Prompt 6: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size - Team AU
Title: Now They Know How Many Holes it Takes to Fill the Albert Hall.
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Mostly Gen, bits of Nino/Ohno, implied Aiba/Jun and er. Unrequited Koki/Jin/Kame?
Summary: The Daily Star’s slowly going bankrupt, and really, attempting to put out multiple editions a day is more than Nino can handle. With a psychotic editor-in-chief, work-obsessed friends and idiot writers to deal with, it’s a wonder he doesn’t crack. All that often, anyway.
Prompt: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size
Warnings: Crack of the highest proportions.
Notes: All mistakes are my beta’s (who yelled me into finishing). And S deserves all the blame in the world for this.
EARLY EDITION Updated at: 7:00 AM
“You’re supposed to be in here at 7 in the fucking morning, Ninomiya.”
“Oh, are we doing last names today, Matsumoto?”
Nino drops his jacket on his desk and turns around to see Jun kneading his knuckles into his forehead, eyes closed.
“And, poof! He’s vanished like the bad pixie he is!”
Jun exhales, extremely slowly. "You aren't helping, Akanishi."
Nino eyes the distance between his foot and Jin's crotch. It's too wide a gap to bridge at 8:30 in the morning, he pragmatically decides. Besides, with Jun having a bad hair day and a hissy fit about deadlines, he'd never get away with it. He might even be assigned the fucking flower show. And he's almost certain that he can be nice and logical now that Jin has wandered off to preen somewhere far away from him.
"Look, the rest of the world doesn't wake up for another couple of hours, and I was here till 2 editing the shit your paltry writers gave me on the California story. Unless Australia declared war against New Zealand over rugby, I'm pretty sure I can have a bit longer than 3 hours a night."
Jun opens his mouth, but Nino cuts him off. "And besides, even you would have been able to lift the story from the AP and stick it onto the website. Control-C, Control-V. It's like magic."
Jun snaps his mouth shut again. Nino grins. "Now fuck off, I have very important research to do. Oh-chan was asleep when I left, and I'm horny."
Jun looks like he’s about to explode. Jun frequently looks like he’s about to explode. The writers, in their mindless awe of a nameplate, reckon it comes from being editor-in-chief. The section editors know it comes from being a workaholic fashionista in charge of a failing paper.
Nino tenses up, preparing to get torn to shreds when Kame strides by, probably to grab Jun before the spit starts to fly. "No wanking in the newsroom."
“That was uncanny, Jun. Did you whistle for him?” Nino calls after their retreating backs. He figures getting the last word in is the least he can do. Especially since his table is covered in scraps of paper and, for some inexplicable reason, the entire story he commissioned on Russia’s role in Kyrgyzstan is on a fucking Post-It note. He wonders if it’s too early in the day to bully an intern into buying him a new bottle of vodka.
On the other hand, this might fall into the ‘Pushing-It’ category. There’s a box on Sho’s desk that gets filled with complaints about Nino pushing it, and every Friday, if there are fewer than 100 chits of paper, Sho buys Nino dinner. Nino himself takes explicit pleasure in getting one or two over the 100 mark and watching Sho feel bad about it and buy him dinner anyway.
Nino turns at the sound of squeaking wheels and panting. Sho is leaning forward in his chair in a desperate attempt to aim, his feet labouring against the thick carpet as he shuffles over.
“I need a coffee.”
“You look like death.”
“Yes. Coffee.”
Nino sighs. “Do you want me to go get you one, or do you want to come with me?”
“I can’t go anywhere! The stocks are down; two of our analysts quit; I have no opinion pieces; and I don’t think I can write three different articles on Greece, the dollar-to-yen rate, and why not to lose faith in everything and just kill yourself despite the fact that it’d be sweet relief and a lot like sleep and coffee. Please.”
“Right. You’re going to take a 2-minute nap at my desk. DO NOT GO BACK TO YOURS! Mine. Far away from the market. Lie down.”
Sho stares at him blankly, like a hungover owl. His bloodshot eyes don’t seem to be capable of blinking anymore.
“Just 2 minutes. And then I need to get back to work.”
Nino nods and nudges Sho’s chair slightly closer to the desk.
He whips around as soon as he can hear Sho’s soft snores and grabs the nearest intern.
“Congratulations. You’re doing research.”
*
He’s twenty minutes into trying to decipher why exactly he should care about Kyrgyzstan - something the writer doesn’t seem too clear on himself - when his extension rings and Sho jolts awake. Nino reaches over him to grab it and ignores the terrified wails about there not being enough time in the world.
“I need you to take down the bit on famine.” Kame’s voice is crisp.
“I need a feature for the African section, and people tend to get persnickety when you tell them things they don’t expect. Would you rather genocide?”
“We’ve covered both of those several times already.”
“And yet, they’re still going on! It’s strange how people expect the news to be current.”
“Take it down, Nino. Put in a corruption report, or something.”
“Fine, but only if you take two of Sho’s articles. He’s deafening me.”
“Fine.”
Nino turns to Sho when the call ends. “You know, the dial tone sounds friendlier than he does.”
“He sleeps less than I do. I don’t think he even has blood in his veins anymore. Just a steady stream of coffee.” Sho stretches and pushes his chair back to his desk. “I don’t need help, Nino. I can do the articles.”
“Fine, but take it up with the pretty boy yourself. Oh, and I had one of the slaves do your research. It should be in your inbox.”
Sho lets a wan smile escape. “Dinner’s on me.”
*
“Fuck, shit, bugger, hell, balls.”
Most people’s heads swivel around towards Meisa.
She glares back. “Health reform just got passed, and it’s too late for the Early and too early for the Morning.”
Nino can hear Kame’s sigh from outside the newsroom.
“Get someone to write an analysis on it, and we can stick it in as a headline. Till then, someone type it into Breaking News and update the feed!”
“What I don’t get is why people are bothering creating breaking news at this hour. Surely, they can just stay in bed a bit longer and give us time to sort our shit out.” For a minute, Nino is horrified that he agrees with Jin, but he figures as long as he pretends he hasn’t heard, he doesn’t need to vocalise this.
Yamapi snorts. “It’s not like we’re doing any of this. Have you thought of something to stick into weekend? I think we should go with the red on the red carpet story. That way, we’ll have to use so many pictures, we don’t have to write more than a couple of sentences.”
“Yeah, and we could add a bit on funny stories from the awards. There’ll definitely be a couple online.”
Nino doesn’t bother throwing a book at them because everyone uses picture-heavy stories on the slow days, and it’s a lot worse when he does it because his are invariably exploiting starving children, bloody warfare, or something equally cheerful to sell the paper. Besides, he likes his books too much to be flinging them at people.
Aiba might have seen his expression, because Nino’s suddenly enveloped in a bear hug.
“Do you want to read my profile on David Blaine in Tokyo?”
Nino’s hobby has given Aiba hours of pleasure as he tries to work out the card tricks and then remember the few that Nino’s bothered to teach him.
“In a bit. Did he say anything good?”
“He talked about his college years and his personal issues! It was actually quite a lot of fun, I think. We headed over to the club after and he showed me a new swing.”
Nino’s convinced that Aiba could cajole state secrets out of a spy if given enough time to assault them with his smile and eagerness. A year and a half ago when it was becoming obvious to everyone around that Aiba could and should be allowed to conduct every single interview they needed done, Jun had called Nino into his office and explicitly forbidden him from assigning Aiba any that had not been approved by both Kame and him. Nino had assumed it was because Jun got off on authority, but Jun had gone on to explain that it was because he was almost positive Nino would make him do something stupid like sweet-talk the Americans out of Okinawa. The newspaper could not afford to hire bodyguards for Aiba.
In retrospect, Nino’s pretty sure assassins wouldn’t be able to inflict the same kind of damage that Aiba does on himself. The edges of his desk are encased in rubber after the Incident last May when he had to have his arm stitched up, and when Jun had finally stopped trying to quit smoking.
MORNING EDITION Updated at: 9:30 AM
He’s wading through a piece on Chavez nearly starting wars when Nino remembers he hasn’t smoked all morning and sidles over to the window, fag in hand. The editors used to have their own room, away from the damned writers, where they could smoke without a fuss because there were no prissy health freaks amongst them. The newsroom feels odd, now that you didn’t have to squint to see the next desk.
But this was before the budget had to be looked into and their extra rooms had to be rented out to a rag who claim to conduct interviews with aliens. Normally involving questions about their sex lives and anal probing. Jun had wanted to rent it out to a magazine about cars, but Aiba had found out about the alien rag and insisted that he needed to see an alien before he died.
Jun hadn’t even put up a fight.
On the other hand, Aiba had found himself being assigned stories that no one else wanted to for over a month, after Jun had cordially invited their tenants for a meal and they had proceeded to expound upon the subject of spaceships disguised as cars for the entire evening.
Aiba joins Nino at the window with his own pack.
“Swap you erectile dysfunction for lung cancer?”
Nino looks at the warning on his own pack. “It doesn’t mean you’ll actually get it, stupid.”
Aiba holds his out, anyway and Nino rolls his eyes before he takes it. “Besides, a lack of sex is better than a slow painful death,” but Aiba is smiling at him beatifically, and Nino has to hide his reciprocal grin with his hand as he lights up.
“I did that interview with the Transport Minister last night, and I ended up convincing him that we needed drinks while we discussed his new price hikes. We ended up at that bar we went to the other time, remember? You know, the place with the tiger beer mats! Anyway, he bought us our first and second rounds, but he was a lightweight and ended up talking about how he really didn’t want to raise the prices, but he didn’t say ‘off the record’ and so I’m pretty sure I can write about it? I’d like to, anyway. He seems quite nice, and I don’t want everyone hating him.”
