Fic: Married At First Sight 2/4 + Epilogue
Title: Married At First Sight 2/4
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating: R
Word count: 8,100-ish/~39,000
Warnings: Language
Summary: AU: Experiment: Get married to a stranger and live together for four weeks before deciding whether or not to stay married or get a divorce. Nino and Ohno do things in reverse order.
Notes: Found on part 1. Also, lots of liberty taken with Shimabukuro and Nagano and basically everything they're saying. I'll try to update on Fridays for the last two parts and the epilogue.
*
Intimacy - it’s not just seeing someone naked.
Nino ponders this on the second morning, his alarm blaring, and he wakes up in the bed he and Ohno compromised on in Ikea. He wakes up with his face entirely squashed into Ohno’s armpit, which, ew. It’s as gross as it sounds, really, even if Ohno isn’t drowning him in sweat. Okay, so maybe Nino protests a bit too much, because in all honesty - yes, Ohno’s armpit is perhaps not the ideal place to plant his face, he’ll admit to that, but it does mean being close to Ohno, which Nino likes. As in, like like, and the scent of Ohno, musky, slightly sweaty and warm only serves to make Nino feel hungry.
The day before, Monday, had been spent trying to get some kind of order into his newly married life. Step one: Go to work and act like a normal human being who doesn’t have an enormous case of blue balls. So, getting up semi-early, with a semi-boner, and trying to get Ohno semi-conscious before he left, hoping that the coffee he left for Ohno was at least semi-hot when Ohno finally decided to join the land of the living.
Yesterday had consisted of a lot of semis.
Step two: go home and don’t molest the guy you’re married to, because nothing spells romance and building trust like throwing yourself at him. No, but seriously. It’s fortunate that he’s living with a guy - sharing the same anatomy makes morning boners somewhat less awkward, but just as Ohno doesn’t reach for Nino’s boner the same way Nino doesn’t reach for Ohno’s… Nino wants to. It’s kind of scary and also weirding Nino out how much he wants to. Being close to Ohno, yes, sleeping in the same bed, breathing the same air, makes Nino want. Ohno hasn’t been in Nino’s life for very long at all, but in some ways, Nino feels like he knows Ohno very well. Perhaps it’s just the inevitable result of being in the same freak experiment and thrown into close quarters, but there are just things that they’re forced to know about each other.
Step three: Try not to resent Ohno for seemingly having the easiest job in the world. Nino really would like to be able to go to work at a later hour.
It’s these intimacies, Nino thinks about as he unsticks his face from Ohno’s armpit. It’s watching Ohno like a creep in the morning, his bowed lips parted on a breath, his hand slightly curled in the pillow and his chest rising and falling steadily. It’s Ohno with a toothbrush hanging out his mouth, Ohno scratching his stomach, already half-asleep. It’s Ohno grinning at him over a glass of water, standing by the sink and looking sheepish at having paint stuck on his fingers.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg, he knows this.
He gets up on one elbow and pointedly refrains from putting his free hand on Ohno’s skin, because he’s not that creepy. Yet. No, really. He’s just creepy enough to just watch him for a bit. Just a little bit. And then resolves to get out of bed, because he’s an independent man with a job he actually needs to show up at, so, there.
“Nino,” Ohno murmurs and Nino’s instinctual reaction is to drop down and pretend to be asleep. The split second after he decides to pretend to be asleep is when he wants to repeatedly smack himself because what the hell, he is a damn moron.
Ohno groans beside him as he stretches, joints popping, and then there’s the sound of rustling sheets, and then silence. Nino squints one eye open.
Ohno is looking at him, clearly not fooled the slightest if his shit-eating grin is anything to go by.
“Morning?” Nino offers, and he does feel like a bit of an idiot. Ohno’s grin turns into a more private smile, small and fond and he leans over to kiss Nino.
And they pull back and grimace because morning breath is just never worth it. Never. That doesn’t stop Ohno from laughing through his grimace, hand finding Nino’s wrist and briefly squeezing. Nino is, among other things, astonished that Ohno is so awake at this point, because just yesterday at this time, Ohno had been profoundly comatose. It seems Ohno is just full of surprises.
“Morning,” Ohno returns around a yawn, stretches again and then slumps down. “’s fuck early.”
Considering Ohno’s gallery opens at eleven, Nino’s alarm ringing at six thirty is, as Ohno so eloquently put it, fuck early. “I know,” he says, because as much as Nino loves his job with everything he has, it’d be nice actually waking up on his own. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
It’s nice, this closeness, in bed and sharing a mattress, sharing space and body heat and pillows, looking at Ohno’s spectacularly endearing case of bedhead. He tries to imagine what Ohno sees when he looks at Nino across from him, the pillow between them a vast distance; he finds that he really, really wants to know.
Intimacies: letting someone close enough to let them see you in the morning; letting someone close enough to be near you when you’re not awake, when you’re pretending to be asleep and when you’re so exhausted they could do anything to you and you wouldn’t be able to do anything before it was too late. Intimacy is pressing your cold toes to someone’s shins, accidentally bumping elbows, arms, hands, hips, and then staying, knowing that they don’t mind. Intimacy is going into a bedroom, an office, a kitchen, knowing that someone is entrusting you with their space.
“Hm,” is all Ohno hums and closes his eyes again, unguarded and beautiful. Fuck it all.
Nino pokes him and would’ve done it again if Ohno’s hand hadn’t caught his wayward finger. He very maturely resists pouting, but he knows he really needs to get a move on soon if he wants to get to work sometime today. He gets up, turns at the doorframe to the bathroom and says, “Therapy today. Did you remember?”
Ohno makes a sound into the pillow that says ugh therapy do we really have to go?
Nino can relate.
*
They have been sitting on the couch (very close, Nino is starting to think that personal space is a non-existent thing now) for approximately two minutes, and Nino already hates Shimabukuro-sensei fiercely. She smiled at them when they came in and she’s still smiling serenely at them now, two minutes later.
Ohno looks like he’s barely awake.
“So, tell me, how was your honeymoon? How did you like Kyoto?”
Nino glares. “Fine.”
She raises an eyebrow at him and then notes something down. Probably something largely professional along the lines of Ninomiya-san is an utter asshole. In therapist-language. “And you, Ohno-san?”
Nino kind of wishes she would stop smiling like she’s in a toothpaste commercial.
“It was good,” Ohno says and smiles back at her, safe and reassuring. “It was really good. I like Kyoto.”
Shimabukuro notes something down, probably Ohno-san is not an utter asshole. “And spending time with Ninomiya-san? How was that? Was it awkward or easy spending time with someone you barely knew?”
“Nino is,” Ohno says and pauses as if he needs to think about it, then glances at Nino briefly and smiles as if helpless, somehow. “Nino is Nino.”
Shimabukuro-sensei smiles wider as if that just made all the sense in the world. Fuck it, figures that she’d like Ohno. Figures that she’d like Ohno enough to let him get away with that kind of non-answer. And no, Nino is not bitter at all.
“And Ninomiya-san? What did you do in Kyoto?”
Nino speed-counts to ten, continues to twenty and then twenty-five, smiles sweetly and says, “We walked around and did touristy stuff. Lots of touristy stuff.”
Ohno pats his knee and Nino tries not to preen. He thinks he did really well, he could’ve said so much crap to her, but he refrained. Emotional growth, right there. Shimabukuro looks at him as if she knows exactly what he’s up to, but she keeps smiling. It’s freaking eerie. She also turns to Ohno as if she knows that talking to Nino is kind of a lost cause, and Nino thinks, good. If only she would stop smiling at Ohno like that, it would all be good.
Shimabukuro nods. “And you survived Ikea?”
“Miraculously,” Nino mutters even though he doesn’t mean it.
“We survived Ikea,” Ohno confirms with a grin and shoots another glance at Nino. “And Nino bought us matching mugs.”
Nino schools his face into blankness.
Shimabukuro jots something down. “Did you like that?”
“They’re cute,” Ohno says with a shrug. “And I like that Nino bought them for both of us.”
She writes down some more. “Okay, so I’m going to tell you some things and ask you some things. First of all, what do you think makes a relationship work? Forget the marriage bit, but think of relationships in general. What makes it work?”
“Great sex,” Ohno says and Nino blurts a laugh and hides his face behind his hands. Oh god, Ohno.
“That’s true,” Shimabukuro chuckles. “But that’s not traditionally text book material for this. I do agree with you, by the way, but as an aside. The more traditional, the more practical values for making a relationship last beyond the days of great sex being everything a body needs to survive a week in each other’s company, what are those? Ninomiya? Any ideas?”
He rolls his eyes because he knows exactly what she’s fishing for. “Communication,” he says dutifully and doesn’t roll his eyes even though he very much wants to. Ugh, therapy.
“Yes,” she agrees, “but communication is many things, and that is what you need to focus on in the coming weeks. It’s talking, of course it is, but it’s also listening and showing that you’re listening, and it’s trying to see things from your partner’s perspective and not just saying ‘okay.’ And more importantly, communicating your emotions is pretty often where relationships break down. So listening to each other, and addressing each other’s thoughts instead of just reacting. Still with me so far?”
Nino nods and sees Ohno do the same out of the corner of his eye.
“So,” she continues, “I have an exercise for you and I need you to do it twice this week and more if you feel like you need it, and then mentally catalogue the differences as you progress. If you feel like taking actual notes about it, that’s great but not imperative.”
She looks highly expectant and Nino nods again, because that is probably the only logical thing to do to make things go along from here.
“What I want you to do is this: one of you will sit down on a chair and the other will walk around it, saying five positive words, or five positive sentiments, about the one sitting down, sort of actively showering each other with compliments, and the words will have to be different from time to time unless you can justify using the same word twice. You have to be honest about what you like about each other. And then switch.”
“Eh?” It’s Ohno that laughs first. “Really? That’s it? Showering each other with compliments?”
She nods. “Metaphorical showering, yes. Wavy arm movements and whoosh sounds are entirely optional.”
And Ohno turns to Nino and shrugs as if to say I’m down with that. Nino is also down with that. Especially if it means their first therapy session is over fifteen minutes after it started. Nino is totally down with that.
“So we’re done? For real?”
