Je: Like Perfect Pieces (1/1)
Title: Like Perfect Pieces
Fandom: JE, Top3
Author: blahchiharu
Pairing: Sanada/Nozawa/Hasshi, top3some
Rating: PG13
wordcount: ~4300
Summary: Nozawa got on a bus and no one ever saw him again. Time-jump fic. Beta-ed by ♥ mousapelli
“I like the way you smile,” Nozawa said one day as he untangled himself from Sanada. “Don’t ever change it, okay?”
“Huh?” Sanada blinked, watching as the taller boy wandered around the bedroom in search of discarded clothes. Nozawa picked up his t-shirt and smiled at Sanada faintly. “Do you really have to go?” Sanada wanted to know.
“I have an appointment,” Nozawa explained again, patting the pockets of his jeans for something. “Why? Will your mother be suspicious if I leave?”
“She will be if you keep wearing my pants.” Sanada grinned instead.
“Oh,” Nozawa smirked. “No wonder they were so short.” He ignored Sanada’s complaint as he stepped out of the wrong jeans and into, hopefully, the right ones. He gave Sanada a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving.
Sanada watched Nozawa’s retreating figure until it disappeared from the staircase. He heard the boy’s quick conversation with his mother, bidding the woman goodbye. Sanada thought nothing of it before falling back to sleep.
Hasshi ignores his rather obnoxious ringtone as he pulls at his baseball cap. Another single, another magazine shoot, and another fight between Sanada and Nakaken have frayed Hasshi’s patience. Nowadays he just wants to get away from his bandmates. It didn’t use to be this bad, he thinks. But then again, some time apart might do them good.
He passes by a magazine stand and tries to ignore his own face grinning from the many covers. The paparazzi were absolute horrible when they first debuted, but nowadays they’re too busy focusing on Yamada’s many girlfriends. Sometimes Hasshi wonders when he’ll break down like-
-He shakes the thought out of his head and continues trudging along, his designer sneakers already dirty from jumping over a puddle a few blocks back. The commotion of Tokyo continues even after Hasshi follows the underground path into the subway station. He vaguely remembers a story Uekusa told him about fans, but at the risk of drawing too much attention Hasshi takes his sunglasses off and welcomes the artificial lights.
There’s a poster of BE*BRIGHT next to one of HEY!SAY!JUMP on a distant wall, but Hasshi ignores them as he stands near the terminal, passing fleeting glances at his watch. He looks up in boredom in time to spot someone walking on the other end of the tracks.
Dark hair, thin bangs, and familiar eyes sudden hit Hasshi as the idol stares at the figure. It disappears from his view when a group of high school girls pass him.
Nozawa never went to that appointment. According to investigators, witnesses saw him boarding a bus near Sanada’s neighborhood.
Nozawa got on a bus and no one ever saw him again.
With nothing but his messenger bag, a wallet, and a cellphone, Nozawa Yuuki disappeared. Hasshi remembers very little about that week besides Tottsu sitting him down one day and saying, “Hasshi, Nozawa-kun isn’t sick.” He remembers the reporters camping out in front of the jimusho, the nervousness, the way Nozawa’s sister cried on national television, and the high profile disappearance case that swept the nation.
After three days, the police found Nozawa’s cellphone in a trashcan in Kyoto after the company tracked the GPS. After a week Hasshi started to forget the exact color of Nozawa’s hair and the sound of his voice. After a month Sanada began coming back to practice with little to say. The investigation continued, and every day the media seemed to cover some new detail they hadn’t heard. The case eventually died down, and Hasshi could only watch as all traces of Nokkun began disappearing from his life. After a while Sanada stopped wandering around like a lost puppy. After a while Hasshi got used to the idea that he may never see Nozawa again.
After a year BE*BRIGHT debuted short one member.
After four years, Hasshi still lies and tells people that everything is fine.
“So,” Takaki says over his bowl of udon, when they’re done making fun of each other and exchanging familiar stories. “New single?”
“We’ll beat JUMP’s record,” Hasshi grins, “again.”
“Yeah right,” Takaki snorts. “Yuto’s new drama will bring in more fans, and we’ll pull another number one spot and set another record on the charts. It’s inevitable.”
“Your demise is inevitable,” Hasshi laughs instead. He grins when the waitress comes with their check. “So,” he pushes the small black tray towards the older boy.
“No way,” Takaki declares. “You debuted years ago. I’m not paying for you anymore.”
“Senpai has to pay,” Hasshi reminds him. “The golden rule of the jimusho, remember?”
“That rule never existed,” the JUMP member replies, but is already pulling his wallet out. An old photo from their junior days falls out, and Hasshi spends a good minute staring at the memento of their youth before finding his voice.
“You know,” Hasshi says, “I still dream about him.”
Takaki says nothing, but his eyes are soft and understanding
“I thought I’d stop seeing him everywhere I go,” he adds. The dreams have lessened in frequency since the first year, but Hasshi still dreams about meeting Nozawa again, what he would say in that case. Sometimes Hasshi is changing when Nozawa comes through the doors and sometimes Hasshi is sitting in a taxi. Sometimes Hasshi walks into the rehearsal room to find Nozawa in his TOP3 outfit, greeting him casually. Hasshi tries to ask something, anything, (where are you? Where have you been? Are you okay? Are you still alive? Why did you leave?), but he always wakes up before Nozawa replies.
“It’s been four years.” Takaki responds slowly.
“It felt like a lifetime ago,” Hasshi says.
“I don’t want this anymore,” Sanada told him while drilling dance moves for their third single. They were eighteen, still raw from youth. “Some days I wake up and wish I was the one who got on that bus instead, because this world is suffocating.”
