Arashi: We Make Storm
AUTHOR: Marineko/mylittlecthulhu
FANDOM: Arashi
PAIRING: Sakumoto
RATING: G
DATE: April 15th, 2011
WORD COUNT: 4,670
NOTES/DISCLAIMERS: I do not own Arashi.
**This was written for the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund, as a request by aliehumdee
We Make Storm
It was Jun’s fault, of course. Even though it was Nino who had been the last straw. Even though when Jun did it, it was an honest mistake, and when Nino did it he had been drunk, and we all knew it. None of us would ever say it, at least not to his face. We agreed that Jun was to blame - even Jun himself had agreed. As tough as he acted, Nino took things to heart, and if we’d allowed him to take the blame we didn’t know if he’d ever be able to face us after. Jun, like Sho when it came to our television screw-ups, or like Aiba when it came to rehearsals, didn’t mind being the wrong one if any of us needed him to be. As for the rest of us? Leader was the one who was perfect at anything he tried, and Nino was the one with a sharp mind, the one who figured everything out on his own and in his own terms, so we did our best to help perpetuate those myths.
In truth, of course, we’re just human.
Difficult as it was for us (except Leader) for not being able to drive, we knew that Sho was the one who had been most affected, who had felt most punished. Jun liked to drive, but he accepted his penance with grace. Aiba took things philosophically, like he always did. We thought that Nino seemed happier to be driven around; it gave him more time on his DS, although we never called him up on it, and he never admitted it. But for Sho, who didn’t have hobbies and whose favourite way to unwind was to take long, lone drives through old towns, something important had been lost. The fact that it hadn’t even been his fault stung harder, although we knew that he felt responsible for all our mistakes, sometimes. For the first week he’d been imbued with false cheer, as if to keep our - or his - spirits up. By the second week we noticed that he’d sometimes get surly with Leader, resentful that this time our punishment wasn’t equal, that this wasn’t effecting everyone the same way at all. Jun, who had taken on all the guilty feelings even though we all knew that it wasn’t really his fault, felt even worse, and tried to stay out of Sho’s way when he could.
Knowing each other the way we do was the most simple thing to us, although not a simple thing at all - the way even siblings couldn’t know each other, because siblings are separated by gaps of age and resentment from parents’ favoritism, and siblings had enough time and space for secrets, while we, having been raised together since the forming of our group, read each others’ minds as easily as sisters do, joke and tease at each other the way brothers do, compete the way rivals do, support each other the way best friends do. Inexplicably bonded the way only families are, we understand each other and our experiences the way no one else could. We’re comrades and brothers and best friends and family and rivals and warriors that have fought side-by-side for years - more than a decade, can you believe it, we could hear ourselves asking all the time, shaking our heads - we were all of that and more. There was no word for it before, because as far as we were concerned, there had been no one like us before. We were Arashi - that was the only explanation we ever needed.
By the third week, tired of reappearance of Sho’s short temper - and knowing that it was only a matter of time before it would be directed towards him, which he would never take - Nino began campaigning to the rest of us (other than Sho) about finding a solution. Aiba and Jun wanted to go up to the management, to ask them to lift the ban from the ones of us that hadn’t done anything, but Nino would have none of that. “We share everything,” he reminded us. We squirmed a little inside, thinking of the one or two times the statement had been too embarrassingly true. We argued and debated until Leader came up with the carpool idea, which Nino leapt on with a look in his eye that we were suspicious of, but even though we were pretty sure we knew him well enough to know all his tricks we decided to let it go. As Aiba said later, it wasn’t as if Nino wouldn’t find a way to do what he wanted anyway, if we’d tried to stop him. So we shrugged, and went about the rest of our day, almost forgetting our talk until Nino reappeared with a carpool schedule from the management. He looked slightly put out, which was how we realized that Leader had got to the management before Nino did, somehow, and had asked them to not pair him with Nino. It was an ongoing game between them, almost, with Nino always looking for more alone time with our eldest, and Leader always refusing. We watch with amusement to see who would win, in the end. So far it was Leader = n, Nino = 0. n, because we had all stopped counting after some time. It had started as a game, and had turned into a joke.
Nino also looked a little pleased with himself, which made Jun grab at the schedule sheet, and pale a little.
“Nino,” he complained. “What are you trying to do? Get me killed? You know he’s more angry with me than anyone else.”
“Not true.” Nino was unrepentant. “He loves you.” Then Nino added, “he loves us,” qualifying his earlier remark, “which is something he needs to remember at times like these.” Jun had already reddened, and looked away, when Nino said “he loves you.”
Aiba was happy to be pooling with Nino, and Nino got his revenge by leaving Leader out of their fun. Not that Leader cared; he still preferred to take public transport when he could. There was something soothing about taking a train to work, something familiar and normal - unlike the unreal situations we found ourselves in on a daily basis. “It’s like Narnia,” he once said to Aiba, who scratched at his head and said that Leader was weird, but Jun thought he knew.
The world we worked in wasn’t real, wasn’t a part of whatever that was going on around us. The train, to Leader, was like a way to help him transition - from the ordinary person he was to the Ohno Satoshi that everyone in our world knew.
Not that Jun was thinking of all this, as he stared at the schedule, to the rest of our amusement. Oh, how we loved it when one of us were in a crunch, and it wasn’t ourselves.