“For now,” Shimabukuro-sensei corrects, voice dry. “I’ll see you both back here next week for your next appointment, and you will also go to your individual appointments with your separate therapists during the week. If you have anything else you want to discuss with me that can’t wait until next week, email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Just like the evaluation progress before you got married.”
She says all this as if this is the best thing that has ever happened in her life - trying to sort out two random guys who decided to get married on a whim purely because they could.
Then she grins. “Now get out, I have things to do and I can’t have two cute things like you taking up space on my couch. You’ll get your assignments on your phones if there are any, and there’s absolutely no excuse good enough not to check them, trust me, I will know if you slack off. Now shoo.”
Nino really doesn’t need to be told twice. He stands and offers a hand to Ohno, who takes it and stands with him.
“Scary,” Ohno says as they walk out of the building.
Nino raises an eyebrow. “She seemed to really like you, though.”
Ohno shudders and squeezes Nino’s hand. “Scary.”
Nino squeezes Ohno’s hand right back.
“I was thinking,” Ohno begins, then pauses. “I know it’s on really short notice, but I honestly didn’t know when to bring it up with you. A friend of mine is opening up a new exhibition on Friday, do you want to come with me?”
Ohno pointedly doesn’t say: You’re kind of my default Plus One now. He doesn’t have to say it, because they can both hear it anyway.
Intimacy is also this: getting to know all the corners of Ohno, all the secrets hidden away in crevices including meeting friends and family and colleagues. Seeing Ohno smiling, just a bit, learning to read the hesitance in the bow of his lips and the lines around his eyes, the tension along the muscles of his arm. Knowing when to say no and how to say no, but more importantly, learning the value of saying yes and placing an amount on, if not outright happiness, then at least pleasure, in someone by doing something for them without any other personal gain.
“You do realize I know nothing about art, right?”
“You design game graphics,” Ohno points out.
Nino waves it off. “That’s not art.”
“It’s photographs,” Ohno says. Ohno is learning too, Nino realizes as he watches a slow smile spread wider on Ohno’s face, and Ohno reads acceptance into what Nino very carefully isn’t saying. “But you know what, no one actually knows anything about art, but we make an art of pretending,” Ohno says in a conspiring tone. “And you’ll be there as my arm candy anyway, so don’t worry.”
Nino ducks his head. Ohno can be so unconsciously and effortlessly charming, it’s startling when Nino thinks about how Ohno would be if he actively tried to charm the world.
“That I can do,” Nino agrees, and maybe he squeezes Ohno’s hand a bit tighter. Maybe.
*
Intimacy: watching Ohno cook, reaching around Ohno to grab a spatula, standing right next to Ohno while Ohno is handling knives. It’s a small kitchen, okay.
Ohno hums when he cooks.
Nino really somehow doubts that Ohno is aware of it, mostly because Ohno does most things unconsciously. To be honest, Ohno seems to be doing most things while not thinking of anything at all. No, that sounds mean, but Nino doesn’t mean it like that - Ohno just seems incredibly at ease in his own skin, as if what anyone else thinks hardly matters at all. It’s pretty rare, is all. And this is intimacy, too: getting to watch Ohno exist.
Curling up next to Ohno on the couch after dinner, warm and full and loudly declaring he’s not doing the dishes (and then getting up and doing it anyway, getting suds absolutely everywhere when Ohno decides washing dishes is extremely boring). Ohno letting his fingers walk up Nino’s arm, recoiling when Nino twitches because he doesn’t know Nino’s movements yet, doesn’t know where his tics begin and his reactions end, and then trying to figure out how to teach Ohno when and where Nino is okay with which touches.
And isn’t that a can of worms on its own when Nino himself doesn’t always quite know what will make him skittish?
It’s better with Ohno, though. Perhaps it’s the quiet Ohno surrounds himself with. It’s not quite right, though, maybe calm is a better word, but whatever it is, it’s what Ohno wraps himself in, a cocoon of tranquility, of quietude, that Nino wants to wrap himself up in, to bask in it and lay back and rest. It’s impossible, he knows this, but just being near Ohno is wonderful all on its own.
It’s also scary as nothing else. More accurately, it’s actually really terrifying. It’s a talent, apparently, that Ohno can induce both such calm and such terror in Nino, and he’s not quite sure he knows what to do with either as it is now. Does he have a way of knowing who Ohno actually is beneath all this endless calm? Is it who he is when he gets tired of being accommodating, is this who he really is when he gets used to having someone sharing his space every day of every week? Nino is not sure. Letting go entirely, letting someone see who you are when you wake up and are having an extremely bad, a complete no-good day. When you’re cranky for no other reason that the world sucks and it’s Tuesday, it’s raining, and the neighbor’s cat happened to exist.
Nino really dreads the day he’ll have to try and explain the logic he operates by, as in, which logic?
And then Ohno says, “Sit down,” and pats the back of a chair.
Nino sends him a look he hopes conveys accurately are you actually fucking serious?
Ohno patiently pats the chair again, and his eyebrows very obviously say Yes, I am actually fucking serious.
“I hope you know I’m doing this for the sake of our marriage,” Nino says as he sits down and crosses his arms.
Ohno looks at him sort of fondly, which sort of baffles Nino in turn, and then starts walking slowly around Nino. He walks twice around Nino and then chuckles. “This is so awkward,” he says and Nino feels his own lips quirk in response.
“Get on with it,” he orders and swats at Ohno, who nimbly dances out of range.
“Hm, I like Nino becaaaaaause,” Ohno says slowly, hand running across the back of the chair, thumb grazing Nino’s neck, “he’s really, really nice. And because… he’s sweet and patient.”
“You called me nice,” Nino blinks, because that is what his brain chose to focus on. After all the trouble he went through in his brain to not catalogue Ohno as nice, Ohno goes ahead and does it. Or maybe Nino is just pissed that Ohno got to use the word first. Damn it.
Ohno shrugs and walks past his front. “Well, you are,” he says. “I also said you were sweet.”
“I heard it,” Nino says and doesn’t actually want to dwell on it, holy shit, compliments for the sake of compliments like this are just plain weird. “And you’re two words short.”
Ohno hums and completes another circle around Nino. “Nino is… warm,” he settles on. “I like Nino because he’s warm. And I like Nino because he bitches about getting up early, but he still takes the time to make me coffee, even though I’m still asleep.”
Okay, so if they don’t have to dig any deeper than that, Nino supposes he can do this. He’s pretty sure he can breeze through that exercise, actually. Psht, how hard can it be? Ohno looks kind of smugly satisfied with himself, so when he draws Nino up by the hand, Nino pushes him down by the shoulders and points a finger at him. “Sit.”
Laughing, Ohno obeys and, for some reason Nino gives up on puzzling out, closes his eyes. Nino looks at him for a moment, then starts his trek around him and realizes with a pang that he doesn’t quite have any idea what to say. It’s like when Aiba asked him a few days ago how Ohno was - how does one reduce a person to mere words? How does one even begin on deconstructing a person to tiny bits, how can he accurately find the words that just fit Ohno and somehow manage to encompass all of him?
He manages three rounds around Ohno before Ohno, eyes still closed, licks his lips and asks hesitantly, “Nino? Are you - are you still here?”
And it hits Nino, because he wasn’t expecting it - has Ohno known assholes in his life that would actually leave him hanging there without telling him they were going? Nino might not always be entirely sure of who he is and where his edges are, but he’s profoundly not that asshole that would do that to Ohno.
He knows, suddenly, why Ohno let his hand follow the back of the chair, why his fingers kept touching Nino on his way around - so Nino would know he was there. Or, maybe Nino is too presumptuous, however much sense it makes to his brain right now. However, the point stands clearly: Nino has no idea about the protocol of this. At which point is it fundamentally and sociably accepted to ask about the boyfriends, girlfriends, the lovers that came and went and who might not all have been the heroes of the story? Which of them had painted Ohno the villain, which had made him react in ways he feels shameful, angry, sad about? Who is the one Ohno considers the one that got away? Does he have one? Who does he regret, does he regret anything or anyone?
A part of him, Nino realizes, doesn’t actually want to know, because he likes this part of Ohno, the part that is Nino’s. For now, perhaps, but his, right in this moment where he sits trusting and waiting for Nino to do his part of their assignment.
“Yeah,” Nino says. “Yeah.” He can do this, for Ohno because no matter if Ohno has known too many assholes in his life, or too few, he deserves from Nino that Nino does what he can, however scary he might find the prospect if he thinks too hard on it.
“I like Oh-chan because,” he starts and stops, realizing all over again why Ohno had found it difficult to do this. “I like Oh-chan because he’s honest with me.”
And that, if nothing else, is true. Ohno has been honest in everything until now, even if Nino fears Ohno will wake up one day and be tired of being the accommodating husband, but he’ll tackle that hurdle as it comes. For now, it’s enough. “And he’s kind. And I like him because he let me in here, because,” and he pauses here, just a brief pause, before he makes himself plod on, “because I think he saw I wasn’t too comfortable with letting anyone else into my apartment.”
He’s desperately grateful for being behind Ohno’s back as he says this, goes round him again and checks Ohno’s eyes - still closed, face still serene but lips tightened - and tries to come up with something, anything that will make him forget Nino ever said that. “And Oh-chan is pretty.”
“I’m a trophy husband,” Ohno says calmly and opens one eye briefly when Nino passes his front again, and Nino swats at him, still a bit shaky, but that’s alright. Okay, four down, one to go, he can totally do this if he wants to. He really wants to. He kind of wants this assignment to be over and done with yesterday.
“This exercise is dumb,” he announces even though he doesn’t mean it. Okay, he does mean it a little bit, but he’s not all committed to hating it properly. It probably has a point somewhere. Somehow. Maybe Nino is actually wearing a blindfold, because he totally doesn’t see the point right now, but whatever.
“You need one more word,” Ohno says and Nino glares at him even though Ohno’s eyes are still closed.
“Shut up, Trophy Husband.”
“Abuse,” Ohno murmurs and Nino can’t help the way the smile punches out of him, helpless and completely disarmed. How can he tell Ohno this feeling? Can he say it? Is there a socially acceptable way of saying that you’d like to try figuring out how to fuse your being with someone else’s and see if you fit in the long run with all his jagged edges? Is that what marriage is?
