Arashi: Second Phase
AUTHOR: marineko/mylittlecthulhu
FANDOM: Arashi
PAIRING: Juntoshi, Sakuraiba, Junba (friendship)
RATING: PG
DATE: May 22nd, 2012
WORD COUNT: 4,270
NOTES/DISCLAIMERS: 1. This is a work of fiction, 2. beta-ed by arashic0804, 3. It's set in the RedShiftverse AU, 4. a follow-up to Phases, but can be read by itself.
Second Phase
Their manager was briefing them on their schedule for the coming week, but Jun wasn’t listening. He had asked her to send him copies of everything he needed to keep track of things, anyway. He kept his eyes on Ohno, who was staring at his phone, already tuning out from rehearsal. Moving closer, Jun asked quietly, “Oh-chan. Do you want to grab dinner after we’re done here?”
Ohno looked at him blankly for a moment before apologizing. “Sorry, Jun-kun. I’m meeting Riki and the others after this.” Ohno didn’t ask if Jun would like to come; Jun knew them, of course, even though they were closer to Ohno and Aiba. He had even gone with Ohno and the rest of them a few times, but it had been months since the last time he did. After rejecting Ohno’s invitations so many times, it was only natural for Ohno to stop asking.
“That’s okay, then,” he said with practiced ease, watching as Ohno’s eyes slid away from him, focusing on his phone once more. He was probably contacting his friends, Jun supposed. It wasn’t weird at all.
But Ohno had been like that for weeks - carefully distant, even when he never actively avoided Jun. That kind of thing was glaringly obvious when they lived together. They hardly had time off, and almost never at the same time, but Ohno always managed to be preoccupied with something, and Jun - he would just let things be. He supposed that after all the trouble he had caused the band, and the carelessness with which he had treated their relationship, he really wasn’t in a position to complain.
“Jun?”
He looked up to see Aiba looking at him with an odd expression. “Are you okay?”
“What? Oh. No, I’m fine, I was just about to ask if you want to go out after work…?”
He frowned. “Don’t you have plans with Sho?”
“Sho’s busy,” Nino answered from behind them. He had just finished packing up his belongings, and was saying goodbye to his guitar, telling it that he’d see it again the next day. Nino could be weird like that. Jun supposed that Nino didn’t really have many friends, other than the band. Although now that Nino was dating the singer of another band, he was spending more time socializing - sort of.
“Seeing Yamamura-kun tonight?” Jun asked, changing the subject.
“Mm,” Nino murmured noncommittally. “He bought a new synthesizer, so we’re just going to experiment a little.”
“Geek,” Aiba said.
“You’re the one who’ll love me when I write you another song,” Nino replied pleasantly, despite the sharp grin that accompanied it. “‘A melody that catches you and won’t ever let up, deceptively simple until it takes you by surprised, and you’re hooked.’”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘pure genius’, that’s you,” Aiba grumbled. “Somebody’s been reading the fan blogs.”
“Somebody’s jealous.”
Aiba waved the comment away, grinning and shaking his head as Nino left, tailing after Ohno. Sho had left before they finished, called away by his manager. Jun had thought that he would be returning, but apparently he wasn’t.
“So?” Aiba asked him. “Dinner?”
“Wouldn’t Sho mind…?” He’d been careful about his friendship with Aiba ever since Sho had found out about their past. He didn’t want to cause unnecessary tension between the two, and he had really needed to put a distance between himself and Aiba. The fact that they had jumped back into friendship so soon after their break-up had meant that Jun had been with Aiba practically every day since, that Jun had never really had the chance to get over it. That was, until Aiba misguidedly tried to get back together with him to get over Sho, landing all of them in a big mess that Jun hadn’t been prepared to deal with. It had been almost a year since then, but neither of them wanted to repeat that mistake again.
Aiba shook his head again, a soft smile on his face this time. “No, I’ve told him that I wanted to have dinner with you. He doesn’t mind. He trusts me, see.” His eyes were soft, with a little surprise in them, as he spoke, as if he couldn’t believe it, like he had been given a gift he had never expected, that he may not even think he deserved.
Jun felt a twinge, looking at Aiba’s face - he wondered if Ohno trusted him, if Ohno would trust him again. “Okay,” he agreed, hesitant. “I guess.”
Aiba rolled his eyes. “Curb down on your enthusiasm a little, will you.”
“Sorry.”
“Jun-chan?” Jun blinked at Aiba, startled by the way he was addressed. “Are you okay? It’s just that you’ve been really quiet these days, and you never snap back, not even at Nino, and even I want to kill him sometimes…”
“I’m fine,” he said firmly, and forced a smile. “See?”
Aiba looked far from convinced, but refrained from saying anything as they left the room.
})i({
Aiba held his hand the whole way to the parking lot. Jun wondered if it was supposed to be disturbing, how no one they passed by seemed to think it was weird. When he mentioned this to Aiba, the bassist merely shrugged, and reminded him that it wasn’t exactly uncommon behavior among the RedShift members. Jun was still trying to decide if this fact made them even weirder, but Aiba was already pulling the car keys from his pocket.
“I’m driving?” he asked.
“Nope, I am,” Aiba replied cheerfully. “But we are taking your car, because Sho-chan drove me to work today.”
Suddenly the whole let’s-go-out-for-dinner thing made more sense.
“You just want a ride back later, don’t you,” he accused, but Aiba ignored him, as well as his protests over Aiba driving his car. His brand new car, the first big thing he spent on now that the band seemed to be making money.
