SERIES: In the Dark (6.)
The victory party was, as promised, a normal party. Everyone pitched in for pizza, tea and soda. No beer or drugs on Jun’s orders. It was Jun’s apartment, so no one dared to disobey.
Nino arrived last, his yellow hair damp from a shower, but he was all smiles as he basked in the glow of the attention.
There was a toast to Nino, and a toast to Nino’s team. Nino thanked the club for their support.
“Oh-chan, get me a plate of pizza.” Nino called from the couch, where he was talking with Jun and a guy Ohno thought was named Ryo.
Ohno went to the little kitchen area, took a plate from the stack Jun had set out to keep his party civil, and loaded it with three slices of pizza, grabbing an extra for himself to eat on the way back.
“Move over Ryo. Oh-chan, sit here.”
Ryo moved without breaking his conversation with Jun who was sitting on the coffee table in front of the couch. Ohno sat in the vacated seat, next to Nino.
Nino took a piece of pizza from the plate, but left the plate in Ohno’s hands.
Ohno wasn’t sure what to say to Nino. It felt kind of weird to be next to him again, when for so many hours he was an untouchable, distant thing. Like he was some kind of celebrity that Ohno didn’t have a right to talk to.
It made Ohno shy.
Fortunately there was always someone coming up to talk to Nino, to congratulate him, to thinly veil their worship with small talk.
The plate of pizza was emptied, and the plate set on the coffee table next to Jun. Nino, his arm over the back of the couch, played with Ohno’s hair, ears, neck, anything he could touch really, absentmindedly, while he chatted with his friends.
As the party wore on, Ohno realized there were actually two groups of people within the fanclub. Those who were truly Nino’s friends, like Aiba and Jun and Yoko, and those who were just groupies. The realization made Ohno even more uncomfortable because he fit into neither category. He liked Nino, a lot, but Ohno was a fake and a liar, an imposter who didn’t belong.
The pizza boxes and bottles of beverages were emptied, and people left, by ones and twos. Jun and Aiba began to tidy up the living area, gathering plates and cups and stacking them in the sink.
Ohno excused himself and found the bathroom. He washed his hands and noticed a speck of pepper in his teeth when he looked in the mirror. He picked it out, and ran his fingers through his hair to try and undo some of the damage Nino had done in absently and not-so-absently mussing it up.
He felt too tired and guilty to pretend to care about baseball and listen to more baseball glory stories. It was time to go home.
When he came out again, the living room had transformed. The coffee table had been moved against the wall, and in the empty middle space of the room, two or three futons had been laid out.
There was an excited murmur among the eight or so guests who remain. They were all the people Ohno had thought were Nino’s closer friends. Nino was talking to Jun, whose smirk was growing wider as he finished tidying the room, and Aiba was giggling as he talked with a kid named Yoko who was also giggling.
The energy in the room had changed. There was some kind of an electric undercurrent signaling something was about to happen.
Jun caught sight of Ohno, and headed his way. He spoke in undertones, “Since this is your first after party, you should know that you’re free to leave at any time if you get uncomfortable. No one will judge you for it. This sort of thing isn’t for everyone.”
Ohno was about to ask what sort of thing it was, when Aiba yanked off his own shirt and jumped into the middle of the pile of futons. Yoko whistled, and Nino laughed.
“You’ve been warned.” Jun murmured, but added in his serious business tone, “Oh, and since you’re new, if you decide to stay, you need to keep your underwear on this time. I’ll find out if you somehow lose them, so take care you don’t.”
“Wait, keep my underwear on? You mean others won’t be?”
Jun, with a teasing and informative smirk, moved towards the light switch.
Ohno looked across the living room, and found Nino. Their gazes met. Nino grinned, his eyes full of mischief.
The lights went out.
Ohno moved.
But someone got in his way.
It was definitely not one of the two remaining girls, Ohno discovered after a little of his own fondling. Their hands were gentle and cautious, as if unsure how Ohno would respond.