Intimacy: watching Ohno on that chair, waiting and hesitant and oddly vulnerable, and somehow having the power to do something to hurt Ohno. He’s not sure what it would entail, and he sure as hell doesn’t actually want to know, but knowing that somehow he’s in the position to actually hold something over Ohno is tarrying and is making him feel ill. He won’t do it. He can’t.
He seriously feels like a complete fool when he says, “and I like Oh-chan because he’s gentle,” but he knows it’s worth it, because Ohno is gentle in everything he does. And he suspects that Ohno’s smile is not because Nino said he was gentle, but because Nino thought the assignment was absolute crap but completed it anyway.
This feeling, knowing that someone is proud of him for even the infinitesimal tasks finished, is kind of unsettling but it also makes his belly all warm. He files it away under will examine at a much, much later date.
He offers a hand to Ohno, like Ohno had done for him, but Ohno pulls him down instead of going up, and they collide with a gust of breathy laughter.
“Oof,” Nino breathes, sitting sideways on Ohno’s thighs, and Ohno’s eyes are totally laughing at him. “What? No, seriously, what? Why are you laughing at me?”
Ohno isn’t telling him, he’s just laughing with his crinkled eyes and crooked, upturned, lovely mouth, and then pressing his face into the skin beneath Nino’s ear as Nino carefully lays his arms around Ohno’s neck. He hasn’t known this man a week yet, but maybe it’s not that weird that he feels close to him. Going from not knowing each other at all, complete strangers, into living with each other, sleeping in close quarters, is what’s making them a tight-knit unit. But what does Ohno see when he looks this closely at Nino? Does he look at him and find him wanting in ways Nino can’t even hope to make up for? Or is Nino somehow too much?
He can’t even ask. Can he?
He squeezes Ohno closer, buries his face in Ohno’s hair, and despite whatever it is he doesn’t know, maybe in spite of it, he can’t stop the helpless smile on his face when Ohno presses his mouth to his neck. Ohno mumbles something, so Nino pulls back and can’t not press his fingers to Ohno’s cheeks, thumbs framing his ears.
“What?”
Ohno looks shy, lovely and a little embarrassed, but his mouth quirks again. “I like Nino,” he says as if it’s an obvious thing, as if he just can’t help it.
There’s no way, no way, Nino’s heart doing that kind of skid-thumb is healthy. No way. Just. No way.
Nino holds him closer, this small intimacy of Ohno hiding his face in Nino’s neck and Nino not knowing how to make his mouth return the truth Ohno offered him - it would’ve been the easiest thing for Ohno not to look at Nino while he said it, but he did it, brave, lovely creature, held his eye and said I like Nino.
Nino wishes he was that courageous, but he doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t even know where to begin, so he just holds Ohno tighter and tries to breathe.
*
Nagano-sensei smiles at him. “How are you today?”
It’s Friday. “I’m fine,” Nino says. No fucking way he’s talking to this guy. It was bad enough in the preliminary evaluations before the wedding, but again? This experiment was thought up by sadists.
Nagano-sensei’s smile is serene and completely unbothered. “How did you sleep?”
Cuddled up to Ohno, completely wrapped up in Ohno’s limbs, leeching off his body heat, breathing into his skin and waking up to Ohno’s slow smile, Ohno’s breath on his neck, Ohno’s fingers tangled in his hair. “Fine,” Nino says.
He writes something down and Nagano-sensei’s smile never wavers even a fraction. “And how did Ohno-san sleep? Your husband.”
As if Nino needed clarification on that. “I suppose he slept well.” Nino had been pressed close enough this morning to know that Ohno’s boner was probably as annoying as Nino’s own, so he thinks Ohno had slept well enough. Although, how can he begin to determine Ohno’s sleep when Ohno is smack-dab comatose most of the time?
Nagano hums, tilts his head. “Have you had sex yet?”
Nino coughs, then glares.
Nagano-sensei, completely unconcerned, leans a bit forward. “You know, done the deed, intercourse, love making, coupling, mating, doing the nasty, the horizontal tango -”
“I know, oh my god,” Nino cuts in, horrified. “Oh my god.”
“So?”
Nino glares some more. Breathes out. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
Ohno in the morning, sleep-warm and tired. Fresh out of the shower in track pants, too lazy to dry properly off, quirked lips and tooth-brush sticking out of his mouth. Mid-grin and eyes scrunched up, yawning and stretching and Nino feels hungry, can feel his fingers itching to touch, to learn every inch of him, lay hands on his hips, thighs, knees, fold him in and hold. Nino isn’t sure he can articulate just how much he wants Ohno, because Ohno is sexy, but it’s more than just that he’s devastatingly gorgeous. He’s sensual when he moves, unconsciously graceful, and Nino is laughably gone over him.
“Yes,” he admits and doesn’t know why the word feels so heavy.
“Sex or him specifically?”
Nino breathes. “A combination?”
Nagano nods. “So why haven’t you done the nasty yet?”
Deep breath, count to ten, twenty, a million, whatever number works. “I don’t know.” That’s. Well. He’s pretty sure that’s a lie. He’s pretty sure Nagano-sensei knows he’s pretty sure it’s a lie.
He doesn’t even have to say anything, he just waits Nino out.
Finally, Nino bites the proverbial bullet. “He hasn’t done anything to indicate he wants to have sex with me.”
“Does that disappoint you?”
Be honest, he thinks, that will get you out of here the quickest. But. Humiliation is burning his throat, his neck, his ears. He’s burning. “Yes.”
“So does he have to be the one to instigate it? Why not say, ‘hey, hubby, let’s do the horizontal mambo’?”
“Stop, stop, stop, please, stop,” Nino moans, burying his face in his hands, and then, despite knowing better, “wasn’t it tango, just before?”
Waving a hand in clear dismissal, Nagano-sensei quite obviously barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “Tango, mambo, hand jive, whatever, details. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. What do you have to say in your defense? Why not go up to him and rip his clothes off? I’m sure that would spell things out for him loud and clear.”
“That,” Nino begins, blinks. “I’m not sure that’s socially accepted anywhere.”
“Don’t try to sneak your way out of giving me a proper answer, I know all the diversions and all the tricks. Why aren’t you just telling him what you want?”
Nino knows this and still feels that it was worth a try. “Because,” he starts, but he doesn’t want to say it. He hesitates. He really doesn’t want to say it. “I don’t. I mean. I don’t want to be put in a position where I’m unwanted, I guess. I… I don’t want to ask for something I won’t be allowed.”
“So, you’re afraid of wanting more than you’re given back,” Nagano notes down. “Of being denied something you want.”
Yes.
“It’s normal, I assure you, and your highly unusual circumstances aren’t exactly making it easier for you, because in normal relationships, trust is being built and shown over longer time, giving way to show want and desire as a natural progression, but you do have some pretty extenuating reasons to not have that foundation yet. So in a way, you could probably say that the circumstances could be actively working against you. Do you do anything even remotely sexual?”
“He kisses me,” Nino says, looking anywhere but at Nagano, god, how has he never noticed how utterly fascinating the ceiling is?
“And that is acceptable to you?”
Well, d’uh. Ohno presses close and kisses Nino silly, kisses him thoroughly and teasingly and sweetly, holds his elbows, his shoulder, the jut of his hip. Nino wants. Hell yeah it’s acceptable. “Yeah, I - Yeah. It is. Acceptable, I mean.”
“And that is the extent of your physical relationship? Kissing?”
“No,” Nino starts but doesn’t know quite where to go with it. It’s embarrassing. “I think, I mean, I think we definitely have more of a physical relationship than kissing. We’re,” and he has to pause at the repeated use of we, oh god, “we’re close, I guess. I know we’re close.”
And that’s just it, because he really feels they are close, and getting closer, possibly if he’d been claustrophobic he’d have fled the bedroom the first morning he woke up with Ohno’s arm in his face. It’s in knowing he can lay a hand on the sway of Ohno’s lower back and how Ohno doesn’t shift away, and how Ohno doesn’t edge away when he wakes up all tangled in Nino’s limbs.
“That’s good,” Nagano-sensei says. “That’s really good. So we’ve established that you want him, you want the sex and you want the closeness. What if Ohno-san doesn’t want the same? What if you’re not on the same page in this marriage?”
“I guess that would suck,” Nino admits, the thought settling low, cold and heavy in his stomach. He knows he’s sort of a security addict, because above almost everything else, he just wants to feel safe with someone, and, ironically enough, it’s terrifying that he could feel entirely safe with Ohno, who is still for the most part an utter stranger to him, even if they are getting closer.
“Have you talked to him about it? Actually asked him why he signed up for this and what reasons he has for wanting a marriage like this? Maybe they’re the same as yours, maybe they’re vastly different, but whatever the reasons are, I think you both would benefit from knowing each other’s motivations for doing this thing. We didn’t pair the two of you up just for kicks, you must realize that, but this entire thing is just not something you do lightly,” Nagano-sensei says, and Nino does feel the chide in it, “and chances are very good that Ohno-san is in this for the long haul. Ninomiya-san, it’s marriage.”
God, as if he needed the reminder. Something in him coils tightly and makes him squirm with it. He hopes it’s not too obvious.
“I know when we talked about cheating in the preliminary stages of the experiment, you said that you were fine with it because of reasons that honestly baffle me, but you crave feeling safe when you’re with someone, don’t you?”
Nino very badly doesn’t want to talk about that. He nods as if that will get him out of it all the quicker.
Nagano-sensei evidently senses that, so he backs off. “So talk to him, yeah?” And then he rolls his shoulders, as if to shake the entire conversation off. “That got way too serious way too fast for my tastes. What did you do since you saw Shimabukuro-sensei on Tuesday? Besides all the sex you’re not having, I mean.”
Nino blinks, disbelieving. “What kind of therapist are you even?”
“An awesome one and also yours,” Nagano says with a shrug that quite clearly says obviously. “Your days. Now.”