Aiba took him to a small restaurant he’d never heard of. Aiba appeared to be very familiar with the staff, so Jun assumed he went there often. Sure enough, after ordering for both of them, Aiba said, “Sho-chan and I come here a lot, because this place is pretty private. Plus, it doesn’t say so on the menu, but they can make pretty much anything you want.”
Jun didn’t think it mattered, when Aiba ordered items off the menu anyway, but refrained from saying so. He listened to Aiba talk about how things were going with Sho, how the fact that he was staying over at Sho’s more often than not was making Nino crabby - something Jun got to witness firsthand at work - and how their other friends, that Aiba kept in touch with, were doing. The whole time he listened, he fiddled with his phone, checking his mail from time to time, even though he wasn’t really waiting for anything in particular.
“-so Riki said that he doesn’t know Suzuki, but he’ll try giving him a call one of these days, and I asked Sakai-kun if he minded helping out, if he isn’t too busy, because Hachiman is supposed to have a show tonight and they really needed a bassist, and it’s a good thing, too, because -”
“Wait,” Jun interrupted. “What’s that you said about Hachiman?”
“Riki changed his band name again,” Aiba said. “Didn’t you hear? It was three months ago, when -”
“No, I know that. You said that Hachiman is playing a show tonight?”
“Yeah.” Aiba drew out the word, brows furrowed in confusion or concentration, Jun couldn’t tell which. “It’s at that event, you know, they sent us a flyer.”
Jun remembered; it started about an hour before they were scheduled to finish work, and wouldn’t end until midnight. “I thought that Ohno’s meeting them at Ozeki’s tonight.”
“Ozeki’s closed tonight; Sheri-chan’s band is doing a one-night-only reunion thing at the event.”
“Oh. I guess I must have heard wrong, then.”
“I guess.” Aiba gave him a look that he wasn’t used to, not from the bassist, anyway. “Jun, have you talked to Oh-chan? You know… about things?”
He nearly rolled his eyes. “Eloquent, aren’t we?” he asked, but he wasn’t in the mood for a fight, and the usual bite in his words were conspicuously absent. Aiba just gave him the same fixed stare. It was unnerving, really. “Yes, we talked.”
“And?”
“We’re still together, aren’t we?” Some of his anxiety was crawling back up and added an edge to his words.
Aiba tilted his head slightly, indicating that he was listening. “That doesn’t mean very much, does it.”
Not when he and Ohno hardly talked, and Ohno spent most nights crashed on the living room sofa - never mind that they each actually had their own rooms in their apartment, anyway. And certainly not when he was still plagued by guilt over something he didn’t even do.
“Aiba,” he said, aware of how tired he sounded. “I really don’t think that you’re the person I should be hearing about this from.”
“You really should talk to him, you know.”
“Well, he isn’t really much of a talker, is he?”
“Jun.” Aiba spoke in a low, disappointed voice. Jun shifted, uneasy. “I’m sorry.”
“…what?” He didn’t know what he was expecting Aiba to say, but it was definitely not that. “Why, what are you sorry for?”
Aiba’s shoulder jerked in an impatient shrug. “About us. About what I did to you.”
“Aiba,” Jun said, as patiently as he could, “you didn’t do anything to me.”
“I hurt you.”
“Yes, but -”
“I was stupid and selfish and I used you when all you did was,” Aiba broke off, and continued in a soft, hesitant voice, “love me.”
“I did,” Jun agreed, with a small smile to show Aiba that he wasn’t lying. “And I didn’t regret that, and really, that doesn’t have anything to do with either of us now.”
“Then why haven’t you told Oh-chan how you felt about him?”
Jun drew in a sharp breath; Aiba had surprised him again. When the question sank in, he frowned. “I did tell him…”
Once, he thought. It was right before they heard about Sho’s father. He had been dating someone else at the time, when it suddenly clicked, and everything made sense. He had told Ohno, and all Ohno had said in reply was I know, so there was no way Ohno hadn’t known how he felt. “He knows,” Jun said. “Oh-chan knows.”
Aiba had let the subject drop, then, to Jun’s immense relief, and he immediately filed away the conversation, willing himself to forget, to think of anything else. But he couldn’t think of anything else. It nagged at him all through the drive home (Aiba followed him, claiming that he should go home once in a while - his code for ‘Sho’s working’. He had almost forgotten that Aiba lived with Nino, in the unit opposite his and Ohno’s.), and all through the elevator ride up to his apartment. Even Aiba’s chatter about his latest theory on aliens - that they were actively trying to sabotage the band - failed to distract him.
He had told Ohno how he felt. And everything had been perfect, for awhile. What had happened, he wondered. Why did the fact that they had little in common suddenly matter so much? Why had he been so anxious all the time, just waiting for things to fall apart - he cursed, and he almost dropped the house keys he had just pulled out. Aiba, who was unlocking his own door, turned. “Jun-chan?”
“I had been waiting for things to fall apart,” he said. It was strange hearing himself, because his voice sounded different, somehow - raw, and stunned.
“And when they didn’t, you decided to speed things up,” Aiba added. Aiba didn’t seem phased by his revelation, as if it was something Aiba had known all along. “I’ve been there.”
Jun remembered when Aiba had broken up with Sho. That hadn’t worked out too well for either of them, and definitely had not been good for the band. He probably should have thought of that earlier, but it wasn’t as if he even fully realized what he was doing. “I’m sorry.”
Aiba rolled his eyes. “You really should stop apologizing so much. And, anyway, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to. Talk to him, all right?”
