Arashi: A Golden Moon (1)
FANDOM: Arashi
RATING: G
PAIRING: (broken)Sakumoto, Juntoshi, (mention of)Sakuraiba
ARCHIVE: just here
WARNING: possible OOC, AU
DATE: September 27th, 2010
NOTES: I don't own Arashi. Very loosely based on Suga Shikao's 「黄金の月」(Ougon no Tsuki). Sequel to "This Year's Sakura."
START | Chapter Two
CHAPTER ONE | Even If There's No Light In My Future
People who worked normal nine-to-five hours usually thought that the city was quiet in those times. After all, everyone was supposed to be working. But Jun was used to looking out the windows and seeing people everywhere. College students going to classes, or coming back from them. Housewives, shopping alone or out to enjoy themselves with friends. Part-timers and temps of all sorts, young men and women in their 20s, either going out in groups or pairs. Some of them would be lining up to get into whatever restaurant that was reviewed in the magazines recently. Summer vacation was going to start soon, and then the streets would be littered with teenagers.
“Matsumoto-kun, are you listening?”
His manager was looking rather irate, and Jun didn’t blame her. It was summer, and he doubted that any of the people in the room really wanted to be there. He smiled and assured her that he was listening, and she continued talking. He looked at the other staff, who were all nodding and agreeing with her.
He didn’t think it mattered whether or not he was listening; they would end up deciding things for him anyway. That was how it always worked out. But when his manager was talking about another audition, for a fall drama, he spoke up.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise. It was strange, he supposed, since he never spoke up during meetings before. But he wasn’t ready yet. He couldn’t bring himself to think about auditioning for yet another role, to move on so easily.
It had been a month since he left Sho’s hometown. One month since the disastrous audition, that had went well enough, he thought, except that he was told that he was “all flash, no substance.” Normally he would still have taken it to heart, but he would have gotten over it eventually. He would have bounced back. He always did. But with the thought of Sho weighing him down, the audition was the last straw.
He wished that he didn’t have to get back to work so soon, that he could go somewhere to forget everything, until he was okay again.
As it was, all that he could do was protest the idea of auditioning for another drama.
They insisted that this was a good chance for him, that this was too good an opportunity not to grab. He didn’t care. Perhaps it was the one good thing about doing the job he was doing, he thought. As much as he had come to enjoy it, and pride himself on it, at the end of the day he wasn’t absorbed in it, not the way Sho was with his job.
})i({
“You don’t have to move out immediately. Take your time to find a new place, instead of just getting the first place you find.” Jun knew that he was the one that had broken things off, and that it was the right thing to do, but the sight of Sho packing made him feel like he was going to cave into himself. He felt helpless and scared and abandoned at the thought of having to live there alone, with only ghosts of memories of his life with Sho.
“I’m just sending these to my parents’,” Sho told him. “I hope you don’t mind if I use the guest room for about a month or so, while I settle things here.”
“I don’t mind... but... your parents’?”
“Yeah. I’m going back,” Sho said, busy with his packing. Jun realised that he was avoiding having to look at him in the eyes. “I’m going back home.”
“What about your job?” Jun blurted out. Sho would never compromise when it came to his job. Never. Or at least, that was the Sho that he knew. In the last month, he had been learning that Sho was more than the person he knew. The time spent in Sho’s hometown had only made him admit to himself that he loved Sho, despite the fact that he had said, many times, that whether or not they were in love didn’t matter. Unfortunately, the same place that had drew him closer to Sho had also taken Sho further away from him.
“My column’s going to be replaced,” Sho replied, guilt in his eyes. “It was a short notice, but we have a lot of staff who are just jumping on the chance to have their own column.”
Not so long ago, Sho was one of those people. Jun couldn’t believe that Sho was letting something so coveted slip through his fingers. “You love that job.”
Sho, who still couldn’t look at him, stood up and moved further away, using the pretense of going through their bookcase. As if he hadn’t already packed the books that belonged to him. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Jun could hear his answer clearly, anyway.
Not as much as I love Aiba.
