[1-shot]
Title: Endocrinology, to infinity and beyond.
Pairing: Sort of Nabedera. Bit of Sanazawa.
Rating: G
Summary: In which Ikki is ignored for unfathomable reasons.
A/N: This is very obviously for replay_dolly. I failed hard to give Abe a role so I got myself an icon with him -paws it-
Actually, while I'm making author's notes, unbetaed. Fear me.
It has taken months of hard work and toil, but Onodera has finally achieved his Growth Spurt. He has elevated himself a total of 1.2cms in the past 2 months. Yes, he acknowledges, 1.2cms may not seem like all that much - especially with a certain beanpole front man hogging all the glory. Nevertheless, he gels his hair with a certain pride that morning. For he is a man now, and that is how men roll.
~.~.~
When he strides into the MSM dressing room later that day, precisely no one notices him. He’s been there arranging the contents of his locker for 4 minutes and 32 seconds when Miyadate walks into him. The boy blinks.
“Ikki~ You’re late.”
His tone of disapproval causes an automatic reaction whereby Onodera’s feet suddenly become fascinating and - oh look! - they shuffle all on their own. Onodera shakes himself out of it after a second. This is Miyadate, he reminds himself. It is, therefore, highly probable that he is being fucked with. And that is maybe not how men roll.
As he looks back up, he is fully prepared to show Miyadate who’s boss. He squares his shoulders in readiness for the witty retort - which he hasn’t actually planned yet - to dart fiercely off his tongue. Except, at the last minute, his gaze flickers and he gets distracted. Fukka’s looking at him. Looking at him with his huge, non-light reflecting eyes. And smiling. Onodera smiles back weakly.
“Maa ne,” Miyadate goes on conversationally, “Not that it really matters. Sanada’s still on a hunt for our schedule.”
He ruffles Onodera’s hair then turns to go - frowning at his hand and muttering something about needing to wash the gel off.
Starting work with a confrontation such as that does not suit Onodera. But he figures he can handle it. He’s got the balls/spunk/moxy/height… whatever. He reaches into his locker for a refreshing snifter of his melon fanta. Tragically, his melon fanta appears to have been misplaced. Miyadate, he sees, has the great fortune to have obtained a bottle of melon fanta. It’s currently standing on the bench, between said boy and Fukka. Onodera would never like to suggest that these two happenstances might be linked. He just thinks it’s a Very Interesting Coincidence - one that he decides to save up to Mention In Passing to Watanabe after practice.
~.~.~
Sanada marches in some minutes later.
“Schedule,” he announces, holding a couple of sheets of coffee-stained A4 paper up to illustrate. A chorus of lacklustre cheers greets him in response.
“Right then…”
He comes to a halt and begins running through what they’ll be doing that day and for the next week, who they’re back dancing for, what events, where… Of course, the schedule Julie okays over her morning frapuccino is liable to change radically before she’s even finished her lunchtime mocha latte. Still, that’s all the more reason to pay attention, Onodera reasons. It’d be easier to take your eye off the ball if you weren’t familiar with the ball’s original dimensions and trajectory.
Onodera squints a bit, pondering if he just thought something smart that he should remember for later. He supposes it was at least good enough to impress Jesse Luis with. Thus concluded, he brings his focus back to Sanada and why Sanada is standing directly in front of him.
Onodera wants to sit down to listen, like everyone else. But if he did, his knees would end up bumping into the back of Sanada’s legs. Then there’d likely be falling over. Or at least awkwardness. They haven’t even started dancing yet - it’s too early for Falling Over and Awkwardness.
He scans the room - what he can see of it with Sanada’s shoulders blocking his view - for Nozawa. This seems like the sort of thing Nozawa should be here for, unobtrusively leading his partner to stand anywhere else. He spots the boy half-asleep on Watanabe’s shoulder. Onodera doesn’t want to cause a scene - or accidentally whack Sanada in the head. So he keeps his hands at his sides and makes Significant Eyebrow Gestures at the boy. Nozawa doesn’t notice and, after a few minutes, Onodera’s face is tired and oddly sweaty.
“And…that’s it. Ok, let’s get going.”
Sanada gets a marginally less lacklustre chorus of cheers this time. Folding up the schedule, he turns and manages to elbow Onodera in the nose.
“Agh! Sorry, Ikki,” he gasps, jumping back on instinct and smacking into Iwamoto. Who promptly topples over. Causing Sanada to fall backwards, landing between Sakuma’s legs. Sakuma frowns at both of them.