Jun kept silent as Aiba disappeared into his apartment, leaving him alone in the hallway. It was easy for Aiba to say, he thought. It was true that Aiba and Sho had been through a lot, but Sho was devoted to Aiba. Only an idiot wouldn’t have seen that. He had seen the way they were with each other, and had felt a pang of envy - not because he missed Aiba in that way, but because he wanted whatever it was that they had.
“Jun? What are you doing out there?”
He started, and turned. He didn’t even notice the door opening behind him, he was so deep in thought. “Thinking.”
Ohno raised an eyebrow. “Think you could do that inside?”
“Um. Yeah. Sure.” Then, as an after thought, he added, “sorry.”
Ohno seemed torn between bewilderment and amusement, but did not comment. Instead, he just held the door open for Jun to pass through.
“Surprised you’re already back,” Jun murmured, still feeling a little dazed, and speaking mostly to fill in what would otherwise be silence. “Thought you went out with Riki.”
“Hachiman had a show tonight,” Ohno explained. “They were one of the earlier bands playing, so I just caught their set and left.” He waited, as if expecting Jun to say something, but Jun just nodded, accepting his explanation. “I thought you’d be home.”
“I just went out for dinner with Aiba,” he said. He glanced at the wall clock as he hung his bag at the coat rack. “Guess we were out longer than we thought.”
Ohno was quiet; this shouldn’t be too unusual, but somehow the silence bothered Jun. He thought about what Aiba had told him, that he should try talking to Ohno. He knew that ehe should, but at the same time it was just too… he bit his lips, and watched Ohno for a moment. Ohno was already heading to the kitchen, so he followed him in.
“Does it bother you, that I was with him?”
Ohno’s shrug came too quick, and seemed too defensive. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh-chan.” He waited until Ohno looked at him. “It’s just dinner.”
“And I told you,” Ohno repeated, his voice rising ever so slightly, “that it doesn’t matter.” Ohno turned away to get something from the shelf over the kitchen counter, ignoring Jun, as if saying that he had had enough of the conversation they were having.
Jun felt quiet and small, like he had disappointed Ohno, and had done something terribly wrong, even when he knew he hadn’t - not this time, at least. This wasn’t exactly a normal occurrence, but it had happened before, and it was escalating in frequency. Usually he would respond the same way he always did when hurt - freeze up, before saying something sharp, and mocking. Then he would leave, because he wouldn’t be able to keep up the act long enough in Ohno’s presence, and anyway Shun would always come up with a good distraction from whatever he and Ohno were arguing - or rather, not arguing - about. Habit already had him straightening, on the verge of delivering a remark designed to cut, but he checked the impulse. “Why,” he said, but had to stop, because his voice came out sounding a little scratchy. “Why didn’t you just - leave?”
Ohno was making instant coffee - Jun hated the stuff, but never said anything because Ohno liked them - and stopped stirring to look up at him questioningly.
“Before,” Jun elaborated. “When the scandal broke out.” He hated having to use that word, because really it wasn’t much of a scandal, but it was what the tabloids called it, and it certainly rocked the foundation of a band a little. “Or any of the other times I’ve been horrible to you.” Because he had been horrible; he was sure of that now. It was always little things - things he would say, or do, that made it seem like he didn’t care, as if he wanted to prove that he wouldn’t care if Ohno left. “You don’t even trust me.”
Ohno was quiet, still, and for what felt like the longest time, before he finally let out a long sigh. “I’ll leave, if it’s what you want.”
“That wasn’t what I asked; don’t put words in my mouth. I asked, why didn’t you.”
“Because it was what you were trying to make me do, wasn’t it?”
Ohno’s reply floored him. He had told Aiba himself that he had been waiting for things to fall apart, and had realized that he might have been trying to make it happen, but he hadn’t realized that Ohno knew. “But, you said -”
“You wanted to give me an out,” Ohno said. “I understand that. But I’m not going to take it, unless you really want me to.”
It didn’t make sense, of course. If Ohno stayed because he knew that Jun was just trying to make him leave, then why would he say that he would leave if Jun asked him to? And yet it made perfect sense to him, because he felt just as contradictory most of the time. He had known, of course, that he was going to end up pushing Ohno away, the way he had been acting. But he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. And he knew that he wouldn’t be able to take it if Ohno actually left. “Don’t,” he blurted out, surprising himself.
Ohno’s eyes widened, and he was sure that he was wearing a similar expression.
“Don’t leave,” he continued. His voice was low, but it didn’t waver. “I’m sorry.” Then he remembered Aiba telling him not to apologize so much, and ducked his head. Perhaps sometimes it was all right to say what he really felt. “I - don’t know what I’d do if you left,” he said, and he knew he was babbling, and felt his cheeks starting to warm in embarrassment. “So - please stay. I promise not to be an idiot any more, and anyway Aiba said that he’d be happy to knock some sense into me if I screw up again, and I really, really am useless without you, you know that - Oh-chan?”
Ohno had abandoned his coffee on the counter, and had let out a small, involuntary snort. He looked amused by the novelty of Jun’s incoherence. “You are useless without me, aren’t you,” he said, grinning. It was completely untrue, of course, since Jun was one of the more responsible ones of the group, but in a way it was also true, because at home, Jun had come to depend on Ohno’s presence a lot. Perhaps a little too much, Jun sometimes thought, but Ohno never seemed to mind. His initial discomfiture no longer mattered; Ohno understood exactly what he meant to say, and his reply told Jun that he felt the same.