Nino nods. He doesn’t speak over his first fag of the day, and it’s not like Aiba needs anyone else to do anything but nod in the mornings. Ryo once darkly muttered something about Aiba pouring coffee over his cereal, but Nino never really pays attention to Ryo’s dark mutterings, especially when he finds ogling Ohno over the counter of the coffee house a much more productive activity.
Meisa wanders over at this point, already sucking one down, rolling her eyes at the elaborate fake coughs that follow her on the way there. She’s probably one of the only reporters that any of the editors will suffer, and it hasn’t even got anything to do with the fact that they would all follow her around, tongues hanging out if she so much as snapped her fingers. There were no women in the entire paper under their last editor, who famously gave an interview saying he did not think women could write and was promptly forced to choose between a quiet retirement and a lynch mob. When Jun had taken over, the old policy was done away with and Meisa was one of the reporters who had quickly gone from leisure to local news to national politics. Nino had been trying to blackmail Shige into letting her join the international team for two months now, but - much to his disgust - Shige had only ever littered before, and even that was probably only a rumour that Yamapi had started.
“Aiba, Shige wants that interview. I’d get it to him before he whines to Kame.”
Aiba grins back at her, and with self-restraint that Nino didn’t think he possessed, doesn’t mention anything about her cleavage. But then again, getting whacked around the head by multiple people every time he does has to have an effect, eventually. Even on Aiba.
“I still don’t understand him.” Meisa mutters, while watching Aiba walk away.
“I don’t think you’re meant to. It’s probably one of those conundrums where if you do understand, he’ll disappear and be replaced by something even more complex.”
“It’s not clever to quote other people’s witticisms, you know.”
“I haven’t had my morning coffee, yet. I’m allowed.”
Meisa laughs and, Nino should probably not find it as pleasing a sound as he does, but there isn’t really another living soul that would blame him.
He tosses the butt out of the window before stretching and trying in vain to hide a yawn. It’s too early in the day to be craving a nap.
“Coffee,” he mutters before he walks out.
He hadn’t visited the coffee house at all in his first three years of working at the paper, purely because it was easier to bully interns into buying the cups for him. And then, he had been out shopping after finishing early for the first time in what felt like the better part of a century, and had bumped into Ohno. It had been cold in the supermarket, and Nino had considered just eating the cheese he had left at home with some bread, but Ohno grabbed the last marked-down loaf just as Nino was starting to reach for it. They had ended up having dinner together at Nino’s tiny flat because Ohno had claimed he couldn’t finish the loaf by himself that night and because Nino had claimed the same about his cheese.
They had ended up living together before the end of the month.
“Hey, Nino.” Ryo is wearing an apron and a long-suffering expression. Nino mutters something that could be construed as a greeting at him before walking behind the counter and resting his head on Ohno’s shoulder.
Ohno walks around the floor space slowly, out of consideration for the dead weight on his back, as he fixes Nino his coffee.
“There’s a new one, by the way,” he says quietly while he props Nino up against the counter and pushes the cappuccino into his hands.
Nino turns around and searches the walls while Ohno walks away, sounding very much like he’s stifling a laugh.
There is a new painting on the wall - water colour, Nino reckons. And extremely well done: he can recognise his own terrified expression extremely well, and the school of fish that is chasing him have faces covered in varying levels of glee. Nino counts down from ten.
“Really?”
“The customers seem to like it. And you said you really enjoyed the one I drew of Sho flailing against an onslaught of cheeky ties.”
“Yes, but that was Sho!”
Ohno has to leave at this point to serve customers, and Nino doubts a conversation with Ryo would fail to mention the fact that he apparently has a phobia of fish - a complete and utter lie, he cares a lot more about their habitat than their stupid googly eyes - and an extremely cruel boyfriend.
“Hey, isn’t that you?!” Ohno doubles over while the customer gestures excitedly at Nino and back to the painting. Walking away is probably his best option right now.
AFTERNOON EDITION Updated at: 1:00 PM
He’s sent his final edits to Kame before he feels hungry enough to eat a horse, which is a relatively uncommon occurrence in itself. It makes it even more odd that his final edits don’t contain notes begging Kame to fire every single one of his writers. Just most of them.
Nino’s almost ready to steal Sho’s sandwich when he notices that Kame hasn’t responded to his email. Considering the usual practices of anal retentiveness that the man engages in, Nino is ready to bet he’s either keeled over at his laptop or finally gone insane and murdered Jun with his own hairbrush.
“Hey, Akanishi. I think Kame’s dead.”
Jin and the blond part-timer-possibly named Kou or Kogi or something-whom he seems to be engaging in an ongoing pissing contest with both pop their heads up like extremely alert meerkats. He’s pretty sure Kame will never notice either of them, because neither of them looks like a completed edition. Or, for that matter, engages in doing any work.
“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Ninomiya?”
“He’s not replied to my email in 5 minutes.”
Yamapi, Sho and Aiba look up, completely alarmed by this.
“Fuck.”
“Shit. We need him to get the fucking edition out.”
“Do you think the aliens kidnapped him?”
Nino rolls his eyes, and strides into Jun’s office. This is extremely easy to do when you consider the fact that it only has three walls. Somehow, despite the lack of containing facilities, the smell of coffee hits you as soon as you step over the threshold.
“Kame’s dead.”
“What? He can’t die, we haven’t published yet!”
“Excellent priorities, Jun. You try to sort out the layout, we’ll lead a building-wide search. And you need to cut down on the coffee, man. Your fingers are twitching.”
Jun makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“Hey, I thought we were looking for a body!” Aiba crowds around Nino, and just as Nino’s about to whack him for touching him, Aiba frowns.
“You guys start looking without me, I’ll catch you up.”
Nino is slightly puzzled by the fact that Jun doesn’t protest Aiba being near him while he tries to put up an edition by himself, but shrugs and let it go. Presumably, the therapeutic quality of Aiba’s idiocy is vital to the way Jun edits.
Sho grabs his arm before he can say anything snide. Besides, Aiba has plastered himself onto Jun’s back, muttering quietly while he presses keys and Jun looks calmer than he has in days. Nino figures he’ll leave them be for now, and try and figure it out later. Dead assistant editors are slightly more pressing, especially at 12:45, with a quarter of an hour before online publication.
“Come on! What if his body’s rotting already?”
“It takes slightly longer than 20 minutes, you complete imbecile.”
The part-timer with the blond tips is losing the looking-cool battle right now. But that might be because Jin has sunglasses on. Nino has always assumed they were there to hide the crazy eyes, but seeing as his best friend spends his evenings smoking up in the dark room, it’s entirely likely that he just has a permanent hangover. It would definitely explain the quality of the stories he invents.
“Right. The morons can go deal with the crazy wing, and we can deal with the bit that doesn’t have aliens inhabiting it.” Sho is too busy being worried to do more than tut under his breath at Nino’s cavalier treatment of a search party. They break off anyway, without Nino needing to explain whom he classifies in the moron category. Apparently, they’ve worked with him for long enough for it to go without saying.
Nino strides off without waiting for Sho and Yamapi to join him. It’s not like they need to jog much to catch up, the bastards with their normal-sized legs.
“I’m not at all surprised about this. I always expected him to crack during the afternoon. He’s probably writing the edition out in his own blood in the stairwell.”
Sho sputters at Yamapi’s words. “I’ll go check there first, then! He’d have lost a lot!”
He’s run off before Yamapi has a chance to tell him he was joking. Nino looks back over his shoulder.
“I always wondered if I was wrong to not put him with the other idiots.”
Yamapi shrugs. “Probably. He seems to be a bit high-strung.”
“He was best friends with Jun in college. I think high-strung was a survival instinct. It helps that he has a healthy streak of individual crazy, too. I think they helped each other along, actually. Sort of like you and Akanishi.”
“We’re not like that. We don’t work.”
Nino stops and watches Yamapi pass him by. “You make an extremely good point.”
*
They’ve combed the entire building in ten minutes, and there is no sight of Kame anywhere. Sho’s joined them again, squeaking about how Kame has clearly dragged his bleeding body out of the building and it takes both Yamapi and Nino to convince him that he’d have seen a trail of blood if this were the case.
Jun and Aiba meet them near the newsroom, and Jin and the Blond One join them soon after.
“Where the fuck could he have gone?” Jun’s just looking impatient now, so Nino assumes the edition is out.
“Did someone check his office?”
“Fuck’s sake, Aiba, we’re not stupid. Of course someone checked his office.”
Aiba looks hurt for a second until it dawns on everyone else that no one has, in fact, bothered to check the most obvious place. Nino’s pretty sure that this is the only time in the history of search parties that the collective hope-except for an extremely gleeful Aiba-is that the missing person isn’t going to be in the next place they look.
Sho opens the office door sheepishly, and in a voice tinged in relief and worry says, “Well, he’s definitely not here!”
Nino peers over his shoulder, standing on his tiptoes to get a better view. “Budge. I’ll check he’s not fallen out his window.”
He walks around the desk in the centre of the room and stops short in his tracks.
“Seriously, Kame. You need to invest in a bed and fucking sleeping pills.”
A groggy Kame blinks at him. “What? What time is it?”
“Sleepy time for you, I think.” Nino looks up at the confused denizens at the door. “I’m not actually having a conversation with his desk. He’s made himself a little cot under it. With his bin as a bloody pillow. Can someone get him some coffee and a fucking cushion?”
Jun sighs and walks over before Jin and gangster boy join him, stumbling over each other in their attempts to get closer to Kame.
“Jin, Koki, could you please go get him something to eat?” Nino’s only slightly interested to know that Blondie’s called Koki because he’s pretty sure he’ll forget it again, soon enough.