“It has already suffocated me,” Hasshi replied, knees pulled tightly against his chest as they sit in a corner of the room. His grip on the water bottle tightened as he watched Sanada.
“Let’s run away,” Sanada said, hope evident in his voice. “The two of us, let’s leave.”
Hasshi watched as Takahata helped Fuma with the dance steps ten feet away. Taiga was talking to Uekusa, and Nakayama was going over something with Nakaken. The thought of leaving them never occurred to him, but Hasshi shook his head and pointed out, “But that doesn’t mean we’ll find him.”
Sanada’s lips were pulled into a tight line. He didn’t reply, and he never brought the topic up again.
Sometimes Hasshi can’t sleep. Pacing back and forth in his apartment does little to settle his nerves. After the first few nights Hasshi develops a habit of walking into the night breeze. Tokyo is never asleep, and Hasshi takes pleasure in knowing that there’s no need to conceal his identity at three in the morning.
The konbini around the corner of the apartment complex is open 24/7. New shipments of shu-cream come every Wednesday, and Hasshi always charms the manager into giving him a discount. Today he talks with the owner’s wife and promises to get her daughter a new copy of their single.
“She’s such a fan of your band,” Konomi-san tells him. “She’s been a fan since before your debut.”
Hasshi smiles as he thinks back to days spent dancing non-stop. He loved it then: the music, the senpai, the whole aspect of having something grand set in front of him. Hasshi thinks, if he tries hard enough, he can still hear Nozawa’s laugh ringing through his ears.
Sanada at sixteen was loud and borderline obnoxious. He supposed he was dorky and maybe even a little lame. The loudness and easy-going nature was useful in masking his denial; Sanada had hoped that if he stopped talking about it, he’ll eventually get over Nozawa.
He met Yumi three months before debuting. She had looked up with innocent eyes when he picked up her dropped wallet, and for a moment Sanada saw something familiar in her smile. He dated her for seven weeks before Yumi invited him to her house. “My parents are gone for the weekend,” she said with a shy smile. He grasped her hand and kissed down her neck, making small noises when she tightened around him. Sanada vaguely remembered muttering Nozawa’s name before blanking out. Yumi didn’t notice, but he broke up with her out of guilt a week later.
Hasshi likes his band-mates just fine. Nakaken helps set the mood when Hasshi gets tired of being the charismatic character, Fuma handles the role of The Pretty One well, Misaki’s quiet nature balances everyone’s loud boyishness, Uekusa counters Taiga’s chattiness, and Sanada even ventures to genuinely smile when he feels like being productive.
The void, however, is there.
Sanada visited Nozawa’s mother frequently until the family moved away.
“What will he do when he comes back, and there’s no one waiting for him?” Sanada had sobbed into Camu's shirt after one too many bottles of beer. “How can they give up?”
“We’re still waiting for him,” Camu replied patiently.
A missing person’s case: no one is sure what happened to him: kidnap, murder, or runaway. Hasshi doesn’t know what he should be hoping for at this point. Sometimes he forgets about Nozawa’s entire existence until it hits him with full force, knocking the air out of his lungs.
“I miss you,” he says into the lonely night. The neighborhood cat mews on the pavement while Hasshi smokes his last cigarette. The taste burns in his mouth, but he’s more willing to dwell on that than the loneliness
Sanada still keeps some of Nozawa’s things, odd trinkets the boy left with him when they first started dating. He hides them in the bottom drawer of his dresser, locked up with the keys hidden in his locker in BE*BRIGHT’s dressing room.
Nozawa returns in the same way he left: unexpectedly and without a warning.
He’s still impressive in height, but there’s more maturity to his stature. He stands passively in the hallway, still looking very much like an idol. Some of the juniors blink at each other in confusion, but the bystanders disperse when Fukka waves them aside. The door closes with a small thud, and suddenly people are hugging him and pulling him into an embrace. What happened to you, we missed you, thank God you’re okay-
“Were you kidnapped?” Sanada says slowly, his voice cutting through the noise.
Nozawa shakes his head.
“Were you threatened?” Sanada goes on. “Did you have any terminal illness that required you to go far away?”
“No,” Nozawa says, his voice still very much the same yet so different.
“Then why did you come back?” Sanada snaps, eyes angry. “Did you think you could just leave? Leave everything and everyone behind for, fuck, four years and just come back and pick it all up again?!”
“Sana-” Taiga begins, but is cut off when Sanada shrugs his arm off.
“I don’t want to see your face again,” Sanada says slowly before he leaves the room and heads into the hall way, into the staircase, and onto the rooftop before collapsing into a sobbing fit.
No one comes after him.
Hasshi charms the landlady into giving him the extra key to Sanada’s apartment. He opens the door to find Sanada sitting in the living room with the curtains down. His cell phone lies on the ground near Hasshi’s foot, broken into pieces.
“I’m still alive,” Sanada informs him with an unreadable voice. “You can leave now.”
“Get up,” Hasshi orders, pulling the other boy up by one arm.
“I’m not going back to work.”
Hasshi gives him a long look. “He’s not there, but that’s not where we’re going.” He closes the door on the way out and hauls a disgruntled Sanada into a nearby bus stop, dropping all of the coins in his wallet onto Sanada’s lap. “I want to know how he felt,” Hasshi says with conviction. “That day, when he left, I want to know exactly how he felt.”
Sanada stares at Hasshi. There are a million things running through his head, but suddenly Sanada sees the image of sixteen year old Nozawa sitting in the last row, looking out the window with a lonely expression as he grips his messenger bag tightly.
They sit side-by-side wordlessly. Hasshi turns his cell phone off while Sanada stares at the bus driver. They get off at the last station and switches lines three times. All Sanada has is his empty wallet and an overused phone card, but he follows Hasshi as they unload the last bus at some obscure hour of the night, ending up at a deserted harbor.
