actually try to sell them to you?" Sho asks, appalled. It must be the shock that makes him ask, because otherwise he wouldn't. He knows better than to ask questions.
"Every so often."
"There was one yesterday," says a new voice, and Sho is doubly shocked to realize there's a second person behind the counter. He's in the back corner, bent over a something-or-other, his hair shining in the lamplight. Sho feels like he should have noticed him sooner, but even looking at him now, his presence seems soft, like he doesn't care about being seen.
Not like this other guy, who's drumming his fingers on the counter. He seems sharp, from the flash of his eyes to the curl of his lips, and Sho's attention keeps zooming back to him. "Again?" he sighs. Without waiting for an answer, he turns a level eye on Sho. "So? Are you saying there's something worthwhile in there?"
"I can't say that it's worthwhile," Sho hedges. In truth, he doesn't even know what the thing is, but he does know that it's probably better that way. Just being here is daring enough. He should take whatever money he can get from it and go. "But it's not a body! See?"
Sho's wrestled with this case enough times that he's figured out how to open it, and after it thunks unceremoniously onto the counter, he picks at the latches and cracks it open.
It's not a body, of course, though Sho can see why it looks like one. It's a fat womanly shaped thing, but with a long neck and no legs and strings running along most of it. One string, the third one, or the fourth depending on which way you count, is broken. Sho hopes it doesn't bring down the price.
The guy wrinkles his nose, and then rubs it. "Then why does it smell so bad?"
"Sorry," Sho says, sheepish. "That's probably me. I work in a landfill." And he'd come here straight from work with no shower. He knows from experience that the smell clings, sometimes for days and through several washes no matter how much soap he uses.
"Hunh," says the guy. "Could you go stand over there, then?"
Sho backs off, hovering uncertainly near one of the generator lights, and waits while the shopkeeper starts examining. His face has gone serious, and he lifts the whatever-it-is out of its case for a better view. A wrinkle forms on his forehead. It's kind of cute, Sho thinks.
Which wasn't what he'd meant to think at all, so he stops looking at the guy whose name he doesn't even know and lets his eyes wander around at less interesting things, like the ceiling.
That's why he doesn't see the string getting plucked, but he hears it. It's a raw sound, like nothing he's heard before, and it crawls right down his spine and makes the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end.
And then he can't not look, because the guy is doing it again, and again on another string, and another, his expression changing from one of startlement to absolute fascination.
Sho wishes he would stop. He's got weird goosebumps, and he instinctively knows that the Computers wouldn't like this.
"I think this is to make music," says the guy, looking so excited that for a moment--just a moment--Sho feels bad about being afraid.
"That's not music," Sho hears himself saying in disbelief. "It's nothing like music."
"Nothing like Computer music," the guy says. Sho can't tell if he's agreeing or not. He puts the whatever-it-is back in its case with loving hands. "How much do you want for it?"
This is a first. Aiba never asked. "A thousand credits," Sho says, starting high.
"Okay." At first, Sho isn't sure he's heard right, but the guy is opening up a register and sorting through chips, pinching them together into neat, organized piles for easy counting. It's all very surreal. Sho feels like he's cheated somehow. Either that, or the guy is crazy. What happened to haggling?
"But," the guy says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Of course. There had to be a 'but'. "You have to leave your details."
The credits are lined up in tempting display, exactly 1,000 by Sho's count. His fingers twitch. So close. "That's not safe," he protests.
"Buying this isn't safe either," the guy reminds him, tapping his finger insistently on the sheet of paper. "No details, no credits."
In the back, Sho can see the other man look up.
Sho doesn't like this at all. If this store gets raided, there will be records that he's been here. He could be put in a worse job, which he can't really imagine right now but he's sure there are worse things than the landfill. At least the landfill has interesting junk.
But... one thousand credits. Sho picks up the pencil, feeling very much the sucker.
The guy glances at it when he's done. "Sho," he says, the word careful in his mouth as if he's registering it to memory. Sho likes the way he says it. "I'm Ninomiya. Nino, if you like that better," he says, folding the paper in half with a smile. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "And that ghost in the back is Ohno."
Ohno bobs his head in acknowledgment.
"Here," Ninomiya says, toppling the mini towers of credits into a drawstring bag. "This is yours."
Sho still can't quite believe it. It's rude, but he pulls open the bag anyway, fishing out a credit. It looks full, and it lights up when he nudges the switch on the side.
Nino cups his chin in his hand, leaning against the counter. His tilty smile is amused. "They're valid," he says, not sounding insulted in the least.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to doubt you," Sho says. "But a thousand credits for a piece of junk... it doesn't make any sense."
"I want you to come back," Nino tells him bluntly. "If you find anything at all, I want you to bring it here. Not to anybody else. I think a thousand credits is worth that."
Not to Sho, it isn't, but then he's thinking about it too much. He's always thought too much, or at least that's what his dad had told him. He needs to just stop, and be normal, like the other sheep. He takes his credits and goes.
But no matter what he does, he can't stop thinking about Nino on the way home.
*
Over the course of the next few days, Sho does all the things he's supposed to do and none of the things he isn't, like he's making up for a lapse in good judgment. He's a perfect sheep. He keeps his credits and doesn't spend many, only buying a song or two to reassure himself of what music really is. The mathematically programmed notes are soothing, and help him forget the awful jangling that Nino had made.