“I think I’ve told you,” Ohno said, “that I would never had stayed this long if I didn’t care. It took you so long to notice that, that it doesn’t surprise me that it had taken you this long to believe me.”
“So - you didn’t mind me going out with Aiba?”
“It’s just dinner,” Ohno replied, repeating Jun’s earlier words. “I trust you. I’ve only been waiting for you to trust yourself.”
It was humbling, the sudden awareness of just how much Ohno cared. “I’m an idiot.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make up for it.”
“I know,” Ohno said again. This time his grin was practically a leer.
Jun laughed softly, even as he was leaning forwards, letting Ohno pull him into a kiss.
})i({
“Sho-chan, I’m bored.” Aiba drew out the last word, trying to sound as irritatingly whiny as he could. It didn’t seem to work, because Sho sounded completely unaffected on the other side.
“You haven’t been home in awhile, and it isn’t as if you get an evening off very often these days.” Sho ignored Aiba’s mumblings that an evening off didn’t matter if they didn’t both get one. “Rest. I’m sure you’ve got something that you’ve been wanting to do.”
Sho wasn’t wrong. Aiba had recently bought an entire manga series that he intended to read but never found the time to; they were still sitting on the living room shelf, untouched since the day he’d bought them. And there was that new game that Nino got the previous week, that he had yet to try. And it had been awhile since he’d called up his brother, something he had been meaning to do in awhile.
He was looking at the apartment, and he saw pieces of his and Nino’s lives surrounding him - books, manga, a couple of guitars, the meticulously kept shelf of games, the lone keyboard at the corner near the balcony. Nino had wanted to buy a drum set, but Aiba had put his foot down at that. They didn’t have the sound proofing it would take not to get complaints from neighbours. He thought of Nino always going to Ryuta’s to experiment on new sounds, and he thought of the weeks he had spent at Sho’s.
Suddenly, the apartment seemed so empty.
“I miss you,” he said quietly. He felt embarrassed admitting it, and stupid, because he had went to work with Sho and they were together at the studio earlier that day, and it wasn’t as if he wanted Sho to be there by his side every single second of every single day, but. “I mean, I’m looking around, and I see a lot of me, and a lot of Nino, and obviously that’s special and all, because he’s my bestest best friend ever, but I don’t see you, and I miss you.” He waited, but after a few beats, Sho still did not reply. “Sho-chan?”
“I need to go,” Sho said. His voice was thick, and controlled. “My break’s over.”
Aiba said good-bye and hung up, but when he was scrolling through his contacts in search for his brother’s number, his phone beeped, informing him that he had received a new e-mail from Sho. Four words - not really what he was expecting, or hoping for, because he wasn’t hoping for anything other than to complain a little to someone who knew not to take it too seriously. Still, everything seemed to stop for a moment.
Move in with me.
One beat, two beats, repeat - breathe, Masaki, he told himself. Then he took a breath, almost gasping after holding it in for so long, and dialed a number from memory.
“What? Unless you set the kitchen on fire or something, go away, I’m busy.”
“Kazu,” he wheezed. Breathe, Masaki! “Kazu!” he said again, clearer but just as rushed. “I’m moving in with Sho-chan. I think.”
He was expecting for Nino to blow up or blow it off or - anything, really, Nino was harder to predict lately, now that he was with Ryuta. Sometimes he seemed almost mellow, and Aiba wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or creeped out. This time, though, hearing Nino’s voice and recognizing it as gentle, and even warm, despite the clear laughing quality in it, he was glad.
“About time,” Nino said. Then Nino’s voice was muffled, like the phone was further away or Nino was covering it, but Aiba thought he heard Nino say, “Idiots.”
He didn’t mind at all, because he knew that only meant Nino was as happy for them as he was. And if Jun took his advice and actually talked to Ohno, then Jun and Ohno could be happy, and if all of them were happy, then there was no way the aliens could make things go wrong for RedShift by making them think weird and bad things, because - oh, no.
})i({
Aiba banged on Jun’s door, hard and repeatedly.
Jun opened it after the ninth bang, looking obviously irritated and annoyed and very sexily mussed which made Aiba think all must be right in the world, after all.
“You’re happy!” he said. “Good. The aliens lost!”
“If you don’t leave right now I’m calling Sho to get you, and he is not going to be happy to have to leave in the middle of work.”
“Just shut the door,” he heard Ohno from inside, sounding like he was trying hard not to laugh. Aiba didn’t know what was so funny; it was extremely important that he made sure the aliens wouldn’t screw up with Jun’s mind again after Aiba had finally talked some sense into him. It was the least he could do, since Ohno had helped him out when he was being stupid.
He thought of explaining this, but Jun’s glare really was intimidating up close and anyway things did work out for the best, so - “just telling you that I hope things go well and I’m moving in with Sho-chan so we won’t be neighbours anymore, that’s it, so okay, bye!”
He was back in his own apartment before Jun could chase him out.
})i({
It was only when Sho apologized for rushing things the next day that Aiba realized that he had told everyone about moving in with Sho, except for Sho.
He insisted that the aliens made him forget, but their nefarious plans were for naught, because he was happy, and Sho was happy, and Nino and Jun and Oh-chan were happy, and happy people made a happy band.