The water is peaceful as they stand near the dock. The street lamps flicker on and off while Hasshi’s breath makes small clouds in the night. “Are there things you regret?” Hasshi asks.
“About what?” Sanada laughs.
“Anything,” Hasshi says. “Anything and everything.”
Sanada turns to look at the water. It’s an entity of calm stretching into the dark. “There are so many things I regret, but I wouldn’t have run away.” His voice hitches. “I wouldn’t have left everything behind like he did. Why did he even come back? I didn’t want to see him again.”
“You did,” Hasshi corrects him.
“Why did you leave?” Sanada continues, talking to no one but the silence of the night. “Why did you leave me behind? Why wasn’t I good enough for you? Why did you leave and let go of me?” His voice breaks as he begins shouting into the water. “Why didn’t you love me enough to stay?!”
The water makes no reply.
“Because of you, I can’t trust anyone anymore," Sanada says at last, voice small.
Hasshi pulls him into a hug until Sanada’s breathing evens out. Even then he doesn’t let go.
They check into a small hotel- the last one that’s still open.
Hasshi sits on one of the two beds, eyes fixated at the wall while Sanada lies on the other side of the room. “Isn’t it weird?” Sanada begins, busy staring at the ceiling. “I always thought Nonchan would stay with me, but he was the one who left. I always expected you to go on to better things, but we’re the ones that ended here.”
“I asked Johnny to put me in BE*BRIGHT,” Hasshi says at last. There’s urgency in his voice. It’s something he hasn’t told anyone before.
“What?” Sanada blinks.
“I asked him to take me out of ABC-Z,” Hasshi repeats. “I requested that he put me in the same group as you.”
“Why would you do that?” Sanada replies quietly.
“Because,” Hasshi replies, fist tightening on the bed sheets. “Because I thought you’d break back then, because I always wanted to be with you two, and because I couldn’t stand to be the outsider anymore. I didn’t want to be the last one told.”
“What does that even mean?” Sanada laughs.
“Fuck, Yuuma.” Hasshi looks away, running a hand through his hair. “I had the biggest crush on you two. I wanted to be like the two of you, happy together and in love. I wanted to stop jumping between units and be someone, and I was so horribly in love with the two of you. You never knew, did you?”
Sanada stares. “But you were the ambitious one! You were the one that wanted to do something great, you told us--“
“How could I tell you anything?” Hasshi snaps. “You were always the one to congratulate me, saying all those things like ‘I’m so happy for you, you really wanted this!’ What I wanted was to stay with the two of you forever, but I was the one that was shooed away!” He stops. It doesn’t matter anymore. They’re so different now. Half of the times Hasshi can’t stand to see Sanada’s face, and other times he just wants to be near him. Hasshi has had his fair share of “take cares” and “goodbyes,” but this suddenly feels likes the end of the line.
He looks up when Sanada comes over and cups Hasshi’s face. Suddenly Sanada is kissing him, frantic and desperate until both of them are on the bed, Hasshi gasping as he unbuttons Sanada’s shirt while Sanada pulls Hasshi’s jacket off.
“You know I’m not Yuuki, right?” Hasshi says in between breaths, when Sanada is sprawled across the bed and clawing at Hasshi’s arms.
“Do you know that?” Sanada asks, soft hair spread across the pillows while he looks at Hasshi with dark eyes.
Hasshi kisses him instead.
Nozawa never planned any of it. His life was perfectly fine, perhaps even enviable. Yet, one day, he woke up and everything was overwhelming. Suddenly nothing fit; not his clothes, not his hair, and not his skin.
That day, he missed his stop by accident. Instead of getting off at the next one, Nozawa continued sitting on that bus, wondering how far it’d take him. He switched stops at the terminal and traveled as far as the cash in his wallet could take him. At the end of the line Nozawa realized that he didn’t want to go back.
10000 yen later, Nozawa found himself in a small prefecture. He pick-pocketed a high school student’s wallet and used the remaining cash for a couple more rides before ending up in a peaceful little town four hours away from Tokyo. Nozawa sat on a bench and stared into the setting sun until someone stopped in front of him.
“It’s getting late,” the girl said. “Do you need to call someone?”
Nozawa shook his head.
“Where are you from?” She asked.
Nozawa shook his head again.
After twenty minutes of questioning, Hina took Nozawa back to her family’s ramen shop. They didn’t have a television, and their newspaper prescription had been canceled due to money issues. Nozawa spent four months working there, pretending to not remember anything about his life.
“Yuuki-kun,” Hina said one day, using the name he had given her. They sat on the cramped attic floor, Hina rolling around in her shorts while Nozawa wore the second handed clothes he bought with the little money he earned from the shop. “Why did you lie?”
“Huh?” Nozawa looked up from braiding the girl’s hair.
The twelve year old gave him a look. “You do remember things, don’t you? You say things in your sleep.”
“Sorry,” Nozawa replied softly, his hands reaching to brush non-existent bangs. Hina’s grandmother had given him a haircut a week before, and Nozawa found some delight in shredding his idol image.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Hina said. They pinky-promised, and Nozawa spent three more month working there before walking to the town’s only convenience store on a rainy April morning to call his sister. His father came three days later, and after much yelling and a bruised cheek Nozawa agreed to go back; not to Tokyo, but to the family’s new home in Yokohama.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Hina asked on the day Nozawa left.
“I did.” He smiled before getting in the car. Hina’s grandparents waved back until the ramen shop disappeared from Nozawa’s view.
“The two of you are so dead!” Nakaken says over the phone when Hasshi finishes reading the last of his messages. “Who the fuck runs off to the middle of nowher--nevermind! Did you forget about Hey! Hey! Hey!? Julie is so pissed! She’s been lecturing us all morning!”