At work, he pulls out all the things that can be melted down and puts them on the conveyor belt to be swept away. Technology parts are gathered into a special area for recycling.
Underneath a rusted set of gears, Sho finds something new. Wiping away the sweat from his forehead, he squats down and opens it.
He knows what this is, he's heard of it before. It's a book. There are drawings, and they look like they've been done by hand, but they're cleaner and prettier than anything he's ever drawn, much less anyone else he knows. He turns page after page, careful not to rip the paper more than it already is, and wishes he could read it.
Maybe Nino would like this, too. There's no doubt that it's rare.
He takes it after work, walking through the tunnels, reasonably more certain as to which way he's going (which is good, because he's wearing the wrong pair of pants and doesn't have the map.) When he gets there, the light is on, but no one seems to be home.
"Hello?" Sho calls, leaning too far over the counter. No one answers. He doesn't see Nino's skinny self anywhere. Frowning, he pushes a red button that he hopes is the call bell.
"Hi," says a voice, and Sho nearly trips over his own feet turning around. Ohno is standing right next to him, and he's either inhumanly silent or really a ghost like Nino says.
Sho glances around, but it seems to just be Ohno. "You're alone today?" he asks, hoping he sounds casual enough. Not that it should matter, he tells himself firmly. It's not like he came to see Nino, or anything.
"Nino's been distracted," Ohno explains, "with that guitar you brought in." He shuffles behind the counter, walking sideways and squeezing between shelves.
A guitar, Sho thinks. That's what it is. "Distracted how?" he asks, curious in spite of himself.
"He wanted to find a new string," Ohno explains patiently. He perches on a stool like he has all the time in the world. Sho likes him, actually. There's something about him that's calming, and Sho is rarely ever calm. It's hard to be when he's constantly telling his brain to shut up. "But nothing works. He's being very particular about it. He said other stuff, too, but I didn't really understand it." Ohno's sheepish smile is contagious; Sho finds himself smiling sheepishly back.
So he can't show Nino his book. But Sho finds he doesn't really mind, now. Nino's absorbed with the guitar, and Sho is just happy that he'd managed to find something that Nino likes that much. "Here, I found something else," he says, placing the book on the counter upside-down so that Ohno sees it right-side-up.
There's a comfortable silence as Ohno flips through the book, the pages making crisp sounds against the pad of his thumb. When he gets to the end, he starts again, slender fingers tracing along thick black outlines. "Six hundred," he says.
In the end, Sho sells it to him for 715. He clips the bag of credits to his belt. "You guys really pay out," he says, bemused all over again at how they seem to give credits like candy.
"You bring us good things," Ohno says.
Sho waves goodbye still thinking they're crazy.
*
Sho fights to get untangled from his bed covers as his doorbell rings a third time. It must be some god-awful hour of the morning, because his alarm hasn't rung yet. "I'm coming, I'm coming!"
The one person he doesn't expect to find in his doorway is Nino, but that's unmistakably who it is. He's wearing mismatched shoes and a sideways cap and he has his hands on his hips and an unrepentant grin on his face. He looks different without his glasses. "Oh, nice," he says, eyebrows going up.
Sho follows his line of vision downwards and discovers that he's not wearing a shirt and Nino is talking about his stomach. "Um," Sho says, feeling his ears turn pink.
Nino invites himself in and Sho just has to stand out of the way. He thinks he should mind, but he really doesn't once he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and scrambles into his pajama top. In fact, he feels more awake than he has in the last few days.
Especially when Nino's hand worms into his and Nino is standing so close that Sho can see the moles on his cheek and chin, scattered like raindrops. His heart jerks a little in his chest, and that's when he knows he's in trouble.
"What time do you go to work?" Nino asks. Sho could swear his eyes are laughing, but his expression is serious enough to mostly distract Sho away from inappropriate thoughts.
That doesn't mean his thoughts make any sense, though. "Work? What? Me?" he parrots.
"Yes," Nino says slowly. Now his lip is curling up. Sho wants to put his thumb on it. "Take me with you. I want to see this magic landfill with all its treasures."
Oh. "It's really nothing special," he says, bemused and a little apologetic. "I just happened to find that stuff, that's all. Sometimes I go weeks without anything."
Nino lets go of his hand and starts wandering around his chamber. Not that there's far to wander, though; Sho is on the low end of the scale, being a landfill worker, and all he really has is a bed, a small food replicator, and a squeaky chair that tilts to the left next to a table littered with projector cards. It's not much, but he can't really hope for more.
Nino shuffles through the projector cards, seeming to ignore Sho. He touches the corner of one and it flares to life, offering a 3-dimensional visual of two sleek-skinned men and--
Sho leaps across the small space and switches it off before the moans echo again. Nino would have to fiddle with the porn, wouldn't he? Sho tells his heart to stop pounding so hard, thank you, but it predictably it doesn't pay him any attention.
"So this is what you use your credits on," Nino says, and Sho kind of wants to dig himself a hole to hide in. "Interesting." A really, really deep hole.
"You can come to the landfill if you want," he says in an effort to divert the topic.
Nino beams at him.
*
Actually, it's kind of exciting. Sho has followed the system for so long that any little loop in the accepted way of things is a small shot of adrenaline. They walk down the corridors together like they're friends, and the backs of Nino's knuckles bump against Sho's every few paces. Sho can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or not, but it's hard to ignore.
