Fic: Married At First Sight 1/4 + Epilogue
Title: Married At First Sight 1/4
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating: R
Word count: 8,000-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:
So this happened. Like, almost three years later? I know I’m slow, but this is actually just ridiculous. Actually titled “Hold Hands And Fight” from the song by The Rosebuds, I kept affectionately referring to it as “This is not Las Vegas” and “Married At First Sight” and one of them actually stuck, so, there.
Anyway, first of all: the concept for the fic actually does exist in real life. It’s a TV show called Married At First Sight that was developed here in Denmark, and I was totally flabbergasted the first time I watched it - intrigued but totally flabbergasted. So the original concept is this:
They get married to a total stranger and live together as a married couple for five weeks and then have to decide whether or not they want to stay married. So far, in three seasons, my favorites have made it <3
I was so weirded out. And then totally fascinated and I gobbled everything up raw. So, boom. Fic. Except for the fact that I hit the undo button much more often than I was being actually productive, and then I didn’t like it and then I backtracked and then I wrote some and so on and so forth. Here it is, though. The concept itself has been sold to a plethora of countries and I’ve watched two disastrous US versions and one UK version already xD
Secondly; For obvious reasons, reality has been warped a lot to fit with my tweaking of the concept.
Thirdly: This is me. I seem to be permanently unable to write tragic and unhappy endings, so you know, just keep that in mind. Also, this fic is a study of love. Of love, physicality, and of intimacy. If you’re expecting some grand angst adventure, oh boy, this is not the fic for you. I think I gave myself cavities while writing this, even while trying desperately not to go full out fluff-mode. Results to be determined.
Fourthly: And they say it takes a village; it really does, I feel like I’ve had my own, personal army assembled for this, I hope to god I don’t forget anyone, haha! Bff for handholding, Van for laughing, Gati for early stage read through, neenashareefa for reaction checking, jade_lil for encouragement, Maddy for asskicking, A for eternal damnation (don’t ask xD), Em for having no clue about Arashi but laughing anyway, half the population of Elftown for not admitting me to the closed ward for all the angsting I’ve been doing and basically all my handholders <3
Fifth: SOUNDTRACK YAY because I’ve been listening to these songs a lot and they fit the fic <3 Download from Mega.
Tracklist:
- Chris Tomlin - Awake My Soul
- Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
- The Rosebuds - Holds Hands and Fight
- One Republic - Wherever You Go
- Adele - Promise This
- Feist - The Water
- Jana Hunter - The Palms
- Darkness Falls - The Void
- Adam Lambert - The Light
- Ida Redig - Everywhere
- Roxette - Stars
- The National - You Were A Kindness
- Queen + Adam Lambert - Love Kills
- Woods of Birnam - The Healer
- Hozier - We Are Young (Block C cover)
- Jasmine Thompson - Titanium
- Avril Lavigne - Give You What You Like
- Melmack - The Bitter End (Acoustic Cover)
- Kris Allen - Make You Feel My Love
- Sia - Soon We'll Be Found
- Brambles - Arête
- Lovin’ Spoonful - Coconut Grove
ANYWAY long author's note is long. Onto the fic!
*
1.
Nino first meets Ohno the moment they get married. It’s an otherwise completely nondescript Friday and there are just so many damn butterflies in his stomach, or maybe it’s just nausea, or intense loss of equilibrium, but then he sees Ohno there, and he, at least, appears to be calm. For a moment, Nino intensely wishes Aiba was there to crack a joke, to rest a hand on his shoulder or just stay there in the background as silent support.
“Hi,” he tries when they’ve both signed the papers. He glances at the name - seeing it written down makes it all real, so real, maybe too real. He tries not to think about it, it seems too much like he has lost his mind completely.
“Hi,” Ohno Satoshi says, and there’s a shy smile, just the ghost of it on his lips. “Husband.”
There’s the unfamiliar weight of a ring on his finger where Ohno put it on him, and there’s a pit in his stomach that opens because fuck fuck fuck, what did he just say yes to?