There’s some shuffling, and Takahata’s voice now filters through the receiver. “Where are you? When can you come back?”
Sanada yawns and takes the phone. His left cheek is sore from sleeping on Hasshi’s arm all night. Sanada doesn’t need a mirror to know his hair is a mess, and he tells Takahata that they’ll try to make it back by tomorrow without paying attention to the clock.
“I think you should come back sooner,” Takahata replies. “Nozawa is leaving Tokyo today. We don’t know where he’s going, but--”
Sanada doesn’t need Takahata to finish to know the rest. They take the express train back to Tokyo, Hasshi messaging everyone on his contact list to see if anyone knows of Nozawa’s current address.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sanada says when they’re approaching the station. He grabs Hasshi’s hand as he looks up at the brunet. Once again they are Sana-chan and Hasshi-kun, fifteen and staring at each other at a loss after Kamei’s suspension. “But even after this,” he says. “I want this to work: you and me. I want to stay with you, okay?”
“Okay,” Hasshi says.
Nozawa didn’t know if he loved Sanada then, but he knew that the fear of everything had been enough to drive him away. Nozawa had never thought of asking for forgiveness, but the shame and guilt of it had kept him from trying to contact anyone.
Nozawa made a trip to Tokyo on his nineteenth birthday. He bought all of BE*BRIGHT’s singles and spent two hours staring at the billboard of Sanada’s new drama. He saw the posters of BE*BRIGHT in book stores; Sanada and Hasshi’s eyes were the same, yet so different.
He met a confused but pleasant Kato Kan for dinner. Kato promised on his life to not tell anyone about it, although he had left the jimusho long before Nozawa. Nozawa’s first friend in the jimusho listened quietly as he painfully attempted to tell his story.
“You don’t have to convince me,” Kato said at last. “I forgive you.” He shook the straws in his lemonade. “The feeling of loss and the fear of not being happy.” he smiled. “Those were the reasons I left too.”
“Thank you,” Nozawa replied.
“Non-chan,” Kato said before leaving. “You should tell them. Maybe not now, but eventually, when you get the courage to do so. They deserve to know too.” Before leaving, however, he handed Nozawa the business card for his publisher.
Nozawa dreamed about Hasshi and Sanada that night.
Nozawa opens his hotel door in confusion but lets them in without questions.
“I heard you’re leaving,” Hasshi says. There’s more he wants to ask: how have you been, what have you been doing for the past four years, where are you going, and what are you doing with your life?
“I’m going back.” Nozawa replies slowly, nodding towards the open suitcase on the floor.
“Don’t go,” Sanada says instead. The room is silent for a moment before he adds, “Don’t go, not yet, not now.” He frowns. “There are so many things I want to say to you.” He stops. “That I need to say to you.”
“Okay,” Nozawa replies, almost in the identical fashion Hasshi had done a few hours prior.
“Maybe I should leave,” Hasshi says at last.
“No,” Sanada grabs Hasshi by the hand instead as he looks at Nozawa with an expression of determination. “Stay, because,” he takes a deep breath, “Hasshi and I are together now.”
“Oh,” Nozawa says, not missing a beat. “Good for you,” he says with a small smile.
All three of them end up on the floor, sitting barefoot with the comforter on the ground for warmth. Nozawa tells them about Hina and the move out of his parents’ house. He talks about the blueness of the sky in Hina’s town, and how he spent all the money he ever earned to help Hina locate her father after her grandparents died. He speaks with happiness and a sense of freedom while the others listen.
“I’m sorry,” Nozawa tells them. “For leaving and for deserting everyone. I regret hurting others, but I don’t regret my choice.” He smiles a little, hugging his knees. “I’m sorry for being selfish.”
“I’m selfish too,” Hasshi speaks up. “Now that I’ve gotten some glimpse of what I want, all I can think of is how you two belong together.” He climbs up slowly, ignoring the way Sanada refuses to meet his eye.
“No,” Nozawa says slowly, catching at the hem of Hasshi’s jacket. “Stay, please. I’m not ready to say goodbye again.” His eyes are soft and it reminds Hasshi of the day Nozawa bowed so many years ago and said, “Please take care of me.”
Hasshi gives in to the urge to kiss Nozawa. He stops when Sanada pulls them apart, claiming Hasshi’s lips instead while Nozawa watches with wide eyes. They stop, and Sanada and Hasshi both pin a bewildered Nozawa to the floor, arms tangled in the fallen comforter.
“A lot has changed since you left,” Sanada whispers against Nozawa’s ear while Hasshi makes his way down Nozawa’s neck.
“I know,” Nozawa says in a small voice. He’s older now, braver, and more willing to give in to what he has wanted since he was sixteen.
The three of them fall into a comfortable pattern. Nozawa sleeps in the middle while Hasshi lies on the right, fingers tangled in Nozawa’s. Sanada takes the left side of the bed because he likes to bury his face in the curve of Nozawa’s neck. During warm summer nights the three of them lie together, watching the ceiling fan turn while whispering secrets they've been keeping since their youth.
Nozawa writes. He meets with Kato for coffee during his free time while they talk about editors and manuscripts. Nozawa often comes home to find Hasshi and Sanada reading articles and short stories he has published since leaving the jimusho.
“The three of us,” Sanada says one night while brushing his fingers through Nozawa’s bangs. “We fit together like perfect pieces, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” Hasshi smiles while Nozawa continues napping in the middle. “We do.”
[Fin]
AN: written while listening to ray lamontagne's "hold you in my arms" on repeat. It's such a pretty song ;A; I wanted more top3some, you gais. Why is Hasshi being left out of sanazawa now? XD
Love it? Hate it? Please leave some feedback, even if it may be a little late. You can also join the community, since I'll be locking up NC17 fics.