“When did you get here?” Sanada continues, ignoring the interruption as Nozawa hauls him to his feet, “Well, never mind. Look over this when you get a chance. We have to start already.”
He hands Onodera the schedule and heads out of the room with Nozawa. As they leave, Onodera could swear he hears Sanada whisper something to the effect of “Was Ikkichan wearing hair gel?”
Other than himself, Iwamoto’s the last to leave. He scrambles to his feet then struts coolly out of the room. With the sudden exodus, it feels amazingly empty and still. Onodera straightens his back and raises his chin up. (Basically, it’s his Sakuma impression). He’d been able to see more over Sanada’s shoulders than he’d expected.
Onodera feels good.
~.~.~
None of the sempai mention his Growth Spurt either. He’s not surprised. He’s sure they’re all quietly awed. Not to mention he feels like he’s got the hang of it now. Like he knows something of the esoteric mysteries that Hasshi and Nokkun and those guys seemed to figure out ages ago.
After calling break, Yokoo pokes him in the head and tells him to go sort out his hair. Onodera obediently trudges to the bathrooms. Give it a year or so, he avows in the privacy of his own thoughts, and he’ll have surpassed all of A.B.C. Though, probably not their -Z. He’ll definitely have left Kitayama in his wake.
He peers at himself in the bathroom mirror while he tries to bring the sweat and hair gel together to form something approaching an idol-cut.
Does he want to leave Kitayama in his wake, he wonders. Kitayama is terrifying. And he commands respect without needing to (physically) look down at his band mates. And A.B.C can do all the things they can do in part because of their compact proportions.
Onodera peers at himself in the mirror. He’s suddenly quite worried.
His train of though is derailed when Kikuchi comes tearing into the room, closely followed by Hagiya. Hagiya leaps at Kikuchi, flinging an arm around his neck and slapping a hand to the boy’s forehead. Both of them are breathless and giggling. Shintaro dashes into the room a moment later, skidding to a halt before he collides with the two boys.
“Damn it!” he shouts, grinning.
Hagiya sticks his tongue out at him. Onodera chuckles at that.
“What are you doing?”
“Tag,” Shintaro answers.
“Den is Kikuchi’s face,” Hagiya explains cheerfully.
“Want to play?” Shintaro asks, “If Hagichan can leave this room, den becomes Nakaken’s face.”
Onodera wriggles a bit. He drags a hand though his hair - undoing in one move much of the work he’d just put in to making it pretty. He considers if tag can be part of how men roll.
“Come on, guys. That’s kind of childish. Why would I want to play?”
Shintaro shrugs.
“Whatever. You struck me as the tag type.”
Onodera stares at him.
“What in the world is ‘tag type’ supposed to imply?” he carefully does not shriek.
Hagiya takes the lull as his cue to race from the room, flailing his arms around for added momentum.
“Cheat! Foul! Red card!” Shintaro yells and isn’t long in chasing after him.
Onodera’s shoulder’s sag a little. ‘Tag Type’ or not, he hadn’t actually said no to Shintaro’s offer. Kikuchi pats him on the back consolingly. With an unspoken agreement, they stroll off to watch Hagiya tackle Nakaken.
~.~.~
Onodera’s slow to leave that day, weighed down by the tempest of thoughts rolling around in his head. Did everybody really fail to notice his Growth Spurt? Was this growth spurt really something that would fulfil him or was he destined to be hoist by his own petard? Was Yokoo laughing at him or was that the way Yokoo’s face always looked and Onodera was letting his paranoia get to him?
He’s been standing at his locker, absentmindedly arranging and rearranging the contents of his bag, for close to five minutes when Watanabe jumps on him. The boy digs into Onodera’s shoulders than starts shuffling around till he can clamp his legs (bare legs, Onodera notes with a distinct lack of astonishment) around Onodera’s waist.
“O-chan, you’re slow,” he whines, “Everybody else is gone already.”
Watanabe stops moving. Presently, he seems to try to kick his heels, bouncing a little, as if he were testing for something.
“O-chan,” he coos, “Did you grow taller? I feel more gravitationally challenged than usual.”
Onodera’s chest swells. His heart skips a beat. His ears turn red.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” he answers, failing to keep his voice at a normal pitch. He attempts to shrug Watanabe off - to no avail.
“Anyway, why are you still here, Shota?”