*
To be very clear about things, Nino doesn’t sign up for the experiment entirely on his own volition.
He has a string of failed relationships behind him, he’s 27 and he’s pretty sure that everything he could start with anyone is positively doomed from the start, because to be really honest? It doesn’t interest him all that much, and it just takes so much effort, and what if it’s just not worth it? There’ll be hurt feelings, too much investment from one of the involved parties, and there’ll just be so many complications. There’ll be so much waste of time and energy and he won’t have anything to show for it, not a single thing besides emotional scars, and it won’t make him happier in the end, there’s no place for it in the grand scheme of things as far as he’s concerned.
There’s already been hurt feelings, there’s been cheating, there’s been too much that he doesn’t want to deal with.
He doesn’t need to be in a relationship with anyone, he shouldn’t have to just to please someone’s idea of a perfect life with career and family. Of course, that particular idea of perfect sailed a long time ago, since Nino has known since he was 17 that he’d much, much rather spend time with another guy than a girl, but there you go, sometimes society just doesn’t give two shits about what you want.
There is altogether one major reason Nino signs up for it, in the end. He’s heard so many times in his life that he doesn’t seem to care too much about things or people, but the two people he’ll most definitely care about until there’s no breath left in his body, his mother and his sister, they both think that he’d never ever do something like this, that he’s way too aware of imminent failure to ever even risk it, that he’s comfortable as he is and he won’t do anything to rock the boat.
He really does hate being predictable.
This is the experiment:
They all sign up to be married to a stranger, an all-expenses paid marriage, live together for four weeks, and by the end of the four weeks, they’ll decide if they want to stay married or if they want a divorce.
That’s the gist of it. Easy? It sounds easy, at least, on paper, that is. However, Nino has learned throughout life that nothing is ever that easy.
With his signature, he’ll say yes to turning up for all kinds of invasive psychological evaluations, he’ll talk to anthropologists and psychiatrists and a priest as well, there’ll be social workers and second thoughts and someone looking at his trillion personality tests through a looking glass, and based on that, they’ll find someone for him that they think is a perfect fit for him. If he’s entirely honest, he’s pretty sure he will resent the crap out of it, because this is not him, this is so not him, it’s not what he is so much he’s actually the complete opposite of this; he keeps his private things private, his emotions are not for anyone to poke and prod, but he’s also a stubborn fucker, so he’ll grit his teeth and stick it out.
If he sounds skeptic about the whole thing? Well, no one can exactly blame him, can they?
*
They leave for the honeymoon the second they’re outside the office they just inked down their marriage registration in, Nino just manages to get a hug from his mother and he supposes the woman hugging the absolute stuffing out of Ohno is his mother, and then they’re ushered out into the waiting car, and they’re sent away to a destination they don’t know.
He buckles in, waves out at his mother and then, after taking a deep breath, turns to look at Ohno, his lawfully wedded husband. Someone clearly just as insane as Nino himself, because what the fuck is this for an experiment anyway? Do they actually expect any of the chosen ten couples to make it out on the other side of these marriages and want to stay?
“Hello,” Ohno says and Nino forces a smile on his face.
“Hi,” he thinks he manages without too much of a grimace. The weight of a ring on his finger is unfamiliar, but he offers his hand anyway. “I’m Nino.”
“I’m Ohno,” Ohno says, and his smile seems honest, small and shy as it is. His hand is warm where it shakes Nino’s. “Ohno Satoshi.”
“I know,” Nino returns, and his smile falls a bit easier, recalling the scrawl Ohno had left on the documents. “Ninomiya Kazunari. Or Nino. Your pick.”
Now that he isn’t so focused on determinedly not being focused on Ohno, he takes the time to really look at him. The best part of Ohno, Nino decides on the spot, is his eyes. “So Ohno-san it is,” he says and he finds his lips are shaping a smile easier and easier the more he looks at Ohno. There’s skepticism at the back of his mind, but he hushes it, he can think on it later. Much later. Preferably never, actually, but he can settle for the dark after Ohno has gone to sleep.