Fandom: JE, Top3
Author: blahchiharu
Pairing: Sanada/Nozawa/Hasshi, top3some
Rating: PG13
wordcount: ~4300
Summary: Nozawa got on a bus and no one ever saw him again. Time-jump fic. Beta-ed by ♥ mousapelli
“I like the way you smile,” Nozawa said one day as he untangled himself from Sanada. “Don’t ever change it, okay?”
“Huh?” Sanada blinked, watching as the taller boy wandered around the bedroom in search of discarded clothes. Nozawa picked up his t-shirt and smiled at Sanada faintly. “Do you really have to go?” Sanada wanted to know.
“I have an appointment,” Nozawa explained again, patting the pockets of his jeans for something. “Why? Will your mother be suspicious if I leave?”
“She will be if you keep wearing my pants.” Sanada grinned instead.
“Oh,” Nozawa smirked. “No wonder they were so short.” He ignored Sanada’s complaint as he stepped out of the wrong jeans and into, hopefully, the right ones. He gave Sanada a quick kiss on the cheek before leaving.
Sanada watched Nozawa’s retreating figure until it disappeared from the staircase. He heard the boy’s quick conversation with his mother, bidding the woman goodbye. Sanada thought nothing of it before falling back to sleep.
Hasshi ignores his rather obnoxious ringtone as he pulls at his baseball cap. Another single, another magazine shoot, and another fight between Sanada and Nakaken have frayed Hasshi’s patience. Nowadays he just wants to get away from his bandmates. It didn’t use to be this bad, he thinks. But then again, some time apart might do them good.
He passes by a magazine stand and tries to ignore his own face grinning from the many covers. The paparazzi were absolute horrible when they first debuted, but nowadays they’re too busy focusing on Yamada’s many girlfriends. Sometimes Hasshi wonders when he’ll break down like-
-He shakes the thought out of his head and continues trudging along, his designer sneakers already dirty from jumping over a puddle a few blocks back. The commotion of Tokyo continues even after Hasshi follows the underground path into the subway station. He vaguely remembers a story Uekusa told him about fans, but at the risk of drawing too much attention Hasshi takes his sunglasses off and welcomes the artificial lights.
There’s a poster of BE*BRIGHT next to one of HEY!SAY!JUMP on a distant wall, but Hasshi ignores them as he stands near the terminal, passing fleeting glances at his watch. He looks up in boredom in time to spot someone walking on the other end of the tracks.
Dark hair, thin bangs, and familiar eyes sudden hit Hasshi as the idol stares at the figure. It disappears from his view when a group of high school girls pass him.
Nozawa never went to that appointment. According to investigators, witnesses saw him boarding a bus near Sanada’s neighborhood.
Nozawa got on a bus and no one ever saw him again.
With nothing but his messenger bag, a wallet, and a cellphone, Nozawa Yuuki disappeared. Hasshi remembers very little about that week besides Tottsu sitting him down one day and saying, “Hasshi, Nozawa-kun isn’t sick.” He remembers the reporters camping out in front of the jimusho, the nervousness, the way Nozawa’s sister cried on national television, and the high profile disappearance case that swept the nation.
After three days, the police found Nozawa’s cellphone in a trashcan in Kyoto after the company tracked the GPS. After a week Hasshi started to forget the exact color of Nozawa’s hair and the sound of his voice. After a month Sanada began coming back to practice with little to say. The investigation continued, and every day the media seemed to cover some new detail they hadn’t heard. The case eventually died down, and Hasshi could only watch as all traces of Nokkun began disappearing from his life. After a while Sanada stopped wandering around like a lost puppy. After a while Hasshi got used to the idea that he may never see Nozawa again.
After a year BE*BRIGHT debuted short one member.
After four years, Hasshi still lies and tells people that everything is fine.
“So,” Takaki says over his bowl of udon, when they’re done making fun of each other and exchanging familiar stories. “New single?”
“We’ll beat JUMP’s record,” Hasshi grins, “again.”
“Yeah right,” Takaki snorts. “Yuto’s new drama will bring in more fans, and we’ll pull another number one spot and set another record on the charts. It’s inevitable.”
“Your demise is inevitable,” Hasshi laughs instead. He grins when the waitress comes with their check. “So,” he pushes the small black tray towards the older boy.
“No way,” Takaki declares. “You debuted years ago. I’m not paying for you anymore.”
“Senpai has to pay,” Hasshi reminds him. “The golden rule of the jimusho, remember?”
“That rule never existed,” the JUMP member replies, but is already pulling his wallet out. An old photo from their junior days falls out, and Hasshi spends a good minute staring at the memento of their youth before finding his voice.
“You know,” Hasshi says, “I still dream about him.”
Takaki says nothing, but his eyes are soft and understanding
“I thought I’d stop seeing him everywhere I go,” he adds. The dreams have lessened in frequency since the first year, but Hasshi still dreams about meeting Nozawa again, what he would say in that case. Sometimes Hasshi is changing when Nozawa comes through the doors and sometimes Hasshi is sitting in a taxi. Sometimes Hasshi walks into the rehearsal room to find Nozawa in his TOP3 outfit, greeting him casually. Hasshi tries to ask something, anything, (where are you? Where have you been? Are you okay? Are you still alive? Why did you leave?), but he always wakes up before Nozawa replies.
“It’s been four years.” Takaki responds slowly.
“It felt like a lifetime ago,” Hasshi says.
“I don’t want this anymore,” Sanada told him while drilling dance moves for their third single. They were eighteen, still raw from youth. “Some days I wake up and wish I was the one who got on that bus instead, because this world is suffocating.”