This area of the underground is much better lit than the back ways that lead to Nino's pawn shop, and more often traveled, too. They pass people in their uniforms again and again, but no one seems to notice that Nino doesn't belong. They're all good sheep, not thinking, not suspicious.
Sho's workplace is down deeper, so they take the lift, and when they come out Sho shows Nino his small locker and the regulation coversuit that he has to wear. Luckily, he has spares, though Nino isn't really his size. The sleeves are too long, covering the tops of his hands so only his fingertips peek out. Sho is completely charmed by the effect.
"You look sort of like a munchkin," Sho says, helping him clip on the protective headgear.
"And I'm sure you know what a munchkin looks like," Nino retorts. The headgear is too big for him too, and he fiddles with the straps while Sho slips on his coversuit. "This is heavy," he complains.
"We don't want to look like scavengers," Sho tells him, even though that's exactly what they are. Well, technically Sho's supposed to be here, but he's not going to try to make himself any excuses when he's the one that brought Nino along.
When they're ready, Sho leads Nino into the landfill. It takes some maneuvering through a chain set of rooms that are specially set up to create a barrier against the smell, which gets progressively worse each door they get through. Nino's button nose crinkles up by the third room. Sho is used to it now, especially since he usually goes home still smelling of the landfill, but even he can tell it's getting worse with each door they go through.
"This place reeks," Nino says, looking a little wobbly-kneed when Sho opens the fifth and final door. But when Sho suggests they go back, he squares his shoulders and shakes his head.
And Sho is glad. It's selfish, but he's never had someone working alongside him down here in the pit, and Nino is good company once he pulls himself together. Sho likes to watch him. He's small and limber and the coversuit fits him in a way that makes Sho want to find the shape of his body underneath.
Nino talks a lot, too, mostly about nothing. But the topic that he keeps mentioning, and that Sho takes the most notice of, is Ohno. "I won't even have to worry," Nino is saying. "He's not even going to notice that I smell."
"What do you mean?" Sho tosses aside a long strip of rubber, probably from a conveyor belt. It leaves streaks of black on his gloves.
"That guy, his nose isn't very good. Nor is his tongue."
Sho is very proud of himself for not dropping anything. "Tongue?" he asks weakly.
"Yeah," Nino says, squinting at a pile of junk that looks like every other pile of junk as if judging his angle of attack. "His sense of taste is awful. He'll eat anything, even if it's a week old. And yet somehow he never gets sick."
"Oh," Sho says. Nino gives him a wry glance, and Sho hopes that Nino can't tell what he's thinking. That would be too embarrassing, and he's embarrassed himself enough for one day. "How did you meet him?"
Nino hums thoughtfully. He climbs to the top of the pile and started to toss things in different directions, haphazardly arranging them into groups the way Sho had taught him. "He came and started polishing things, and he just kept coming back. Guy's got too much free time. But he was different, not like all the sheep. There was something else going on in his head." When Nino looks up, the fondness in his smile makes Sho's ribs pull painfully tight against his heart. "So I'm glad he stuck around."
Sho's brain is all mixed up, full of more questions. Nino is so alive, like a candle, lighting up all the things in Sho's mind he knows he's not supposed to think. It's scary and mesmerizing all at once, and for the first time, Sho is starting to wonder if maybe trying to be a sheep isn't the right thing to do after all.
They don't find anything special. No music instruments and no books, nothing but old broken parts of non-sentient machinery that they feed into the compactors and regenerators over the course of the next few hours.
"Sorry," Sho says, wiping his hands on his suit. "I know you were hoping to find something good."
"Nah," Nino says. He's already stripped out of Sho's uniform. "I didn't expect to. Miracles don't happen every day, after all. But I'm glad I got to see where you work."
Sho isn't sure how to interpret Nino's cheeky grin, so he just shakes his head. But he's still thinking after Nino leaves, and he's home in his chamber slowly putting away his projector cards. He thinks about Nino, how Nino is hopefully not with Ohno, and about himself.
But mostly, he thinks about how he wants to see Nino again.
*
He starts searching actively for things to take to the pawn shop. It has always been random before, ancient oddities popping out at him every couple of weeks, and he'd gather them together and go to Aiba's when he had enough to make the trip worthwhile. Now, when he wants to find something, when he wants to go right away, nothing seems willing to be found.
Days pass into a week, and then two weeks, and Nino doesn't show up at his chamber and Sho has no good excuse to wander over to see him, either, until he finally decides he doesn't need an excuse, he's just going to go.
The next day, after work, and after stopping at home to take a shower with triple the soap, he does.
Nino isn't there. It's Ohno again, a towel tied around his neck and his cheeks soft, like he's just woken up. Sho doesn't do a very good job of smothering his disappointment, but Ohno doesn't seem to notice.
"I don't have anything," Sho says, showing Ohno his empty hands. Not that Ohno had asked, but Sho does feel the need to explain. "I was coming to see if Nino was here."
Ohno shakes his head. "He's gone out."
Sho feels like he's treading on a thin line, but he asks anyway: "Is he coming back? If I wait, will…?"
"I don't know," Ohno says, scratching the back of his head and looking apologetic. "He didn't tell me how long he'd be."
Awkwardness settles over Sho. He doesn't want to be a bother, though he's not sure if Ohno would mind him hanging around. Ohno doesn't seem to mind anything much. In fact he's already re-absorbed himself in something on his lap, as if Sho isn't there at all. By the tweets and chirps, it sounds like a game.
