UCM Epilogue
Undecided College Major
Epilogue
“And you'll bring me back lots of souvenirs right? Nothing's too corny for me, you know. A replica of the Eiffel Tower would be nice,” Aiba rambled on and on, swinging Ohno's hand with his as the group slowly made their way to the check-in. “Or even a danish!”
“A danish?” Sho asked beside them as though he wasn't completely sure he'd heard them right. Then again, it was Aiba, and he'd heard much stranger things come out of the taller man's mouth.
“A danish, Sho-chan!” Aiba continued on happily, beaming at Ohno, who beamed back just as brightly with an enthusiastic nod. There was an obvious skip in their steps, but nobody commented on it, figuring that was just the kind of people they were. The energy that ran through their intertwined hands was no doubt the source of their genki-ness, as Aiba liked to term it. “I heard Napoleon kept one in his pocket.”
“Where in the world did you hear that?” Sho mumbled, barely audible as he ran a hand through his hair. No one paid him any attention.
“You do realize that you can buy one at just about any bakery here in town, right?” Nino asked from Ohno's other side.
“Have you seen those danishes, Nino-chan? They're huge! You can't fit one of those into a pocket - not even an overly large hoodie pocket. I know! I've tried!” Aiba cried out in a fit of waving limbs as he jumped off the floor. Nobody was surprised though and it was only a matter of seconds before Nino burst out in a series of giggles behind his hand. Sho followed not too long after, though he tried to hide it by turning his face away.
Jun smiled behind them and shook his head like he couldn't believe he was actually a friend of such crazy people. He rolled Ohno's luggage behind him, the wheels popping every time they hit a crack in the floor. As they came to a stop, Ohno turned back to him, returning the grin and retrieving his bag from Jun's waiting grasp.
“Are you absolutely sure you have everything?” Jun asked Ohno above the roaring of engines outside, planes taking off and coming in for a landing. He'd packed Ohno's bags himself, complete with a checklist, but he wanted to make sure one last time that the oldest of their little group was completely prepared. “Are you sure you're ready for this? I'm sure you could put it off one more year.”
“Jun-pon, just say you're going to miss him and be done with it,” Nino scolded as he wrapped an arm around Jun's waist. “You're not his mother.”
“He does sound like mom sometimes,” Ohno said quietly to the floor, a stray thought escaping his lips. Sho fought to keep his face straight as Aiba giggled into the back of his shoulder, muffling the sound against the advisor's shirt.
Jun shoved Nino away pointedly with a look that seemed to say: we're in public. “I just want to make sure he's ready for this. Europe is far away and a semester is a pretty long time. You don't know what kind of trouble someone as spacey as Ohno-kun could get into. He doesn't even speak any of those languages.”
“Sixteen weeks, Jun.” Nino's eyes rolled of their own accord and he reattached himself to Jun's side, despite the younger man's protests. “Sixteen weeks is not a long time and he'll be staying in schools where there will be translators.”
“It feels like it though, doesn't it?” Ohno broke in, staring up at Jun with a small smile. Jun couldn't help it anymore; he disentangled himself from Nino once again and moved forward, pulling Ohno into a tight hug. “Sixteen weeks feels like a really long time,” Ohno said against the fabric of Jun's shirt.
“You'll be alright, won't you?” Jun asked as he pulled away, his arms still grasping Ohno's shoulders lightly. “I don't like the fact that you're going alone.”
“Who says I'm going alone?” Ohno winked playfully and withdrew from Jun's hold. With his bag, he ambled away from the group and towards a fixed point they'd not noticed before.
There, amidst a sea of people, and waiting ever so patiently, stood Marina-chan with a bag of her own, covered in pink patchwork and duct tape. She waved at them madly, her own muted form of a goodbye and slowly, in their dumbfounded states, the boys waved back.
She linked arms with Ohno as he finally met her and together they disappeared into the swarm of travelers.
“Huh...” Nino voiced to the others. They stood in a line, staring out into the distance as though they couldn't quite figure out what had just transpired. “Well, who saw that coming?”
* * *
“Ne, Sho-chan...” Aiba asked, one arm thrown over the older man's back. He sounded hesitant - as hesitant as Aiba could be, anyway, amidst their heavy breathing and the heated remnants of a well-spent evening.
“Hm?” Sho lazily snuggled into the soft fabric of his pillow, barely peeking an eye open to look at his boyfriend. He swore the pillow smelled like sunshine as traces of light spilled in around the curtain edge and danced down on the white surface. It was only fitting, since they were in Aiba's room (which smelled a lot better than his, truth be told) and the younger man was usually sunlight personified.
Aiba pressed his lips against the skin of Sho's shoulder, awed by the smoothness of it. His eyes closed as though deep in thought, but he never ceased his actions, touching Sho's skin with light kisses. “Captain will be alright, won't he?” he asked, trailing his hand up Sho's spine until it rested at the nape of his neck, playing with the short hair there.
'Ohno-kun?” Sho reveled in the feeling, relaxing under Aiba's careful touch. Sleep was coming on fast and he was having trouble keeping his eyes open at all. “He's very resourceful, even if he doesn't look it. I'm sure he'll be fine.”
“I guess so,” Aiba said slowly, thoughtfully. “Ne, Sho-chan?”