Jun squats next to Kame, who is alternating between looking worried, sheepish and extremely tired.
“So. That break we’ve been talking about. You think you want to take it, yet?”
“I’ll take a day. I don’t need any more than that. I could probably do the edits at home, anyway. I mean, I just need the internet to do the editions and it’s not li-”
Nino grabs Jun before Jun has a chance to either yell or punch Kame’s lights out. In retrospect, the latter would probably have been a good course of action.
“Take the day. Don’t do any work. Jin and Koki can babysit you. While they work from your place. While you sleep.”
Nino lets Jun go and follows him out, leaving Kame to presumably stop clinging to his bin, get off the floor and blink at his computer screen again.
“That was cruel.”
“He left me to do the afternoon edition by myself. He can deal with those two fuckers. Besides, this way he might actually learn their names. Maybe even stop them measuring penis sizes in the newsroom.”
Nino crinkles his nose. “I’m hoping Blondie’s bigger.”
Jun grins. “Aiba claims he is, the filthy pervert.”
Nino’s back at his own desk when it dawns on him that he hasn’t had time to take his lunch break. None of them have. His stomach rumbles on cue, and Sho hears it. Bastard has already started munching his sandwich, so thievery is out the window.
“Bite?”
“I’d like more than just that, actually. A whole meal would be preferable.”
Sho tosses a packet of Lays at him. “All I have.”
Nino rummages about in his own drawer, muttering to himself about not packing a lunch when one of his interns comes to his desk, equipped with a semi-coherent country profile and a stammer.
Nino grins at her. “Hey. Have you eaten yet? Squeak once for yes.”
He gets his response and grins a bit wider. “Right. Run down to the coffee place opposite and tell one of the people working there that Nino’s got no lunch, and he could starve to death. Then tell them you’re not allowed to leave till they give you something. Then bring it back.”
The intern stops looking as scared for her life and starts looking a lot more indignant. For about a minute, anyway, until she realises he’s in charge of her. She sighs and walks out the door.
“I like the slaves. They get things done, and we don’t even need to pay them. Thank god for a cutthroat economy and absolutely no jobs.”
Sho looks at him disapprovingly for long enough to make Nino feel a twinge of guilt. He decides to ignore it for his DS and the new Mario game the game reviewers shunted his way. He has another half hour before the pile on his desk will begin to totter, anyway.
EVENING EDITION Updated at: 5:00 PM
“Here.”
“Eh?” The Iran portfolio has been keeping Nino busy, and so it’s only when the scent of fried onions on a meat patty wafts towards him that he snaps his head up, with a huge smile.
“I told you I’d buy you dinner. Now eat up.”
Nino’s chewing on his hamburger even before Sho can sit down and start on his kebab.
They both look up startled when, a minute later Kame walks by-albeit stiffly, and like he’s on puppet strings-to Jin’s desk, which the Blonde One is hovering over.
“Would either of you like to get dinner?”
Nino wonders how many times Jun made him recite this line before he could say it with a minimal amount of awkwardness.
Jin’s mouth is hanging open. Blond One looks like he’s suffering a heart attack induced by an orgasm. Nino absently wonders if this would be a good superpower to have. He’d probably be able to win every single Street Fighter game that way.
Jin gurgles. Blond One squeaks.
Kame turns around, looking more than a little relieved. “I’ll just go back to wo-”
They both jump up at this. Jin’s chair gets knocked over. “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SHABU SHABU?”
Kame jumps back, visibly frightened by their enthusiasm. “Er.”
Nino realises that he should probably be trying to hide his laughter, but he can’t help it and he’s already wiping the tears from his eyes. Sho’s holding on to his table in order not to fall over, and even Jun is leaning against the wall, grinning.
“We can do the evening without you, Kame. Just go get some rest.”
Kame looks slightly murderous, and mostly helpless. “Yes, boss.”
As they walk out together, Jin and Blondie falling over themselves in order to prostate themselves at Kame’s feet, Nino suddenly realises what Jun said. “Wait. Evening edition without him?”
Jun raises an eyebrow at him, and for a minute Nino remembers why he refrains from playing that many pranks on him.
“Evening edition without him, of course. I’m not complaining.”
It’s only when Jun’s walked back into his office that Nino lets himself say anything about the idiocy of matchmaking editors-in-chief. Under his breath.
He’s just about done with an admittedly haphazard template for his section when Jun walks out again, this time with his jacket and favourite hideous scarf and hat on.
“Visiting the circus?”
Jun looks like he’s about to throw a punch, so Nino refrains from saying anything more.
“Meeting.”
Sho looks up at this. “Is this the one with Nakai?”
“If he likes the proposals we make, he might incorporate us into their network, and fuck knows we need the funding.”
Nino scratches the back of his neck. “Who’s Nakai?”
Jun massages the bridge of his nose. “He’s one of the chairmen of Japan News. If the conglomerate agrees to add us to their network, we might not go belly-up.”
“You better take Maki, then.”
“Way ahead of you. She’s waiting for me in the foyer.”
*
They’ve already posted the edition when Maki walks in ahead of Jun, and Nino can hear spines crack as everyone in the newsroom straightens their backs in an effort to look like they are contributing members of society. Maki had been recruited to lead the ad department because she had managed to convince Jun to give her a pay raise and a comfy chair before she was formally hired.
The pay raise, Nino can understand, but Jun was, and still is, extremely protective of his comfy chairs.
Jun's not sobbing out loud yet, but he seems remarkably close.
"Er. Did the meeting go well?"
Jun pretends he doesn't hear any of them and walks into his office.
A second later he's walked out again.
"You know what the worst bit is? I can't even slam the fucking door properly!"
Nino feels obliged to comment on this. "It might be because you don't have a door."
Yamapi looks up from his table. "Some people would consider self-preservation a good thing."
"I'm smaller than he is. And faster. I'd probably get away."
Jun rolls his eyes. "I'll wait till you have your DS on, idiot. We'll see how fast you run, then."
"You're being melodramatic, Jun. It went fine."
Everyone looks at Maki, who has perched herself on the edge of Sho's desk, her knees crossed.
Jun glares at her. “No, it did not!”
"Yes, it did. Nakai seemed to like you, and he definitely liked our proposals."
"He did not seem to like me, he referred to me as poodle head!"
There's an awkward silence. Everyone casts Nino sidelong glances.
“Oh, come on! Give me some credit! That one’s way too easy!”
Jun cracks a smile at this point and the rest of the room relaxes.
“I am going to go sit at my desk and pretend we’re not going bankrupt.” He turns on his faux crocodile leather heels and heads back into his office.
Maki rolls her eyes, again. “I’m worried he’s going to give himself a heart failure. I don’t think forcing this much drama into your life is healthy. Aiba, are you sure he’s eating ok?”
“Hm?” Aiba is eyeing Jun’s cubicle speculatively. “Hang on, I’ll deal with this.”
*
They don’t see Jun and Aiba slip out of the office, but they do see them come back. Mostly because they’re both holding crates of beer.
“Stop bumping into me, idiot! We haven’t even started drinking!”
Aiba giggles, and Nino wonders if it would be possible to bottle his laugh and sell it for the fortune it’s clearly worth. When they were younger, Aiba had insisted on calling Nino every night: ostensibly to talk about his day, but he often let slip (out of eagerness and an utter inability to keep anything to himself) that it was because he didn’t want Nino to be lonely. They had grown up and grown apart, but they still called each other-Nino when he thought Aiba’s smile was beginning to slip, and Aiba when Nino’s quips were crueller than normal. It had never occurred to Nino that Aiba was just as lonely as he was when they were younger, closeted in tiny apartments with nothing but work and after-work to mark their days by. It’s only slightly different now, but somewhere along the line-and without Nino realising it-frustration and isolation turned into contentment.
A beer bottle being slammed on his desk startles Nino out of his reverie, and he shakes his head before opening it on the side of his table.
Sho stares at the beer on his table. “What’s the occasion?”
He looks weary and he’s probably not going to stop work until someone beats him over the head and teaches him about the wonders of delegation. At least it’s possible in Sho’s case: Nino’s convinced that if he tried his hand at delegation, the idiots he employs will make the paper explode. He’s not sure how, but he’s sure they’ll figure out a way. He’s positive that natural laws state they must be in possession of at least a couple of talents, and writing definitely isn’t one of them.
Aiba is handing out beers like they’re candy “Not being bankrupt.”
“Yet,” Jun interjects but he’s smiling, and Nino’s startled to find that it’s genuine.
“Did you drug him?” And it’s good that Yamapi is as suspicious as he is, really.
Aiba passes him a beer, too. “Nope. He volunteered.”
Nino figures it’s best not to question it. Besides, it’s not like the odd drink won’t make the evening go a lot faster.
Ten minutes later, and he’s not so sure anymore.
Jun has decided that the edition is mostly done, and there don’t seem to be any new stories coming through. But that might be the fault of the three beers that he’s chugged in competition with Sho.
Nino is still nursing his first one, but he’s always disliked being drunk. It gives people ammunition, and really, that’s his job. Jun and Sho aren’t that far gone yet, despite the speed with which they’ve downed the Asahi. The rest of the newsroom is either taking this opportunity to sneak off without Jun icily asking them if they really think they have no work left, or are abandoning any pretence and crowding around Nino’s table in hopes of watching their editor-in-chief collapse.
Aiba has decided to use him as a leaning post and Nino can feel his back shudder every time he guffaws. Yamapi has pulled his chair up and has both feet up on Nino’s table, while Maki and Meisa have appropriated the rest of it. Nino looks sadly at the notes and edits that have been swept to the floor in their conquest for space and takes another sip of his beer.
Sho has finally loosened his tie and Jun is using it to tug him closer and then push him away, while they talk about something that sounds suspiciously like work.