~ the end ~
Marineko's notes:
A happier sequel for sesquerdo (happy belated birthday! It's been ages since I said I'd write you something ^^;), with the addition of Sakuraiba for those who wanted more of them (especially Shi-chan, without whom I may not finish a fic ever :p)
FANDOM: Arashi
PAIRING: Juntoshi, Sakuraiba, Junba (friendship)
RATING: PG
DATE: May 22nd, 2012
WORD COUNT: 4,270
NOTES/DISCLAIMERS: 1. This is a work of fiction, 2. beta-ed by arashic0804, 3. It's set in the RedShiftverse AU, 4. a follow-up to Phases, but can be read by itself.
Second Phase
Their manager was briefing them on their schedule for the coming week, but Jun wasn’t listening. He had asked her to send him copies of everything he needed to keep track of things, anyway. He kept his eyes on Ohno, who was staring at his phone, already tuning out from rehearsal. Moving closer, Jun asked quietly, “Oh-chan. Do you want to grab dinner after we’re done here?”
Ohno looked at him blankly for a moment before apologizing. “Sorry, Jun-kun. I’m meeting Riki and the others after this.” Ohno didn’t ask if Jun would like to come; Jun knew them, of course, even though they were closer to Ohno and Aiba. He had even gone with Ohno and the rest of them a few times, but it had been months since the last time he did. After rejecting Ohno’s invitations so many times, it was only natural for Ohno to stop asking.
“That’s okay, then,” he said with practiced ease, watching as Ohno’s eyes slid away from him, focusing on his phone once more. He was probably contacting his friends, Jun supposed. It wasn’t weird at all.
But Ohno had been like that for weeks - carefully distant, even when he never actively avoided Jun. That kind of thing was glaringly obvious when they lived together. They hardly had time off, and almost never at the same time, but Ohno always managed to be preoccupied with something, and Jun - he would just let things be. He supposed that after all the trouble he had caused the band, and the carelessness with which he had treated their relationship, he really wasn’t in a position to complain.
“Jun?”
He looked up to see Aiba looking at him with an odd expression. “Are you okay?”
“What? Oh. No, I’m fine, I was just about to ask if you want to go out after work…?”
He frowned. “Don’t you have plans with Sho?”
“Sho’s busy,” Nino answered from behind them. He had just finished packing up his belongings, and was saying goodbye to his guitar, telling it that he’d see it again the next day. Nino could be weird like that. Jun supposed that Nino didn’t really have many friends, other than the band. Although now that Nino was dating the singer of another band, he was spending more time socializing - sort of.
“Seeing Yamamura-kun tonight?” Jun asked, changing the subject.
“Mm,” Nino murmured noncommittally. “He bought a new synthesizer, so we’re just going to experiment a little.”
“Geek,” Aiba said.
“You’re the one who’ll love me when I write you another song,” Nino replied pleasantly, despite the sharp grin that accompanied it. “‘A melody that catches you and won’t ever let up, deceptively simple until it takes you by surprised, and you’re hooked.’”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘pure genius’, that’s you,” Aiba grumbled. “Somebody’s been reading the fan blogs.”
“Somebody’s jealous.”
Aiba waved the comment away, grinning and shaking his head as Nino left, tailing after Ohno. Sho had left before they finished, called away by his manager. Jun had thought that he would be returning, but apparently he wasn’t.
“So?” Aiba asked him. “Dinner?”
“Wouldn’t Sho mind…?” He’d been careful about his friendship with Aiba ever since Sho had found out about their past. He didn’t want to cause unnecessary tension between the two, and he had really needed to put a distance between himself and Aiba. The fact that they had jumped back into friendship so soon after their break-up had meant that Jun had been with Aiba practically every day since, that Jun had never really had the chance to get over it. That was, until Aiba misguidedly tried to get back together with him to get over Sho, landing all of them in a big mess that Jun hadn’t been prepared to deal with. It had been almost a year since then, but neither of them wanted to repeat that mistake again.
Aiba shook his head again, a soft smile on his face this time. “No, I’ve told him that I wanted to have dinner with you. He doesn’t mind. He trusts me, see.” His eyes were soft, with a little surprise in them, as he spoke, as if he couldn’t believe it, like he had been given a gift he had never expected, that he may not even think he deserved.
Jun felt a twinge, looking at Aiba’s face - he wondered if Ohno trusted him, if Ohno would trust him again. “Okay,” he agreed, hesitant. “I guess.”
Aiba rolled his eyes. “Curb down on your enthusiasm a little, will you.”
“Sorry.”
“Jun-chan?” Jun blinked at Aiba, startled by the way he was addressed. “Are you okay? It’s just that you’ve been really quiet these days, and you never snap back, not even at Nino, and even I want to kill him sometimes…”
“I’m fine,” he said firmly, and forced a smile. “See?”
Aiba looked far from convinced, but refrained from saying anything as they left the room.
})i({
Aiba held his hand the whole way to the parking lot. Jun wondered if it was supposed to be disturbing, how no one they passed by seemed to think it was weird. When he mentioned this to Aiba, the bassist merely shrugged, and reminded him that it wasn’t exactly uncommon behavior among the RedShift members. Jun was still trying to decide if this fact made them even weirder, but Aiba was already pulling the car keys from his pocket.
“I’m driving?” he asked.
“Nope, I am,” Aiba replied cheerfully. “But we are taking your car, because Sho-chan drove me to work today.”
Suddenly the whole let’s-go-out-for-dinner thing made more sense.
“You just want a ride back later, don’t you,” he accused, but Aiba ignored him, as well as his protests over Aiba driving his car. His brand new car, the first big thing he spent on now that the band seemed to be making money.