“Wednesday, I went to work, Oh-chan went to work, we both came home, we almost burnt the kitchen down and then watched a movie.” Well, they didn’t actually burn the kitchen down, not anywhere near, but Ohno had been frying vegetables and had said, “pass me the oil?” which had Nino pouring oil in the pan and there were flames, which made Ohno startle and almost drop the pan, then he started laughing and Nino felt quite ridiculous, cheeks warm. Ohno still kissed his cheek and then served the food. “Thursday, I went to work, Oh-chan went to his therapist and then to work and got back late, so I cooked. Much happiness.”
He doesn’t say: It was totally weird being in the apartment without Ohno being there as a buffer.
He doesn’t say: Ohno got back late and Nino heard him come back, the door opening and closing and Ohno hummed something in return of Nino’s greeting, and Nino had assumed that he went to go change his clothes or something, because the apartment had fallen silent after that. And Nino had been thoroughly occupied by cooking and very definitely not setting anything on fire, not pots, pans or vegetables, so it had been a shock to turn and find Ohno leaning against the doorjamb, just looking at him, looking for all the world like watching Nino was all he needed right in that moment.
It had been sort of terrifying, to be honest, that kind of attention, even though Nino feels like he should sort of have expected it by now, with how Ohno sometimes asks to be permitted to just look at him. For no reason at all that Nino can discern than Ohno just wants to.
Terrifying.
“Fascinating,” Nagano says dryly. “You guys must be a real riot.”
Nino scowls, because hey, that was uncalled for. Just because Nino doesn’t feel like turning himself inside out and exposing all that goes on in his brain doesn’t mean they’re boring.
Nagano-sensei holds his hands up in surrender and drops his pen in the process. “Oops,” he mutters and then, “Lastly, tell me about your plans for today.”
Nino blinks. How did he know they had plans? Did Ohno tell his therapist, who in turn told Nagano-sensei? That’s pretty much the only explanation for it, even if it sucks, because isn’t there supposed to be some kind of patient confidentiality even though it’s not strictly a piece of vital information that they have plans? Nino reserves the right to be pissed anyway.
“He’s taking me to a gallery,” Nino says anyway. “One of his friends is opening up an exhibition, so he’s taking me there as his arm candy.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Oh, I love being arm candy,” Nino returns evenly.
It’s Nagano’s turn to look extremely unimpressed. “And about going with him as his arm candy?”
Uncertain. Scared. Well, not scared but not feeling like he can own that room. I don’t really want to go. I don’t know his friends. Of all the people there, I’ll only know him. But. “I promised him I’d go with him.”
Which is about as honest as he can bring himself to be right now. Intimacy - being close, not as close as can be, but close enough to bring yourself to do something you don’t actually want to do because it will make him happy.
Nagano-sensei is nodding at him, and Nino is not happy about what he’s probably letting show on his face right now, but what can he do? He’s realizing all over again just out of his depth he is in this, and he’s floundering, he knows it, he can feel it.
“Ninomiya-san,” Nagano says as he leans forward. “Breathe. Breathe. It’s a gallery. If nothing else, there’s always the trick of imagining everyone naked, though I prefer just imagining I could kill them all with a ball-point pen if I really, really got motivated enough. People stops being threatening after that. So have fun with that!”
Clearly, Nino’s therapist needs a better therapist. This is going to go so badly.
*
Nino had some kind of hope that he was going to hold everything admirably well together, but that plan was shot to smithereens the moment Ohno stepped out of the bedroom wearing a suit that was altogether too good on him, Jesus. Be still his beating heart. Nino kind of thinks he needs to pick up his jaw from the floor at this point, damn, Ohno looks good. It’s not that Ohno doesn’t look good in his normal clothes, because Nino is well acquainted with the fact that he’s very attracted to Ohno and his quite frankly really effortlessly ridiculous sexy on a daily basis, but this is somehow a more deliberate sexy.
Damn. He is suddenly and acutely aware that his sex-life has been a wasteland for months.
Ohno for his part, stops and then gives Nino a very deliberate once-over and then grins, says, “Hello.”
It’s not the first indication Ohno has ever given that he likes to look at Nino, but it feels fresh and new anyhow. He can’t help but smile back. “Hello, trophy husband.”
Ohno - laughs, like he didn’t expect it, and therefore it sounds better and is more rewarding, Nino decides. God, look at Ohno, just look at his certain lines and his easy grace, Nino feels hungry.
And Ohno offers his arm and says, “Let’s go, arm candy.” Nino takes his arm, slides his hand around Ohno’s elbow and holds on.
He holds on all the way to when Nino can see the gallery coming up further down the darkened street - the lights from inside are spilling out on the street, and Ohno stops him, suddenly, and says, “So.”
“So?” Nino raises an eyebrow.
Ohno lets go of Nino’s arm and slides a hand into his inside jacket pocket and produces a little box. A weight on his finger, and a week later Nino is almost used to that band now, but the sight of that box makes his throat go tight.
He swallows thickly. “What - ”
“So I couldn’t get you a ring,” Ohno starts. “Ah, well, I already did, I guess, I did already put a ring on you, so a second ring seemed like a stupid idea, but I… I really kind of wanted to give you a ring anyway even though I think you might think it’s stupid. You probably will. Think I’m stupid, I mean.”
But Ohno, with his little, wobbly, courageous smile, takes Nino’s hand and turns it palm up, presses the box onto it and very obviously breathes and doesn’t look away.
“But - why -?”
Ohno’s smile twitches, still shy and hesitant. “I - Happy one-week anniversary.”
And the bottom of Nino’s stomach drops out, suddenly and horribly, and he feels cold, and dizzy, and like the lowest. A week? How, just how did he manage to screw this one up? How could he forget? One week ago he saw Ohno for the first time and put a ring on his finger, and he’s married. Just how did this happen? And Ohno, who strokes his hand under the box he was just given, looks like he’s about three seconds from being punched in the gut, so Nino opens the box.
The box holds a keyring and it’s an exact replica of Ohno’s simple silver keyring, a tree. Ohno looks oddly young as Nino looks up at him. “I hope you like it.”
A weight in Nino’s hand as he holds it, and it’s not an exact replica, now that Nino holds it. It’s a bit smaller, a bit heavier. It clinks against the ring on his finger as he turns it and holds it in the chain. It’s really -
“Beautiful,” he breathes and looks back up at Ohno, who looks flushed with the praise, a little bit uncomfortable but enduring it because it’s Nino. It’s a terrible privilege, is what it is.
“Thank you,” Ohno says quite unexpectedly, and that is extreme bashfulness on his face right there. “I made it for you.”
Nino blinks, feeling even more terrible about the entire thing (how how how could he screw this one up so soon? It’s been a week for fuck’s sake, get a grip, you extreme moron), and he has no clue what to say, what can he possibly say that would make it worth it for Ohno? “Really? I mean, thank you, it’s - it’s really, really beautiful.”
“Now we match,” Ohno says and dear god, he sounds smug and satisfied and fuck, he clearly hasn’t realized yet that Nino is all consonants in a game of scrabble. “I know I already gave you the key to the apartment, but, this seems somehow more official, yeah?”
And it does, because the initial key-giving shebang had been oddly anti-climactic and more of an aside than anything else (“Ah, and you’ll need this, too, sorry, I almost forgot.” and “Cool, thanks, I had actually already forgotten all about it.”), so yes, this does feel more official, like, now it’s actually real. Which actually is a little bit ridiculous. It’s a keyring. A beautiful keyring. That Ohno made. For him. Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Where is that damn honesty when he needs it?
“Oh-chan, I - ” I suck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m a goddamned moron, I’m really sorry, “I forgot, I can’t believe it’s been a week already, or, I mean, it’s only been a week and I already screwed this up. I don’t have anything for you. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I forgot. I’m really sorry.”
He’s also realizing that this is probably also why Nagano-sensei had inquired after their plans, because it’s their one-week anniversary, oh god, that Nino forgot like an idiot. Nino really does feel like a tremendous fuck-up. Aiba would laugh himself sick if he saw Nino right now.
Ohno’s quicksilver fast smile, gentle fingers closing Nino’s hand around the keychain, he says, “Don’t worry, it’s just a normal day. Honestly, I was just looking for an excuse to give it to you.”
Nino tries to appreciate that Ohno wants to make him feel better, but -
“You know,” Ohno says and then, “Happy Friday? Happy thank-fuck it’s-finally-weekend-again?”
No one can blame him for the way he smiles, helpless to Ohno’s charm, but the guilt is a slow burn.
“Happy I-can-show-my-arm-candy-off Friday?”
Nino laughs. Ohno is quite possibly one of the silliest persons in the world, and he also drew the shortest straw and got stuck with Nino, who can’t even remember an anniversary only a week into the relationship. To be fair, Nino has never been the kind of person that particularly cares about the anniversaries as long as what they’re doing works - why do they need an occasion or even an excuse to do something to bring special attention to the relationship?
“Happy I’m-sorry-your-husband-is-a-giant-moron-Friday?” He takes the arm Ohno offers him, squeezes him close and closes his fingers tighter around the keychain in his palm. “I’m still sorry. I really am. I’m hoping this won’t set precedence for the rest of our marriage.”
Ohno stiffens a bit, then shrugs, tightens his arm around Nino’s. “Don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Nino breathes and tries to work around the stifling feeling of onus, stupidity and unease, because there’s no way around it; he’s kind of a moron. Ohno tugs at him and they start walking again, and huddling closer to Ohno doesn’t help much even if Ohno says he doesn’t mind at all. He doesn’t even seem to want Nino’s apologies. What can he do then?
“We’re here,” Ohno says gently and strokes Nino’s hand around his elbow. “Ready?”
Ready or not, he has to do it, he knows. He owes it to Ohno, it’s partly that, but he also owes it to himself, to show that he can do this, that he’s not screwing everything up already. This is what Ohno asks of him this time. It’s not even an outrageous demand of him, it’s company on a night where Nino knows he’d have gone alone if Nino hadn’t said yes to it. He can’t make Ohno go alone, he won’t do it. Small braveries: he can start with facing Ohno’s world with Ohno, this small intimacy Ohno asks of him.
“Happy let’s-try-that-arm-candy-thing-Friday?”
Ohno laughs, kisses the corner of his mouth and tugs him inside the gallery. Show time.