"Hey," Sho says. He suddenly needs to know, and he doesn't know when he'll get the courage to ask again. "Are you and Nino…" He makes a few gestures with his fingers, but Ohno just tilts his head. Sho takes a deep breath. "Are you together?"
Ohno blinks. "You mean do we kiss and stuff?" he asks, so casually that Sho calms down a little. "No. He's touchy, and I like him a lot, but it's not like that."
Sho calms down a little more. His blood still feels like it's running around his body way too fast, but now it's more in relief. "Oh," he says for lack of anything better. "Okay. I just… I just wondered."
Ohno gives him a long look without saying anything, and just when Sho is about to excuse himself, he says, "Nino doesn't ask for anyone's details, you know."
No, Sho doesn't know. But he's listening with a lot of interest, now.
Ohno seems to come to a decision. "I can tell you where Nino is."
"Yeah?"
Ohno points up.
It takes another few seconds for that to penetrate. Ohno isn't just pointing up, he's pointing Up. Sho opens his mouth and closes it again when nothing comes out.
"I can draw you a map, if you want to go," Ohno offers.
A few months ago, Sho would say No, absolutely not, are you crazy? But that was before he met Nino. That was when he was trying to be a sheep. And Nino and Ohno might be crazy, but so is Sho, because he says, "Okay. Yes."
Ohno's map-drawing skills are much better than Jun's. Sho doesn't get lost once, though there are a couple times his feet almost turn him around on purpose. It's hard to convince himself that what he's doing isn't ludicrous.
He stands in front of the portal for a long time.
In the end, it's thinking about Nino that makes him move his hands, putting them on the seal and twisting. If Nino did it, he can do it. He can go Up, too.
The first thing he notices is that there's air. Not filtered air through his vents and stabilizer, but actual air on his face, pushing at his clothes and getting hair in his eyes and whistling in his ears.
The second thing he notices, once he pushes his hair out of the way, is that Up is very, very big. He doesn't have a word for how big it is. It stretches out in every direction, openness and land and brilliant greenness, and he's never seen anything like it. It's too big, it's frighteningly big, and Sho's breath catches in his throat and twists tight. His eyes are watering with all the air, and he can't breathe, it's too much.
He's about to pull himself back through the portal and shut it behind him forever when he hears something.
He knows immediately that it's Nino, and that Nino is playing the guitar. It's those awkward notes from weeks and weeks ago, except they're smoother now, layered together in a way that pulls at him.
Desperately, he follows after the sound, panic pushing him fast enough that he nearly trips down an incline. He finds Nino seated on a large, flat rock that's sheltered from all the rippling, flowing air, the guitar cradled in his lap. Nino looks up, and the sound stops.
"Sho," he says, his eyes lit up with surprise. He's wearing two shirts, one tight and one loose and layered on top of it, and just looking at him makes Sho feel better. Nino scoots over, and Sho sits down next to him, closer than he normally would.
It's not as bad here. He can't see so far, though he can still see farther than in the tunnels. The air isn't as pushy, just a breath against his cheeks, and now Nino's next to him, looking just like Nino always does. His hand is clutched protectively around the neck of the guitar.
"Do you want to hear what I've figured out?" he says.
Sho listens, and the last of his panic slowly filters away. Nino's fingers are clever over the strings, coaxing out more of those raw notes that have actually become something. They're really music.
Sho finally gets it now. "It's beautiful."
Nino laughs, the corners of his lips tilting sharply. "I'm still learning. But it is, isn't it? It's better than Computer music."
Sho can't help but agree. Six simple strings (somewhere, Nino found a replacement for the third) make so many different sounds, and it's imperfect, but that's what's important about it. That's what's engaging his mind.
Like Nino does. Sho watches him, all his flickering finger movements and the way his lips push together as he concentrates. He's just as imperfect and curiously beautiful as the music.
"I don't want to go back to being a sheep," Sho says on impulse, sliding his hand closer to Nino.
"Good," Nino says, letting the music fade away. He looks right back at Sho, and they're so close Sho can see all his individual eyelashes.
Sho leans in and kisses him. The guitar bumps against his shoulder, but Nino closes his eyes, and Sho knows that he made the right choice.
Pairing: Sakumiya
Word Count: ~5000
Summary: In a world where Computers make all the decisions, Sho has lived his whole life trying to fit in and stay under the radar. But then he meets Nino, and he starts thinking things he shouldn't...
Notes: This was written about a year ago for one of the ShoNeen contests and I just never got around to posting it afterwards. OOPS. Well, here it is!
Sho really doesn't know why he's so bad with directions, and it doesn't help that Jun's map is so badly drawn, but he's pretty sure he's finally on the right track. The corridors are getting darker, the generator lights spottier. He hasn't passed anyone in the last five minutes, by his mental count. Seems promising.
The box that he's carrying has gotten heavier, no matter how many times he switches hands, and even despite the fact that it has a very uncomfortable handle that digs into his palm. He'll be glad to finally get rid of it.
He almost misses the turn, but there's an arrow chiseled into the stone wall with a mark underneath that looks marginally similar to the one that had been outside Aiba's shop (and nothing like Jun's catastrophic drawing. He folds the paper up and puts it in his pocket.)
"Hello?" Sho says, putting down his burden and flexing his fingers in relief.