The boy hops off Onodera’s back of his own accord. He’s still in his underwear - the ones with the stars and the picture of a kitten. However, he has managed to acquire a shirt, although it is as yet unbuttoned.
“Took ages to get a free shower. Sanapi and Nonchan ended up hogging them.” Watanabe grins sweetly. “They were having a fight.”
Onodera’s eyes widen.
“They were? Really?”
Watanabe laughs.
“Sort of. Sanada said something about Mikachan and Nozawa totally bitch slapped him. It was all kinds of epic.”
Onodera realises that his mouth is hanging open and swiftly closes it.
“Hey. Put on some trousers and tell me all about it?”
“Are we going for coffee?” Watanabe asks, rocking on the balls of his feet.
Onodera hums.
“Yeah, sure. Or… maybe fanta. I’m in the mood for fanta.”
Watanabe beams. He slaps Onodera on the back of the head before bouncing off to find wherever he stashed his clothes. Onodera smiles. What was he waiting around for anyway? Coffee with Shota?… It was probably Coffee with Shota.
XXX
O-Ma-Ke
As they ramble down the corridor, kit bags slung over their shoulders, they pass a distressed Sanada. He’s surrounded by Hasshi, Fukka, Abe and Uekusa. He’s getting quite a lot of bad advice (about how to fix things with Nozawa) and some good advice (about why one should be very super careful in what one says about one’s friends’ sisters).
In the lobby, they spy Nozawa fretting his heart out to Fujigaya and Kawai (because he just did something terrible. And must have threatened the future of the group. And he ought to be used to Sanada saying weird things by now. And Mikachan sort of does look like Kojima Yoshio if you squint. And Nozawa can’t believe he just did something so stupid to his dance partner… And so on). Fujigaya and Kawai keep grinning at each other behind Nozawa’s back in that creepy sempai way that Onodera does not understand and does not wish to understand. He glances up to point out just as much to Watanabe. Only, Watanabe appears to be emulating that grin.
“It’s nice, ne,” he chirps, “Ne, O-chan? Drinks on me today, by the way. Will we go to that place Koyama mentioned?”
He slings an arm around Onodera’s shoulders. Onodera shivers. For reasons he is unclear of. It must be cold today. Definitely.
“Ne, Shota. Sounds great,” he agrees, not very surprised at the squeak in his own voice.
Pairing: Sort of Nabedera. Bit of Sanazawa.
Rating: G
Summary: In which Ikki is ignored for unfathomable reasons.
A/N: This is very obviously for replay_dolly. I failed hard to give Abe a role so I got myself an icon with him -paws it-
Actually, while I'm making author's notes, unbetaed. Fear me.
It has taken months of hard work and toil, but Onodera has finally achieved his Growth Spurt. He has elevated himself a total of 1.2cms in the past 2 months. Yes, he acknowledges, 1.2cms may not seem like all that much - especially with a certain beanpole front man hogging all the glory. Nevertheless, he gels his hair with a certain pride that morning. For he is a man now, and that is how men roll.
~.~.~
When he strides into the MSM dressing room later that day, precisely no one notices him. He’s been there arranging the contents of his locker for 4 minutes and 32 seconds when Miyadate walks into him. The boy blinks.
“Ikki~ You’re late.”
His tone of disapproval causes an automatic reaction whereby Onodera’s feet suddenly become fascinating and - oh look! - they shuffle all on their own. Onodera shakes himself out of it after a second. This is Miyadate, he reminds himself. It is, therefore, highly probable that he is being fucked with. And that is maybe not how men roll.
As he looks back up, he is fully prepared to show Miyadate who’s boss. He squares his shoulders in readiness for the witty retort - which he hasn’t actually planned yet - to dart fiercely off his tongue. Except, at the last minute, his gaze flickers and he gets distracted. Fukka’s looking at him. Looking at him with his huge, non-light reflecting eyes. And smiling. Onodera smiles back weakly.
“Maa ne,” Miyadate goes on conversationally, “Not that it really matters. Sanada’s still on a hunt for our schedule.”
He ruffles Onodera’s hair then turns to go - frowning at his hand and muttering something about needing to wash the gel off.
Starting work with a confrontation such as that does not suit Onodera. But he figures he can handle it. He’s got the balls/spunk/moxy/height… whatever. He reaches into his locker for a refreshing snifter of his melon fanta. Tragically, his melon fanta appears to have been misplaced. Miyadate, he sees, has the great fortune to have obtained a bottle of melon fanta. It’s currently standing on the bench, between said boy and Fukka. Onodera would never like to suggest that these two happenstances might be linked. He just thinks it’s a Very Interesting Coincidence - one that he decides to save up to Mention In Passing to Watanabe after practice.