“So are the two of you together yet?” he asked, putting on a smile for Sho. He didn’t want Sho to feel bad about what happened.
“We’re taking things slowly.”
Resentment suddenly surged through him, and before he could stop himself, he was saying, “that’s quite a fast development already, since we just broke up. Or were the two of you already getting together since before then?”
He didn’t really mean anything by his words, but when Sho’s silence took on a different quality, he realised that he had hit it right on the mark. “You really did do something with him. When we were still together.”
“It was only a kiss or two; it just happened, it wasn’t like -”
“Sho,” Jun interrupted. “When we were still together.” He knew that he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, not when the damage was already done, and they had already broken up. Not when he knew how Sho got when he was feeling defensive.
Right on cue, Sho retorted, “it wasn’t as if you hadn’t done the same thing before.”
For a moment, Jun thought that he literally saw red. “What do you mean,” he said evenly.
“You were always going out and spending the night at other guys’ places. I never said anything about that.”
Incredulous, Jun stared at Sho for a few moments before collecting his thoughts. “They were my friends. You thought I cheated on you?”
Sho was studying the patterns on the carpet as if they were the most fascinating things on earth. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!” He hated that he was getting hysterical, and tried to take a few deep breaths first. This was exactly why he never wanted to be in love, he thought. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, and sad rather than angry. “What kind of person did you think I am?”
Startled by the vehemence in Jun’s voice, and the bleak, defeated tone that followed, Sho looked up. “The kind of person who is too good for me,” was all he said in the end. “Jun, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want Sho’s apologies, nor did he want to fight about something that didn’t matter to either of them any longer. So he closed his eyes, tried to focus on the okay memories - the good ones would only make him want to cry, and he refused to cry over Sho like an infatuated girl. “What are you going to do, now that you’ve stopped doing the column?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I’m still writing for them, freelance, for the literature section,” Sho replied. “It doesn’t earn as much, but it’s okay. I’m also going to teach at my old high school. English.” He laughed. “Can you believe it? Me, a teacher.”
“You’d make a good one,” Jun said, and he meant it. “Good luck.”
Sho turned to him again at those words, and their eyes caught each other’s, and stayed. For a moment, both of them wondered what if, but it passed, just as quickly as it came. Sho’s phone rang, and he immediately picked up, and walked towards the kitchen where he could talk without being overheard.
})i({
Jun was taking pictures of children playing in the park. The rainy season have yet to end, but it was swarming with kids anyway. He rarely took pictures of people, but Ohno’s portraits made him wonder if he would be able to catch a person’s essence in photographs as well.
First, he thought, as he looked through the viewfinder, I have to learn to see their essence. He didn’t know if he would be able to produce anything remotely as good as Ohno’s, but he was enjoying himself.
It was funny, he thought, that he hadn’t used his camera in a long time. He only took it up again after talking to Ohno, that night he decided to end things with Sho.
If skill or talent isn’t an issue, and you could do anything, what would you want to do?
He never took photographs of people, because he felt as if he had spent half of his life being captured on camera. He didn’t see the appeal of it, feeling more and more of who he was being sapped away with each click of the camera, each flash of light trying to make him look better than he really did, or putting him under a magnifying glass, looking for flaws. Dissecting his soul and coming up with nothing. All flash, no substance.
But Ohno had drawn him, captured him in just a few rough, quick sketches. In those sketches, his smile was too wide - the kind of smile that he always told to avoid during work. He had looked too cheerful or too sad or too haughty in some of them, but he was always him. It had made him think again about portraits, and the stories they could tell.
“Jun, is that you?”
He lowered the camera at the sound of the familiar voice. “Hi, Toma,” he said, cautiously. He rarely saw the other man outside of his favourite gallery. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Toma said, not really answering his question. “But I see that you’re taking pictures again.”
“Yeah.” Blushing a little, Jun put away his camera in his bag. “It’s just for fun.”
“That’s the best reason to do anything, isn’t it?”
“I guess...”
“I heard that you went to that beach at Jodogahama?”
“Who told you that?”
“So it isn’t true?”