“I guess it is,” Ohno says with a chuckle. “I guess it is. Nino.” He says it like he’s tasting Nino’s name, as if he’s deciding whether or not he likes it. Inexplicably, Nino finds that he hopes he does.
*
It turns out they’re going to Kyoto. That’s a first for Nino, but the way Ohno had said, “Ah,” in the car when he’d realized where they were going and the way he keeps chuckling to himself under his breath make Nino think that there might be more to the story. Nino wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because isn’t that just supremely awkward? Who decides the proper etiquette for when you can quiz someone on their lives? They’re married, but they don’t know each other - he doesn’t know Ohno, how will Ohno react to being frequently and intensively (and probably invasively) questioned about his entire life?
Hell, he can always ask for a divorce if it goes badly, or just wait the four weeks out and run away. “Have you been here before?”
Ohno grins. “Kind of. You can say that. I’ve lived here.”
Oh. Well. That. Nino didn’t expect that. “So you know people here?”
“I think,” Ohno says carefully, doesn’t answer him directly and turns his head away from the window to look at Nino properly, his eyes so dark and intent, “that we were supposed to go somewhere neither of us had an advantage or a home turf. To start on even ground.”
That makes sense. It’s also a moot point now that he knows that Ohno is familiar with the streets, and if Ohno hadn’t said anything, Nino might not have felt it, but he suddenly feels disadvantaged and unsteady. He really appreciated that Ohno is honest about it, at least. Lesser people (himself, honestly) would probably have kept it quiet. “Can you pretend you don’t know anything here? And anyone?”
“Yes,” Ohno says instantly and with a shrug as if it’s a no brainer for him.
“Okay,” Nino breathes and has no choice but to believe him. A leap of faith with a person he doesn’t know. Awesome. “Okay.”
When they’re out of the car, it’s already night, and they’re in the hotel room where Ohno doesn’t unpack anything besides something to sleep in and his tooth brush. Nino is willing to bet that by the time he comes out of the bathroom, Ohno will be fast asleep, because Ohno seems to be approaching sleep with frightening speed, and Nino did offer him the bathroom first.
Nino brushes his teeth and carefully avoids looking at himself in the mirror. Brushes, rinses, brushes again, rinses the brush and then brushes again. Repeat. Washes his face. And when he absolutely can’t delay it anymore, he looks at himself.
He’s 27. He’s kind of skinny, not what you would consider actually fit - he’s no slob, but he’s not going to the gym or going for a run every morning, he’s just not that guy. His work mostly consists of sitting by a computer, designing games. He wonders what Ohno sees when he looks at him. Is he disappointed? Is he happy with whom he was assigned in this weird game of lottery turned marriage?
In the car between the awkward silences and the glances, they’d done the base questions: What do you do, how old are you, do you have any surprise children, are there any axe murderers in your family or is your hobby axe murdering? (In Ohno’s case, he owns a gallery, he’s going on 30, no, none that he’s aware of, even if Ohno had been laughing at that point and finally stuttered no.) Ohno says he paints a little, sculpts a little, nothing serious. Nino frowns at his reflection in the mirror. He has never ever seen himself as someone who would end up with a gallery owner, the artsy type. Nino is pragmatic. Ohno, for how little he actually speaks, seems to be a dreamer, Nino can see it in his eyes with how soft they are and how they seem to be looking at what he wants to see, not what is actually there.
But Ohno’s eyes are also kind, so kind, so dark and heavy, with laugh lines etched so prettily on his face, and Nino knows that he doesn’t exactly have a specific type, but Ohno is nothing he expected, like Ohno had taken a look at the definition of expectation and thought screw it.
Nino doesn’t even know what he wants from this. Married. Four weeks with a stranger. Holy shit, he really, really didn’t think this all the way through, and now Ohno is lying on their shared bed, resting there because he has the right to. Because they’re married. He holds the edge of the sink, feels the cold porcelain under his fingers, feels the wedding band dig into his skin, and he desperately tries to breathe. He’s insane, he must be. It’s not even a nightmare because even his brain couldn’t cook this kind of insane scenario up.