There's a large window, and Sho can see... well, stuff. Lots of stuff with names he doesn't know all crammed into shelves and corners and on top of other stuff, spilling out at the sides, gears and metal and fabric. It's just as colorful as Aiba's shop had been, and Sho gets the momentary urge to go instead and poke through things. But that's not good, so he ignores it. "Hello? Anybody here?"
"Just a minute!" comes a voice, and from behind a shelf pops a small man with a pointy chin and slick black glasses. He wipes his hands on a rag but it doesn't do much to erase the grease on his fingers.
"You're new," he says, his eyes flickering over Sho in a way Sho finds unnerving. He has a feeling this guy sees a lot more than most people do. "How did you find us?"
"My old pawn shop closed," Sho says, and the guy grimaces, maybe out of sympathy. "Someone pointed me this way."
"Yeah, well, I don't take bodies. They reek, and they don't sell. You'll have to figure out something else to do with that." The man makes vague shooing gestures at Sho's box, already turning away.
"Do people actually try to sell them to you?" Sho asks, appalled. It must be the shock that makes him ask, because otherwise he wouldn't. He knows better than to ask questions.
"Every so often."
"There was one yesterday," says a new voice, and Sho is doubly shocked to realize there's a second person behind the counter. He's in the back corner, bent over a something-or-other, his hair shining in the lamplight. Sho feels like he should have noticed him sooner, but even looking at him now, his presence seems soft, like he doesn't care about being seen.
Not like this other guy, who's drumming his fingers on the counter. He seems sharp, from the flash of his eyes to the curl of his lips, and Sho's attention keeps zooming back to him. "Again?" he sighs. Without waiting for an answer, he turns a level eye on Sho. "So? Are you saying there's something worthwhile in there?"
"I can't say that it's worthwhile," Sho hedges. In truth, he doesn't even know what the thing is, but he does know that it's probably better that way. Just being here is daring enough. He should take whatever money he can get from it and go. "But it's not a body! See?"
Sho's wrestled with this case enough times that he's figured out how to open it, and after it thunks unceremoniously onto the counter, he picks at the latches and cracks it open.
It's not a body, of course, though Sho can see why it looks like one. It's a fat womanly shaped thing, but with a long neck and no legs and strings running along most of it. One string, the third one, or the fourth depending on which way you count, is broken. Sho hopes it doesn't bring down the price.
The guy wrinkles his nose, and then rubs it. "Then why does it smell so bad?"
"Sorry," Sho says, sheepish. "That's probably me. I work in a landfill." And he'd come here straight from work with no shower. He knows from experience that the smell clings, sometimes for days and through several washes no matter how much soap he uses.
"Hunh," says the guy. "Could you go stand over there, then?"
Sho backs off, hovering uncertainly near one of the generator lights, and waits while the shopkeeper starts examining. His face has gone serious, and he lifts the whatever-it-is out of its case for a better view. A wrinkle forms on his forehead. It's kind of cute, Sho thinks.
Which wasn't what he'd meant to think at all, so he stops looking at the guy whose name he doesn't even know and lets his eyes wander around at less interesting things, like the ceiling.
That's why he doesn't see the string getting plucked, but he hears it. It's a raw sound, like nothing he's heard before, and it crawls right down his spine and makes the hairs on the nape of his neck stand on end.
And then he can't not look, because the guy is doing it again, and again on another string, and another, his expression changing from one of startlement to absolute fascination.
Sho wishes he would stop. He's got weird goosebumps, and he instinctively knows that the Computers wouldn't like this.
"I think this is to make music," says the guy, looking so excited that for a moment--just a moment--Sho feels bad about being afraid.
"That's not music," Sho hears himself saying in disbelief. "It's nothing like music."
"Nothing like Computer music," the guy says. Sho can't tell if he's agreeing or not. He puts the whatever-it-is back in its case with loving hands. "How much do you want for it?"
This is a first. Aiba never asked. "A thousand credits," Sho says, starting high.
"Okay." At first, Sho isn't sure he's heard right, but the guy is opening up a register and sorting through chips, pinching them together into neat, organized piles for easy counting. It's all very surreal. Sho feels like he's cheated somehow. Either that, or the guy is crazy. What happened to haggling?
"But," the guy says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. Of course. There had to be a 'but'. "You have to leave your details."
The credits are lined up in tempting display, exactly 1,000 by Sho's count. His fingers twitch. So close. "That's not safe," he protests.
"Buying this isn't safe either," the guy reminds him, tapping his finger insistently on the sheet of paper. "No details, no credits."
In the back, Sho can see the other man look up.
Sho doesn't like this at all. If this store gets raided, there will be records that he's been here. He could be put in a worse job, which he can't really imagine right now but he's sure there are worse things than the landfill. At least the landfill has interesting junk.
But... one thousand credits. Sho picks up the pencil, feeling very much the sucker.
The guy glances at it when he's done. "Sho," he says, the word careful in his mouth as if he's registering it to memory. Sho likes the way he says it. "I'm Ninomiya. Nino, if you like that better," he says, folding the paper in half with a smile. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "And that ghost in the back is Ohno."
Ohno bobs his head in acknowledgment.
"Here," Ninomiya says, toppling the mini towers of credits into a drawstring bag. "This is yours."
Sho still can't quite believe it. It's rude, but he pulls open the bag anyway, fishing out a credit. It looks full, and it lights up when he nudges the switch on the side.