“Well, I went to this very small place that is kind of near that beach, but I never actually went to the beach.”
“I heard that the sakura there is beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jun replied honestly. “I left for that place when the flowers were only starting to bloom here, and I came back when they were only starting to bloom there.”
“So you didn’t go to the beach, and you didn’t go for cherry blossom viewing, may I ask what you’ve been doing , exactly?”
“I had... personal business, there.” Thinking of Ohno, he smiled, and asked, “are you free to have lunch right now?”
})i({
Sho’s hometown was only one-and-a-half hours away. Give or take three or four extra hours if he took the normal train, as the wait to transfer trains took a long time. And yet it felt so far away to him.
“What are you thinking about?”
He looked at Sho, and smiled tiredly. “I was just thinking how long the train ride is to your hometown.”
“I don’t mind,” Sho said. “It’s already June, and I’m done with my work here. I don’t mind not seeing the city again in a long time, even.”
“Send my regards to everyone.”
“I will.” Sho paused. “I know that it’s a lot to ask, but...”
He trailed off, but Jun knew what he wanted to say. “I’ll keep in touch. Promise.”
Relieved, Sho grinned as he stepped on the train. “Thank you for everything,” he said, with a small wave. “Ohno mentioned that he asked you to model for him. Feel free to come down any time you want, okay?”
“I still haven’t decided,” Jun said, “whether or not I will model for him. He’s -”
He never got to finish his sentence, as a message went out about passengers needing to return to their seats. “I guess I’d better go, then,” Sho murmured, before walking in to find his seat.
One-and-a-half hours by bullet train, Jun thought. That was already far enough, as far as he was concerned. Three hours by normal train. Three to five years of a relationship, give or take. Three to four weeks of quiet, slow separation. That was what it took to get to the place Sho had come from.
Sho was boarding that train to take him back there, and this time, Jun was going to stay on the platforms, and wave good-bye.
~ to be continued ~
START | Chapter Two
Marineko's Notes:
Ah..... it started already. I was planning to wait, but I can't seem to. XP
RATING: G
PAIRING: (broken)Sakumoto, Juntoshi, (mention of)Sakuraiba
ARCHIVE: just here
WARNING: possible OOC, AU
DATE: September 27th, 2010
NOTES: I don't own Arashi. Very loosely based on Suga Shikao's 「黄金の月」(Ougon no Tsuki). Sequel to "This Year's Sakura."
START | Chapter Two
CHAPTER ONE | Even If There's No Light In My Future
People who worked normal nine-to-five hours usually thought that the city was quiet in those times. After all, everyone was supposed to be working. But Jun was used to looking out the windows and seeing people everywhere. College students going to classes, or coming back from them. Housewives, shopping alone or out to enjoy themselves with friends. Part-timers and temps of all sorts, young men and women in their 20s, either going out in groups or pairs. Some of them would be lining up to get into whatever restaurant that was reviewed in the magazines recently. Summer vacation was going to start soon, and then the streets would be littered with teenagers.
“Matsumoto-kun, are you listening?”
His manager was looking rather irate, and Jun didn’t blame her. It was summer, and he doubted that any of the people in the room really wanted to be there. He smiled and assured her that he was listening, and she continued talking. He looked at the other staff, who were all nodding and agreeing with her.
He didn’t think it mattered whether or not he was listening; they would end up deciding things for him anyway. That was how it always worked out. But when his manager was talking about another audition, for a fall drama, he spoke up.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him in surprise. It was strange, he supposed, since he never spoke up during meetings before. But he wasn’t ready yet. He couldn’t bring himself to think about auditioning for yet another role, to move on so easily.
It had been a month since he left Sho’s hometown. One month since the disastrous audition, that had went well enough, he thought, except that he was told that he was “all flash, no substance.” Normally he would still have taken it to heart, but he would have gotten over it eventually. He would have bounced back. He always did. But with the thought of Sho weighing him down, the audition was the last straw.
He wished that he didn’t have to get back to work so soon, that he could go somewhere to forget everything, until he was okay again.