Aiba took him to a small restaurant he’d never heard of. Aiba appeared to be very familiar with the staff, so Jun assumed he went there often. Sure enough, after ordering for both of them, Aiba said, “Sho-chan and I come here a lot, because this place is pretty private. Plus, it doesn’t say so on the menu, but they can make pretty much anything you want.”
Jun didn’t think it mattered, when Aiba ordered items off the menu anyway, but refrained from saying so. He listened to Aiba talk about how things were going with Sho, how the fact that he was staying over at Sho’s more often than not was making Nino crabby - something Jun got to witness firsthand at work - and how their other friends, that Aiba kept in touch with, were doing. The whole time he listened, he fiddled with his phone, checking his mail from time to time, even though he wasn’t really waiting for anything in particular.
“-so Riki said that he doesn’t know Suzuki, but he’ll try giving him a call one of these days, and I asked Sakai-kun if he minded helping out, if he isn’t too busy, because Hachiman is supposed to have a show tonight and they really needed a bassist, and it’s a good thing, too, because -”
“Wait,” Jun interrupted. “What’s that you said about Hachiman?”
“Riki changed his band name again,” Aiba said. “Didn’t you hear? It was three months ago, when -”
“No, I know that. You said that Hachiman is playing a show tonight?”
“Yeah.” Aiba drew out the word, brows furrowed in confusion or concentration, Jun couldn’t tell which. “It’s at that event, you know, they sent us a flyer.”
Jun remembered; it started about an hour before they were scheduled to finish work, and wouldn’t end until midnight. “I thought that Ohno’s meeting them at Ozeki’s tonight.”
“Ozeki’s closed tonight; Sheri-chan’s band is doing a one-night-only reunion thing at the event.”
“Oh. I guess I must have heard wrong, then.”
“I guess.” Aiba gave him a look that he wasn’t used to, not from the bassist, anyway. “Jun, have you talked to Oh-chan? You know… about things?”
He nearly rolled his eyes. “Eloquent, aren’t we?” he asked, but he wasn’t in the mood for a fight, and the usual bite in his words were conspicuously absent. Aiba just gave him the same fixed stare. It was unnerving, really. “Yes, we talked.”
“And?”
“We’re still together, aren’t we?” Some of his anxiety was crawling back up and added an edge to his words.
Aiba tilted his head slightly, indicating that he was listening. “That doesn’t mean very much, does it.”
Not when he and Ohno hardly talked, and Ohno spent most nights crashed on the living room sofa - never mind that they each actually had their own rooms in their apartment, anyway. And certainly not when he was still plagued by guilt over something he didn’t even do.
“Aiba,” he said, aware of how tired he sounded. “I really don’t think that you’re the person I should be hearing about this from.”
“You really should talk to him, you know.”
“Well, he isn’t really much of a talker, is he?”
“Jun.” Aiba spoke in a low, disappointed voice. Jun shifted, uneasy. “I’m sorry.”
“…what?” He didn’t know what he was expecting Aiba to say, but it was definitely not that. “Why, what are you sorry for?”
Aiba’s shoulder jerked in an impatient shrug. “About us. About what I did to you.”
“Aiba,” Jun said, as patiently as he could, “you didn’t do anything to me.”
“I hurt you.”
“Yes, but -”
“I was stupid and selfish and I used you when all you did was,” Aiba broke off, and continued in a soft, hesitant voice, “love me.”
“I did,” Jun agreed, with a small smile to show Aiba that he wasn’t lying. “And I didn’t regret that, and really, that doesn’t have anything to do with either of us now.”
“Then why haven’t you told Oh-chan how you felt about him?”
Jun drew in a sharp breath; Aiba had surprised him again. When the question sank in, he frowned. “I did tell him…”
Once, he thought. It was right before they heard about Sho’s father. He had been dating someone else at the time, when it suddenly clicked, and everything made sense. He had told Ohno, and all Ohno had said in reply was I know, so there was no way Ohno hadn’t known how he felt. “He knows,” Jun said. “Oh-chan knows.”
Aiba had let the subject drop, then, to Jun’s immense relief, and he immediately filed away the conversation, willing himself to forget, to think of anything else. But he couldn’t think of anything else. It nagged at him all through the drive home (Aiba followed him, claiming that he should go home once in a while - his code for ‘Sho’s working’. He had almost forgotten that Aiba lived with Nino, in the unit opposite his and Ohno’s.), and all through the elevator ride up to his apartment. Even Aiba’s chatter about his latest theory on aliens - that they were actively trying to sabotage the band - failed to distract him.
He had told Ohno how he felt. And everything had been perfect, for awhile. What had happened, he wondered. Why did the fact that they had little in common suddenly matter so much? Why had he been so anxious all the time, just waiting for things to fall apart - he cursed, and he almost dropped the house keys he had just pulled out. Aiba, who was unlocking his own door, turned. “Jun-chan?”
“I had been waiting for things to fall apart,” he said. It was strange hearing himself, because his voice sounded different, somehow - raw, and stunned.
“And when they didn’t, you decided to speed things up,” Aiba added. Aiba didn’t seem phased by his revelation, as if it was something Aiba had known all along. “I’ve been there.”
Jun remembered when Aiba had broken up with Sho. That hadn’t worked out too well for either of them, and definitely had not been good for the band. He probably should have thought of that earlier, but it wasn’t as if he even fully realized what he was doing. “I’m sorry.”
Aiba rolled his eyes. “You really should stop apologizing so much. And, anyway, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to. Talk to him, all right?”