})i({
“Hey,” Sho said, sliding into the car. Jun pressed into the backseat; if he could have disappeared all the way into it, he would.
“Hey,” he said, in a small voice. Then, as the car sped away, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Sho was amused. “Why? I thought this was Nino’s idea.”
“It was Leader’s, actually. Nino just ran with it and made it his own.” Sho nodded, unsurprised. “I mean, I’m sorry that it was because of me that we had to do this in the first place.”
Smiling wryly, Sho said, “Jun. You know, and I know, that it was really Nino’s fault.”
“But -“
“No buts. Just forget about it.” He turned to the folded newspaper in his hands, then, unfolding it and spreading it open to read, while Jun was still looking at him with consternation. Sho just kept on reading, until Jun turned away, pulling out a novel from his bag, and they settled in, silent but comfortable, with each other but apart, in the same space, but their minds off in different worlds.
If we had been around, the atmosphere would have been completely different. Sho would have found it hard to read with Aiba distracting him. Nino would be pestering Jun about the last manga he lent him, and Jun would eventually put his book aside, talking about the manga instead, and borrowing more volumes. He might have noticed that Leader was getting a little more tanned, again, and spent his time admonishing Ohno instead. Or they would all be talking about work, for a change. There were many different combinations and possible dynamics between us, but this, just Sho and Jun alone, was rare. Not so rare that we would never hear of it, but rare enough that it was still surprising how different it was.
Jun turned from his book as the car started crossing a bridge. He looked out, and thought of the last time he was out with Sho, voluntarily. It was at the Lady Gaga concert, although he doubted that it even counted, because even though they had sat next to each other and had planned to be there together he’d been much too embarrassed to be seen talking to Sho. He had asked Sho to go with him because he was interested - she was an internationally famous star, and her concerts were said to be a mind-blowing experience. Of course he wanted to know how true it was. Of course he wanted to see what kinds of tricks she would pull, what kinds of effects that he could appropriate for their own shows. But Sho, dancing along to the music, singing along and shouting like the rest of the fans, made Jun wish that he’d asked Leader instead. How was Jun to concentrate on the technical stuff when Sho was gyrating - like some teenage girl, we might add - his hips to an incredibly sexy rendition of Just Dance?
Feeling himself warm just from the memory, Jun wondered if there was something to be said about Leader’s dark skin (at least Leader didn’t blush so easily), and snuck a glance at Sho. Satisfied that Sho was still reading, he turned back to his book.
He didn’t see, a few minutes later, when Sho stopped while turning a page, and turned to look at him consideringly.
})i({
When it turned out that Sho had mellowed out again, Nino kept crowing that it was his idea that did it, even though we all knew that it was Leader’s idea and even though we didn’t see how reading the paper next to Jun would make Sho any different from reading the paper on his own. It was just that Sho was getting used to the new arrangement of a life without driving, Aiba and Jun would say, when they spoke to each other about it. But we all knew that Nino was right, all the same. Jun put Sho in his best behavior, for the most part (Lady Gaga concerts not withstanding). And while being driven to work had felt like a punishment, perhaps being driven with Jun there was something else entirely. There was something to be said about actually seeing the first face you want to see in the morning be the first face you see in the morning. This was what we thought, anyway, although we were equally sure that both of them would deny it until they were blue in the face.
Jun was still smarting inside from his old, silly crush, after all - he, too, wasn’t as strong as he liked to think he was - while Sho was just… Sho. Too focused on us as a group, and his work, to see anything beyond that. If there was a part of him that missed the old Jun, he kept it close to his heart.
But we knew, because we knew everything about each other.
})i({
Since they have very different schedules, the carpools were only for the times when we had work together. On the way to group magazine photo-shoots, or our shared variety shows. Even most of the interviews were done individually of late, other than some of the random conversations for the idol magazines, which were always over too soon after they started. So even with the carpools, we didn’t see each other as much as we would have liked. Sometimes, though, when certain jobs run later, or earlier, than expected, Sho would find Jun in the car after he was done with Zero. At these times it was too dark for them to read (and Sho would want a short reprieve from the news anyway), so they talked. Simple, meaningless things. Like Sho’s new fashion purchases (not as bad a disaster as he led fans to believe, but nothing really worth mentioning about, either) or whatever it was Jun was reading. Taken by themselves, these conversations didn’t amount to very much. But taken in the context of their relationship, it was a growth, a further sinking into that sphere that they’ve been pushed in, a signal that they were close enough that their conversations were almost domestic, and that they cared enough that meaningless things actually meant something.
})i({
“I was watching NatsuNiji before work today,” Sho said, and he had to stop himself from smiling when Jun’s head ducked in embarrassment. It didn’t matter how much we’ve worked together or have seen each other at work - Jun always got more shy about Sho seeing his work, even if he didn’t mind if it was any of the rest of us.
Jun knew what episode was aired that day, and he knew what Sho would have seen in the previews for the next episode.
“It was just me and the stylist in the green room,” Sho said. “And I think he was more shocked than I was, to see the kissing scene.” Sho laughed, and Jun’s ears flamed.
If it was Nino, or any of the rest of us, Jun would just ask him to stop talking. But this was Sho. After all these years, Jun still hesitated before asking Sho to pass a pen.
“He asked me if it bothered me.” Sho laughed again. “What, was I supposed to say that I was jealous?”