As it was, all that he could do was protest the idea of auditioning for another drama.
They insisted that this was a good chance for him, that this was too good an opportunity not to grab. He didn’t care. Perhaps it was the one good thing about doing the job he was doing, he thought. As much as he had come to enjoy it, and pride himself on it, at the end of the day he wasn’t absorbed in it, not the way Sho was with his job.
})i({
“You don’t have to move out immediately. Take your time to find a new place, instead of just getting the first place you find.” Jun knew that he was the one that had broken things off, and that it was the right thing to do, but the sight of Sho packing made him feel like he was going to cave into himself. He felt helpless and scared and abandoned at the thought of having to live there alone, with only ghosts of memories of his life with Sho.
“I’m just sending these to my parents’,” Sho told him. “I hope you don’t mind if I use the guest room for about a month or so, while I settle things here.”
“I don’t mind... but... your parents’?”
“Yeah. I’m going back,” Sho said, busy with his packing. Jun realised that he was avoiding having to look at him in the eyes. “I’m going back home.”
“What about your job?” Jun blurted out. Sho would never compromise when it came to his job. Never. Or at least, that was the Sho that he knew. In the last month, he had been learning that Sho was more than the person he knew. The time spent in Sho’s hometown had only made him admit to himself that he loved Sho, despite the fact that he had said, many times, that whether or not they were in love didn’t matter. Unfortunately, the same place that had drew him closer to Sho had also taken Sho further away from him.
“My column’s going to be replaced,” Sho replied, guilt in his eyes. “It was a short notice, but we have a lot of staff who are just jumping on the chance to have their own column.”
Not so long ago, Sho was one of those people. Jun couldn’t believe that Sho was letting something so coveted slip through his fingers. “You love that job.”
Sho, who still couldn’t look at him, stood up and moved further away, using the pretense of going through their bookcase. As if he hadn’t already packed the books that belonged to him. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. Jun could hear his answer clearly, anyway.
Not as much as I love Aiba.
“So are the two of you together yet?” he asked, putting on a smile for Sho. He didn’t want Sho to feel bad about what happened.
“We’re taking things slowly.”
Resentment suddenly surged through him, and before he could stop himself, he was saying, “that’s quite a fast development already, since we just broke up. Or were the two of you already getting together since before then?”
He didn’t really mean anything by his words, but when Sho’s silence took on a different quality, he realised that he had hit it right on the mark. “You really did do something with him. When we were still together.”
“It was only a kiss or two; it just happened, it wasn’t like -”
“Sho,” Jun interrupted. “When we were still together.” He knew that he shouldn’t make a big deal out of it, not when the damage was already done, and they had already broken up. Not when he knew how Sho got when he was feeling defensive.
Right on cue, Sho retorted, “it wasn’t as if you hadn’t done the same thing before.”
For a moment, Jun thought that he literally saw red. “What do you mean,” he said evenly.
“You were always going out and spending the night at other guys’ places. I never said anything about that.”
Incredulous, Jun stared at Sho for a few moments before collecting his thoughts. “They were my friends. You thought I cheated on you?”
Sho was studying the patterns on the carpet as if they were the most fascinating things on earth. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me!” He hated that he was getting hysterical, and tried to take a few deep breaths first. This was exactly why he never wanted to be in love, he thought. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, and sad rather than angry. “What kind of person did you think I am?”
Startled by the vehemence in Jun’s voice, and the bleak, defeated tone that followed, Sho looked up. “The kind of person who is too good for me,” was all he said in the end. “Jun, I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want Sho’s apologies, nor did he want to fight about something that didn’t matter to either of them any longer. So he closed his eyes, tried to focus on the okay memories - the good ones would only make him want to cry, and he refused to cry over Sho like an infatuated girl. “What are you going to do, now that you’ve stopped doing the column?” he asked, changing the subject.
“I’m still writing for them, freelance, for the literature section,” Sho replied. “It doesn’t earn as much, but it’s okay. I’m also going to teach at my old high school. English.” He laughed. “Can you believe it? Me, a teacher.”