He’s so profoundly not the relationship type of person, so what the hell is he doing?
It’s just four weeks. Four weeks, and that’s that, no strings attached if either of them or both of them doesn’t want anything to do with each other after that. Four weeks he can handle and convince Ohno that this is probably the worst idea Nino has ever had.
He has mostly talked himself out of hyperventilating when he decides that if Ohno is still conscious, he will most likely have concluded that either a) Nino has a severe case of diarrhea, b) is the most thorough tooth brusher in the history of tooth brushing, or c) has fallen asleep in the bath tub. At this point, all three seems like plausible situations and he finally leaves the bathroom.
He stops in the doorway.
Ohno is on his side on top of the covers, curled up, a hand under the pillow, breath steady and easy.
Being brave: maybe it’s not so much about saving someone from a burning building, maybe it’s lying down next to a stranger and sleep like there’s nothing that can hurt you while they’re near. It’s a fearlessness he hasn’t even considered before, something that only a select people are graced with. It’s a kind of bravery Nino doesn’t think he possesses even if Ohno does.
“Nino,” Ohno says on an exhale and Nino jolts, sees Ohno slowly scoot even further to the side, making so much room for Nino that the bed could easily hold four of him. He lies down gingerly, trying not to jostle the bed too much, but Ohno’s easy half-smile is all that is visible on the pillow.
“So this is what they do with equality when gay marriage is legal,” Nino says, because fuck, he should just say something, anything, anything at all, and Ohno might as well learn early on that Nino is an absolute star at saying all the wrong things at the wrong times.
“Your pillow talk,” Ohno laughs and opens one bleary eye, “is one of a kind.”
He reaches for Nino’s hand, ghosts his fingers over his knuckles while Nino valiantly tries not to shiver. He’s married to this man. Four weeks. Ohno’s fingers, one of them with a wedding ring on, come to a rest on his own, tighten and hold on.
Does Ohno want this? Does Ohno actually want a marriage out of this, a proper one, one that works, one that is real? Does he know he’s married to a man who actually is completely crap at relationships and is as mercurial as he’s fearful? Does he realize that Nino isn’t sure why he signed up for this and that he, right now in this moment, doesn’t know if he actually really wants it to stay?
“You know what’s really nice to know?” Ohno asks, his voice low and soothing and when Nino looks, there is a new brand of mischief in his hooded eyes as he turns his face slightly up, “I knew that I was going to marry you the moment I saw you.”
Nino can’t help it. He laughs and hides his face with his free hand, because oh god. So this is who he’s married to, someone who looks positively smug right now. God help them both.
“Think on it tomorrow,” Ohno then pleads lowly. Nino finds that he doesn’t mind so much doing what he’s told when Ohno asks like this, soft and mellow. He’ll sleep. And he’ll hold Ohno’s hand while he sleeps, so sue him, he’s kind of okay with that. He likes it.
*
Breakfast is awkward, there is no other word for it. Well, massively uncomfortable would be another way to describe it, but Nino likes awkward better, because it’s short and to the point.
He didn’t sleep well, not used to having another person on the other side of the bed even if Ohno, even sleeping, kept largely to his side of the bed, but the thought of it was enough to be somewhat disruptive. He’d kept jerking awake, and every time he’d been awake, Ohno’s breath had been even and calm on the opposite side of the bed.
At least one of them had gotten a good night’s sleep. Not that he’d know by looking at Ohno, who looks more asleep than awake, but then again, when Nino had looked at himself in the mirror this morning he’d looked more dead than alive, so it’s not like he’s has much room to talk.
“Ohno-san?”
Ohno blinks from where he’s been staring at his coffee as if it holds all the answers. If it does, Nino wants it and he’s not above fighting dirty for it either. Anything but this silence that he doesn’t know how to break, and Ohno, who’d been if not talkative yesterday, then responsive at least, seems pretty much comatose this morning.