*
Part three
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating: R
Word count: 8,100-ish/~39,000
Warnings: Language
Summary: AU: Experiment: Get married to a stranger and live together for four weeks before deciding whether or not to stay married or get a divorce. Nino and Ohno do things in reverse order.
Notes: Found on part 1. Also, lots of liberty taken with Shimabukuro and Nagano and basically everything they're saying. I'll try to update on Fridays for the last two parts and the epilogue.
*
Intimacy - it’s not just seeing someone naked.
Nino ponders this on the second morning, his alarm blaring, and he wakes up in the bed he and Ohno compromised on in Ikea. He wakes up with his face entirely squashed into Ohno’s armpit, which, ew. It’s as gross as it sounds, really, even if Ohno isn’t drowning him in sweat. Okay, so maybe Nino protests a bit too much, because in all honesty - yes, Ohno’s armpit is perhaps not the ideal place to plant his face, he’ll admit to that, but it does mean being close to Ohno, which Nino likes. As in, like like, and the scent of Ohno, musky, slightly sweaty and warm only serves to make Nino feel hungry.
The day before, Monday, had been spent trying to get some kind of order into his newly married life. Step one: Go to work and act like a normal human being who doesn’t have an enormous case of blue balls. So, getting up semi-early, with a semi-boner, and trying to get Ohno semi-conscious before he left, hoping that the coffee he left for Ohno was at least semi-hot when Ohno finally decided to join the land of the living.
Yesterday had consisted of a lot of semis.
Step two: go home and don’t molest the guy you’re married to, because nothing spells romance and building trust like throwing yourself at him. No, but seriously. It’s fortunate that he’s living with a guy - sharing the same anatomy makes morning boners somewhat less awkward, but just as Ohno doesn’t reach for Nino’s boner the same way Nino doesn’t reach for Ohno’s… Nino wants to. It’s kind of scary and also weirding Nino out how much he wants to. Being close to Ohno, yes, sleeping in the same bed, breathing the same air, makes Nino want. Ohno hasn’t been in Nino’s life for very long at all, but in some ways, Nino feels like he knows Ohno very well. Perhaps it’s just the inevitable result of being in the same freak experiment and thrown into close quarters, but there are just things that they’re forced to know about each other.
Step three: Try not to resent Ohno for seemingly having the easiest job in the world. Nino really would like to be able to go to work at a later hour.
It’s these intimacies, Nino thinks about as he unsticks his face from Ohno’s armpit. It’s watching Ohno like a creep in the morning, his bowed lips parted on a breath, his hand slightly curled in the pillow and his chest rising and falling steadily. It’s Ohno with a toothbrush hanging out his mouth, Ohno scratching his stomach, already half-asleep. It’s Ohno grinning at him over a glass of water, standing by the sink and looking sheepish at having paint stuck on his fingers.
It’s just the tip of the iceberg, he knows this.
He gets up on one elbow and pointedly refrains from putting his free hand on Ohno’s skin, because he’s not that creepy. Yet. No, really. He’s just creepy enough to just watch him for a bit. Just a little bit. And then resolves to get out of bed, because he’s an independent man with a job he actually needs to show up at, so, there.
“Nino,” Ohno murmurs and Nino’s instinctual reaction is to drop down and pretend to be asleep. The split second after he decides to pretend to be asleep is when he wants to repeatedly smack himself because what the hell, he is a damn moron.
Ohno groans beside him as he stretches, joints popping, and then there’s the sound of rustling sheets, and then silence. Nino squints one eye open.
Ohno is looking at him, clearly not fooled the slightest if his shit-eating grin is anything to go by.
“Morning?” Nino offers, and he does feel like a bit of an idiot. Ohno’s grin turns into a more private smile, small and fond and he leans over to kiss Nino.
And they pull back and grimace because morning breath is just never worth it. Never. That doesn’t stop Ohno from laughing through his grimace, hand finding Nino’s wrist and briefly squeezing. Nino is, among other things, astonished that Ohno is so awake at this point, because just yesterday at this time, Ohno had been profoundly comatose. It seems Ohno is just full of surprises.
“Morning,” Ohno returns around a yawn, stretches again and then slumps down. “’s fuck early.”
Considering Ohno’s gallery opens at eleven, Nino’s alarm ringing at six thirty is, as Ohno so eloquently put it, fuck early. “I know,” he says, because as much as Nino loves his job with everything he has, it’d be nice actually waking up on his own. “Sorry if I woke you up.”
It’s nice, this closeness, in bed and sharing a mattress, sharing space and body heat and pillows, looking at Ohno’s spectacularly endearing case of bedhead. He tries to imagine what Ohno sees when he looks at Nino across from him, the pillow between them a vast distance; he finds that he really, really wants to know.
Intimacies: letting someone close enough to let them see you in the morning; letting someone close enough to be near you when you’re not awake, when you’re pretending to be asleep and when you’re so exhausted they could do anything to you and you wouldn’t be able to do anything before it was too late. Intimacy is pressing your cold toes to someone’s shins, accidentally bumping elbows, arms, hands, hips, and then staying, knowing that they don’t mind. Intimacy is going into a bedroom, an office, a kitchen, knowing that someone is entrusting you with their space.
“Hm,” is all Ohno hums and closes his eyes again, unguarded and beautiful. Fuck it all.
Nino pokes him and would’ve done it again if Ohno’s hand hadn’t caught his wayward finger. He very maturely resists pouting, but he knows he really needs to get a move on soon if he wants to get to work sometime today. He gets up, turns at the doorframe to the bathroom and says, “Therapy today. Did you remember?”
Ohno makes a sound into the pillow that says ugh therapy do we really have to go?
Nino can relate.
*
They have been sitting on the couch (very close, Nino is starting to think that personal space is a non-existent thing now) for approximately two minutes, and Nino already hates Shimabukuro-sensei fiercely. She smiled at them when they came in and she’s still smiling serenely at them now, two minutes later.
Ohno looks like he’s barely awake.
“So, tell me, how was your honeymoon? How did you like Kyoto?”
Nino glares. “Fine.”
She raises an eyebrow at him and then notes something down. Probably something largely professional along the lines of Ninomiya-san is an utter asshole. In therapist-language. “And you, Ohno-san?”
Nino kind of wishes she would stop smiling like she’s in a toothpaste commercial.
“It was good,” Ohno says and smiles back at her, safe and reassuring. “It was really good. I like Kyoto.”
Shimabukuro notes something down, probably Ohno-san is not an utter asshole. “And spending time with Ninomiya-san? How was that? Was it awkward or easy spending time with someone you barely knew?”
“Nino is,” Ohno says and pauses as if he needs to think about it, then glances at Nino briefly and smiles as if helpless, somehow. “Nino is Nino.”
Shimabukuro-sensei smiles wider as if that just made all the sense in the world. Fuck it, figures that she’d like Ohno. Figures that she’d like Ohno enough to let him get away with that kind of non-answer. And no, Nino is not bitter at all.
“And Ninomiya-san? What did you do in Kyoto?”
Nino speed-counts to ten, continues to twenty and then twenty-five, smiles sweetly and says, “We walked around and did touristy stuff. Lots of touristy stuff.”
Ohno pats his knee and Nino tries not to preen. He thinks he did really well, he could’ve said so much crap to her, but he refrained. Emotional growth, right there. Shimabukuro looks at him as if she knows exactly what he’s up to, but she keeps smiling. It’s freaking eerie. She also turns to Ohno as if she knows that talking to Nino is kind of a lost cause, and Nino thinks, good. If only she would stop smiling at Ohno like that, it would all be good.
Shimabukuro nods. “And you survived Ikea?”
“Miraculously,” Nino mutters even though he doesn’t mean it.
“We survived Ikea,” Ohno confirms with a grin and shoots another glance at Nino. “And Nino bought us matching mugs.”
Nino schools his face into blankness.
Shimabukuro jots something down. “Did you like that?”
“They’re cute,” Ohno says with a shrug. “And I like that Nino bought them for both of us.”
She writes down some more. “Okay, so I’m going to tell you some things and ask you some things. First of all, what do you think makes a relationship work? Forget the marriage bit, but think of relationships in general. What makes it work?”
“Great sex,” Ohno says and Nino blurts a laugh and hides his face behind his hands. Oh god, Ohno.
“That’s true,” Shimabukuro chuckles. “But that’s not traditionally text book material for this. I do agree with you, by the way, but as an aside. The more traditional, the more practical values for making a relationship last beyond the days of great sex being everything a body needs to survive a week in each other’s company, what are those? Ninomiya? Any ideas?”
He rolls his eyes because he knows exactly what she’s fishing for. “Communication,” he says dutifully and doesn’t roll his eyes even though he very much wants to. Ugh, therapy.
“Yes,” she agrees, “but communication is many things, and that is what you need to focus on in the coming weeks. It’s talking, of course it is, but it’s also listening and showing that you’re listening, and it’s trying to see things from your partner’s perspective and not just saying ‘okay.’ And more importantly, communicating your emotions is pretty often where relationships break down. So listening to each other, and addressing each other’s thoughts instead of just reacting. Still with me so far?”
Nino nods and sees Ohno do the same out of the corner of his eye.
“So,” she continues, “I have an exercise for you and I need you to do it twice this week and more if you feel like you need it, and then mentally catalogue the differences as you progress. If you feel like taking actual notes about it, that’s great but not imperative.”
She looks highly expectant and Nino nods again, because that is probably the only logical thing to do to make things go along from here.
“What I want you to do is this: one of you will sit down on a chair and the other will walk around it, saying five positive words, or five positive sentiments, about the one sitting down, sort of actively showering each other with compliments, and the words will have to be different from time to time unless you can justify using the same word twice. You have to be honest about what you like about each other. And then switch.”
“Eh?” It’s Ohno that laughs first. “Really? That’s it? Showering each other with compliments?”
She nods. “Metaphorical showering, yes. Wavy arm movements and whoosh sounds are entirely optional.”
And Ohno turns to Nino and shrugs as if to say I’m down with that. Nino is also down with that. Especially if it means their first therapy session is over fifteen minutes after it started. Nino is totally down with that.
“So we’re done? For real?”