“It has already suffocated me,” Hasshi replied, knees pulled tightly against his chest as they sit in a corner of the room. His grip on the water bottle tightened as he watched Sanada.
“Let’s run away,” Sanada said, hope evident in his voice. “The two of us, let’s leave.”
Hasshi watched as Takahata helped Fuma with the dance steps ten feet away. Taiga was talking to Uekusa, and Nakayama was going over something with Nakaken. The thought of leaving them never occurred to him, but Hasshi shook his head and pointed out, “But that doesn’t mean we’ll find him.”
Sanada’s lips were pulled into a tight line. He didn’t reply, and he never brought the topic up again.
Sometimes Hasshi can’t sleep. Pacing back and forth in his apartment does little to settle his nerves. After the first few nights Hasshi develops a habit of walking into the night breeze. Tokyo is never asleep, and Hasshi takes pleasure in knowing that there’s no need to conceal his identity at three in the morning.
The konbini around the corner of the apartment complex is open 24/7. New shipments of shu-cream come every Wednesday, and Hasshi always charms the manager into giving him a discount. Today he talks with the owner’s wife and promises to get her daughter a new copy of their single.
“She’s such a fan of your band,” Konomi-san tells him. “She’s been a fan since before your debut.”
Hasshi smiles as he thinks back to days spent dancing non-stop. He loved it then: the music, the senpai, the whole aspect of having something grand set in front of him. Hasshi thinks, if he tries hard enough, he can still hear Nozawa’s laugh ringing through his ears.
Sanada at sixteen was loud and borderline obnoxious. He supposed he was dorky and maybe even a little lame. The loudness and easy-going nature was useful in masking his denial; Sanada had hoped that if he stopped talking about it, he’ll eventually get over Nozawa.
He met Yumi three months before debuting. She had looked up with innocent eyes when he picked up her dropped wallet, and for a moment Sanada saw something familiar in her smile. He dated her for seven weeks before Yumi invited him to her house. “My parents are gone for the weekend,” she said with a shy smile. He grasped her hand and kissed down her neck, making small noises when she tightened around him. Sanada vaguely remembered muttering Nozawa’s name before blanking out. Yumi didn’t notice, but he broke up with her out of guilt a week later.
Hasshi likes his band-mates just fine. Nakaken helps set the mood when Hasshi gets tired of being the charismatic character, Fuma handles the role of The Pretty One well, Misaki’s quiet nature balances everyone’s loud boyishness, Uekusa counters Taiga’s chattiness, and Sanada even ventures to genuinely smile when he feels like being productive.
The void, however, is there.
Sanada visited Nozawa’s mother frequently until the family moved away.
“What will he do when he comes back, and there’s no one waiting for him?” Sanada had sobbed into Camu's shirt after one too many bottles of beer. “How can they give up?”
“We’re still waiting for him,” Camu replied patiently.
A missing person’s case: no one is sure what happened to him: kidnap, murder, or runaway. Hasshi doesn’t know what he should be hoping for at this point. Sometimes he forgets about Nozawa’s entire existence until it hits him with full force, knocking the air out of his lungs.
“I miss you,” he says into the lonely night. The neighborhood cat mews on the pavement while Hasshi smokes his last cigarette. The taste burns in his mouth, but he’s more willing to dwell on that than the loneliness
Sanada still keeps some of Nozawa’s things, odd trinkets the boy left with him when they first started dating. He hides them in the bottom drawer of his dresser, locked up with the keys hidden in his locker in BE*BRIGHT’s dressing room.
Nozawa returns in the same way he left: unexpectedly and without a warning.
He’s still impressive in height, but there’s more maturity to his stature. He stands passively in the hallway, still looking very much like an idol. Some of the juniors blink at each other in confusion, but the bystanders disperse when Fukka waves them aside. The door closes with a small thud, and suddenly people are hugging him and pulling him into an embrace. What happened to you, we missed you, thank God you’re okay-
“Were you kidnapped?” Sanada says slowly, his voice cutting through the noise.
Nozawa shakes his head.
“Were you threatened?” Sanada goes on. “Did you have any terminal illness that required you to go far away?”
“No,” Nozawa says, his voice still very much the same yet so different.
“Then why did you come back?” Sanada snaps, eyes angry. “Did you think you could just leave? Leave everything and everyone behind for, fuck, four years and just come back and pick it all up again?!”
“Sana-” Taiga begins, but is cut off when Sanada shrugs his arm off.
“I don’t want to see your face again,” Sanada says slowly before he leaves the room and heads into the hall way, into the staircase, and onto the rooftop before collapsing into a sobbing fit.
No one comes after him.
Hasshi charms the landlady into giving him the extra key to Sanada’s apartment. He opens the door to find Sanada sitting in the living room with the curtains down. His cell phone lies on the ground near Hasshi’s foot, broken into pieces.
“I’m still alive,” Sanada informs him with an unreadable voice. “You can leave now.”
“Get up,” Hasshi orders, pulling the other boy up by one arm.
“I’m not going back to work.”
Hasshi gives him a long look. “He’s not there, but that’s not where we’re going.” He closes the door on the way out and hauls a disgruntled Sanada into a nearby bus stop, dropping all of the coins in his wallet onto Sanada’s lap. “I want to know how he felt,” Hasshi says with conviction. “That day, when he left, I want to know exactly how he felt.”
Sanada stares at Hasshi. There are a million things running through his head, but suddenly Sanada sees the image of sixteen year old Nozawa sitting in the last row, looking out the window with a lonely expression as he grips his messenger bag tightly.
They sit side-by-side wordlessly. Hasshi turns his cell phone off while Sanada stares at the bus driver. They get off at the last station and switches lines three times. All Sanada has is his empty wallet and an overused phone card, but he follows Hasshi as they unload the last bus at some obscure hour of the night, ending up at a deserted harbor.