Sho turned onto his side, facing Aiba with half-closed eyes and even less of his full attention. His hand moved its way up Aiba's side and back down again in lazy repetition, fingers barely gliding over the light skin there. “What is it?”
Aiba hummed appreciatively against the touch. “Everyone will be alright, won't they?”
“What do you mean?” Sho asked as he stopped abruptly. His eyes opened to a more alert state as Aiba's question sank in.
“Everyone made the right decisions...” Aiba paused in contemplation “...didn't they?”
“Are you having doubts now?”
“No!” Aiba corrected immediately. “It's just...” he trailed off, unable to meet Sho's questioning eyes.
“You seem to have some sort of uncanny ability to read people's minds, Aiba-chan,” Sho said with a sigh, bringing his hand up to pet at his boyfriend's hair. “Trust me though, when I say that I don't share that particular trait.”
It was a few long moments before Aiba clarified. His brows furrowed and unfurrowed as he tried to figure out just what he was trying to say. “You don't wish that you'd ended up with Matsujun instead, do you?” he asked. “I mean, you could have just given up, for all I know. I told you once to pretend that I was Jun-kun... you don't still do that, do you?”
“Masaki...” Sho let out a light laugh and pulled Aiba closer, until their foreheads were touching and he played with the hair at the back of the taller man's head. “I will never pretend, nor have I ever pretended, that you are anybody other than you,” he said resolutely. “Not even that first time.”
That seemed to delight Aiba as he leaned in for a small kiss, his lips pressing chastely against Sho's. It didn't last long, but it seemed to satisfy the moment and they pulled away, both wearing nothing but smiles and sheets. “Now go to sleep,” Sho said and crinkled his nose in a cute sort of way as he pulled Aiba closer.
“Hai~”
* * *
“You left me to do the dishes.” Jun said from the doorway and Nino opened one eye groggily to peer at the other man. He turned his head to the side against the soft pillow, yawning sleepily; he hadn't remembered even falling asleep.
“You should have made Aiba-chan help you,” Nino replied airily against a yawn.
“Both Aiba and Sakurai are otherwise engaged,” Jun said with much disgust. “I could hear them all the way from the kitchen. And what's worse? I had to make it up the stairs while covering my ears.” He clicked his tongue in protest. “I really should punish you for this.”
Nino propped himself up on his elbow, facing Jun with a dry look. “I know you're a Do-S, but it really loses the effect when you announce it like that,” Nino explained, trying to make light of the situation. He propped himself up on his elbows to get a better look at his newly-termed boyfriend and suddenly something clicked in his mind, reminding him of something straight out of a dream.
“Is that so?” Jun asked, sounding bored. He moved into the room, closing the door behind him and unfastening the button on his jeans as he walked around the bed. Nino couldn't help but watch with a dumbfounded expression as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Jun never seemed to notice.
“So next time I should go straight for the punishment?” Jun asked, turning his body to face Nino as he shimmied out of his pants and then his shirt, standing before the speechless man in nothing but his boxers. Nino said nothing, could say nothing. Jun continued, climbing into bed next to his boyfriend. “Alright. I'll remember that for future purposes.” He brought a hand up and traced his fingers up and down Nino's forearm lightly.
Nino eyed the movement warily, hoping to hell that the thick comforter that covered him was enough to hide what was sure to be a rapidly growing problem. He was frozen, unable to move, save for his eyes watching the invisible trail Jun's fingers seemed to draw over his pale skin. “Kazu...” Jun's voice came out in a whisper as his eyes leapt up to meet Nino's own dilated pupils. “You know what Sho-kun and Aiba-kun are doing downstairs?”
Nino nodded rapidly, his excitement beginning to show.
Jun moved forward, leaning down until his body was lined up with Nino's, forcing the shorter man back onto the pillows without even touching him. Jun propped himself up, his arms on either side of Nino's head as he swung a leg over the shorter man's frozen body. Nino's eyes closed in anticipation as Jun began running the tip of his nose along his neck, from his collarbone to his ear. “A month ought to do it, right?” Jun let out a short laugh as he paused just beneath Nino's earlobe and placed a chaste kiss to the exposed skin.
“A month?” Nino asked, more concerned with what Jun was doing rather than what he was saying.
“A month,” Jun repeated as he pressed a kiss to Nino's mouth, barely letting things progress before he pulled back. “A month before I'll let you do anything like that to me. Happy punishment.”
Before Nino could protest, Jun was rolled off of him and onto his own pillow, where he snuggled cozily, his back to the shorter man.
“I hate you,” Nino said, casting a disparaging look to Jun's back and then to his own lap.
“No you don't,” Jun replied cheekily. “You love me.”
There was a sigh into the lost mood and Nino threw back the covers, storming onto his feet and to the door.
“Where are you going?” Jun asked as he looked over his shoulder.
“To the bathroom. You know - weak bladder and all that,” Nino threw back sarcastically. He wrenched the door open and stomped down the hallway. Jun could hear him make it halfway down the staircase before he heard the shorter man let out a string of curses at Aiba and Sho and the noises they were still making.
Jun laughed, long and loud. “Nino! Come back!”
-The End-
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Since it's the ending (finally!) and we've come such a long way, I wonder if it wouldn't be too completely tacky of me to ask everyone who has read - faithful commenters and lurkers alike - to leave a few parting words below. Thanks for sticking with me this entire time.