~.~.~
Sanada marches in some minutes later.
“Schedule,” he announces, holding a couple of sheets of coffee-stained A4 paper up to illustrate. A chorus of lacklustre cheers greets him in response.
“Right then…”
He comes to a halt and begins running through what they’ll be doing that day and for the next week, who they’re back dancing for, what events, where… Of course, the schedule Julie okays over her morning frapuccino is liable to change radically before she’s even finished her lunchtime mocha latte. Still, that’s all the more reason to pay attention, Onodera reasons. It’d be easier to take your eye off the ball if you weren’t familiar with the ball’s original dimensions and trajectory.
Onodera squints a bit, pondering if he just thought something smart that he should remember for later. He supposes it was at least good enough to impress Jesse Luis with. Thus concluded, he brings his focus back to Sanada and why Sanada is standing directly in front of him.
Onodera wants to sit down to listen, like everyone else. But if he did, his knees would end up bumping into the back of Sanada’s legs. Then there’d likely be falling over. Or at least awkwardness. They haven’t even started dancing yet - it’s too early for Falling Over and Awkwardness.
He scans the room - what he can see of it with Sanada’s shoulders blocking his view - for Nozawa. This seems like the sort of thing Nozawa should be here for, unobtrusively leading his partner to stand anywhere else. He spots the boy half-asleep on Watanabe’s shoulder. Onodera doesn’t want to cause a scene - or accidentally whack Sanada in the head. So he keeps his hands at his sides and makes Significant Eyebrow Gestures at the boy. Nozawa doesn’t notice and, after a few minutes, Onodera’s face is tired and oddly sweaty.
“And…that’s it. Ok, let’s get going.”
Sanada gets a marginally less lacklustre chorus of cheers this time. Folding up the schedule, he turns and manages to elbow Onodera in the nose.
“Agh! Sorry, Ikki,” he gasps, jumping back on instinct and smacking into Iwamoto. Who promptly topples over. Causing Sanada to fall backwards, landing between Sakuma’s legs. Sakuma frowns at both of them.
“When did you get here?” Sanada continues, ignoring the interruption as Nozawa hauls him to his feet, “Well, never mind. Look over this when you get a chance. We have to start already.”
He hands Onodera the schedule and heads out of the room with Nozawa. As they leave, Onodera could swear he hears Sanada whisper something to the effect of “Was Ikkichan wearing hair gel?”
Other than himself, Iwamoto’s the last to leave. He scrambles to his feet then struts coolly out of the room. With the sudden exodus, it feels amazingly empty and still. Onodera straightens his back and raises his chin up. (Basically, it’s his Sakuma impression). He’d been able to see more over Sanada’s shoulders than he’d expected.
Onodera feels good.
~.~.~
None of the sempai mention his Growth Spurt either. He’s not surprised. He’s sure they’re all quietly awed. Not to mention he feels like he’s got the hang of it now. Like he knows something of the esoteric mysteries that Hasshi and Nokkun and those guys seemed to figure out ages ago.
After calling break, Yokoo pokes him in the head and tells him to go sort out his hair. Onodera obediently trudges to the bathrooms. Give it a year or so, he avows in the privacy of his own thoughts, and he’ll have surpassed all of A.B.C. Though, probably not their -Z. He’ll definitely have left Kitayama in his wake.
He peers at himself in the bathroom mirror while he tries to bring the sweat and hair gel together to form something approaching an idol-cut.
Does he want to leave Kitayama in his wake, he wonders. Kitayama is terrifying. And he commands respect without needing to (physically) look down at his band mates. And A.B.C can do all the things they can do in part because of their compact proportions.
Onodera peers at himself in the mirror. He’s suddenly quite worried.
His train of though is derailed when Kikuchi comes tearing into the room, closely followed by Hagiya. Hagiya leaps at Kikuchi, flinging an arm around his neck and slapping a hand to the boy’s forehead. Both of them are breathless and giggling. Shintaro dashes into the room a moment later, skidding to a halt before he collides with the two boys.
“Damn it!” he shouts, grinning.
Hagiya sticks his tongue out at him. Onodera chuckles at that.
“What are you doing?”
“Tag,” Shintaro answers.
“Den is Kikuchi’s face,” Hagiya explains cheerfully.