Something in Jun’s stomach soured at those words, and he looked determinedly away, this time not out of embarrassment. Sho’s laughter quickly subsided, as he noticed the change. That was the other thing about spending so much time together. Even someone as dense as Sho was had to learn to pick up the subtleties of Jun’s responses to him, sooner or later.
“Jun?” He moved closer, his hand went to Jun’s arm, circling around it, tugging gently to make Jun face him. “Is something wrong?”
Jun shrugged, jerking his arm upwards, causing Sho to let go. “It’s nothing,” he said.
“It’s not nothing,” Sho insisted. “I’ve sat next to you at least three days a week for all this time; did you think I wouldn’t notice when it’s not nothing?” He looked at Jun, searchingly. Our Sho was pretty clueless when it came to things that weren’t written in books, but he had his moments, too. “Wait. Did you want me to be jealous?”
“Sho. Just leave it, okay?” Jun’s temper was rising, like it usually did when he felt cornered. But Sho knew to match fire with fire.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Why haven’t you told me this before?” he demanded. “I thought you were over that phase.”
“Because it’s not your problem!” Jun snapped. “It’s mine.”
Sho should have remembered that even though we never had time or space away from each other to keep secrets, Jun was better at it than the rest of us. After all, this was one of the things that had always been bothering him, that Jun knew everything about him and he still felt that he was guessing about Jun a lot of the time.
“Of course it’s my problem,” Sho snapped back. “It had been my problem when the others were teasing me relentlessly about you back then. Why wouldn’t it have been my problem now, if you can’t even talk to me without -“
“Please,” Jun interrupted. Unlike Sho, he was never very good at holding on to his temper. The durations vary, but he would usually find himself more tired than anything else. “Just - can’t we let this go?”
})i({
Despite what we’ve said in interviews, we’ve been angry with each other before. We’ve fought - after a fashion. But it was never really serious, and it was never about work. Whatever it was that made us “us” was stronger than anything else we’ve faced, be it the outside world or conflict with each other. It didn’t matter what it was, we knew that we would get through it together. This thing that tied us together wasn’t going to let anything stand in its way, and eventually wore down everything else in its path.
That was why it didn’t surprise us that there was no real bitterness between Sho and Jun, all those years ago. Much have been made of it by others, perhaps - it was a rumour that spread like wildfire, causing photographers to separate them in shoots, making staff and producers and even those from the company walk on eggshells when it came to them. No one wanted an explosion, an excuse for us to break. What they didn’t get was that it would take a lot more than unrequited love to break us.
Perhaps the ties where Jun and Sho were connected were a little strained and worse for wear. But love was only one of the millions of things that the five of us could be for each other. So even if there was a limp, a wound, in their relationship, there was never any real anger or sadness between them, between us. We were so much more.
Sho knew this, and he knew that if he acquiesced, things would quickly fall back to normal - taking what we could out of each other’s company, looking forward to each day we had work together, the two of them going to work both engrossed with their own readings while being completely aware of each other. There would be no tragic ending to be scared of. Normal was more than good enough. They had lived with normal, and they were content with normal.
And yet, he thought, as he watched Jun closely, sometimes he wondered if there was something more than “good enough.” He waited until Jun’s eyes met his, holding each other’s gazes for a few seconds, minutes, hours - he didn’t know which, and he didn’t care. In any case, it was long enough for Jun’s expression change to understanding, and for Jun’s hand to rise to his face, guiding him forwards, for their lips to meet.
After knowing each other and side-stepping their feelings for each other that didn’t seem to fit into the rest of what made us who we were, both of them assumed that it would be the most natural thing in the world. Neither were prepared for the awkward bumps and repositioning before they got it just right, nor were they prepared for how they felt like they were spinning out of orbit, like for a moment there was just two, like there had always been only two, instead of five. When they parted, out of breath and disheveled and glad for the screen between them and the driver whose presence they only just remembered, their eyes locked on each other again, mirroring each other’s thoughts.
For the first time, they were afraid.
})i({
“Just because things can go wrong, it doesn’t mean that it would,” Nino explained to Sho patiently, pressing too close despite the large couch they were sitting on, as usual. This was normal, although the knowledge that Jun would be livid if he was there to see was not. Sho squirmed away.
“Yeah, but this is different.” Sho’s voice was hushed, like he was afraid that Jun would hear him, even though he knew, and Nino knew, that Jun was still out filming his drama. He had never felt anything like it before, something stronger than what we had, than what we took for granted would always be there. And if it was stronger, then reason followed that if it was ever to break, it might break everything else. It felt so fragile, this thing that balanced Sho and Jun, carrying the weight of us as a group. We didn’t want to risk falling apart, of course, but we also refused to believe that it was that easy to break us. Or rather, we believed that if the feelings that Sho and Jun had for each other could break us, then perhaps we were never that strong to begin with.
That’s why Nino said, “it’s okay,” even though Sho was worried, because he always worried, because he was the one who always felt responsible for keeping everyone together and making sure everyone were on equal ground. We let him, because we knew that he needed it more than we did, but perhaps that had been a mistake, because the same thing that used to reassure him now plagued him. “You don’t have to always be the one who takes care of everything,” Nino told him. “We’ve let you be that person for so long, but maybe it’s time that you do something stupid and irresponsible for once.”
Neither of them mentioned all those times when they were younger, when Sho had been all the stupid and irresponsible he would ever need to be in his lifetime.