Maki shifts backwards on Nino’s desk. “They have to be the most boring men in the universe.”
Meisa has her legs hooked around the back of Sho’s chair, and is focusing too hard on finishing her second beer to answer.
Nino leans back against Aiba. “I don’t know. After the fifth beer, Jun starts dancing. That’s usually something to look forward to.”
Yamapi suddenly groans. “It’s a fucking Friday.”
Aiba perks up at this. “Clubs!”
“No.” This seems to be unanimous, with even Sho perking up for long enough to shoot Aiba down.
Aiba and clubs generally end badly, with one of them having to pick him up and fold him into the back of a taxi before pouring him into his own apartment, usually leaving a glass of water, an aspirin and a sternly worded note at the side of his bed. Nino figures they’re all a bit tired of it, and it’s not like any of them ever have any energy to dance, anyway.
“It’s dark on a fucking Friday and we’re still at work, watching two morons flirt with each other, unsuccessfully.”
Sho looks slightly annoyed by this. “I flirt successfully. The only reason Jun and I aren’t wrapped in a passionate embrace right now is because we’re clearly not flirting.”
Meisa opens her third one and finally slows down enough to join in. “I have seen you flirt. It’s horrible.”
Sho starts to blush at this, and Jun grins. “Stop it! He shouldn’t be that colour. It’s not natural.”
Nino is peeling off the label on his first to avoid reaching for a second. “Your hair isn’t natural, Jun. His colour, on the other hand, suits him.”
Aiba suddenly leans into Nino and mutters, “Yamapi is still looking annoyed, Nino.”
Nino moves forward, dislodging Aiba and hears him land on the floor with an ungraceful thump.
“Right. Friday. What do normal people do on a Friday?”
“Clubs!”
Jun is laughing quietly to himself “Shut up, Masaki.”
“Parties, I think?”
Meisa snorts at this. “I’m sorry, that would require having friends who throw parties. Or, you know. Friends.”
“Someone fetch me the damn football Kame keeps in his office.”
“What?”
Everyone peers over Sho’s desk to find that Maki has finished laying out the empty beer bottles on the floor.
Nino stretches and tries to work out the crick in his neck. “Aiba’s on my team.”
“That’s not fair! You just have to aim him at the pins and hope for the best! The rest of us need to be vaguely skilled!”
“You should’ve said something before I did, then, Sakurai.”
Yamapi’s come back with a smile and dribbling the football. “Oh, fuck’s sake Nino. Did you already get dibs on Aiba?”
“I’m fast, and because no one else has mentioned it: yes, my team will be bowling first.”
They’re all laughing at this, and Nino feels a bit more relaxed than he has all week. Aiba gets a strike on his first go and watching him bounce about celebrating without hurting himself is enough to make anyone slightly giddy.
Jun leans on him as they watch Meisa taunt Aiba and then try to escape his flailing hands, and Nino thinks that’s evidence enough that Jun’s had one too many.
“I don’t want us to go under.”
“Shut the fuck up and have another one, you depressing bastard.”
Jun is clutching his half-empty bottle tightly. “We need this deal, you know that, right?”
Nino presses his shoulder against Jun’s. “We’ll get it. Your crazy eyes will cow anyone into submission.”
“Thank you.”
Nino figures he could move away, but he reasons that he’s comfortable and Jun probably needs propping up. There’s no need to add collapse-in-front-of-staff to the list of indignities he’s already suffered this week.
WEEKEND EDITION
It's 9, now and they're packing up. Aiba is hovering around Jun's chair, trying to stick pens in his hair without him noticing. They watch him for a while, his tongue sticking out in concentration and Jun's forehead getting increasingly creased in confusion and irritation.
Jun's eyes finally narrow in comprehension, and he swings around to whack Aiba, who dances out of the way, laughing.
Satisfied that the office entertainment has reached its zenith for the day, the rest of the newsroom nod and return to what they were doing.
It’s another half an hour before Sho's finally finished the last of his kebab and Nino's putting the finishing touches to his weekend folder.
They look at each other, and then back at their tables.
"I have three back up stories."
"I have two, but two should be enough."
"Did you check the sourcing?"
"Twice."
"...I think we're done here. What happens now?"
Sho grins.
"I think we get to go to bed. Do you need a lift home?"
"No, it's still early. I think I might walk."
Sho grabs his jacket and waves before he walks out.
Nino rubs his eyes in frustration as he runs a quick eye through his stories, double and triple checking for any glaringly obvious typos.
Jun and Aiba walk out together, waving at him and he suddenly realises he's alone at work. His phone is silent, and he plays with it for a minute, absently contemplating the sea of letters in front of him.
He finds himself typing Ohno's number in without thinking, and then much more deliberately sees himself type 'Pick up some wine and flowers on the way home.'
He hits the save key on his computer, and stretches. He can still hear typing, but it’s definitely not from the newsroom. He looks around, and there are a couple of monitors that are still on and emitting a soft glow, but it’s mostly the street lights that are keeping him company right now. That, and the faint whiff of cigarettes hanging about, but that’s only because the editors indulge themselves after they’ve sent the writers home.
The silence is unearthly, and he doesn't really think twice before he walks out, leaving his jacket on his chair.
*
The door is still locked when he rests his head against it, too tired to twist the key in the hole. The smell of fish sauce is filling the corridor, and it will probably smell like this for the rest of the week, he thinks. The only real reasons they had moved in here was because it was close to work for both of them, the neighbours hadn’t come to speak to Nino, and Ohno hadn’t gotten lost on his way to the grocery store. It was a test that Nino had insisted on setting him just to make sure that they wouldn’t have to have the police over regularly.
Nino falls into the apartment, and heads straight to the fridge. There is leftover pasta from last week because Jun cooks in bulk and worries almost as much as Sho does about Ohno and Nino never eating. While Jun and Aiba are indulged in their fanatic feeding frenzies, they’ve unanimously forbidden Sho from touching anything in any kitchen after he nearly burnt down Jun’s flat while making tea.
The doorbell rings just as he’s about to feed himself a couple of bites and head straight to bed.
“Fuck’s sake.” And really, people annoy him enough when he’s tired, but trying to talk to him after 10 is a recipe for disaster and potential mass murder. He’ll start with the doorbell person and move onto fish sauce house.
Stumbling to the door, he nearly trips over his shoes and is half-inclined to leave the other person there. On the other hand, it could be a police officer wanting him to identify Kame’s body.
Ohno’s holding up a bouquet of what look suspiciously like a bunch of flowers from the park, and a bottle of cheap wine.
Nino grins. “You shouldn’t have! What made you think of it?”
Ohno grins back, and walks in while Nino uncorks the bottle with surprising speed for a zombie, and pours out two glasses. He curls up on the sofa and waits for Ohno to amble over with food.
Nino reaches an arm out to grab Ohno and steady him before he flops down.
“Put the food down, at least.”
“It’s just lumpy pasta. I didn’t bother putting it in the microwave. You like it cold, anyway.”
Nino passes Ohno the glass of wine and waits for him to get settled before sticking his feet under Ohno’s thighs.
“Did many people enjoy making fun of me, then?”
“They liked the abject fear on your face.”
“If I kill you, you realise you’d deserve it?”
Ohno pulls him closer. “I don’t think you have the energy to do anything. I can probably run away and hide.”
Nino has a couple of bites before pushing the bowl back to Ohno, who tucks into whatever’s left. For a minute, their tiny front room is completely silent except for the small sounds of satisfaction coming from Ohno. Nino puts down his wineglass and rests his head against Ohno’s shoulder.
Ohno runs a hand through his hair. “How tired are you?”
“Mm?”
Ohno grins at Nino and switches on the TV before wrapping his long fingers around Nino’s chubby ones. It’s just another game show on, with the usual cast of idiots prancing about and eating bizarre foods. Ohno takes another bite of pasta and absently wonders if the reason the people on these shows dig in so heartily is because this is the only time they ever get to eat.
Nino shifts against Ohno’s shoulder and opens a single eye, blearily.
“Noisy.”
Ohno mutes it for a minute, but he’s not really paying that much attention to anything going on on the screen. The colours are too bright and they’re tiring his eyes.
Nino stifles a yawn against his shoulder.
“Come on.” He pulls Nino up and lets him fall against him.
Nino smiles tiredly. “Stop taking care of me, Oh-chan.”
Ohno rests their foreheads together. “No.”
Nino musters up the last of his energy and falls against Ohno’s lips. They stop there for a minute, breathing each other in. Ohno’s hands are slowly moving down from Nino’s hair to the nape of his neck, then his back. Nino shuffles in closer and entangles their legs, feeling their chests rise and fall in tandem.
“Okay.”
*
Nino lets Ohno shift closer, the way he won't in the day.
Sudden bursts of laughter are trickling through the thin walls. If Nino were awake, he'd probably grumble that the neighbours make too much noise when they come back from their damn parties and really this is what they get for living next door to foreigners. Ohno closes his eyes and listens to Nino's steady breathing. He was planning on leaving for the river at 5, and being back before noon so they could eat lunch together, but he doubts he'll be able to wake up in time.
There's a bit of a breeze that makes Nino shiver unconsciously. Ohno would normally get up to close the window, but Nino is pressed against his chest and the moving curtains are turning into restless shadows on the ceiling.
Watching them shift is lulling Ohno to sleep and he's half-dreaming of waves lapping against Nino's feet when he hears the phone vibrate.
'CAMBODIA TRIALS STARTING. NEED YOU TO WRITE PIECE NOW. x'
Ohno turns the phone off and pulls Nino closer to him. He can feel the warm huffs of breath against the side of his neck.
It can probably wait till tomorrow.