Jun kept silent as Aiba disappeared into his apartment, leaving him alone in the hallway. It was easy for Aiba to say, he thought. It was true that Aiba and Sho had been through a lot, but Sho was devoted to Aiba. Only an idiot wouldn’t have seen that. He had seen the way they were with each other, and had felt a pang of envy - not because he missed Aiba in that way, but because he wanted whatever it was that they had.
“Jun? What are you doing out there?”
He started, and turned. He didn’t even notice the door opening behind him, he was so deep in thought. “Thinking.”
Ohno raised an eyebrow. “Think you could do that inside?”
“Um. Yeah. Sure.” Then, as an after thought, he added, “sorry.”
Ohno seemed torn between bewilderment and amusement, but did not comment. Instead, he just held the door open for Jun to pass through.
“Surprised you’re already back,” Jun murmured, still feeling a little dazed, and speaking mostly to fill in what would otherwise be silence. “Thought you went out with Riki.”
“Hachiman had a show tonight,” Ohno explained. “They were one of the earlier bands playing, so I just caught their set and left.” He waited, as if expecting Jun to say something, but Jun just nodded, accepting his explanation. “I thought you’d be home.”
“I just went out for dinner with Aiba,” he said. He glanced at the wall clock as he hung his bag at the coat rack. “Guess we were out longer than we thought.”
Ohno was quiet; this shouldn’t be too unusual, but somehow the silence bothered Jun. He thought about what Aiba had told him, that he should try talking to Ohno. He knew that ehe should, but at the same time it was just too… he bit his lips, and watched Ohno for a moment. Ohno was already heading to the kitchen, so he followed him in.
“Does it bother you, that I was with him?”
Ohno’s shrug came too quick, and seemed too defensive. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh-chan.” He waited until Ohno looked at him. “It’s just dinner.”
“And I told you,” Ohno repeated, his voice rising ever so slightly, “that it doesn’t matter.” Ohno turned away to get something from the shelf over the kitchen counter, ignoring Jun, as if saying that he had had enough of the conversation they were having.
Jun felt quiet and small, like he had disappointed Ohno, and had done something terribly wrong, even when he knew he hadn’t - not this time, at least. This wasn’t exactly a normal occurrence, but it had happened before, and it was escalating in frequency. Usually he would respond the same way he always did when hurt - freeze up, before saying something sharp, and mocking. Then he would leave, because he wouldn’t be able to keep up the act long enough in Ohno’s presence, and anyway Shun would always come up with a good distraction from whatever he and Ohno were arguing - or rather, not arguing - about. Habit already had him straightening, on the verge of delivering a remark designed to cut, but he checked the impulse. “Why,” he said, but had to stop, because his voice came out sounding a little scratchy. “Why didn’t you just - leave?”
Ohno was making instant coffee - Jun hated the stuff, but never said anything because Ohno liked them - and stopped stirring to look up at him questioningly.
“Before,” Jun elaborated. “When the scandal broke out.” He hated having to use that word, because really it wasn’t much of a scandal, but it was what the tabloids called it, and it certainly rocked the foundation of a band a little. “Or any of the other times I’ve been horrible to you.” Because he had been horrible; he was sure of that now. It was always little things - things he would say, or do, that made it seem like he didn’t care, as if he wanted to prove that he wouldn’t care if Ohno left. “You don’t even trust me.”
Ohno was quiet, still, and for what felt like the longest time, before he finally let out a long sigh. “I’ll leave, if it’s what you want.”
“That wasn’t what I asked; don’t put words in my mouth. I asked, why didn’t you.”
“Because it was what you were trying to make me do, wasn’t it?”
Ohno’s reply floored him. He had told Aiba himself that he had been waiting for things to fall apart, and had realized that he might have been trying to make it happen, but he hadn’t realized that Ohno knew. “But, you said -”
“You wanted to give me an out,” Ohno said. “I understand that. But I’m not going to take it, unless you really want me to.”
It didn’t make sense, of course. If Ohno stayed because he knew that Jun was just trying to make him leave, then why would he say that he would leave if Jun asked him to? And yet it made perfect sense to him, because he felt just as contradictory most of the time. He had known, of course, that he was going to end up pushing Ohno away, the way he had been acting. But he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. And he knew that he wouldn’t be able to take it if Ohno actually left. “Don’t,” he blurted out, surprising himself.
Ohno’s eyes widened, and he was sure that he was wearing a similar expression.
“Don’t leave,” he continued. His voice was low, but it didn’t waver. “I’m sorry.” Then he remembered Aiba telling him not to apologize so much, and ducked his head. Perhaps sometimes it was all right to say what he really felt. “I - don’t know what I’d do if you left,” he said, and he knew he was babbling, and felt his cheeks starting to warm in embarrassment. “So - please stay. I promise not to be an idiot any more, and anyway Aiba said that he’d be happy to knock some sense into me if I screw up again, and I really, really am useless without you, you know that - Oh-chan?”
Ohno had abandoned his coffee on the counter, and had let out a small, involuntary snort. He looked amused by the novelty of Jun’s incoherence. “You are useless without me, aren’t you,” he said, grinning. It was completely untrue, of course, since Jun was one of the more responsible ones of the group, but in a way it was also true, because at home, Jun had come to depend on Ohno’s presence a lot. Perhaps a little too much, Jun sometimes thought, but Ohno never seemed to mind. His initial discomfiture no longer mattered; Ohno understood exactly what he meant to say, and his reply told Jun that he felt the same.