Sho had never really thought of what he did for the group as being “allowed” by the others; he always thought that it was a position that someone needed to step up to and do, and since Leader wasn’t doing it, it fell to him. Now he wondered if he was ever needed at all. He didn’t say this, stating instead, “so you’re saying that my being with Jun is stupid and irresponsible.”
“Let’s face it - being who we are, a relationship with anyone is potentially that,” Nino replied. This aspect of our work never sat well with him, and he went off-tangeant. “I don’t know what they expect - that we’d stay virgins until we’re in our thirties and then suddenly announce we’re getting married? It doesn’t make sense.” But things were the way they were, and we all knew it without having to be told. “It hadn’t stopped any of us before, why should it stop you now?”
“Because it’s Jun, and it matters.” And that was the crux of it, we knew - because Jun was one of us, this mattered in a way that nothing else had mattered before.
“Sho-chan.” Nino’s hand went up to Sho’s hair, playing with it, in a way that would be more normal if it was Leader or even Aiba, but Sho didn’t stop him, so he continued. “You know we love you. And him. We’re not going to be your excuse for not taking whatever it is that you have with each other, because it’s special. We know it’s special. So maybe we’ll be a little off for awhile, but we’ll get over this, like we get over everything else. You’re taking this the wrong way, anyhow. You think of what you and Jun have as extra threads, a secret that the two of you keep from us. And maybe it is - because I sure as hell don’t want to know the details of what goes on between you two. But. Maybe it’s something else, too. Maybe before this there had always been a hole in what the five of us are, meant to be filled in by the both of you together. Maybe we’ll be stronger because of it, not weaker.” Pulling away, he grimaced. “Plus, if I tell you that you can’t be with Jun, then I wouldn’t be able to tell you that Aiba thinks he’s pregnant with my baby because of that one time the other day, would I?”
Sho choked. “What?” He sounded indignant, and furious, like a father whose daughter had just been wronged. “What the hell did you do to Aiba to make him think that?”
Nino laughed, a loud, hard laughter that caused him to double up in glee. “Jeez. Can’t you even take a joke? There’s nothing going on with Aiba.”
})i({
When the year-long ban on driving had been lifted, they still went to work together, sometimes. Sometimes they didn’t even drive, preferring to be fetched, spending their time in silence, reading. There was something comforting about that, about being together without needing to engage in each other all the time.
Sometimes they would be holding up their reading material in one hand, the other hand stretched between them, connected in a loose hold. Sho would put aside his paper or magazine, or Jun his book, and they would talk, or not talk. These are things they never speak of to us, like the times when they both came from Sho’s place, or Jun’s. These are the things we don’t ask about, even if we could see the tell-tale signs, the suspicious marks on their skin, the glazed, glowing look in their eyes. We share everything, except for when we didn’t. We never realized it before, but ever since Sho and Jun became Sho and Jun, the rest of us have loosened up a little more. Felt more free to test the boundaries, to stretch out and explore the world outside of who we were. As far as everyone were concerned, we were still the same. But between us, we felt it, because we understood each other in a way no one else did. This was true before, and it continued being true after. And what we have learned from it was this - however far apart we let ourselves drift or separate, we would spring back into this fold, no matter what. We were each other’s orbit, and gravity would always bring us back - there was nothing that would break what we were, what we have made ourselves.
})i({
Driving by the large poster of Sho in that ridiculous outfit that had lost in the last Mannequin 5 SP, Jun gave in to a fit of laughter. Sho didn’t mind. His expression was proud as he looked up at his image.
“I don’t know what possessed you to do something like that,” Jun said, because of course we knew it was on purpose, like every other stupid thing Sho did, although this time it wasn’t scripted, it wasn’t asked for by the staff or director or any of us, this time it was all Sho’s doing, and we wondered why.
“Why not? If someone had to lose, it might as well be me,” he said, and Jun knew right then that it was for him, because of course all of us knew how much losing had affected our youngest, and while we had all tried to convince Jun that it was just a silly television show, Sho had done this incredibly stupid, sweet thing instead. Someone had to lose, after all, and who else would be better at it than Sho? It wasn’t be the first time he did something lame to make the rest of us look good, and it wouldn’t be the last time, either.
Because we knew each other so well we could interpret each other’s meanings easily, Jun understood that it was Sho’s way of saying, I love you, too - finally giving an answer to that all too public confession once, so many years ago, the one that we have all joked about and thought it didn’t matter, because love was just one of many things we were; until, of course, we realized that it did matter, and what we thought we could do without had ended up making us stronger than ever.And then, because it had been so many years since then, Jun's hand would take Sho’s reassuringly, and they would both know without having to speak that he still felt the same.
~ the end ~
Marineko's Notes:
1. aliehumdee, I hope this was satisfactory ^^;; It's a bit different from what I usually write, so I'm not too sure if it works.
2. The title is really because the song was stuck in my head all morning and I was thinking of this image when I wrote it (despite the image being a little Sakuraiba-biased).
3. I hope the narrative isn't confusing; I wanted to try writing in first-person-plural since I read this book written in that way - Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters. It's just interesting, to me, how it binds the characters together.
4. Next up should be a Sakuraiba! Even though I'm a Sakuraiba writer, I'm getting nervous because I've gotten used to writing Sakumoto and Juntoshi these days :p
FANDOM: Arashi
PAIRING: Sakumoto
RATING: G
DATE: April 15th, 2011
WORD COUNT: 4,670
NOTES/DISCLAIMERS: I do not own Arashi.