He smiles at Nino. Nino doesn’t quite know what to do with that, if he’s entirely honest. “Hm?”
“Our itinerary for today,” he starts. “Do you have any ideas for it?”
Ohno’s hands around his cup of coffee, breath even. He tilts his head and says, careful, “I think we decided that I don’t know anything about Kyoto at all.”
“Just if there are any good places to eat,” Nino tries, and Ohno feigns complete innocence when he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
If he knew Ohno better, he’d say that Ohno was being an ass on purpose, but he doesn’t know him that well at all, so he doesn’t say it. God, it’s all so terribly confusing. It all comes back to marrying a complete stranger, fucking hell.
They dress warmly as it’s a cool, late Autumn, and Nino is stunned by Kyoto in the October colors. Ohno looks inordinately pleased when Nino says so, as if it means something to him, which is kind of ridiculous since it’s not like Kyoto is Ohno’s home. However, he finds he’ll take it if it makes Ohno smile at him like that.
And that’s something Nino really hadn’t expected to like - when they go to see the Golden Pavilion, Ohno rests a hand against the small of his back, just a very light weight, the indication that he’s there, and Nino simultaneously wants to lean into it and run in the opposite direction. Is he being lured into the concept, into some kind of false security, knowing that Ohno will be there, whether he wants him to or not, for at least four weeks? Whatever it is, it’s Ohno’s gentle, careful touches on his back, his shoulder, fingers down his arm to his wrist, and when they stop for lunch Nino looks at how their hands lie entwined on the table. He reaches with his other hand, turns Ohno’s and looks at it, the darker, rough spots.
Ohno chuckles, tired, and somewhat sheepish. “I did a lot of figures the past week,” he says and makes it sound like an epic confession, which just makes Nino laugh even though he’s incredibly curious. “When I couldn’t sleep.”
“My artsy husband,” he says and there’s no way he doesn’t grimace a little.
“I know,” Ohno says and there’s no small measure of self-consciousness hidden in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. “It’s weird.”
“It’s totally weird,” Nino agrees, breathes in relief, thank fuck.
“The weirdest,” Ohno says and now he’s really smiling. “Come on, let’s go, still places to go today.”
Nino arches an eyebrow but obediently slides to his feet when Ohno does. “I thought we agreed you didn’t know anything here?”
Ohno laughs. “I totally cheated and looked at your itinerary when you weren’t looking.”
Nino gasps in mock-outrage.
He’s suddenly struck with how lovely Ohno looks when he laughs like that, uninhibited and silly, and Nino kind of wants to touch the corner of his eyes and the seam of his curved mouth. Maybe that’s okay too, feeling that, what with them being married at all. Would it be weird? It would be weird. He’s still calling Ohno Ohno-san and Ohno sounds like he’s stumbling over the sounds every time he says Nino, and their names really shouldn’t mean so much, but they do. They totally do. All the same, Ohno laughs at him and with him, and Nino kind of chases him out of the little café they’d enjoyed their late lunch in, and he doesn’t pull away when Ohno reaches for his hand. That’s okay.
It’s okay.
It’s a wonder, allowing someone to touch any part of you - an even bigger wonder, someone allowing you to touch them, wanting you to and welcoming even the slightest, fleeting touch. It’s even kind of a heady feeling. Nino thinks he might be in trouble, he may plead insanity by the time the day is over, but Ohno’s fingers are dry and warm and holds on to his hand as if it’s all he wants from life right now - or rather, it’s an absentminded touch, as if anything else Ohno does is just that, anything else, and holding on to Nino’s hand is just something he does, just like that. He holds on as if it’s the foundation of it, and so he builds on it: Holding Nino’s hand and watching the clouds, holding Nino’s hand and doing window shopping. Holding Nino’s hand and tugging when there’s something he wants him to see, holding Nino’s hand and laughing when there’s a guy dressed up as a maiko, following a real maiko who looks like she doesn’t know whether she should laugh or cry at the masculine voice coming out from beneath the white make-up. There’s a guy in a yukata behind them, laughing and bowing and making excuses as they go, and then a camera crew follows them all.