“I think I’ve told you,” Ohno said, “that I would never had stayed this long if I didn’t care. It took you so long to notice that, that it doesn’t surprise me that it had taken you this long to believe me.”
“So - you didn’t mind me going out with Aiba?”
“It’s just dinner,” Ohno replied, repeating Jun’s earlier words. “I trust you. I’ve only been waiting for you to trust yourself.”
It was humbling, the sudden awareness of just how much Ohno cared. “I’m an idiot.”
“I know.”
“I’ll make up for it.”
“I know,” Ohno said again. This time his grin was practically a leer.
Jun laughed softly, even as he was leaning forwards, letting Ohno pull him into a kiss.
})i({
“Sho-chan, I’m bored.” Aiba drew out the last word, trying to sound as irritatingly whiny as he could. It didn’t seem to work, because Sho sounded completely unaffected on the other side.
“You haven’t been home in awhile, and it isn’t as if you get an evening off very often these days.” Sho ignored Aiba’s mumblings that an evening off didn’t matter if they didn’t both get one. “Rest. I’m sure you’ve got something that you’ve been wanting to do.”
Sho wasn’t wrong. Aiba had recently bought an entire manga series that he intended to read but never found the time to; they were still sitting on the living room shelf, untouched since the day he’d bought them. And there was that new game that Nino got the previous week, that he had yet to try. And it had been awhile since he’d called up his brother, something he had been meaning to do in awhile.
He was looking at the apartment, and he saw pieces of his and Nino’s lives surrounding him - books, manga, a couple of guitars, the meticulously kept shelf of games, the lone keyboard at the corner near the balcony. Nino had wanted to buy a drum set, but Aiba had put his foot down at that. They didn’t have the sound proofing it would take not to get complaints from neighbours. He thought of Nino always going to Ryuta’s to experiment on new sounds, and he thought of the weeks he had spent at Sho’s.
Suddenly, the apartment seemed so empty.
“I miss you,” he said quietly. He felt embarrassed admitting it, and stupid, because he had went to work with Sho and they were together at the studio earlier that day, and it wasn’t as if he wanted Sho to be there by his side every single second of every single day, but. “I mean, I’m looking around, and I see a lot of me, and a lot of Nino, and obviously that’s special and all, because he’s my bestest best friend ever, but I don’t see you, and I miss you.” He waited, but after a few beats, Sho still did not reply. “Sho-chan?”
“I need to go,” Sho said. His voice was thick, and controlled. “My break’s over.”
Aiba said good-bye and hung up, but when he was scrolling through his contacts in search for his brother’s number, his phone beeped, informing him that he had received a new e-mail from Sho. Four words - not really what he was expecting, or hoping for, because he wasn’t hoping for anything other than to complain a little to someone who knew not to take it too seriously. Still, everything seemed to stop for a moment.
Move in with me.
One beat, two beats, repeat - breathe, Masaki, he told himself. Then he took a breath, almost gasping after holding it in for so long, and dialed a number from memory.
“What? Unless you set the kitchen on fire or something, go away, I’m busy.”
“Kazu,” he wheezed. Breathe, Masaki! “Kazu!” he said again, clearer but just as rushed. “I’m moving in with Sho-chan. I think.”
He was expecting for Nino to blow up or blow it off or - anything, really, Nino was harder to predict lately, now that he was with Ryuta. Sometimes he seemed almost mellow, and Aiba wasn’t sure if he should be pleased or creeped out. This time, though, hearing Nino’s voice and recognizing it as gentle, and even warm, despite the clear laughing quality in it, he was glad.
“About time,” Nino said. Then Nino’s voice was muffled, like the phone was further away or Nino was covering it, but Aiba thought he heard Nino say, “Idiots.”
He didn’t mind at all, because he knew that only meant Nino was as happy for them as he was. And if Jun took his advice and actually talked to Ohno, then Jun and Ohno could be happy, and if all of them were happy, then there was no way the aliens could make things go wrong for RedShift by making them think weird and bad things, because - oh, no.
})i({
Aiba banged on Jun’s door, hard and repeatedly.
Jun opened it after the ninth bang, looking obviously irritated and annoyed and very sexily mussed which made Aiba think all must be right in the world, after all.
“You’re happy!” he said. “Good. The aliens lost!”
“If you don’t leave right now I’m calling Sho to get you, and he is not going to be happy to have to leave in the middle of work.”
“Just shut the door,” he heard Ohno from inside, sounding like he was trying hard not to laugh. Aiba didn’t know what was so funny; it was extremely important that he made sure the aliens wouldn’t screw up with Jun’s mind again after Aiba had finally talked some sense into him. It was the least he could do, since Ohno had helped him out when he was being stupid.
He thought of explaining this, but Jun’s glare really was intimidating up close and anyway things did work out for the best, so - “just telling you that I hope things go well and I’m moving in with Sho-chan so we won’t be neighbours anymore, that’s it, so okay, bye!”
He was back in his own apartment before Jun could chase him out.
})i({
It was only when Sho apologized for rushing things the next day that Aiba realized that he had told everyone about moving in with Sho, except for Sho.
He insisted that the aliens made him forget, but their nefarious plans were for naught, because he was happy, and Sho was happy, and Nino and Jun and Oh-chan were happy, and happy people made a happy band.
~ the end ~
Marineko's notes:
A happier sequel for sesquerdo (happy belated birthday! It's been ages since I said I'd write you something ^^;), with the addition of Sakuraiba for those who wanted more of them (especially Shi-chan, without whom I may not finish a fic ever :p)