**This was written for the Japan Earthquake & Tsunami Relief Fund, as a request by aliehumdee
We Make Storm
It was Jun’s fault, of course. Even though it was Nino who had been the last straw. Even though when Jun did it, it was an honest mistake, and when Nino did it he had been drunk, and we all knew it. None of us would ever say it, at least not to his face. We agreed that Jun was to blame - even Jun himself had agreed. As tough as he acted, Nino took things to heart, and if we’d allowed him to take the blame we didn’t know if he’d ever be able to face us after. Jun, like Sho when it came to our television screw-ups, or like Aiba when it came to rehearsals, didn’t mind being the wrong one if any of us needed him to be. As for the rest of us? Leader was the one who was perfect at anything he tried, and Nino was the one with a sharp mind, the one who figured everything out on his own and in his own terms, so we did our best to help perpetuate those myths.
In truth, of course, we’re just human.
Difficult as it was for us (except Leader) for not being able to drive, we knew that Sho was the one who had been most affected, who had felt most punished. Jun liked to drive, but he accepted his penance with grace. Aiba took things philosophically, like he always did. We thought that Nino seemed happier to be driven around; it gave him more time on his DS, although we never called him up on it, and he never admitted it. But for Sho, who didn’t have hobbies and whose favourite way to unwind was to take long, lone drives through old towns, something important had been lost. The fact that it hadn’t even been his fault stung harder, although we knew that he felt responsible for all our mistakes, sometimes. For the first week he’d been imbued with false cheer, as if to keep our - or his - spirits up. By the second week we noticed that he’d sometimes get surly with Leader, resentful that this time our punishment wasn’t equal, that this wasn’t effecting everyone the same way at all. Jun, who had taken on all the guilty feelings even though we all knew that it wasn’t really his fault, felt even worse, and tried to stay out of Sho’s way when he could.
Knowing each other the way we do was the most simple thing to us, although not a simple thing at all - the way even siblings couldn’t know each other, because siblings are separated by gaps of age and resentment from parents’ favoritism, and siblings had enough time and space for secrets, while we, having been raised together since the forming of our group, read each others’ minds as easily as sisters do, joke and tease at each other the way brothers do, compete the way rivals do, support each other the way best friends do. Inexplicably bonded the way only families are, we understand each other and our experiences the way no one else could. We’re comrades and brothers and best friends and family and rivals and warriors that have fought side-by-side for years - more than a decade, can you believe it, we could hear ourselves asking all the time, shaking our heads - we were all of that and more. There was no word for it before, because as far as we were concerned, there had been no one like us before. We were Arashi - that was the only explanation we ever needed.
By the third week, tired of reappearance of Sho’s short temper - and knowing that it was only a matter of time before it would be directed towards him, which he would never take - Nino began campaigning to the rest of us (other than Sho) about finding a solution. Aiba and Jun wanted to go up to the management, to ask them to lift the ban from the ones of us that hadn’t done anything, but Nino would have none of that. “We share everything,” he reminded us. We squirmed a little inside, thinking of the one or two times the statement had been too embarrassingly true. We argued and debated until Leader came up with the carpool idea, which Nino leapt on with a look in his eye that we were suspicious of, but even though we were pretty sure we knew him well enough to know all his tricks we decided to let it go. As Aiba said later, it wasn’t as if Nino wouldn’t find a way to do what he wanted anyway, if we’d tried to stop him. So we shrugged, and went about the rest of our day, almost forgetting our talk until Nino reappeared with a carpool schedule from the management. He looked slightly put out, which was how we realized that Leader had got to the management before Nino did, somehow, and had asked them to not pair him with Nino. It was an ongoing game between them, almost, with Nino always looking for more alone time with our eldest, and Leader always refusing. We watch with amusement to see who would win, in the end. So far it was Leader = n, Nino = 0. n, because we had all stopped counting after some time. It had started as a game, and had turned into a joke.
Nino also looked a little pleased with himself, which made Jun grab at the schedule sheet, and pale a little.
“Nino,” he complained. “What are you trying to do? Get me killed? You know he’s more angry with me than anyone else.”
“Not true.” Nino was unrepentant. “He loves you.” Then Nino added, “he loves us,” qualifying his earlier remark, “which is something he needs to remember at times like these.” Jun had already reddened, and looked away, when Nino said “he loves you.”
Aiba was happy to be pooling with Nino, and Nino got his revenge by leaving Leader out of their fun. Not that Leader cared; he still preferred to take public transport when he could. There was something soothing about taking a train to work, something familiar and normal - unlike the unreal situations we found ourselves in on a daily basis. “It’s like Narnia,” he once said to Aiba, who scratched at his head and said that Leader was weird, but Jun thought he knew.
The world we worked in wasn’t real, wasn’t a part of whatever that was going on around us. The train, to Leader, was like a way to help him transition - from the ordinary person he was to the Ohno Satoshi that everyone in our world knew.
Not that Jun was thinking of all this, as he stared at the schedule, to the rest of our amusement. Oh, how we loved it when one of us were in a crunch, and it wasn’t ourselves.
})i({
“Hey,” Sho said, sliding into the car. Jun pressed into the backseat; if he could have disappeared all the way into it, he would.