*
Poll Team AU
Rating: PG-13 for language
Pairing: Mostly Gen, bits of Nino/Ohno, implied Aiba/Jun and er. Unrequited Koki/Jin/Kame?
Summary: The Daily Star’s slowly going bankrupt, and really, attempting to put out multiple editions a day is more than Nino can handle. With a psychotic editor-in-chief, work-obsessed friends and idiot writers to deal with, it’s a wonder he doesn’t crack. All that often, anyway.
Prompt: Idol Rule #3724: Don't ask girls their cup size
Warnings: Crack of the highest proportions.
Notes: All mistakes are my beta’s (who yelled me into finishing). And S deserves all the blame in the world for this.
EARLY EDITION Updated at: 7:00 AM
“You’re supposed to be in here at 7 in the fucking morning, Ninomiya.”
“Oh, are we doing last names today, Matsumoto?”
Nino drops his jacket on his desk and turns around to see Jun kneading his knuckles into his forehead, eyes closed.
“And, poof! He’s vanished like the bad pixie he is!”
Jun exhales, extremely slowly. "You aren't helping, Akanishi."
Nino eyes the distance between his foot and Jin's crotch. It's too wide a gap to bridge at 8:30 in the morning, he pragmatically decides. Besides, with Jun having a bad hair day and a hissy fit about deadlines, he'd never get away with it. He might even be assigned the fucking flower show. And he's almost certain that he can be nice and logical now that Jin has wandered off to preen somewhere far away from him.
"Look, the rest of the world doesn't wake up for another couple of hours, and I was here till 2 editing the shit your paltry writers gave me on the California story. Unless Australia declared war against New Zealand over rugby, I'm pretty sure I can have a bit longer than 3 hours a night."
Jun opens his mouth, but Nino cuts him off. "And besides, even you would have been able to lift the story from the AP and stick it onto the website. Control-C, Control-V. It's like magic."
Jun snaps his mouth shut again. Nino grins. "Now fuck off, I have very important research to do. Oh-chan was asleep when I left, and I'm horny."
Jun looks like he’s about to explode. Jun frequently looks like he’s about to explode. The writers, in their mindless awe of a nameplate, reckon it comes from being editor-in-chief. The section editors know it comes from being a workaholic fashionista in charge of a failing paper.
Nino tenses up, preparing to get torn to shreds when Kame strides by, probably to grab Jun before the spit starts to fly. "No wanking in the newsroom."
“That was uncanny, Jun. Did you whistle for him?” Nino calls after their retreating backs. He figures getting the last word in is the least he can do. Especially since his table is covered in scraps of paper and, for some inexplicable reason, the entire story he commissioned on Russia’s role in Kyrgyzstan is on a fucking Post-It note. He wonders if it’s too early in the day to bully an intern into buying him a new bottle of vodka.
On the other hand, this might fall into the ‘Pushing-It’ category. There’s a box on Sho’s desk that gets filled with complaints about Nino pushing it, and every Friday, if there are fewer than 100 chits of paper, Sho buys Nino dinner. Nino himself takes explicit pleasure in getting one or two over the 100 mark and watching Sho feel bad about it and buy him dinner anyway.
Nino turns at the sound of squeaking wheels and panting. Sho is leaning forward in his chair in a desperate attempt to aim, his feet labouring against the thick carpet as he shuffles over.
“I need a coffee.”
“You look like death.”
“Yes. Coffee.”
Nino sighs. “Do you want me to go get you one, or do you want to come with me?”
“I can’t go anywhere! The stocks are down; two of our analysts quit; I have no opinion pieces; and I don’t think I can write three different articles on Greece, the dollar-to-yen rate, and why not to lose faith in everything and just kill yourself despite the fact that it’d be sweet relief and a lot like sleep and coffee. Please.”
“Right. You’re going to take a 2-minute nap at my desk. DO NOT GO BACK TO YOURS! Mine. Far away from the market. Lie down.”
Sho stares at him blankly, like a hungover owl. His bloodshot eyes don’t seem to be capable of blinking anymore.
“Just 2 minutes. And then I need to get back to work.”
Nino nods and nudges Sho’s chair slightly closer to the desk.
He whips around as soon as he can hear Sho’s soft snores and grabs the nearest intern.
“Congratulations. You’re doing research.”
*
He’s twenty minutes into trying to decipher why exactly he should care about Kyrgyzstan - something the writer doesn’t seem too clear on himself - when his extension rings and Sho jolts awake. Nino reaches over him to grab it and ignores the terrified wails about there not being enough time in the world.
“I need you to take down the bit on famine.” Kame’s voice is crisp.
“I need a feature for the African section, and people tend to get persnickety when you tell them things they don’t expect. Would you rather genocide?”
“We’ve covered both of those several times already.”
“And yet, they’re still going on! It’s strange how people expect the news to be current.”
“Take it down, Nino. Put in a corruption report, or something.”
“Fine, but only if you take two of Sho’s articles. He’s deafening me.”
“Fine.”
Nino turns to Sho when the call ends. “You know, the dial tone sounds friendlier than he does.”
“He sleeps less than I do. I don’t think he even has blood in his veins anymore. Just a steady stream of coffee.” Sho stretches and pushes his chair back to his desk. “I don’t need help, Nino. I can do the articles.”
“Fine, but take it up with the pretty boy yourself. Oh, and I had one of the slaves do your research. It should be in your inbox.”
Sho lets a wan smile escape. “Dinner’s on me.”
*
“Fuck, shit, bugger, hell, balls.”
Most people’s heads swivel around towards Meisa.
She glares back. “Health reform just got passed, and it’s too late for the Early and too early for the Morning.”
Nino can hear Kame’s sigh from outside the newsroom.
“Get someone to write an analysis on it, and we can stick it in as a headline. Till then, someone type it into Breaking News and update the feed!”
“What I don’t get is why people are bothering creating breaking news at this hour. Surely, they can just stay in bed a bit longer and give us time to sort our shit out.” For a minute, Nino is horrified that he agrees with Jin, but he figures as long as he pretends he hasn’t heard, he doesn’t need to vocalise this.
Yamapi snorts. “It’s not like we’re doing any of this. Have you thought of something to stick into weekend? I think we should go with the red on the red carpet story. That way, we’ll have to use so many pictures, we don’t have to write more than a couple of sentences.”
“Yeah, and we could add a bit on funny stories from the awards. There’ll definitely be a couple online.”
Nino doesn’t bother throwing a book at them because everyone uses picture-heavy stories on the slow days, and it’s a lot worse when he does it because his are invariably exploiting starving children, bloody warfare, or something equally cheerful to sell the paper. Besides, he likes his books too much to be flinging them at people.
Aiba might have seen his expression, because Nino’s suddenly enveloped in a bear hug.
“Do you want to read my profile on David Blaine in Tokyo?”
Nino’s hobby has given Aiba hours of pleasure as he tries to work out the card tricks and then remember the few that Nino’s bothered to teach him.
“In a bit. Did he say anything good?”
“He talked about his college years and his personal issues! It was actually quite a lot of fun, I think. We headed over to the club after and he showed me a new swing.”
Nino’s convinced that Aiba could cajole state secrets out of a spy if given enough time to assault them with his smile and eagerness. A year and a half ago when it was becoming obvious to everyone around that Aiba could and should be allowed to conduct every single interview they needed done, Jun had called Nino into his office and explicitly forbidden him from assigning Aiba any that had not been approved by both Kame and him. Nino had assumed it was because Jun got off on authority, but Jun had gone on to explain that it was because he was almost positive Nino would make him do something stupid like sweet-talk the Americans out of Okinawa. The newspaper could not afford to hire bodyguards for Aiba.
In retrospect, Nino’s pretty sure assassins wouldn’t be able to inflict the same kind of damage that Aiba does on himself. The edges of his desk are encased in rubber after the Incident last May when he had to have his arm stitched up, and when Jun had finally stopped trying to quit smoking.
MORNING EDITION Updated at: 9:30 AM
He’s wading through a piece on Chavez nearly starting wars when Nino remembers he hasn’t smoked all morning and sidles over to the window, fag in hand. The editors used to have their own room, away from the damned writers, where they could smoke without a fuss because there were no prissy health freaks amongst them. The newsroom feels odd, now that you didn’t have to squint to see the next desk.
But this was before the budget had to be looked into and their extra rooms had to be rented out to a rag who claim to conduct interviews with aliens. Normally involving questions about their sex lives and anal probing. Jun had wanted to rent it out to a magazine about cars, but Aiba had found out about the alien rag and insisted that he needed to see an alien before he died.
Jun hadn’t even put up a fight.
On the other hand, Aiba had found himself being assigned stories that no one else wanted to for over a month, after Jun had cordially invited their tenants for a meal and they had proceeded to expound upon the subject of spaceships disguised as cars for the entire evening.
Aiba joins Nino at the window with his own pack.
“Swap you erectile dysfunction for lung cancer?”
Nino looks at the warning on his own pack. “It doesn’t mean you’ll actually get it, stupid.”
Aiba holds his out, anyway and Nino rolls his eyes before he takes it. “Besides, a lack of sex is better than a slow painful death,” but Aiba is smiling at him beatifically, and Nino has to hide his reciprocal grin with his hand as he lights up.
“I did that interview with the Transport Minister last night, and I ended up convincing him that we needed drinks while we discussed his new price hikes. We ended up at that bar we went to the other time, remember? You know, the place with the tiger beer mats! Anyway, he bought us our first and second rounds, but he was a lightweight and ended up talking about how he really didn’t want to raise the prices, but he didn’t say ‘off the record’ and so I’m pretty sure I can write about it? I’d like to, anyway. He seems quite nice, and I don’t want everyone hating him.”