“You’d make a good one,” Jun said, and he meant it. “Good luck.”
Sho turned to him again at those words, and their eyes caught each other’s, and stayed. For a moment, both of them wondered what if, but it passed, just as quickly as it came. Sho’s phone rang, and he immediately picked up, and walked towards the kitchen where he could talk without being overheard.
})i({
Jun was taking pictures of children playing in the park. The rainy season have yet to end, but it was swarming with kids anyway. He rarely took pictures of people, but Ohno’s portraits made him wonder if he would be able to catch a person’s essence in photographs as well.
First, he thought, as he looked through the viewfinder, I have to learn to see their essence. He didn’t know if he would be able to produce anything remotely as good as Ohno’s, but he was enjoying himself.
It was funny, he thought, that he hadn’t used his camera in a long time. He only took it up again after talking to Ohno, that night he decided to end things with Sho.
If skill or talent isn’t an issue, and you could do anything, what would you want to do?
He never took photographs of people, because he felt as if he had spent half of his life being captured on camera. He didn’t see the appeal of it, feeling more and more of who he was being sapped away with each click of the camera, each flash of light trying to make him look better than he really did, or putting him under a magnifying glass, looking for flaws. Dissecting his soul and coming up with nothing. All flash, no substance.
But Ohno had drawn him, captured him in just a few rough, quick sketches. In those sketches, his smile was too wide - the kind of smile that he always told to avoid during work. He had looked too cheerful or too sad or too haughty in some of them, but he was always him. It had made him think again about portraits, and the stories they could tell.
“Jun, is that you?”
He lowered the camera at the sound of the familiar voice. “Hi, Toma,” he said, cautiously. He rarely saw the other man outside of his favourite gallery. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Toma said, not really answering his question. “But I see that you’re taking pictures again.”
“Yeah.” Blushing a little, Jun put away his camera in his bag. “It’s just for fun.”
“That’s the best reason to do anything, isn’t it?”
“I guess...”
“I heard that you went to that beach at Jodogahama?”
“Who told you that?”
“So it isn’t true?”
“Well, I went to this very small place that is kind of near that beach, but I never actually went to the beach.”
“I heard that the sakura there is beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Jun replied honestly. “I left for that place when the flowers were only starting to bloom here, and I came back when they were only starting to bloom there.”
“So you didn’t go to the beach, and you didn’t go for cherry blossom viewing, may I ask what you’ve been doing , exactly?”
“I had... personal business, there.” Thinking of Ohno, he smiled, and asked, “are you free to have lunch right now?”
})i({
Sho’s hometown was only one-and-a-half hours away. Give or take three or four extra hours if he took the normal train, as the wait to transfer trains took a long time. And yet it felt so far away to him.
“What are you thinking about?”
He looked at Sho, and smiled tiredly. “I was just thinking how long the train ride is to your hometown.”
“I don’t mind,” Sho said. “It’s already June, and I’m done with my work here. I don’t mind not seeing the city again in a long time, even.”
“Send my regards to everyone.”
“I will.” Sho paused. “I know that it’s a lot to ask, but...”
He trailed off, but Jun knew what he wanted to say. “I’ll keep in touch. Promise.”
Relieved, Sho grinned as he stepped on the train. “Thank you for everything,” he said, with a small wave. “Ohno mentioned that he asked you to model for him. Feel free to come down any time you want, okay?”
“I still haven’t decided,” Jun said, “whether or not I will model for him. He’s -”
He never got to finish his sentence, as a message went out about passengers needing to return to their seats. “I guess I’d better go, then,” Sho murmured, before walking in to find his seat.
One-and-a-half hours by bullet train, Jun thought. That was already far enough, as far as he was concerned. Three hours by normal train. Three to five years of a relationship, give or take. Three to four weeks of quiet, slow separation. That was what it took to get to the place Sho had come from.
Sho was boarding that train to take him back there, and this time, Jun was going to stay on the platforms, and wave good-bye.
~ to be continued ~
START | Chapter Two
Marineko's Notes:
Ah..... it started already. I was planning to wait, but I can't seem to. XP