“Hey,” he said, in a small voice. Then, as the car sped away, he said, “I’m sorry.”
Sho was amused. “Why? I thought this was Nino’s idea.”
“It was Leader’s, actually. Nino just ran with it and made it his own.” Sho nodded, unsurprised. “I mean, I’m sorry that it was because of me that we had to do this in the first place.”
Smiling wryly, Sho said, “Jun. You know, and I know, that it was really Nino’s fault.”
“But -“
“No buts. Just forget about it.” He turned to the folded newspaper in his hands, then, unfolding it and spreading it open to read, while Jun was still looking at him with consternation. Sho just kept on reading, until Jun turned away, pulling out a novel from his bag, and they settled in, silent but comfortable, with each other but apart, in the same space, but their minds off in different worlds.
If we had been around, the atmosphere would have been completely different. Sho would have found it hard to read with Aiba distracting him. Nino would be pestering Jun about the last manga he lent him, and Jun would eventually put his book aside, talking about the manga instead, and borrowing more volumes. He might have noticed that Leader was getting a little more tanned, again, and spent his time admonishing Ohno instead. Or they would all be talking about work, for a change. There were many different combinations and possible dynamics between us, but this, just Sho and Jun alone, was rare. Not so rare that we would never hear of it, but rare enough that it was still surprising how different it was.
Jun turned from his book as the car started crossing a bridge. He looked out, and thought of the last time he was out with Sho, voluntarily. It was at the Lady Gaga concert, although he doubted that it even counted, because even though they had sat next to each other and had planned to be there together he’d been much too embarrassed to be seen talking to Sho. He had asked Sho to go with him because he was interested - she was an internationally famous star, and her concerts were said to be a mind-blowing experience. Of course he wanted to know how true it was. Of course he wanted to see what kinds of tricks she would pull, what kinds of effects that he could appropriate for their own shows. But Sho, dancing along to the music, singing along and shouting like the rest of the fans, made Jun wish that he’d asked Leader instead. How was Jun to concentrate on the technical stuff when Sho was gyrating - like some teenage girl, we might add - his hips to an incredibly sexy rendition of Just Dance?
Feeling himself warm just from the memory, Jun wondered if there was something to be said about Leader’s dark skin (at least Leader didn’t blush so easily), and snuck a glance at Sho. Satisfied that Sho was still reading, he turned back to his book.
He didn’t see, a few minutes later, when Sho stopped while turning a page, and turned to look at him consideringly.
})i({
When it turned out that Sho had mellowed out again, Nino kept crowing that it was his idea that did it, even though we all knew that it was Leader’s idea and even though we didn’t see how reading the paper next to Jun would make Sho any different from reading the paper on his own. It was just that Sho was getting used to the new arrangement of a life without driving, Aiba and Jun would say, when they spoke to each other about it. But we all knew that Nino was right, all the same. Jun put Sho in his best behavior, for the most part (Lady Gaga concerts not withstanding). And while being driven to work had felt like a punishment, perhaps being driven with Jun there was something else entirely. There was something to be said about actually seeing the first face you want to see in the morning be the first face you see in the morning. This was what we thought, anyway, although we were equally sure that both of them would deny it until they were blue in the face.
Jun was still smarting inside from his old, silly crush, after all - he, too, wasn’t as strong as he liked to think he was - while Sho was just… Sho. Too focused on us as a group, and his work, to see anything beyond that. If there was a part of him that missed the old Jun, he kept it close to his heart.
But we knew, because we knew everything about each other.
})i({
Since they have very different schedules, the carpools were only for the times when we had work together. On the way to group magazine photo-shoots, or our shared variety shows. Even most of the interviews were done individually of late, other than some of the random conversations for the idol magazines, which were always over too soon after they started. So even with the carpools, we didn’t see each other as much as we would have liked. Sometimes, though, when certain jobs run later, or earlier, than expected, Sho would find Jun in the car after he was done with Zero. At these times it was too dark for them to read (and Sho would want a short reprieve from the news anyway), so they talked. Simple, meaningless things. Like Sho’s new fashion purchases (not as bad a disaster as he led fans to believe, but nothing really worth mentioning about, either) or whatever it was Jun was reading. Taken by themselves, these conversations didn’t amount to very much. But taken in the context of their relationship, it was a growth, a further sinking into that sphere that they’ve been pushed in, a signal that they were close enough that their conversations were almost domestic, and that they cared enough that meaningless things actually meant something.
})i({
“I was watching NatsuNiji before work today,” Sho said, and he had to stop himself from smiling when Jun’s head ducked in embarrassment. It didn’t matter how much we’ve worked together or have seen each other at work - Jun always got more shy about Sho seeing his work, even if he didn’t mind if it was any of the rest of us.
Jun knew what episode was aired that day, and he knew what Sho would have seen in the previews for the next episode.
“It was just me and the stylist in the green room,” Sho said. “And I think he was more shocked than I was, to see the kissing scene.” Sho laughed, and Jun’s ears flamed.
If it was Nino, or any of the rest of us, Jun would just ask him to stop talking. But this was Sho. After all these years, Jun still hesitated before asking Sho to pass a pen.
“He asked me if it bothered me.” Sho laughed again. “What, was I supposed to say that I was jealous?”