Nino nods. He doesn’t speak over his first fag of the day, and it’s not like Aiba needs anyone else to do anything but nod in the mornings. Ryo once darkly muttered something about Aiba pouring coffee over his cereal, but Nino never really pays attention to Ryo’s dark mutterings, especially when he finds ogling Ohno over the counter of the coffee house a much more productive activity.
Meisa wanders over at this point, already sucking one down, rolling her eyes at the elaborate fake coughs that follow her on the way there. She’s probably one of the only reporters that any of the editors will suffer, and it hasn’t even got anything to do with the fact that they would all follow her around, tongues hanging out if she so much as snapped her fingers. There were no women in the entire paper under their last editor, who famously gave an interview saying he did not think women could write and was promptly forced to choose between a quiet retirement and a lynch mob. When Jun had taken over, the old policy was done away with and Meisa was one of the reporters who had quickly gone from leisure to local news to national politics. Nino had been trying to blackmail Shige into letting her join the international team for two months now, but - much to his disgust - Shige had only ever littered before, and even that was probably only a rumour that Yamapi had started.
“Aiba, Shige wants that interview. I’d get it to him before he whines to Kame.”
Aiba grins back at her, and with self-restraint that Nino didn’t think he possessed, doesn’t mention anything about her cleavage. But then again, getting whacked around the head by multiple people every time he does has to have an effect, eventually. Even on Aiba.
“I still don’t understand him.” Meisa mutters, while watching Aiba walk away.
“I don’t think you’re meant to. It’s probably one of those conundrums where if you do understand, he’ll disappear and be replaced by something even more complex.”
“It’s not clever to quote other people’s witticisms, you know.”
“I haven’t had my morning coffee, yet. I’m allowed.”
Meisa laughs and, Nino should probably not find it as pleasing a sound as he does, but there isn’t really another living soul that would blame him.
He tosses the butt out of the window before stretching and trying in vain to hide a yawn. It’s too early in the day to be craving a nap.
“Coffee,” he mutters before he walks out.
He hadn’t visited the coffee house at all in his first three years of working at the paper, purely because it was easier to bully interns into buying the cups for him. And then, he had been out shopping after finishing early for the first time in what felt like the better part of a century, and had bumped into Ohno. It had been cold in the supermarket, and Nino had considered just eating the cheese he had left at home with some bread, but Ohno grabbed the last marked-down loaf just as Nino was starting to reach for it. They had ended up having dinner together at Nino’s tiny flat because Ohno had claimed he couldn’t finish the loaf by himself that night and because Nino had claimed the same about his cheese.
They had ended up living together before the end of the month.
“Hey, Nino.” Ryo is wearing an apron and a long-suffering expression. Nino mutters something that could be construed as a greeting at him before walking behind the counter and resting his head on Ohno’s shoulder.
Ohno walks around the floor space slowly, out of consideration for the dead weight on his back, as he fixes Nino his coffee.
“There’s a new one, by the way,” he says quietly while he props Nino up against the counter and pushes the cappuccino into his hands.
Nino turns around and searches the walls while Ohno walks away, sounding very much like he’s stifling a laugh.
There is a new painting on the wall - water colour, Nino reckons. And extremely well done: he can recognise his own terrified expression extremely well, and the school of fish that is chasing him have faces covered in varying levels of glee. Nino counts down from ten.
“Really?”
“The customers seem to like it. And you said you really enjoyed the one I drew of Sho flailing against an onslaught of cheeky ties.”
“Yes, but that was Sho!”
Ohno has to leave at this point to serve customers, and Nino doubts a conversation with Ryo would fail to mention the fact that he apparently has a phobia of fish - a complete and utter lie, he cares a lot more about their habitat than their stupid googly eyes - and an extremely cruel boyfriend.
“Hey, isn’t that you?!” Ohno doubles over while the customer gestures excitedly at Nino and back to the painting. Walking away is probably his best option right now.
AFTERNOON EDITION Updated at: 1:00 PM
He’s sent his final edits to Kame before he feels hungry enough to eat a horse, which is a relatively uncommon occurrence in itself. It makes it even more odd that his final edits don’t contain notes begging Kame to fire every single one of his writers. Just most of them.
Nino’s almost ready to steal Sho’s sandwich when he notices that Kame hasn’t responded to his email. Considering the usual practices of anal retentiveness that the man engages in, Nino is ready to bet he’s either keeled over at his laptop or finally gone insane and murdered Jun with his own hairbrush.
“Hey, Akanishi. I think Kame’s dead.”
Jin and the blond part-timer-possibly named Kou or Kogi or something-whom he seems to be engaging in an ongoing pissing contest with both pop their heads up like extremely alert meerkats. He’s pretty sure Kame will never notice either of them, because neither of them looks like a completed edition. Or, for that matter, engages in doing any work.
“What? What the hell is that supposed to mean, Ninomiya?”
“He’s not replied to my email in 5 minutes.”
Yamapi, Sho and Aiba look up, completely alarmed by this.
“Fuck.”
“Shit. We need him to get the fucking edition out.”
“Do you think the aliens kidnapped him?”
Nino rolls his eyes, and strides into Jun’s office. This is extremely easy to do when you consider the fact that it only has three walls. Somehow, despite the lack of containing facilities, the smell of coffee hits you as soon as you step over the threshold.
“Kame’s dead.”
“What? He can’t die, we haven’t published yet!”
“Excellent priorities, Jun. You try to sort out the layout, we’ll lead a building-wide search. And you need to cut down on the coffee, man. Your fingers are twitching.”
Jun makes a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“Hey, I thought we were looking for a body!” Aiba crowds around Nino, and just as Nino’s about to whack him for touching him, Aiba frowns.
“You guys start looking without me, I’ll catch you up.”
Nino is slightly puzzled by the fact that Jun doesn’t protest Aiba being near him while he tries to put up an edition by himself, but shrugs and let it go. Presumably, the therapeutic quality of Aiba’s idiocy is vital to the way Jun edits.
Sho grabs his arm before he can say anything snide. Besides, Aiba has plastered himself onto Jun’s back, muttering quietly while he presses keys and Jun looks calmer than he has in days. Nino figures he’ll leave them be for now, and try and figure it out later. Dead assistant editors are slightly more pressing, especially at 12:45, with a quarter of an hour before online publication.
“Come on! What if his body’s rotting already?”
“It takes slightly longer than 20 minutes, you complete imbecile.”
The part-timer with the blond tips is losing the looking-cool battle right now. But that might be because Jin has sunglasses on. Nino has always assumed they were there to hide the crazy eyes, but seeing as his best friend spends his evenings smoking up in the dark room, it’s entirely likely that he just has a permanent hangover. It would definitely explain the quality of the stories he invents.
“Right. The morons can go deal with the crazy wing, and we can deal with the bit that doesn’t have aliens inhabiting it.” Sho is too busy being worried to do more than tut under his breath at Nino’s cavalier treatment of a search party. They break off anyway, without Nino needing to explain whom he classifies in the moron category. Apparently, they’ve worked with him for long enough for it to go without saying.
Nino strides off without waiting for Sho and Yamapi to join him. It’s not like they need to jog much to catch up, the bastards with their normal-sized legs.
“I’m not at all surprised about this. I always expected him to crack during the afternoon. He’s probably writing the edition out in his own blood in the stairwell.”
Sho sputters at Yamapi’s words. “I’ll go check there first, then! He’d have lost a lot!”
He’s run off before Yamapi has a chance to tell him he was joking. Nino looks back over his shoulder.
“I always wondered if I was wrong to not put him with the other idiots.”
Yamapi shrugs. “Probably. He seems to be a bit high-strung.”
“He was best friends with Jun in college. I think high-strung was a survival instinct. It helps that he has a healthy streak of individual crazy, too. I think they helped each other along, actually. Sort of like you and Akanishi.”
“We’re not like that. We don’t work.”
Nino stops and watches Yamapi pass him by. “You make an extremely good point.”
*
They’ve combed the entire building in ten minutes, and there is no sight of Kame anywhere. Sho’s joined them again, squeaking about how Kame has clearly dragged his bleeding body out of the building and it takes both Yamapi and Nino to convince him that he’d have seen a trail of blood if this were the case.
Jun and Aiba meet them near the newsroom, and Jin and the Blond One join them soon after.
“Where the fuck could he have gone?” Jun’s just looking impatient now, so Nino assumes the edition is out.
“Did someone check his office?”
“Fuck’s sake, Aiba, we’re not stupid. Of course someone checked his office.”
Aiba looks hurt for a second until it dawns on everyone else that no one has, in fact, bothered to check the most obvious place. Nino’s pretty sure that this is the only time in the history of search parties that the collective hope-except for an extremely gleeful Aiba-is that the missing person isn’t going to be in the next place they look.
Sho opens the office door sheepishly, and in a voice tinged in relief and worry says, “Well, he’s definitely not here!”
Nino peers over his shoulder, standing on his tiptoes to get a better view. “Budge. I’ll check he’s not fallen out his window.”
He walks around the desk in the centre of the room and stops short in his tracks.
“Seriously, Kame. You need to invest in a bed and fucking sleeping pills.”
A groggy Kame blinks at him. “What? What time is it?”
“Sleepy time for you, I think.” Nino looks up at the confused denizens at the door. “I’m not actually having a conversation with his desk. He’s made himself a little cot under it. With his bin as a bloody pillow. Can someone get him some coffee and a fucking cushion?”
Jun sighs and walks over before Jin and gangster boy join him, stumbling over each other in their attempts to get closer to Kame.
“Jin, Koki, could you please go get him something to eat?” Nino’s only slightly interested to know that Blondie’s called Koki because he’s pretty sure he’ll forget it again, soon enough.