“Want to play?” Shintaro asks, “If Hagichan can leave this room, den becomes Nakaken’s face.”
Onodera wriggles a bit. He drags a hand though his hair - undoing in one move much of the work he’d just put in to making it pretty. He considers if tag can be part of how men roll.
“Come on, guys. That’s kind of childish. Why would I want to play?”
Shintaro shrugs.
“Whatever. You struck me as the tag type.”
Onodera stares at him.
“What in the world is ‘tag type’ supposed to imply?” he carefully does not shriek.
Hagiya takes the lull as his cue to race from the room, flailing his arms around for added momentum.
“Cheat! Foul! Red card!” Shintaro yells and isn’t long in chasing after him.
Onodera’s shoulder’s sag a little. ‘Tag Type’ or not, he hadn’t actually said no to Shintaro’s offer. Kikuchi pats him on the back consolingly. With an unspoken agreement, they stroll off to watch Hagiya tackle Nakaken.
~.~.~
Onodera’s slow to leave that day, weighed down by the tempest of thoughts rolling around in his head. Did everybody really fail to notice his Growth Spurt? Was this growth spurt really something that would fulfil him or was he destined to be hoist by his own petard? Was Yokoo laughing at him or was that the way Yokoo’s face always looked and Onodera was letting his paranoia get to him?
He’s been standing at his locker, absentmindedly arranging and rearranging the contents of his bag, for close to five minutes when Watanabe jumps on him. The boy digs into Onodera’s shoulders than starts shuffling around till he can clamp his legs (bare legs, Onodera notes with a distinct lack of astonishment) around Onodera’s waist.
“O-chan, you’re slow,” he whines, “Everybody else is gone already.”
Watanabe stops moving. Presently, he seems to try to kick his heels, bouncing a little, as if he were testing for something.
“O-chan,” he coos, “Did you grow taller? I feel more gravitationally challenged than usual.”
Onodera’s chest swells. His heart skips a beat. His ears turn red.
“Maybe, I don’t know,” he answers, failing to keep his voice at a normal pitch. He attempts to shrug Watanabe off - to no avail.
“Anyway, why are you still here, Shota?”
The boy hops off Onodera’s back of his own accord. He’s still in his underwear - the ones with the stars and the picture of a kitten. However, he has managed to acquire a shirt, although it is as yet unbuttoned.
“Took ages to get a free shower. Sanapi and Nonchan ended up hogging them.” Watanabe grins sweetly. “They were having a fight.”
Onodera’s eyes widen.
“They were? Really?”
Watanabe laughs.
“Sort of. Sanada said something about Mikachan and Nozawa totally bitch slapped him. It was all kinds of epic.”
Onodera realises that his mouth is hanging open and swiftly closes it.
“Hey. Put on some trousers and tell me all about it?”
“Are we going for coffee?” Watanabe asks, rocking on the balls of his feet.
Onodera hums.
“Yeah, sure. Or… maybe fanta. I’m in the mood for fanta.”
Watanabe beams. He slaps Onodera on the back of the head before bouncing off to find wherever he stashed his clothes. Onodera smiles. What was he waiting around for anyway? Coffee with Shota?… It was probably Coffee with Shota.
XXX
O-Ma-Ke
As they ramble down the corridor, kit bags slung over their shoulders, they pass a distressed Sanada. He’s surrounded by Hasshi, Fukka, Abe and Uekusa. He’s getting quite a lot of bad advice (about how to fix things with Nozawa) and some good advice (about why one should be very super careful in what one says about one’s friends’ sisters).
In the lobby, they spy Nozawa fretting his heart out to Fujigaya and Kawai (because he just did something terrible. And must have threatened the future of the group. And he ought to be used to Sanada saying weird things by now. And Mikachan sort of does look like Kojima Yoshio if you squint. And Nozawa can’t believe he just did something so stupid to his dance partner… And so on). Fujigaya and Kawai keep grinning at each other behind Nozawa’s back in that creepy sempai way that Onodera does not understand and does not wish to understand. He glances up to point out just as much to Watanabe. Only, Watanabe appears to be emulating that grin.
“It’s nice, ne,” he chirps, “Ne, O-chan? Drinks on me today, by the way. Will we go to that place Koyama mentioned?”
He slings an arm around Onodera’s shoulders. Onodera shivers. For reasons he is unclear of. It must be cold today. Definitely.
“Ne, Shota. Sounds great,” he agrees, not very surprised at the squeak in his own voice.