Nino decides it’s not even the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, which should probably be kind of telling, but Ohno keeps chuckling at random intervals, swinging their hands as they go, so it’s okay.
It’s also okay when Ohno, tentatively and soft-spoken, asks about their upcoming living arrangements.
“Yeah,” Nino says, not willing to offer anymore. He knows they’ll have to figure it out - they’re going to live together in either of their apartments for the duration of the experiment, it’s just that neither of the options is very appealing. He really should’ve thought it through before he signed up for it, but hindsight is a massive, vindictive bitch. Staying in his apartment, inviting a practical stranger inside his home is not something he’d like in any scenario, but Ohno is his husband, isn’t he? Ohno does have the right to seeing him in his natural habitat, but that doesn’t make it any less provoking for his boundaries. Besides, he figures Ohno is feeling the same way.
“I really don’t mind, I mean, if you want to stay at my place,” Ohno says.
Or not.
Ohno continues, still hesitant, “because, um, it’s really weird? My place is quite big so you can have some space to yourself, if you want. Space. I mean, if you want space. God, this is so weird.”
Nino is torn between taking offense (because he can) at Ohno’s assumption that his place is larger than Nino’s (he would be right, though, a shoebox is bigger than Nino’s apartment, but that’s entirely beside the point) and being really happy that he won’t have to let Ohno entirely in. At least like this, he has somewhere to go and be himself if the need arises. Which it just might.
“My place really is a tight fit,” Nino concedes, deciding on feeling grateful and relieved. “Housing us both would be…interesting.”
“Good or bad interesting?”
“I think this is initially why I asked you about axe murderers,” Nino admits with a grin. “My subconscious had a hidden agenda.”
Ohno chuckles, that soft one that often accompanies Nino’s quips, which is really nice, and then that’s settled, somehow. Without big tantrums or arguments and Nino somehow feels like they’re doing it wrong. Shouldn’t it be more difficult?
However, it’s okay. Somehow, it is. Weird, but okay.
Okay.
And it keeps being okay for the rest of the day they as walk around Gion, as they watch everything happen around them, and all through dinner, Nino has to cement the fact that Ohno is incredibly pleasant to talk to and is incredibly easy to be around. He doesn’t talk a whole bunch, but he’s listening, he’s actually interested (or he’s extremely good at pretending to be interested, which is something Nino wouldn’t put past him, but for now he’ll give Ohno the benefit of the doubt, see, he so can do the mature, grown-up thing sometimes), and he smiles at Nino when Nino looks at him.
It’s totally weird.
What’s also really weird is that after seriously the longest tea ceremony Nino has ever been witness to (and honestly, Ohno in a yukata had sort of short-circuited his brain, oh, Ohno is apparently insisting on upping the ante in the looks department and Nino so isn’t protesting, nope, nope, nope), Ohno finds a smaller street, narrow and almost deserted, something he’d only be able to find if he already knew it was there (the cheating jerk, he totally knew about it already) and presses him against the wall and just breathes.
Later, Nino is pretty sure protesting didn’t even register as an option in his mind, it fled along with any kind of coherence when Ohno kissed him like he’d wanted to do just that for quite some time. Seeing as they have, at this point, known each other for just over twenty-four hours, it has definitely moved much, much slower than some of Nino’s other relationships, but something about it seems really incredibly quick (and they only have four weeks, knock on wood, to get their shit sorted out,) and Nino kind of likes it even if it does confuse him a bit. Okay, it confuses him a lot.
Ohno is an incredible kisser, okay, no one would be able to retain all sensible thoughts while being occupied with that mouth. That is Nino’s story and he’ll stick to it.
To be entirely fair, Nino doesn’t actually remember much of dinner, either, because. Well, because. He’s apparently still a teenager, the world’s only 27-year-old teenager, because he’s all about staring at Ohno and his stupid pretty, which Nino is pretty convinced Ohno is fully aware of.