The water is peaceful as they stand near the dock. The street lamps flicker on and off while Hasshi’s breath makes small clouds in the night. “Are there things you regret?” Hasshi asks.
“About what?” Sanada laughs.
“Anything,” Hasshi says. “Anything and everything.”
Sanada turns to look at the water. It’s an entity of calm stretching into the dark. “There are so many things I regret, but I wouldn’t have run away.” His voice hitches. “I wouldn’t have left everything behind like he did. Why did he even come back? I didn’t want to see him again.”
“You did,” Hasshi corrects him.
“Why did you leave?” Sanada continues, talking to no one but the silence of the night. “Why did you leave me behind? Why wasn’t I good enough for you? Why did you leave and let go of me?” His voice breaks as he begins shouting into the water. “Why didn’t you love me enough to stay?!”
The water makes no reply.
“Because of you, I can’t trust anyone anymore," Sanada says at last, voice small.
Hasshi pulls him into a hug until Sanada’s breathing evens out. Even then he doesn’t let go.
They check into a small hotel- the last one that’s still open.
Hasshi sits on one of the two beds, eyes fixated at the wall while Sanada lies on the other side of the room. “Isn’t it weird?” Sanada begins, busy staring at the ceiling. “I always thought Nonchan would stay with me, but he was the one who left. I always expected you to go on to better things, but we’re the ones that ended here.”
“I asked Johnny to put me in BE*BRIGHT,” Hasshi says at last. There’s urgency in his voice. It’s something he hasn’t told anyone before.
“What?” Sanada blinks.
“I asked him to take me out of ABC-Z,” Hasshi repeats. “I requested that he put me in the same group as you.”
“Why would you do that?” Sanada replies quietly.
“Because,” Hasshi replies, fist tightening on the bed sheets. “Because I thought you’d break back then, because I always wanted to be with you two, and because I couldn’t stand to be the outsider anymore. I didn’t want to be the last one told.”
“What does that even mean?” Sanada laughs.
“Fuck, Yuuma.” Hasshi looks away, running a hand through his hair. “I had the biggest crush on you two. I wanted to be like the two of you, happy together and in love. I wanted to stop jumping between units and be someone, and I was so horribly in love with the two of you. You never knew, did you?”
Sanada stares. “But you were the ambitious one! You were the one that wanted to do something great, you told us--“
“How could I tell you anything?” Hasshi snaps. “You were always the one to congratulate me, saying all those things like ‘I’m so happy for you, you really wanted this!’ What I wanted was to stay with the two of you forever, but I was the one that was shooed away!” He stops. It doesn’t matter anymore. They’re so different now. Half of the times Hasshi can’t stand to see Sanada’s face, and other times he just wants to be near him. Hasshi has had his fair share of “take cares” and “goodbyes,” but this suddenly feels likes the end of the line.
He looks up when Sanada comes over and cups Hasshi’s face. Suddenly Sanada is kissing him, frantic and desperate until both of them are on the bed, Hasshi gasping as he unbuttons Sanada’s shirt while Sanada pulls Hasshi’s jacket off.
“You know I’m not Yuuki, right?” Hasshi says in between breaths, when Sanada is sprawled across the bed and clawing at Hasshi’s arms.
“Do you know that?” Sanada asks, soft hair spread across the pillows while he looks at Hasshi with dark eyes.
Hasshi kisses him instead.
Nozawa never planned any of it. His life was perfectly fine, perhaps even enviable. Yet, one day, he woke up and everything was overwhelming. Suddenly nothing fit; not his clothes, not his hair, and not his skin.
That day, he missed his stop by accident. Instead of getting off at the next one, Nozawa continued sitting on that bus, wondering how far it’d take him. He switched stops at the terminal and traveled as far as the cash in his wallet could take him. At the end of the line Nozawa realized that he didn’t want to go back.
10000 yen later, Nozawa found himself in a small prefecture. He pick-pocketed a high school student’s wallet and used the remaining cash for a couple more rides before ending up in a peaceful little town four hours away from Tokyo. Nozawa sat on a bench and stared into the setting sun until someone stopped in front of him.
“It’s getting late,” the girl said. “Do you need to call someone?”
Nozawa shook his head.
“Where are you from?” She asked.
Nozawa shook his head again.
After twenty minutes of questioning, Hina took Nozawa back to her family’s ramen shop. They didn’t have a television, and their newspaper prescription had been canceled due to money issues. Nozawa spent four months working there, pretending to not remember anything about his life.
“Yuuki-kun,” Hina said one day, using the name he had given her. They sat on the cramped attic floor, Hina rolling around in her shorts while Nozawa wore the second handed clothes he bought with the little money he earned from the shop. “Why did you lie?”
“Huh?” Nozawa looked up from braiding the girl’s hair.
The twelve year old gave him a look. “You do remember things, don’t you? You say things in your sleep.”
“Sorry,” Nozawa replied softly, his hands reaching to brush non-existent bangs. Hina’s grandmother had given him a haircut a week before, and Nozawa found some delight in shredding his idol image.
“I won’t tell anyone,” Hina said. They pinky-promised, and Nozawa spent three more month working there before walking to the town’s only convenience store on a rainy April morning to call his sister. His father came three days later, and after much yelling and a bruised cheek Nozawa agreed to go back; not to Tokyo, but to the family’s new home in Yokohama.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Hina asked on the day Nozawa left.
“I did.” He smiled before getting in the car. Hina’s grandparents waved back until the ramen shop disappeared from Nozawa’s view.
“The two of you are so dead!” Nakaken says over the phone when Hasshi finishes reading the last of his messages. “Who the fuck runs off to the middle of nowher--nevermind! Did you forget about Hey! Hey! Hey!? Julie is so pissed! She’s been lecturing us all morning!”