Nino cups his chin in his hand, leaning against the counter. His tilty smile is amused. "They're valid," he says, not sounding insulted in the least.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to doubt you," Sho says. "But a thousand credits for a piece of junk... it doesn't make any sense."
"I want you to come back," Nino tells him bluntly. "If you find anything at all, I want you to bring it here. Not to anybody else. I think a thousand credits is worth that."
Not to Sho, it isn't, but then he's thinking about it too much. He's always thought too much, or at least that's what his dad had told him. He needs to just stop, and be normal, like the other sheep. He takes his credits and goes.
But no matter what he does, he can't stop thinking about Nino on the way home.
*
Over the course of the next few days, Sho does all the things he's supposed to do and none of the things he isn't, like he's making up for a lapse in good judgment. He's a perfect sheep. He keeps his credits and doesn't spend many, only buying a song or two to reassure himself of what music really is. The mathematically programmed notes are soothing, and help him forget the awful jangling that Nino had made.
At work, he pulls out all the things that can be melted down and puts them on the conveyor belt to be swept away. Technology parts are gathered into a special area for recycling.
Underneath a rusted set of gears, Sho finds something new. Wiping away the sweat from his forehead, he squats down and opens it.
He knows what this is, he's heard of it before. It's a book. There are drawings, and they look like they've been done by hand, but they're cleaner and prettier than anything he's ever drawn, much less anyone else he knows. He turns page after page, careful not to rip the paper more than it already is, and wishes he could read it.
Maybe Nino would like this, too. There's no doubt that it's rare.
He takes it after work, walking through the tunnels, reasonably more certain as to which way he's going (which is good, because he's wearing the wrong pair of pants and doesn't have the map.) When he gets there, the light is on, but no one seems to be home.
"Hello?" Sho calls, leaning too far over the counter. No one answers. He doesn't see Nino's skinny self anywhere. Frowning, he pushes a red button that he hopes is the call bell.
"Hi," says a voice, and Sho nearly trips over his own feet turning around. Ohno is standing right next to him, and he's either inhumanly silent or really a ghost like Nino says.
Sho glances around, but it seems to just be Ohno. "You're alone today?" he asks, hoping he sounds casual enough. Not that it should matter, he tells himself firmly. It's not like he came to see Nino, or anything.
"Nino's been distracted," Ohno explains, "with that guitar you brought in." He shuffles behind the counter, walking sideways and squeezing between shelves.
A guitar, Sho thinks. That's what it is. "Distracted how?" he asks, curious in spite of himself.
"He wanted to find a new string," Ohno explains patiently. He perches on a stool like he has all the time in the world. Sho likes him, actually. There's something about him that's calming, and Sho is rarely ever calm. It's hard to be when he's constantly telling his brain to shut up. "But nothing works. He's being very particular about it. He said other stuff, too, but I didn't really understand it." Ohno's sheepish smile is contagious; Sho finds himself smiling sheepishly back.
So he can't show Nino his book. But Sho finds he doesn't really mind, now. Nino's absorbed with the guitar, and Sho is just happy that he'd managed to find something that Nino likes that much. "Here, I found something else," he says, placing the book on the counter upside-down so that Ohno sees it right-side-up.
There's a comfortable silence as Ohno flips through the book, the pages making crisp sounds against the pad of his thumb. When he gets to the end, he starts again, slender fingers tracing along thick black outlines. "Six hundred," he says.
In the end, Sho sells it to him for 715. He clips the bag of credits to his belt. "You guys really pay out," he says, bemused all over again at how they seem to give credits like candy.
"You bring us good things," Ohno says.
Sho waves goodbye still thinking they're crazy.
*
Sho fights to get untangled from his bed covers as his doorbell rings a third time. It must be some god-awful hour of the morning, because his alarm hasn't rung yet. "I'm coming, I'm coming!"
The one person he doesn't expect to find in his doorway is Nino, but that's unmistakably who it is. He's wearing mismatched shoes and a sideways cap and he has his hands on his hips and an unrepentant grin on his face. He looks different without his glasses. "Oh, nice," he says, eyebrows going up.
Sho follows his line of vision downwards and discovers that he's not wearing a shirt and Nino is talking about his stomach. "Um," Sho says, feeling his ears turn pink.
Nino invites himself in and Sho just has to stand out of the way. He thinks he should mind, but he really doesn't once he rubs the sleep out of his eyes and scrambles into his pajama top. In fact, he feels more awake than he has in the last few days.
Especially when Nino's hand worms into his and Nino is standing so close that Sho can see the moles on his cheek and chin, scattered like raindrops. His heart jerks a little in his chest, and that's when he knows he's in trouble.
"What time do you go to work?" Nino asks. Sho could swear his eyes are laughing, but his expression is serious enough to mostly distract Sho away from inappropriate thoughts.
That doesn't mean his thoughts make any sense, though. "Work? What? Me?" he parrots.
"Yes," Nino says slowly. Now his lip is curling up. Sho wants to put his thumb on it. "Take me with you. I want to see this magic landfill with all its treasures."
Oh. "It's really nothing special," he says, bemused and a little apologetic. "I just happened to find that stuff, that's all. Sometimes I go weeks without anything."