Something in Jun’s stomach soured at those words, and he looked determinedly away, this time not out of embarrassment. Sho’s laughter quickly subsided, as he noticed the change. That was the other thing about spending so much time together. Even someone as dense as Sho was had to learn to pick up the subtleties of Jun’s responses to him, sooner or later.
“Jun?” He moved closer, his hand went to Jun’s arm, circling around it, tugging gently to make Jun face him. “Is something wrong?”
Jun shrugged, jerking his arm upwards, causing Sho to let go. “It’s nothing,” he said.
“It’s not nothing,” Sho insisted. “I’ve sat next to you at least three days a week for all this time; did you think I wouldn’t notice when it’s not nothing?” He looked at Jun, searchingly. Our Sho was pretty clueless when it came to things that weren’t written in books, but he had his moments, too. “Wait. Did you want me to be jealous?”
“Sho. Just leave it, okay?” Jun’s temper was rising, like it usually did when he felt cornered. But Sho knew to match fire with fire.
“That’s it, isn’t it? Why haven’t you told me this before?” he demanded. “I thought you were over that phase.”
“Because it’s not your problem!” Jun snapped. “It’s mine.”
Sho should have remembered that even though we never had time or space away from each other to keep secrets, Jun was better at it than the rest of us. After all, this was one of the things that had always been bothering him, that Jun knew everything about him and he still felt that he was guessing about Jun a lot of the time.
“Of course it’s my problem,” Sho snapped back. “It had been my problem when the others were teasing me relentlessly about you back then. Why wouldn’t it have been my problem now, if you can’t even talk to me without -“
“Please,” Jun interrupted. Unlike Sho, he was never very good at holding on to his temper. The durations vary, but he would usually find himself more tired than anything else. “Just - can’t we let this go?”
})i({
Despite what we’ve said in interviews, we’ve been angry with each other before. We’ve fought - after a fashion. But it was never really serious, and it was never about work. Whatever it was that made us “us” was stronger than anything else we’ve faced, be it the outside world or conflict with each other. It didn’t matter what it was, we knew that we would get through it together. This thing that tied us together wasn’t going to let anything stand in its way, and eventually wore down everything else in its path.
That was why it didn’t surprise us that there was no real bitterness between Sho and Jun, all those years ago. Much have been made of it by others, perhaps - it was a rumour that spread like wildfire, causing photographers to separate them in shoots, making staff and producers and even those from the company walk on eggshells when it came to them. No one wanted an explosion, an excuse for us to break. What they didn’t get was that it would take a lot more than unrequited love to break us.
Perhaps the ties where Jun and Sho were connected were a little strained and worse for wear. But love was only one of the millions of things that the five of us could be for each other. So even if there was a limp, a wound, in their relationship, there was never any real anger or sadness between them, between us. We were so much more.
Sho knew this, and he knew that if he acquiesced, things would quickly fall back to normal - taking what we could out of each other’s company, looking forward to each day we had work together, the two of them going to work both engrossed with their own readings while being completely aware of each other. There would be no tragic ending to be scared of. Normal was more than good enough. They had lived with normal, and they were content with normal.
And yet, he thought, as he watched Jun closely, sometimes he wondered if there was something more than “good enough.” He waited until Jun’s eyes met his, holding each other’s gazes for a few seconds, minutes, hours - he didn’t know which, and he didn’t care. In any case, it was long enough for Jun’s expression change to understanding, and for Jun’s hand to rise to his face, guiding him forwards, for their lips to meet.
After knowing each other and side-stepping their feelings for each other that didn’t seem to fit into the rest of what made us who we were, both of them assumed that it would be the most natural thing in the world. Neither were prepared for the awkward bumps and repositioning before they got it just right, nor were they prepared for how they felt like they were spinning out of orbit, like for a moment there was just two, like there had always been only two, instead of five. When they parted, out of breath and disheveled and glad for the screen between them and the driver whose presence they only just remembered, their eyes locked on each other again, mirroring each other’s thoughts.
For the first time, they were afraid.
})i({
“Just because things can go wrong, it doesn’t mean that it would,” Nino explained to Sho patiently, pressing too close despite the large couch they were sitting on, as usual. This was normal, although the knowledge that Jun would be livid if he was there to see was not. Sho squirmed away.
“Yeah, but this is different.” Sho’s voice was hushed, like he was afraid that Jun would hear him, even though he knew, and Nino knew, that Jun was still out filming his drama. He had never felt anything like it before, something stronger than what we had, than what we took for granted would always be there. And if it was stronger, then reason followed that if it was ever to break, it might break everything else. It felt so fragile, this thing that balanced Sho and Jun, carrying the weight of us as a group. We didn’t want to risk falling apart, of course, but we also refused to believe that it was that easy to break us. Or rather, we believed that if the feelings that Sho and Jun had for each other could break us, then perhaps we were never that strong to begin with.
That’s why Nino said, “it’s okay,” even though Sho was worried, because he always worried, because he was the one who always felt responsible for keeping everyone together and making sure everyone were on equal ground. We let him, because we knew that he needed it more than we did, but perhaps that had been a mistake, because the same thing that used to reassure him now plagued him. “You don’t have to always be the one who takes care of everything,” Nino told him. “We’ve let you be that person for so long, but maybe it’s time that you do something stupid and irresponsible for once.”
Neither of them mentioned all those times when they were younger, when Sho had been all the stupid and irresponsible he would ever need to be in his lifetime.