There’s some shuffling, and Takahata’s voice now filters through the receiver. “Where are you? When can you come back?”
Sanada yawns and takes the phone. His left cheek is sore from sleeping on Hasshi’s arm all night. Sanada doesn’t need a mirror to know his hair is a mess, and he tells Takahata that they’ll try to make it back by tomorrow without paying attention to the clock.
“I think you should come back sooner,” Takahata replies. “Nozawa is leaving Tokyo today. We don’t know where he’s going, but--”
Sanada doesn’t need Takahata to finish to know the rest. They take the express train back to Tokyo, Hasshi messaging everyone on his contact list to see if anyone knows of Nozawa’s current address.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Sanada says when they’re approaching the station. He grabs Hasshi’s hand as he looks up at the brunet. Once again they are Sana-chan and Hasshi-kun, fifteen and staring at each other at a loss after Kamei’s suspension. “But even after this,” he says. “I want this to work: you and me. I want to stay with you, okay?”
“Okay,” Hasshi says.
Nozawa didn’t know if he loved Sanada then, but he knew that the fear of everything had been enough to drive him away. Nozawa had never thought of asking for forgiveness, but the shame and guilt of it had kept him from trying to contact anyone.
Nozawa made a trip to Tokyo on his nineteenth birthday. He bought all of BE*BRIGHT’s singles and spent two hours staring at the billboard of Sanada’s new drama. He saw the posters of BE*BRIGHT in book stores; Sanada and Hasshi’s eyes were the same, yet so different.
He met a confused but pleasant Kato Kan for dinner. Kato promised on his life to not tell anyone about it, although he had left the jimusho long before Nozawa. Nozawa’s first friend in the jimusho listened quietly as he painfully attempted to tell his story.
“You don’t have to convince me,” Kato said at last. “I forgive you.” He shook the straws in his lemonade. “The feeling of loss and the fear of not being happy.” he smiled. “Those were the reasons I left too.”
“Thank you,” Nozawa replied.
“Non-chan,” Kato said before leaving. “You should tell them. Maybe not now, but eventually, when you get the courage to do so. They deserve to know too.” Before leaving, however, he handed Nozawa the business card for his publisher.
Nozawa dreamed about Hasshi and Sanada that night.
Nozawa opens his hotel door in confusion but lets them in without questions.
“I heard you’re leaving,” Hasshi says. There’s more he wants to ask: how have you been, what have you been doing for the past four years, where are you going, and what are you doing with your life?
“I’m going back.” Nozawa replies slowly, nodding towards the open suitcase on the floor.
“Don’t go,” Sanada says instead. The room is silent for a moment before he adds, “Don’t go, not yet, not now.” He frowns. “There are so many things I want to say to you.” He stops. “That I need to say to you.”
“Okay,” Nozawa replies, almost in the identical fashion Hasshi had done a few hours prior.
“Maybe I should leave,” Hasshi says at last.
“No,” Sanada grabs Hasshi by the hand instead as he looks at Nozawa with an expression of determination. “Stay, because,” he takes a deep breath, “Hasshi and I are together now.”
“Oh,” Nozawa says, not missing a beat. “Good for you,” he says with a small smile.
All three of them end up on the floor, sitting barefoot with the comforter on the ground for warmth. Nozawa tells them about Hina and the move out of his parents’ house. He talks about the blueness of the sky in Hina’s town, and how he spent all the money he ever earned to help Hina locate her father after her grandparents died. He speaks with happiness and a sense of freedom while the others listen.
“I’m sorry,” Nozawa tells them. “For leaving and for deserting everyone. I regret hurting others, but I don’t regret my choice.” He smiles a little, hugging his knees. “I’m sorry for being selfish.”
“I’m selfish too,” Hasshi speaks up. “Now that I’ve gotten some glimpse of what I want, all I can think of is how you two belong together.” He climbs up slowly, ignoring the way Sanada refuses to meet his eye.
“No,” Nozawa says slowly, catching at the hem of Hasshi’s jacket. “Stay, please. I’m not ready to say goodbye again.” His eyes are soft and it reminds Hasshi of the day Nozawa bowed so many years ago and said, “Please take care of me.”
Hasshi gives in to the urge to kiss Nozawa. He stops when Sanada pulls them apart, claiming Hasshi’s lips instead while Nozawa watches with wide eyes. They stop, and Sanada and Hasshi both pin a bewildered Nozawa to the floor, arms tangled in the fallen comforter.
“A lot has changed since you left,” Sanada whispers against Nozawa’s ear while Hasshi makes his way down Nozawa’s neck.
“I know,” Nozawa says in a small voice. He’s older now, braver, and more willing to give in to what he has wanted since he was sixteen.
The three of them fall into a comfortable pattern. Nozawa sleeps in the middle while Hasshi lies on the right, fingers tangled in Nozawa’s. Sanada takes the left side of the bed because he likes to bury his face in the curve of Nozawa’s neck. During warm summer nights the three of them lie together, watching the ceiling fan turn while whispering secrets they've been keeping since their youth.
Nozawa writes. He meets with Kato for coffee during his free time while they talk about editors and manuscripts. Nozawa often comes home to find Hasshi and Sanada reading articles and short stories he has published since leaving the jimusho.
“The three of us,” Sanada says one night while brushing his fingers through Nozawa’s bangs. “We fit together like perfect pieces, don’t we?”
“Yeah.” Hasshi smiles while Nozawa continues napping in the middle. “We do.”
[Fin]
AN: written while listening to ray lamontagne's "hold you in my arms" on repeat. It's such a pretty song ;A; I wanted more top3some, you gais. Why is Hasshi being left out of sanazawa now? XD
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