Nino lets go of his hand and starts wandering around his chamber. Not that there's far to wander, though; Sho is on the low end of the scale, being a landfill worker, and all he really has is a bed, a small food replicator, and a squeaky chair that tilts to the left next to a table littered with projector cards. It's not much, but he can't really hope for more.
Nino shuffles through the projector cards, seeming to ignore Sho. He touches the corner of one and it flares to life, offering a 3-dimensional visual of two sleek-skinned men and--
Sho leaps across the small space and switches it off before the moans echo again. Nino would have to fiddle with the porn, wouldn't he? Sho tells his heart to stop pounding so hard, thank you, but it predictably it doesn't pay him any attention.
"So this is what you use your credits on," Nino says, and Sho kind of wants to dig himself a hole to hide in. "Interesting." A really, really deep hole.
"You can come to the landfill if you want," he says in an effort to divert the topic.
Nino beams at him.
*
Actually, it's kind of exciting. Sho has followed the system for so long that any little loop in the accepted way of things is a small shot of adrenaline. They walk down the corridors together like they're friends, and the backs of Nino's knuckles bump against Sho's every few paces. Sho can't tell if he's doing it on purpose or not, but it's hard to ignore.
This area of the underground is much better lit than the back ways that lead to Nino's pawn shop, and more often traveled, too. They pass people in their uniforms again and again, but no one seems to notice that Nino doesn't belong. They're all good sheep, not thinking, not suspicious.
Sho's workplace is down deeper, so they take the lift, and when they come out Sho shows Nino his small locker and the regulation coversuit that he has to wear. Luckily, he has spares, though Nino isn't really his size. The sleeves are too long, covering the tops of his hands so only his fingertips peek out. Sho is completely charmed by the effect.
"You look sort of like a munchkin," Sho says, helping him clip on the protective headgear.
"And I'm sure you know what a munchkin looks like," Nino retorts. The headgear is too big for him too, and he fiddles with the straps while Sho slips on his coversuit. "This is heavy," he complains.
"We don't want to look like scavengers," Sho tells him, even though that's exactly what they are. Well, technically Sho's supposed to be here, but he's not going to try to make himself any excuses when he's the one that brought Nino along.
When they're ready, Sho leads Nino into the landfill. It takes some maneuvering through a chain set of rooms that are specially set up to create a barrier against the smell, which gets progressively worse each door they get through. Nino's button nose crinkles up by the third room. Sho is used to it now, especially since he usually goes home still smelling of the landfill, but even he can tell it's getting worse with each door they go through.
"This place reeks," Nino says, looking a little wobbly-kneed when Sho opens the fifth and final door. But when Sho suggests they go back, he squares his shoulders and shakes his head.
And Sho is glad. It's selfish, but he's never had someone working alongside him down here in the pit, and Nino is good company once he pulls himself together. Sho likes to watch him. He's small and limber and the coversuit fits him in a way that makes Sho want to find the shape of his body underneath.
Nino talks a lot, too, mostly about nothing. But the topic that he keeps mentioning, and that Sho takes the most notice of, is Ohno. "I won't even have to worry," Nino is saying. "He's not even going to notice that I smell."
"What do you mean?" Sho tosses aside a long strip of rubber, probably from a conveyor belt. It leaves streaks of black on his gloves.
"That guy, his nose isn't very good. Nor is his tongue."
Sho is very proud of himself for not dropping anything. "Tongue?" he asks weakly.
"Yeah," Nino says, squinting at a pile of junk that looks like every other pile of junk as if judging his angle of attack. "His sense of taste is awful. He'll eat anything, even if it's a week old. And yet somehow he never gets sick."
"Oh," Sho says. Nino gives him a wry glance, and Sho hopes that Nino can't tell what he's thinking. That would be too embarrassing, and he's embarrassed himself enough for one day. "How did you meet him?"
Nino hums thoughtfully. He climbs to the top of the pile and started to toss things in different directions, haphazardly arranging them into groups the way Sho had taught him. "He came and started polishing things, and he just kept coming back. Guy's got too much free time. But he was different, not like all the sheep. There was something else going on in his head." When Nino looks up, the fondness in his smile makes Sho's ribs pull painfully tight against his heart. "So I'm glad he stuck around."
Sho's brain is all mixed up, full of more questions. Nino is so alive, like a candle, lighting up all the things in Sho's mind he knows he's not supposed to think. It's scary and mesmerizing all at once, and for the first time, Sho is starting to wonder if maybe trying to be a sheep isn't the right thing to do after all.
They don't find anything special. No music instruments and no books, nothing but old broken parts of non-sentient machinery that they feed into the compactors and regenerators over the course of the next few hours.
"Sorry," Sho says, wiping his hands on his suit. "I know you were hoping to find something good."
"Nah," Nino says. He's already stripped out of Sho's uniform. "I didn't expect to. Miracles don't happen every day, after all. But I'm glad I got to see where you work."
Sho isn't sure how to interpret Nino's cheeky grin, so he just shakes his head. But he's still thinking after Nino leaves, and he's home in his chamber slowly putting away his projector cards. He thinks about Nino, how Nino is hopefully not with Ohno, and about himself.
But mostly, he thinks about how he wants to see Nino again.
*
He starts searching actively for things to take to the pawn shop. It has always been random before, ancient oddities popping out at him every couple of weeks, and he'd gather them together and go to Aiba's when he had enough to make the trip worthwhile. Now, when he wants to find something, when he wants to go right away, nothing seems willing to be found.