Sho had never really thought of what he did for the group as being “allowed” by the others; he always thought that it was a position that someone needed to step up to and do, and since Leader wasn’t doing it, it fell to him. Now he wondered if he was ever needed at all. He didn’t say this, stating instead, “so you’re saying that my being with Jun is stupid and irresponsible.”
“Let’s face it - being who we are, a relationship with anyone is potentially that,” Nino replied. This aspect of our work never sat well with him, and he went off-tangeant. “I don’t know what they expect - that we’d stay virgins until we’re in our thirties and then suddenly announce we’re getting married? It doesn’t make sense.” But things were the way they were, and we all knew it without having to be told. “It hadn’t stopped any of us before, why should it stop you now?”
“Because it’s Jun, and it matters.” And that was the crux of it, we knew - because Jun was one of us, this mattered in a way that nothing else had mattered before.
“Sho-chan.” Nino’s hand went up to Sho’s hair, playing with it, in a way that would be more normal if it was Leader or even Aiba, but Sho didn’t stop him, so he continued. “You know we love you. And him. We’re not going to be your excuse for not taking whatever it is that you have with each other, because it’s special. We know it’s special. So maybe we’ll be a little off for awhile, but we’ll get over this, like we get over everything else. You’re taking this the wrong way, anyhow. You think of what you and Jun have as extra threads, a secret that the two of you keep from us. And maybe it is - because I sure as hell don’t want to know the details of what goes on between you two. But. Maybe it’s something else, too. Maybe before this there had always been a hole in what the five of us are, meant to be filled in by the both of you together. Maybe we’ll be stronger because of it, not weaker.” Pulling away, he grimaced. “Plus, if I tell you that you can’t be with Jun, then I wouldn’t be able to tell you that Aiba thinks he’s pregnant with my baby because of that one time the other day, would I?”
Sho choked. “What?” He sounded indignant, and furious, like a father whose daughter had just been wronged. “What the hell did you do to Aiba to make him think that?”
Nino laughed, a loud, hard laughter that caused him to double up in glee. “Jeez. Can’t you even take a joke? There’s nothing going on with Aiba.”
})i({
When the year-long ban on driving had been lifted, they still went to work together, sometimes. Sometimes they didn’t even drive, preferring to be fetched, spending their time in silence, reading. There was something comforting about that, about being together without needing to engage in each other all the time.
Sometimes they would be holding up their reading material in one hand, the other hand stretched between them, connected in a loose hold. Sho would put aside his paper or magazine, or Jun his book, and they would talk, or not talk. These are things they never speak of to us, like the times when they both came from Sho’s place, or Jun’s. These are the things we don’t ask about, even if we could see the tell-tale signs, the suspicious marks on their skin, the glazed, glowing look in their eyes. We share everything, except for when we didn’t. We never realized it before, but ever since Sho and Jun became Sho and Jun, the rest of us have loosened up a little more. Felt more free to test the boundaries, to stretch out and explore the world outside of who we were. As far as everyone were concerned, we were still the same. But between us, we felt it, because we understood each other in a way no one else did. This was true before, and it continued being true after. And what we have learned from it was this - however far apart we let ourselves drift or separate, we would spring back into this fold, no matter what. We were each other’s orbit, and gravity would always bring us back - there was nothing that would break what we were, what we have made ourselves.
})i({
Driving by the large poster of Sho in that ridiculous outfit that had lost in the last Mannequin 5 SP, Jun gave in to a fit of laughter. Sho didn’t mind. His expression was proud as he looked up at his image.
“I don’t know what possessed you to do something like that,” Jun said, because of course we knew it was on purpose, like every other stupid thing Sho did, although this time it wasn’t scripted, it wasn’t asked for by the staff or director or any of us, this time it was all Sho’s doing, and we wondered why.
“Why not? If someone had to lose, it might as well be me,” he said, and Jun knew right then that it was for him, because of course all of us knew how much losing had affected our youngest, and while we had all tried to convince Jun that it was just a silly television show, Sho had done this incredibly stupid, sweet thing instead. Someone had to lose, after all, and who else would be better at it than Sho? It wasn’t be the first time he did something lame to make the rest of us look good, and it wouldn’t be the last time, either.
Because we knew each other so well we could interpret each other’s meanings easily, Jun understood that it was Sho’s way of saying, I love you, too - finally giving an answer to that all too public confession once, so many years ago, the one that we have all joked about and thought it didn’t matter, because love was just one of many things we were; until, of course, we realized that it did matter, and what we thought we could do without had ended up making us stronger than ever.And then, because it had been so many years since then, Jun's hand would take Sho’s reassuringly, and they would both know without having to speak that he still felt the same.
~ the end ~
Marineko's Notes:
1. aliehumdee, I hope this was satisfactory ^^;; It's a bit different from what I usually write, so I'm not too sure if it works.
2. The title is really because the song was stuck in my head all morning and I was thinking of this image when I wrote it (despite the image being a little Sakuraiba-biased).
3. I hope the narrative isn't confusing; I wanted to try writing in first-person-plural since I read this book written in that way - Eleanor Brown's The Weird Sisters. It's just interesting, to me, how it binds the characters together.
4. Next up should be a Sakuraiba! Even though I'm a Sakuraiba writer, I'm getting nervous because I've gotten used to writing Sakumoto and Juntoshi these days :p