“For now,” Shimabukuro-sensei corrects, voice dry. “I’ll see you both back here next week for your next appointment, and you will also go to your individual appointments with your separate therapists during the week. If you have anything else you want to discuss with me that can’t wait until next week, email me and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Just like the evaluation progress before you got married.”
She says all this as if this is the best thing that has ever happened in her life - trying to sort out two random guys who decided to get married on a whim purely because they could.
Then she grins. “Now get out, I have things to do and I can’t have two cute things like you taking up space on my couch. You’ll get your assignments on your phones if there are any, and there’s absolutely no excuse good enough not to check them, trust me, I will know if you slack off. Now shoo.”
Nino really doesn’t need to be told twice. He stands and offers a hand to Ohno, who takes it and stands with him.
“Scary,” Ohno says as they walk out of the building.
Nino raises an eyebrow. “She seemed to really like you, though.”
Ohno shudders and squeezes Nino’s hand. “Scary.”
Nino squeezes Ohno’s hand right back.
“I was thinking,” Ohno begins, then pauses. “I know it’s on really short notice, but I honestly didn’t know when to bring it up with you. A friend of mine is opening up a new exhibition on Friday, do you want to come with me?”
Ohno pointedly doesn’t say: You’re kind of my default Plus One now. He doesn’t have to say it, because they can both hear it anyway.
Intimacy is also this: getting to know all the corners of Ohno, all the secrets hidden away in crevices including meeting friends and family and colleagues. Seeing Ohno smiling, just a bit, learning to read the hesitance in the bow of his lips and the lines around his eyes, the tension along the muscles of his arm. Knowing when to say no and how to say no, but more importantly, learning the value of saying yes and placing an amount on, if not outright happiness, then at least pleasure, in someone by doing something for them without any other personal gain.
“You do realize I know nothing about art, right?”
“You design game graphics,” Ohno points out.
Nino waves it off. “That’s not art.”
“It’s photographs,” Ohno says. Ohno is learning too, Nino realizes as he watches a slow smile spread wider on Ohno’s face, and Ohno reads acceptance into what Nino very carefully isn’t saying. “But you know what, no one actually knows anything about art, but we make an art of pretending,” Ohno says in a conspiring tone. “And you’ll be there as my arm candy anyway, so don’t worry.”
Nino ducks his head. Ohno can be so unconsciously and effortlessly charming, it’s startling when Nino thinks about how Ohno would be if he actively tried to charm the world.
“That I can do,” Nino agrees, and maybe he squeezes Ohno’s hand a bit tighter. Maybe.
*
Intimacy: watching Ohno cook, reaching around Ohno to grab a spatula, standing right next to Ohno while Ohno is handling knives. It’s a small kitchen, okay.
Ohno hums when he cooks.
Nino really somehow doubts that Ohno is aware of it, mostly because Ohno does most things unconsciously. To be honest, Ohno seems to be doing most things while not thinking of anything at all. No, that sounds mean, but Nino doesn’t mean it like that - Ohno just seems incredibly at ease in his own skin, as if what anyone else thinks hardly matters at all. It’s pretty rare, is all. And this is intimacy, too: getting to watch Ohno exist.
Curling up next to Ohno on the couch after dinner, warm and full and loudly declaring he’s not doing the dishes (and then getting up and doing it anyway, getting suds absolutely everywhere when Ohno decides washing dishes is extremely boring). Ohno letting his fingers walk up Nino’s arm, recoiling when Nino twitches because he doesn’t know Nino’s movements yet, doesn’t know where his tics begin and his reactions end, and then trying to figure out how to teach Ohno when and where Nino is okay with which touches.
And isn’t that a can of worms on its own when Nino himself doesn’t always quite know what will make him skittish?
It’s better with Ohno, though. Perhaps it’s the quiet Ohno surrounds himself with. It’s not quite right, though, maybe calm is a better word, but whatever it is, it’s what Ohno wraps himself in, a cocoon of tranquility, of quietude, that Nino wants to wrap himself up in, to bask in it and lay back and rest. It’s impossible, he knows this, but just being near Ohno is wonderful all on its own.
It’s also scary as nothing else. More accurately, it’s actually really terrifying. It’s a talent, apparently, that Ohno can induce both such calm and such terror in Nino, and he’s not quite sure he knows what to do with either as it is now. Does he have a way of knowing who Ohno actually is beneath all this endless calm? Is it who he is when he gets tired of being accommodating, is this who he really is when he gets used to having someone sharing his space every day of every week? Nino is not sure. Letting go entirely, letting someone see who you are when you wake up and are having an extremely bad, a complete no-good day. When you’re cranky for no other reason that the world sucks and it’s Tuesday, it’s raining, and the neighbor’s cat happened to exist.
Nino really dreads the day he’ll have to try and explain the logic he operates by, as in, which logic?
And then Ohno says, “Sit down,” and pats the back of a chair.
Nino sends him a look he hopes conveys accurately are you actually fucking serious?
Ohno patiently pats the chair again, and his eyebrows very obviously say Yes, I am actually fucking serious.
“I hope you know I’m doing this for the sake of our marriage,” Nino says as he sits down and crosses his arms.
Ohno looks at him sort of fondly, which sort of baffles Nino in turn, and then starts walking slowly around Nino. He walks twice around Nino and then chuckles. “This is so awkward,” he says and Nino feels his own lips quirk in response.
“Get on with it,” he orders and swats at Ohno, who nimbly dances out of range.
“Hm, I like Nino becaaaaaause,” Ohno says slowly, hand running across the back of the chair, thumb grazing Nino’s neck, “he’s really, really nice. And because… he’s sweet and patient.”
“You called me nice,” Nino blinks, because that is what his brain chose to focus on. After all the trouble he went through in his brain to not catalogue Ohno as nice, Ohno goes ahead and does it. Or maybe Nino is just pissed that Ohno got to use the word first. Damn it.
Ohno shrugs and walks past his front. “Well, you are,” he says. “I also said you were sweet.”
“I heard it,” Nino says and doesn’t actually want to dwell on it, holy shit, compliments for the sake of compliments like this are just plain weird. “And you’re two words short.”
Ohno hums and completes another circle around Nino. “Nino is… warm,” he settles on. “I like Nino because he’s warm. And I like Nino because he bitches about getting up early, but he still takes the time to make me coffee, even though I’m still asleep.”
Okay, so if they don’t have to dig any deeper than that, Nino supposes he can do this. He’s pretty sure he can breeze through that exercise, actually. Psht, how hard can it be? Ohno looks kind of smugly satisfied with himself, so when he draws Nino up by the hand, Nino pushes him down by the shoulders and points a finger at him. “Sit.”
Laughing, Ohno obeys and, for some reason Nino gives up on puzzling out, closes his eyes. Nino looks at him for a moment, then starts his trek around him and realizes with a pang that he doesn’t quite have any idea what to say. It’s like when Aiba asked him a few days ago how Ohno was - how does one reduce a person to mere words? How does one even begin on deconstructing a person to tiny bits, how can he accurately find the words that just fit Ohno and somehow manage to encompass all of him?
He manages three rounds around Ohno before Ohno, eyes still closed, licks his lips and asks hesitantly, “Nino? Are you - are you still here?”
And it hits Nino, because he wasn’t expecting it - has Ohno known assholes in his life that would actually leave him hanging there without telling him they were going? Nino might not always be entirely sure of who he is and where his edges are, but he’s profoundly not that asshole that would do that to Ohno.
He knows, suddenly, why Ohno let his hand follow the back of the chair, why his fingers kept touching Nino on his way around - so Nino would know he was there. Or, maybe Nino is too presumptuous, however much sense it makes to his brain right now. However, the point stands clearly: Nino has no idea about the protocol of this. At which point is it fundamentally and sociably accepted to ask about the boyfriends, girlfriends, the lovers that came and went and who might not all have been the heroes of the story? Which of them had painted Ohno the villain, which had made him react in ways he feels shameful, angry, sad about? Who is the one Ohno considers the one that got away? Does he have one? Who does he regret, does he regret anything or anyone?
A part of him, Nino realizes, doesn’t actually want to know, because he likes this part of Ohno, the part that is Nino’s. For now, perhaps, but his, right in this moment where he sits trusting and waiting for Nino to do his part of their assignment.
“Yeah,” Nino says. “Yeah.” He can do this, for Ohno because no matter if Ohno has known too many assholes in his life, or too few, he deserves from Nino that Nino does what he can, however scary he might find the prospect if he thinks too hard on it.
“I like Oh-chan because,” he starts and stops, realizing all over again why Ohno had found it difficult to do this. “I like Oh-chan because he’s honest with me.”
And that, if nothing else, is true. Ohno has been honest in everything until now, even if Nino fears Ohno will wake up one day and be tired of being the accommodating husband, but he’ll tackle that hurdle as it comes. For now, it’s enough. “And he’s kind. And I like him because he let me in here, because,” and he pauses here, just a brief pause, before he makes himself plod on, “because I think he saw I wasn’t too comfortable with letting anyone else into my apartment.”
He’s desperately grateful for being behind Ohno’s back as he says this, goes round him again and checks Ohno’s eyes - still closed, face still serene but lips tightened - and tries to come up with something, anything that will make him forget Nino ever said that. “And Oh-chan is pretty.”
“I’m a trophy husband,” Ohno says calmly and opens one eye briefly when Nino passes his front again, and Nino swats at him, still a bit shaky, but that’s alright. Okay, four down, one to go, he can totally do this if he wants to. He really wants to. He kind of wants this assignment to be over and done with yesterday.
“This exercise is dumb,” he announces even though he doesn’t mean it. Okay, he does mean it a little bit, but he’s not all committed to hating it properly. It probably has a point somewhere. Somehow. Maybe Nino is actually wearing a blindfold, because he totally doesn’t see the point right now, but whatever.
“You need one more word,” Ohno says and Nino glares at him even though Ohno’s eyes are still closed.
“Shut up, Trophy Husband.”
“Abuse,” Ohno murmurs and Nino can’t help the way the smile punches out of him, helpless and completely disarmed. How can he tell Ohno this feeling? Can he say it? Is there a socially acceptable way of saying that you’d like to try figuring out how to fuse your being with someone else’s and see if you fit in the long run with all his jagged edges? Is that what marriage is?