Days pass into a week, and then two weeks, and Nino doesn't show up at his chamber and Sho has no good excuse to wander over to see him, either, until he finally decides he doesn't need an excuse, he's just going to go.
The next day, after work, and after stopping at home to take a shower with triple the soap, he does.
Nino isn't there. It's Ohno again, a towel tied around his neck and his cheeks soft, like he's just woken up. Sho doesn't do a very good job of smothering his disappointment, but Ohno doesn't seem to notice.
"I don't have anything," Sho says, showing Ohno his empty hands. Not that Ohno had asked, but Sho does feel the need to explain. "I was coming to see if Nino was here."
Ohno shakes his head. "He's gone out."
Sho feels like he's treading on a thin line, but he asks anyway: "Is he coming back? If I wait, will…?"
"I don't know," Ohno says, scratching the back of his head and looking apologetic. "He didn't tell me how long he'd be."
Awkwardness settles over Sho. He doesn't want to be a bother, though he's not sure if Ohno would mind him hanging around. Ohno doesn't seem to mind anything much. In fact he's already re-absorbed himself in something on his lap, as if Sho isn't there at all. By the tweets and chirps, it sounds like a game.
"Hey," Sho says. He suddenly needs to know, and he doesn't know when he'll get the courage to ask again. "Are you and Nino…" He makes a few gestures with his fingers, but Ohno just tilts his head. Sho takes a deep breath. "Are you together?"
Ohno blinks. "You mean do we kiss and stuff?" he asks, so casually that Sho calms down a little. "No. He's touchy, and I like him a lot, but it's not like that."
Sho calms down a little more. His blood still feels like it's running around his body way too fast, but now it's more in relief. "Oh," he says for lack of anything better. "Okay. I just… I just wondered."
Ohno gives him a long look without saying anything, and just when Sho is about to excuse himself, he says, "Nino doesn't ask for anyone's details, you know."
No, Sho doesn't know. But he's listening with a lot of interest, now.
Ohno seems to come to a decision. "I can tell you where Nino is."
"Yeah?"
Ohno points up.
It takes another few seconds for that to penetrate. Ohno isn't just pointing up, he's pointing Up. Sho opens his mouth and closes it again when nothing comes out.
"I can draw you a map, if you want to go," Ohno offers.
A few months ago, Sho would say No, absolutely not, are you crazy? But that was before he met Nino. That was when he was trying to be a sheep. And Nino and Ohno might be crazy, but so is Sho, because he says, "Okay. Yes."
Ohno's map-drawing skills are much better than Jun's. Sho doesn't get lost once, though there are a couple times his feet almost turn him around on purpose. It's hard to convince himself that what he's doing isn't ludicrous.
He stands in front of the portal for a long time.
In the end, it's thinking about Nino that makes him move his hands, putting them on the seal and twisting. If Nino did it, he can do it. He can go Up, too.
The first thing he notices is that there's air. Not filtered air through his vents and stabilizer, but actual air on his face, pushing at his clothes and getting hair in his eyes and whistling in his ears.
The second thing he notices, once he pushes his hair out of the way, is that Up is very, very big. He doesn't have a word for how big it is. It stretches out in every direction, openness and land and brilliant greenness, and he's never seen anything like it. It's too big, it's frighteningly big, and Sho's breath catches in his throat and twists tight. His eyes are watering with all the air, and he can't breathe, it's too much.
He's about to pull himself back through the portal and shut it behind him forever when he hears something.
He knows immediately that it's Nino, and that Nino is playing the guitar. It's those awkward notes from weeks and weeks ago, except they're smoother now, layered together in a way that pulls at him.
Desperately, he follows after the sound, panic pushing him fast enough that he nearly trips down an incline. He finds Nino seated on a large, flat rock that's sheltered from all the rippling, flowing air, the guitar cradled in his lap. Nino looks up, and the sound stops.
"Sho," he says, his eyes lit up with surprise. He's wearing two shirts, one tight and one loose and layered on top of it, and just looking at him makes Sho feel better. Nino scoots over, and Sho sits down next to him, closer than he normally would.
It's not as bad here. He can't see so far, though he can still see farther than in the tunnels. The air isn't as pushy, just a breath against his cheeks, and now Nino's next to him, looking just like Nino always does. His hand is clutched protectively around the neck of the guitar.
"Do you want to hear what I've figured out?" he says.
Sho listens, and the last of his panic slowly filters away. Nino's fingers are clever over the strings, coaxing out more of those raw notes that have actually become something. They're really music.
Sho finally gets it now. "It's beautiful."
Nino laughs, the corners of his lips tilting sharply. "I'm still learning. But it is, isn't it? It's better than Computer music."
Sho can't help but agree. Six simple strings (somewhere, Nino found a replacement for the third) make so many different sounds, and it's imperfect, but that's what's important about it. That's what's engaging his mind.
Like Nino does. Sho watches him, all his flickering finger movements and the way his lips push together as he concentrates. He's just as imperfect and curiously beautiful as the music.
"I don't want to go back to being a sheep," Sho says on impulse, sliding his hand closer to Nino.
"Good," Nino says, letting the music fade away. He looks right back at Sho, and they're so close Sho can see all his individual eyelashes.
Sho leans in and kisses him. The guitar bumps against his shoulder, but Nino closes his eyes, and Sho knows that he made the right choice.