Ohno pulled him closer, and was greeted with a short, skilled kiss. It was Jun.
But after the kiss, someone came and pulled Jun away.
Ohno stumbled forward, and nearly tripped on someone’s legs.
He needed to find Nino before it was too late. Before he choose someone else.
Someone grabbed Ohno from behind, Ohno turned and felt around. It was one of the girls. They made out briefly. She helped him out of his shirt, and he helped her out of her bra.
Ohno moved on. Somewhere he could hear Aiba giggling.
Nino. Nino. Nino.
The next person was too tall to be Nino. His shoulders were broad, and Ohno felt small in his arms. His hands dipped into Ohno’s pants, but weren’t there for long before someone pulled him away.
Ohno moved on, slowly as it was hard to go anywhere without stepping on someone now. The giggles were becoming more numerous, but gasps and pants and slaps of flesh were adding their sounds to the chorus.
A hand found Ohno’s ass and squeezed. It was a small hand. Ohno found the wrist and his hands followed up the arm. A hand found his chest, and moved up to Ohno’s face. They kissed and Ohno nearly melted to his knees.
“Ouu-chan.” The breath was hot, steamy in his ear.
“Ninouu.”
Nino pushed him back, down onto the futon. Ohno’s head hit the couch. Nino crawled on top of him, his knees on either side.
Ohno ran his hands over every part of Nino, letting them be his eyes. Nino was in the same state of undress; naked only above the waist.
They kept kissing and kissing, exploring the stars. They rolled over, and bumped into another couple, their lips breaking apart suddenly, rudely. Someone tried to grab Ohno’s shoulder. Nino found the foreign hand and knocked it away.
Nino forced them to sit up, and pulled Ohno with him, up onto the empty couch.
The sounds of flesh-on-flesh suddenly seemed louder, now that they were above the mesh of bodies.
But it was like they were apart from that now. They were just two people, and the noise was from some porno on tv.
The atmosphere changed with their privacy, from animalistic lasciviousness to virgin nervousness.
Nino kissed him, from his lips to his ear, and whispered so softly Ohno wasn’t sure if Nino ever spoke at all, “What took you so long?”
Ohno closed his eyes, and tried not to think much of it even as the words and all of their possible meanings went straight to his heart, and the hot breath straight to his blood stream. It hadn’t taken him long to figure out that Nino was a people pleaser, and if there was a time to be a people pleaser, it was during foreplay. Ohno whispered back at last, “Your friends got in my way.”
“They do that.” Nino giggled, and he grabbed Ohno’s hair, and kissed him again, so long that Ohno could no longer tell whose tongue was whose. He forgot all about everything. They went beyond the universe, where the only gravity that existed was that which pulled them together, and all that there was, was Nino.
Somewhere out in that space that belonged just to them, Nino made a curious little dove-like questioning sound.
The sound was so cute, and Ohno was so out to orbit, it took him time to remember he had vocal cords, but when he did, he cooed back agreeably.
Slowly, or perhaps quickly, for there was no sense of time in their space, Nino found Ohno’s belt, and loosened it. The button went next, and without bothering with the zipper, Nino slipped his hands inside, in the space between Ohno’s pants and underwear, squeezing here and there on his way to the curve of Ohno’s ass.
Ohno wasn’t that patient. A hand on Nino’s hip, he pushed Nino down onto the seat of the couch, letting his other arm cushion Nino’s neck and leaving their legs to tangle and their groins to meet, zipper to zipper.
Nino groaned in his mouth, and Ohno tried unsuccessfully not to whimper.
The labored sounds of flesh on flesh continued around them. Distant. Ohno wondered why in a room full of people who for all he knew were having sex, where there might have been a once and a life time chance to be in an orgy barely a footstep away, all he could think of was Nino. The couch was their intimate little universe. A universe where it was just him, and Nino. And he never wanted to leave. Ever.
Nino’s hand in his hair pulled him back down to another kiss, and he was lost to the world, to time, to space.
Nino. Nino. Nino.