Jun squats next to Kame, who is alternating between looking worried, sheepish and extremely tired.
“So. That break we’ve been talking about. You think you want to take it, yet?”
“I’ll take a day. I don’t need any more than that. I could probably do the edits at home, anyway. I mean, I just need the internet to do the editions and it’s not li-”
Nino grabs Jun before Jun has a chance to either yell or punch Kame’s lights out. In retrospect, the latter would probably have been a good course of action.
“Take the day. Don’t do any work. Jin and Koki can babysit you. While they work from your place. While you sleep.”
Nino lets Jun go and follows him out, leaving Kame to presumably stop clinging to his bin, get off the floor and blink at his computer screen again.
“That was cruel.”
“He left me to do the afternoon edition by myself. He can deal with those two fuckers. Besides, this way he might actually learn their names. Maybe even stop them measuring penis sizes in the newsroom.”
Nino crinkles his nose. “I’m hoping Blondie’s bigger.”
Jun grins. “Aiba claims he is, the filthy pervert.”
Nino’s back at his own desk when it dawns on him that he hasn’t had time to take his lunch break. None of them have. His stomach rumbles on cue, and Sho hears it. Bastard has already started munching his sandwich, so thievery is out the window.
“Bite?”
“I’d like more than just that, actually. A whole meal would be preferable.”
Sho tosses a packet of Lays at him. “All I have.”
Nino rummages about in his own drawer, muttering to himself about not packing a lunch when one of his interns comes to his desk, equipped with a semi-coherent country profile and a stammer.
Nino grins at her. “Hey. Have you eaten yet? Squeak once for yes.”
He gets his response and grins a bit wider. “Right. Run down to the coffee place opposite and tell one of the people working there that Nino’s got no lunch, and he could starve to death. Then tell them you’re not allowed to leave till they give you something. Then bring it back.”
The intern stops looking as scared for her life and starts looking a lot more indignant. For about a minute, anyway, until she realises he’s in charge of her. She sighs and walks out the door.
“I like the slaves. They get things done, and we don’t even need to pay them. Thank god for a cutthroat economy and absolutely no jobs.”
Sho looks at him disapprovingly for long enough to make Nino feel a twinge of guilt. He decides to ignore it for his DS and the new Mario game the game reviewers shunted his way. He has another half hour before the pile on his desk will begin to totter, anyway.
EVENING EDITION Updated at: 5:00 PM
“Here.”
“Eh?” The Iran portfolio has been keeping Nino busy, and so it’s only when the scent of fried onions on a meat patty wafts towards him that he snaps his head up, with a huge smile.
“I told you I’d buy you dinner. Now eat up.”
Nino’s chewing on his hamburger even before Sho can sit down and start on his kebab.
They both look up startled when, a minute later Kame walks by-albeit stiffly, and like he’s on puppet strings-to Jin’s desk, which the Blonde One is hovering over.
“Would either of you like to get dinner?”
Nino wonders how many times Jun made him recite this line before he could say it with a minimal amount of awkwardness.
Jin’s mouth is hanging open. Blond One looks like he’s suffering a heart attack induced by an orgasm. Nino absently wonders if this would be a good superpower to have. He’d probably be able to win every single Street Fighter game that way.
Jin gurgles. Blond One squeaks.
Kame turns around, looking more than a little relieved. “I’ll just go back to wo-”
They both jump up at this. Jin’s chair gets knocked over. “HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SHABU SHABU?”
Kame jumps back, visibly frightened by their enthusiasm. “Er.”
Nino realises that he should probably be trying to hide his laughter, but he can’t help it and he’s already wiping the tears from his eyes. Sho’s holding on to his table in order not to fall over, and even Jun is leaning against the wall, grinning.
“We can do the evening without you, Kame. Just go get some rest.”
Kame looks slightly murderous, and mostly helpless. “Yes, boss.”
As they walk out together, Jin and Blondie falling over themselves in order to prostate themselves at Kame’s feet, Nino suddenly realises what Jun said. “Wait. Evening edition without him?”
Jun raises an eyebrow at him, and for a minute Nino remembers why he refrains from playing that many pranks on him.
“Evening edition without him, of course. I’m not complaining.”
It’s only when Jun’s walked back into his office that Nino lets himself say anything about the idiocy of matchmaking editors-in-chief. Under his breath.
He’s just about done with an admittedly haphazard template for his section when Jun walks out again, this time with his jacket and favourite hideous scarf and hat on.
“Visiting the circus?”
Jun looks like he’s about to throw a punch, so Nino refrains from saying anything more.
“Meeting.”
Sho looks up at this. “Is this the one with Nakai?”
“If he likes the proposals we make, he might incorporate us into their network, and fuck knows we need the funding.”
Nino scratches the back of his neck. “Who’s Nakai?”
Jun massages the bridge of his nose. “He’s one of the chairmen of Japan News. If the conglomerate agrees to add us to their network, we might not go belly-up.”
“You better take Maki, then.”
“Way ahead of you. She’s waiting for me in the foyer.”
*
They’ve already posted the edition when Maki walks in ahead of Jun, and Nino can hear spines crack as everyone in the newsroom straightens their backs in an effort to look like they are contributing members of society. Maki had been recruited to lead the ad department because she had managed to convince Jun to give her a pay raise and a comfy chair before she was formally hired.
The pay raise, Nino can understand, but Jun was, and still is, extremely protective of his comfy chairs.
Jun's not sobbing out loud yet, but he seems remarkably close.
"Er. Did the meeting go well?"
Jun pretends he doesn't hear any of them and walks into his office.
A second later he's walked out again.
"You know what the worst bit is? I can't even slam the fucking door properly!"
Nino feels obliged to comment on this. "It might be because you don't have a door."
Yamapi looks up from his table. "Some people would consider self-preservation a good thing."
"I'm smaller than he is. And faster. I'd probably get away."
Jun rolls his eyes. "I'll wait till you have your DS on, idiot. We'll see how fast you run, then."
"You're being melodramatic, Jun. It went fine."
Everyone looks at Maki, who has perched herself on the edge of Sho's desk, her knees crossed.
Jun glares at her. “No, it did not!”
"Yes, it did. Nakai seemed to like you, and he definitely liked our proposals."
"He did not seem to like me, he referred to me as poodle head!"
There's an awkward silence. Everyone casts Nino sidelong glances.
“Oh, come on! Give me some credit! That one’s way too easy!”
Jun cracks a smile at this point and the rest of the room relaxes.
“I am going to go sit at my desk and pretend we’re not going bankrupt.” He turns on his faux crocodile leather heels and heads back into his office.
Maki rolls her eyes, again. “I’m worried he’s going to give himself a heart failure. I don’t think forcing this much drama into your life is healthy. Aiba, are you sure he’s eating ok?”
“Hm?” Aiba is eyeing Jun’s cubicle speculatively. “Hang on, I’ll deal with this.”
*
They don’t see Jun and Aiba slip out of the office, but they do see them come back. Mostly because they’re both holding crates of beer.
“Stop bumping into me, idiot! We haven’t even started drinking!”
Aiba giggles, and Nino wonders if it would be possible to bottle his laugh and sell it for the fortune it’s clearly worth. When they were younger, Aiba had insisted on calling Nino every night: ostensibly to talk about his day, but he often let slip (out of eagerness and an utter inability to keep anything to himself) that it was because he didn’t want Nino to be lonely. They had grown up and grown apart, but they still called each other-Nino when he thought Aiba’s smile was beginning to slip, and Aiba when Nino’s quips were crueller than normal. It had never occurred to Nino that Aiba was just as lonely as he was when they were younger, closeted in tiny apartments with nothing but work and after-work to mark their days by. It’s only slightly different now, but somewhere along the line-and without Nino realising it-frustration and isolation turned into contentment.
A beer bottle being slammed on his desk startles Nino out of his reverie, and he shakes his head before opening it on the side of his table.
Sho stares at the beer on his table. “What’s the occasion?”
He looks weary and he’s probably not going to stop work until someone beats him over the head and teaches him about the wonders of delegation. At least it’s possible in Sho’s case: Nino’s convinced that if he tried his hand at delegation, the idiots he employs will make the paper explode. He’s not sure how, but he’s sure they’ll figure out a way. He’s positive that natural laws state they must be in possession of at least a couple of talents, and writing definitely isn’t one of them.
Aiba is handing out beers like they’re candy “Not being bankrupt.”
“Yet,” Jun interjects but he’s smiling, and Nino’s startled to find that it’s genuine.
“Did you drug him?” And it’s good that Yamapi is as suspicious as he is, really.
Aiba passes him a beer, too. “Nope. He volunteered.”
Nino figures it’s best not to question it. Besides, it’s not like the odd drink won’t make the evening go a lot faster.
Ten minutes later, and he’s not so sure anymore.
Jun has decided that the edition is mostly done, and there don’t seem to be any new stories coming through. But that might be the fault of the three beers that he’s chugged in competition with Sho.
Nino is still nursing his first one, but he’s always disliked being drunk. It gives people ammunition, and really, that’s his job. Jun and Sho aren’t that far gone yet, despite the speed with which they’ve downed the Asahi. The rest of the newsroom is either taking this opportunity to sneak off without Jun icily asking them if they really think they have no work left, or are abandoning any pretence and crowding around Nino’s table in hopes of watching their editor-in-chief collapse.
Aiba has decided to use him as a leaning post and Nino can feel his back shudder every time he guffaws. Yamapi has pulled his chair up and has both feet up on Nino’s table, while Maki and Meisa have appropriated the rest of it. Nino looks sadly at the notes and edits that have been swept to the floor in their conquest for space and takes another sip of his beer.
Sho has finally loosened his tie and Jun is using it to tug him closer and then push him away, while they talk about something that sounds suspiciously like work.