Intimacy: watching Ohno on that chair, waiting and hesitant and oddly vulnerable, and somehow having the power to do something to hurt Ohno. He’s not sure what it would entail, and he sure as hell doesn’t actually want to know, but knowing that somehow he’s in the position to actually hold something over Ohno is tarrying and is making him feel ill. He won’t do it. He can’t.
He seriously feels like a complete fool when he says, “and I like Oh-chan because he’s gentle,” but he knows it’s worth it, because Ohno is gentle in everything he does. And he suspects that Ohno’s smile is not because Nino said he was gentle, but because Nino thought the assignment was absolute crap but completed it anyway.
This feeling, knowing that someone is proud of him for even the infinitesimal tasks finished, is kind of unsettling but it also makes his belly all warm. He files it away under will examine at a much, much later date.
He offers a hand to Ohno, like Ohno had done for him, but Ohno pulls him down instead of going up, and they collide with a gust of breathy laughter.
“Oof,” Nino breathes, sitting sideways on Ohno’s thighs, and Ohno’s eyes are totally laughing at him. “What? No, seriously, what? Why are you laughing at me?”
Ohno isn’t telling him, he’s just laughing with his crinkled eyes and crooked, upturned, lovely mouth, and then pressing his face into the skin beneath Nino’s ear as Nino carefully lays his arms around Ohno’s neck. He hasn’t known this man a week yet, but maybe it’s not that weird that he feels close to him. Going from not knowing each other at all, complete strangers, into living with each other, sleeping in close quarters, is what’s making them a tight-knit unit. But what does Ohno see when he looks this closely at Nino? Does he look at him and find him wanting in ways Nino can’t even hope to make up for? Or is Nino somehow too much?
He can’t even ask. Can he?
He squeezes Ohno closer, buries his face in Ohno’s hair, and despite whatever it is he doesn’t know, maybe in spite of it, he can’t stop the helpless smile on his face when Ohno presses his mouth to his neck. Ohno mumbles something, so Nino pulls back and can’t not press his fingers to Ohno’s cheeks, thumbs framing his ears.
“What?”
Ohno looks shy, lovely and a little embarrassed, but his mouth quirks again. “I like Nino,” he says as if it’s an obvious thing, as if he just can’t help it.
There’s no way, no way, Nino’s heart doing that kind of skid-thumb is healthy. No way. Just. No way.
Nino holds him closer, this small intimacy of Ohno hiding his face in Nino’s neck and Nino not knowing how to make his mouth return the truth Ohno offered him - it would’ve been the easiest thing for Ohno not to look at Nino while he said it, but he did it, brave, lovely creature, held his eye and said I like Nino.
Nino wishes he was that courageous, but he doesn’t know how to say it, doesn’t even know where to begin, so he just holds Ohno tighter and tries to breathe.
*
Nagano-sensei smiles at him. “How are you today?”
It’s Friday. “I’m fine,” Nino says. No fucking way he’s talking to this guy. It was bad enough in the preliminary evaluations before the wedding, but again? This experiment was thought up by sadists.
Nagano-sensei’s smile is serene and completely unbothered. “How did you sleep?”
Cuddled up to Ohno, completely wrapped up in Ohno’s limbs, leeching off his body heat, breathing into his skin and waking up to Ohno’s slow smile, Ohno’s breath on his neck, Ohno’s fingers tangled in his hair. “Fine,” Nino says.
He writes something down and Nagano-sensei’s smile never wavers even a fraction. “And how did Ohno-san sleep? Your husband.”
As if Nino needed clarification on that. “I suppose he slept well.” Nino had been pressed close enough this morning to know that Ohno’s boner was probably as annoying as Nino’s own, so he thinks Ohno had slept well enough. Although, how can he begin to determine Ohno’s sleep when Ohno is smack-dab comatose most of the time?
Nagano hums, tilts his head. “Have you had sex yet?”
Nino coughs, then glares.
Nagano-sensei, completely unconcerned, leans a bit forward. “You know, done the deed, intercourse, love making, coupling, mating, doing the nasty, the horizontal tango -”
“I know, oh my god,” Nino cuts in, horrified. “Oh my god.”
“So?”
Nino glares some more. Breathes out. “No.”
“Do you want to?”
Ohno in the morning, sleep-warm and tired. Fresh out of the shower in track pants, too lazy to dry properly off, quirked lips and tooth-brush sticking out of his mouth. Mid-grin and eyes scrunched up, yawning and stretching and Nino feels hungry, can feel his fingers itching to touch, to learn every inch of him, lay hands on his hips, thighs, knees, fold him in and hold. Nino isn’t sure he can articulate just how much he wants Ohno, because Ohno is sexy, but it’s more than just that he’s devastatingly gorgeous. He’s sensual when he moves, unconsciously graceful, and Nino is laughably gone over him.
“Yes,” he admits and doesn’t know why the word feels so heavy.
“Sex or him specifically?”
Nino breathes. “A combination?”
Nagano nods. “So why haven’t you done the nasty yet?”
Deep breath, count to ten, twenty, a million, whatever number works. “I don’t know.” That’s. Well. He’s pretty sure that’s a lie. He’s pretty sure Nagano-sensei knows he’s pretty sure it’s a lie.
He doesn’t even have to say anything, he just waits Nino out.
Finally, Nino bites the proverbial bullet. “He hasn’t done anything to indicate he wants to have sex with me.”
“Does that disappoint you?”
Be honest, he thinks, that will get you out of here the quickest. But. Humiliation is burning his throat, his neck, his ears. He’s burning. “Yes.”
“So does he have to be the one to instigate it? Why not say, ‘hey, hubby, let’s do the horizontal mambo’?”
“Stop, stop, stop, please, stop,” Nino moans, burying his face in his hands, and then, despite knowing better, “wasn’t it tango, just before?”
Waving a hand in clear dismissal, Nagano-sensei quite obviously barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “Tango, mambo, hand jive, whatever, details. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. What do you have to say in your defense? Why not go up to him and rip his clothes off? I’m sure that would spell things out for him loud and clear.”
“That,” Nino begins, blinks. “I’m not sure that’s socially accepted anywhere.”
“Don’t try to sneak your way out of giving me a proper answer, I know all the diversions and all the tricks. Why aren’t you just telling him what you want?”
Nino knows this and still feels that it was worth a try. “Because,” he starts, but he doesn’t want to say it. He hesitates. He really doesn’t want to say it. “I don’t. I mean. I don’t want to be put in a position where I’m unwanted, I guess. I… I don’t want to ask for something I won’t be allowed.”
“So, you’re afraid of wanting more than you’re given back,” Nagano notes down. “Of being denied something you want.”
Yes.
“It’s normal, I assure you, and your highly unusual circumstances aren’t exactly making it easier for you, because in normal relationships, trust is being built and shown over longer time, giving way to show want and desire as a natural progression, but you do have some pretty extenuating reasons to not have that foundation yet. So in a way, you could probably say that the circumstances could be actively working against you. Do you do anything even remotely sexual?”
“He kisses me,” Nino says, looking anywhere but at Nagano, god, how has he never noticed how utterly fascinating the ceiling is?
“And that is acceptable to you?”
Well, d’uh. Ohno presses close and kisses Nino silly, kisses him thoroughly and teasingly and sweetly, holds his elbows, his shoulder, the jut of his hip. Nino wants. Hell yeah it’s acceptable. “Yeah, I - Yeah. It is. Acceptable, I mean.”
“And that is the extent of your physical relationship? Kissing?”
“No,” Nino starts but doesn’t know quite where to go with it. It’s embarrassing. “I think, I mean, I think we definitely have more of a physical relationship than kissing. We’re,” and he has to pause at the repeated use of we, oh god, “we’re close, I guess. I know we’re close.”
And that’s just it, because he really feels they are close, and getting closer, possibly if he’d been claustrophobic he’d have fled the bedroom the first morning he woke up with Ohno’s arm in his face. It’s in knowing he can lay a hand on the sway of Ohno’s lower back and how Ohno doesn’t shift away, and how Ohno doesn’t edge away when he wakes up all tangled in Nino’s limbs.
“That’s good,” Nagano-sensei says. “That’s really good. So we’ve established that you want him, you want the sex and you want the closeness. What if Ohno-san doesn’t want the same? What if you’re not on the same page in this marriage?”
“I guess that would suck,” Nino admits, the thought settling low, cold and heavy in his stomach. He knows he’s sort of a security addict, because above almost everything else, he just wants to feel safe with someone, and, ironically enough, it’s terrifying that he could feel entirely safe with Ohno, who is still for the most part an utter stranger to him, even if they are getting closer.
“Have you talked to him about it? Actually asked him why he signed up for this and what reasons he has for wanting a marriage like this? Maybe they’re the same as yours, maybe they’re vastly different, but whatever the reasons are, I think you both would benefit from knowing each other’s motivations for doing this thing. We didn’t pair the two of you up just for kicks, you must realize that, but this entire thing is just not something you do lightly,” Nagano-sensei says, and Nino does feel the chide in it, “and chances are very good that Ohno-san is in this for the long haul. Ninomiya-san, it’s marriage.”
God, as if he needed the reminder. Something in him coils tightly and makes him squirm with it. He hopes it’s not too obvious.
“I know when we talked about cheating in the preliminary stages of the experiment, you said that you were fine with it because of reasons that honestly baffle me, but you crave feeling safe when you’re with someone, don’t you?”
Nino very badly doesn’t want to talk about that. He nods as if that will get him out of it all the quicker.
Nagano-sensei evidently senses that, so he backs off. “So talk to him, yeah?” And then he rolls his shoulders, as if to shake the entire conversation off. “That got way too serious way too fast for my tastes. What did you do since you saw Shimabukuro-sensei on Tuesday? Besides all the sex you’re not having, I mean.”
Nino blinks, disbelieving. “What kind of therapist are you even?”
“An awesome one and also yours,” Nagano says with a shrug that quite clearly says obviously. “Your days. Now.”