Maki shifts backwards on Nino’s desk. “They have to be the most boring men in the universe.”
Meisa has her legs hooked around the back of Sho’s chair, and is focusing too hard on finishing her second beer to answer.
Nino leans back against Aiba. “I don’t know. After the fifth beer, Jun starts dancing. That’s usually something to look forward to.”
Yamapi suddenly groans. “It’s a fucking Friday.”
Aiba perks up at this. “Clubs!”
“No.” This seems to be unanimous, with even Sho perking up for long enough to shoot Aiba down.
Aiba and clubs generally end badly, with one of them having to pick him up and fold him into the back of a taxi before pouring him into his own apartment, usually leaving a glass of water, an aspirin and a sternly worded note at the side of his bed. Nino figures they’re all a bit tired of it, and it’s not like any of them ever have any energy to dance, anyway.
“It’s dark on a fucking Friday and we’re still at work, watching two morons flirt with each other, unsuccessfully.”
Sho looks slightly annoyed by this. “I flirt successfully. The only reason Jun and I aren’t wrapped in a passionate embrace right now is because we’re clearly not flirting.”
Meisa opens her third one and finally slows down enough to join in. “I have seen you flirt. It’s horrible.”
Sho starts to blush at this, and Jun grins. “Stop it! He shouldn’t be that colour. It’s not natural.”
Nino is peeling off the label on his first to avoid reaching for a second. “Your hair isn’t natural, Jun. His colour, on the other hand, suits him.”
Aiba suddenly leans into Nino and mutters, “Yamapi is still looking annoyed, Nino.”
Nino moves forward, dislodging Aiba and hears him land on the floor with an ungraceful thump.
“Right. Friday. What do normal people do on a Friday?”
“Clubs!”
Jun is laughing quietly to himself “Shut up, Masaki.”
“Parties, I think?”
Meisa snorts at this. “I’m sorry, that would require having friends who throw parties. Or, you know. Friends.”
“Someone fetch me the damn football Kame keeps in his office.”
“What?”
Everyone peers over Sho’s desk to find that Maki has finished laying out the empty beer bottles on the floor.
Nino stretches and tries to work out the crick in his neck. “Aiba’s on my team.”
“That’s not fair! You just have to aim him at the pins and hope for the best! The rest of us need to be vaguely skilled!”
“You should’ve said something before I did, then, Sakurai.”
Yamapi’s come back with a smile and dribbling the football. “Oh, fuck’s sake Nino. Did you already get dibs on Aiba?”
“I’m fast, and because no one else has mentioned it: yes, my team will be bowling first.”
They’re all laughing at this, and Nino feels a bit more relaxed than he has all week. Aiba gets a strike on his first go and watching him bounce about celebrating without hurting himself is enough to make anyone slightly giddy.
Jun leans on him as they watch Meisa taunt Aiba and then try to escape his flailing hands, and Nino thinks that’s evidence enough that Jun’s had one too many.
“I don’t want us to go under.”
“Shut the fuck up and have another one, you depressing bastard.”
Jun is clutching his half-empty bottle tightly. “We need this deal, you know that, right?”
Nino presses his shoulder against Jun’s. “We’ll get it. Your crazy eyes will cow anyone into submission.”
“Thank you.”
Nino figures he could move away, but he reasons that he’s comfortable and Jun probably needs propping up. There’s no need to add collapse-in-front-of-staff to the list of indignities he’s already suffered this week.
WEEKEND EDITION
It's 9, now and they're packing up. Aiba is hovering around Jun's chair, trying to stick pens in his hair without him noticing. They watch him for a while, his tongue sticking out in concentration and Jun's forehead getting increasingly creased in confusion and irritation.
Jun's eyes finally narrow in comprehension, and he swings around to whack Aiba, who dances out of the way, laughing.
Satisfied that the office entertainment has reached its zenith for the day, the rest of the newsroom nod and return to what they were doing.
It’s another half an hour before Sho's finally finished the last of his kebab and Nino's putting the finishing touches to his weekend folder.
They look at each other, and then back at their tables.
"I have three back up stories."
"I have two, but two should be enough."
"Did you check the sourcing?"
"Twice."
"...I think we're done here. What happens now?"
Sho grins.
"I think we get to go to bed. Do you need a lift home?"
"No, it's still early. I think I might walk."
Sho grabs his jacket and waves before he walks out.
Nino rubs his eyes in frustration as he runs a quick eye through his stories, double and triple checking for any glaringly obvious typos.
Jun and Aiba walk out together, waving at him and he suddenly realises he's alone at work. His phone is silent, and he plays with it for a minute, absently contemplating the sea of letters in front of him.
He finds himself typing Ohno's number in without thinking, and then much more deliberately sees himself type 'Pick up some wine and flowers on the way home.'
He hits the save key on his computer, and stretches. He can still hear typing, but it’s definitely not from the newsroom. He looks around, and there are a couple of monitors that are still on and emitting a soft glow, but it’s mostly the street lights that are keeping him company right now. That, and the faint whiff of cigarettes hanging about, but that’s only because the editors indulge themselves after they’ve sent the writers home.
The silence is unearthly, and he doesn't really think twice before he walks out, leaving his jacket on his chair.
*
The door is still locked when he rests his head against it, too tired to twist the key in the hole. The smell of fish sauce is filling the corridor, and it will probably smell like this for the rest of the week, he thinks. The only real reasons they had moved in here was because it was close to work for both of them, the neighbours hadn’t come to speak to Nino, and Ohno hadn’t gotten lost on his way to the grocery store. It was a test that Nino had insisted on setting him just to make sure that they wouldn’t have to have the police over regularly.
Nino falls into the apartment, and heads straight to the fridge. There is leftover pasta from last week because Jun cooks in bulk and worries almost as much as Sho does about Ohno and Nino never eating. While Jun and Aiba are indulged in their fanatic feeding frenzies, they’ve unanimously forbidden Sho from touching anything in any kitchen after he nearly burnt down Jun’s flat while making tea.
The doorbell rings just as he’s about to feed himself a couple of bites and head straight to bed.
“Fuck’s sake.” And really, people annoy him enough when he’s tired, but trying to talk to him after 10 is a recipe for disaster and potential mass murder. He’ll start with the doorbell person and move onto fish sauce house.
Stumbling to the door, he nearly trips over his shoes and is half-inclined to leave the other person there. On the other hand, it could be a police officer wanting him to identify Kame’s body.
Ohno’s holding up a bouquet of what look suspiciously like a bunch of flowers from the park, and a bottle of cheap wine.
Nino grins. “You shouldn’t have! What made you think of it?”
Ohno grins back, and walks in while Nino uncorks the bottle with surprising speed for a zombie, and pours out two glasses. He curls up on the sofa and waits for Ohno to amble over with food.
Nino reaches an arm out to grab Ohno and steady him before he flops down.
“Put the food down, at least.”
“It’s just lumpy pasta. I didn’t bother putting it in the microwave. You like it cold, anyway.”
Nino passes Ohno the glass of wine and waits for him to get settled before sticking his feet under Ohno’s thighs.
“Did many people enjoy making fun of me, then?”
“They liked the abject fear on your face.”
“If I kill you, you realise you’d deserve it?”
Ohno pulls him closer. “I don’t think you have the energy to do anything. I can probably run away and hide.”
Nino has a couple of bites before pushing the bowl back to Ohno, who tucks into whatever’s left. For a minute, their tiny front room is completely silent except for the small sounds of satisfaction coming from Ohno. Nino puts down his wineglass and rests his head against Ohno’s shoulder.
Ohno runs a hand through his hair. “How tired are you?”
“Mm?”
Ohno grins at Nino and switches on the TV before wrapping his long fingers around Nino’s chubby ones. It’s just another game show on, with the usual cast of idiots prancing about and eating bizarre foods. Ohno takes another bite of pasta and absently wonders if the reason the people on these shows dig in so heartily is because this is the only time they ever get to eat.
Nino shifts against Ohno’s shoulder and opens a single eye, blearily.
“Noisy.”
Ohno mutes it for a minute, but he’s not really paying that much attention to anything going on on the screen. The colours are too bright and they’re tiring his eyes.
Nino stifles a yawn against his shoulder.
“Come on.” He pulls Nino up and lets him fall against him.
Nino smiles tiredly. “Stop taking care of me, Oh-chan.”
Ohno rests their foreheads together. “No.”
Nino musters up the last of his energy and falls against Ohno’s lips. They stop there for a minute, breathing each other in. Ohno’s hands are slowly moving down from Nino’s hair to the nape of his neck, then his back. Nino shuffles in closer and entangles their legs, feeling their chests rise and fall in tandem.
“Okay.”
*
Nino lets Ohno shift closer, the way he won't in the day.
Sudden bursts of laughter are trickling through the thin walls. If Nino were awake, he'd probably grumble that the neighbours make too much noise when they come back from their damn parties and really this is what they get for living next door to foreigners. Ohno closes his eyes and listens to Nino's steady breathing. He was planning on leaving for the river at 5, and being back before noon so they could eat lunch together, but he doubts he'll be able to wake up in time.
There's a bit of a breeze that makes Nino shiver unconsciously. Ohno would normally get up to close the window, but Nino is pressed against his chest and the moving curtains are turning into restless shadows on the ceiling.
Watching them shift is lulling Ohno to sleep and he's half-dreaming of waves lapping against Nino's feet when he hears the phone vibrate.
'CAMBODIA TRIALS STARTING. NEED YOU TO WRITE PIECE NOW. x'
Ohno turns the phone off and pulls Nino closer to him. He can feel the warm huffs of breath against the side of his neck.
It can probably wait till tomorrow.
*
Poll Team AU