“Wednesday, I went to work, Oh-chan went to work, we both came home, we almost burnt the kitchen down and then watched a movie.” Well, they didn’t actually burn the kitchen down, not anywhere near, but Ohno had been frying vegetables and had said, “pass me the oil?” which had Nino pouring oil in the pan and there were flames, which made Ohno startle and almost drop the pan, then he started laughing and Nino felt quite ridiculous, cheeks warm. Ohno still kissed his cheek and then served the food. “Thursday, I went to work, Oh-chan went to his therapist and then to work and got back late, so I cooked. Much happiness.”
He doesn’t say: It was totally weird being in the apartment without Ohno being there as a buffer.
He doesn’t say: Ohno got back late and Nino heard him come back, the door opening and closing and Ohno hummed something in return of Nino’s greeting, and Nino had assumed that he went to go change his clothes or something, because the apartment had fallen silent after that. And Nino had been thoroughly occupied by cooking and very definitely not setting anything on fire, not pots, pans or vegetables, so it had been a shock to turn and find Ohno leaning against the doorjamb, just looking at him, looking for all the world like watching Nino was all he needed right in that moment.
It had been sort of terrifying, to be honest, that kind of attention, even though Nino feels like he should sort of have expected it by now, with how Ohno sometimes asks to be permitted to just look at him. For no reason at all that Nino can discern than Ohno just wants to.
Terrifying.
“Fascinating,” Nagano says dryly. “You guys must be a real riot.”
Nino scowls, because hey, that was uncalled for. Just because Nino doesn’t feel like turning himself inside out and exposing all that goes on in his brain doesn’t mean they’re boring.
Nagano-sensei holds his hands up in surrender and drops his pen in the process. “Oops,” he mutters and then, “Lastly, tell me about your plans for today.”
Nino blinks. How did he know they had plans? Did Ohno tell his therapist, who in turn told Nagano-sensei? That’s pretty much the only explanation for it, even if it sucks, because isn’t there supposed to be some kind of patient confidentiality even though it’s not strictly a piece of vital information that they have plans? Nino reserves the right to be pissed anyway.
“He’s taking me to a gallery,” Nino says anyway. “One of his friends is opening up an exhibition, so he’s taking me there as his arm candy.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“Oh, I love being arm candy,” Nino returns evenly.
It’s Nagano’s turn to look extremely unimpressed. “And about going with him as his arm candy?”
Uncertain. Scared. Well, not scared but not feeling like he can own that room. I don’t really want to go. I don’t know his friends. Of all the people there, I’ll only know him. But. “I promised him I’d go with him.”
Which is about as honest as he can bring himself to be right now. Intimacy - being close, not as close as can be, but close enough to bring yourself to do something you don’t actually want to do because it will make him happy.
Nagano-sensei is nodding at him, and Nino is not happy about what he’s probably letting show on his face right now, but what can he do? He’s realizing all over again just out of his depth he is in this, and he’s floundering, he knows it, he can feel it.
“Ninomiya-san,” Nagano says as he leans forward. “Breathe. Breathe. It’s a gallery. If nothing else, there’s always the trick of imagining everyone naked, though I prefer just imagining I could kill them all with a ball-point pen if I really, really got motivated enough. People stops being threatening after that. So have fun with that!”
Clearly, Nino’s therapist needs a better therapist. This is going to go so badly.
*
Nino had some kind of hope that he was going to hold everything admirably well together, but that plan was shot to smithereens the moment Ohno stepped out of the bedroom wearing a suit that was altogether too good on him, Jesus. Be still his beating heart. Nino kind of thinks he needs to pick up his jaw from the floor at this point, damn, Ohno looks good. It’s not that Ohno doesn’t look good in his normal clothes, because Nino is well acquainted with the fact that he’s very attracted to Ohno and his quite frankly really effortlessly ridiculous sexy on a daily basis, but this is somehow a more deliberate sexy.
Damn. He is suddenly and acutely aware that his sex-life has been a wasteland for months.
Ohno for his part, stops and then gives Nino a very deliberate once-over and then grins, says, “Hello.”
It’s not the first indication Ohno has ever given that he likes to look at Nino, but it feels fresh and new anyhow. He can’t help but smile back. “Hello, trophy husband.”
Ohno - laughs, like he didn’t expect it, and therefore it sounds better and is more rewarding, Nino decides. God, look at Ohno, just look at his certain lines and his easy grace, Nino feels hungry.
And Ohno offers his arm and says, “Let’s go, arm candy.” Nino takes his arm, slides his hand around Ohno’s elbow and holds on.
He holds on all the way to when Nino can see the gallery coming up further down the darkened street - the lights from inside are spilling out on the street, and Ohno stops him, suddenly, and says, “So.”
“So?” Nino raises an eyebrow.
Ohno lets go of Nino’s arm and slides a hand into his inside jacket pocket and produces a little box. A weight on his finger, and a week later Nino is almost used to that band now, but the sight of that box makes his throat go tight.
He swallows thickly. “What - ”
“So I couldn’t get you a ring,” Ohno starts. “Ah, well, I already did, I guess, I did already put a ring on you, so a second ring seemed like a stupid idea, but I… I really kind of wanted to give you a ring anyway even though I think you might think it’s stupid. You probably will. Think I’m stupid, I mean.”
But Ohno, with his little, wobbly, courageous smile, takes Nino’s hand and turns it palm up, presses the box onto it and very obviously breathes and doesn’t look away.
“But - why -?”
Ohno’s smile twitches, still shy and hesitant. “I - Happy one-week anniversary.”
And the bottom of Nino’s stomach drops out, suddenly and horribly, and he feels cold, and dizzy, and like the lowest. A week? How, just how did he manage to screw this one up? How could he forget? One week ago he saw Ohno for the first time and put a ring on his finger, and he’s married. Just how did this happen? And Ohno, who strokes his hand under the box he was just given, looks like he’s about three seconds from being punched in the gut, so Nino opens the box.
The box holds a keyring and it’s an exact replica of Ohno’s simple silver keyring, a tree. Ohno looks oddly young as Nino looks up at him. “I hope you like it.”
A weight in Nino’s hand as he holds it, and it’s not an exact replica, now that Nino holds it. It’s a bit smaller, a bit heavier. It clinks against the ring on his finger as he turns it and holds it in the chain. It’s really -
“Beautiful,” he breathes and looks back up at Ohno, who looks flushed with the praise, a little bit uncomfortable but enduring it because it’s Nino. It’s a terrible privilege, is what it is.
“Thank you,” Ohno says quite unexpectedly, and that is extreme bashfulness on his face right there. “I made it for you.”
Nino blinks, feeling even more terrible about the entire thing (how how how could he screw this one up so soon? It’s been a week for fuck’s sake, get a grip, you extreme moron), and he has no clue what to say, what can he possibly say that would make it worth it for Ohno? “Really? I mean, thank you, it’s - it’s really, really beautiful.”
“Now we match,” Ohno says and dear god, he sounds smug and satisfied and fuck, he clearly hasn’t realized yet that Nino is all consonants in a game of scrabble. “I know I already gave you the key to the apartment, but, this seems somehow more official, yeah?”
And it does, because the initial key-giving shebang had been oddly anti-climactic and more of an aside than anything else (“Ah, and you’ll need this, too, sorry, I almost forgot.” and “Cool, thanks, I had actually already forgotten all about it.”), so yes, this does feel more official, like, now it’s actually real. Which actually is a little bit ridiculous. It’s a keyring. A beautiful keyring. That Ohno made. For him. Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. Where is that damn honesty when he needs it?
“Oh-chan, I - ” I suck, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m a goddamned moron, I’m really sorry, “I forgot, I can’t believe it’s been a week already, or, I mean, it’s only been a week and I already screwed this up. I don’t have anything for you. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I forgot. I’m really sorry.”
He’s also realizing that this is probably also why Nagano-sensei had inquired after their plans, because it’s their one-week anniversary, oh god, that Nino forgot like an idiot. Nino really does feel like a tremendous fuck-up. Aiba would laugh himself sick if he saw Nino right now.
Ohno’s quicksilver fast smile, gentle fingers closing Nino’s hand around the keychain, he says, “Don’t worry, it’s just a normal day. Honestly, I was just looking for an excuse to give it to you.”
Nino tries to appreciate that Ohno wants to make him feel better, but -
“You know,” Ohno says and then, “Happy Friday? Happy thank-fuck it’s-finally-weekend-again?”
No one can blame him for the way he smiles, helpless to Ohno’s charm, but the guilt is a slow burn.
“Happy I-can-show-my-arm-candy-off Friday?”
Nino laughs. Ohno is quite possibly one of the silliest persons in the world, and he also drew the shortest straw and got stuck with Nino, who can’t even remember an anniversary only a week into the relationship. To be fair, Nino has never been the kind of person that particularly cares about the anniversaries as long as what they’re doing works - why do they need an occasion or even an excuse to do something to bring special attention to the relationship?
“Happy I’m-sorry-your-husband-is-a-giant-moron-Friday?” He takes the arm Ohno offers him, squeezes him close and closes his fingers tighter around the keychain in his palm. “I’m still sorry. I really am. I’m hoping this won’t set precedence for the rest of our marriage.”
Ohno stiffens a bit, then shrugs, tightens his arm around Nino’s. “Don’t worry about it. Okay?”
Nino breathes and tries to work around the stifling feeling of onus, stupidity and unease, because there’s no way around it; he’s kind of a moron. Ohno tugs at him and they start walking again, and huddling closer to Ohno doesn’t help much even if Ohno says he doesn’t mind at all. He doesn’t even seem to want Nino’s apologies. What can he do then?
“We’re here,” Ohno says gently and strokes Nino’s hand around his elbow. “Ready?”
Ready or not, he has to do it, he knows. He owes it to Ohno, it’s partly that, but he also owes it to himself, to show that he can do this, that he’s not screwing everything up already. This is what Ohno asks of him this time. It’s not even an outrageous demand of him, it’s company on a night where Nino knows he’d have gone alone if Nino hadn’t said yes to it. He can’t make Ohno go alone, he won’t do it. Small braveries: he can start with facing Ohno’s world with Ohno, this small intimacy Ohno asks of him.
“Happy let’s-try-that-arm-candy-thing-Friday?”
Ohno laughs, kisses the corner of his mouth and tugs him inside the gallery. Show time.
*
Part three