But Ohno is bashful and very lovely, shy in ways that Nino would never ever have been able to predict; Nino is stupidly smitten in such a short amount of time and it feels dangerous somehow, jumping into this so carelessly, but then again - they’re already married. Married. If the most reckless thing they’ve done this far has been some kissing, what does an impulsive, spontaneous, possibly incredibly stupid decision like marrying a stranger qualify as?
Nino is pretty sure he doesn’t want to go there.
So for now, he’ll kiss Ohno’s clever, smiling mouth even if the chuckling makes kissing kind of difficult, and Ohno’s careful hands are fever on his arms when he loses his jacket - the way Ohno carefully doesn’t insist on diving anywhere near skin that isn’t already bared is pretty awesome too, because Nino, well, Nino doesn’t have any good reasoning for that, actually. He just likes it. A guy doesn’t need reasons for liking awesome kisses and tender touches.
Ohno kisses him goodnight and looks extremely pleased when Nino kisses him first as he gets to bed, and when Ohno (and his kiss swollen lips) falls asleep right next to him, the distance is smaller than it was the first night, and fuck it, Nino scoots closer. He likes body heat, he likes someone’s steady breathing, and if that has always been what he likes best whenever he could convince himself to commit in some ways, then that is his own damn business. He’s still not sure how much closer he’s welcome, he doesn’t know if Ohno will appreciate having his own private Nino-shaped furnace, but it’s better than the gaping distance from last night, and it’s infinitely better than what he’d dared hoping for.
Expectations had: none. They’ve been exceeded anyway.
It’s pretty clear to Nino that they’re treading water admirably so far, but he’s under no illusions that they’re not even two days into this little four-week adventure, and damn, so much can happen, so much that can go wrong. He knows this, he feels it as an uncomfortable knot, but as he looks at the ring on his finger, and then lets his fingers touch Ohno’s ring, it’s just that it’s getting more difficult to remember all the reasons why it could be dangerous to let himself fall.
*
“So, he’s nice?”
Nino pauses his mental list as he packs, then resumes and mutters under his breath, “toothbrush, t-shirts, shirts, pants - ”
“I guess he’s nice and that he’s isn’t a psychotic axe murderer either, since you haven’t killed him or run away screaming,” Aiba continues from his perch on the floor, and he looks entirely too pleased with himself when Nino glances at him.
“Aren’t you even going to pretend that you’re here to actually help me pack?”
“Nope,” Aiba shrugs and leans back on his hands, “because I’m not. It’s much funnier to watch you panic on your own.”
Nino flips him off because that’s the mature, considered thing to do.
“Nino, you just got married.”
Nino ignores him, that’s his plan and he’ll stick to it.
“Married. Lawfully wedded husband. Married.”
Fuck it, his plan wasn’t that good anyway. “Your observational skills are awesome,” Nino says and continues, “ - socks, underwear, shaver - ”
“Tell me about your husband. Give me the deets. All of them.”
“It’s none of your business,” Nino frowns, “and also, ew. No. If there were any deets, just, ew no. Privacy, you know, privacy and all that jazz.”
Aiba narrows his eyes. “Deflecting.”
“Psht, no,” Nino returns, “I’m flat out avoiding it.”
“That’s not healthy, I have it good authority that it’s not good for your mental wellness and I’m sure your therapist will be telling you that repressing isn’t the way to go.”
“Please,” Nino snorts, “You’re so far from being my therapist that it’s embarrassing.”
“Spill. It. Without the deets.”
Nino sighs. Aiba’s mangling of language aside, it’s not like he can avoid it forever, he supposes. Unfortunately. Saying goodbye to Ohno a few hours ago, a short goodbye before reconvening back at Ohno’s place in another few hours, had been pretty weird even if Ohno had kissed him pretty silly, sweet and soft and he’d looked oddly hesitant. Nino had patted his cheek a few times for that, and he winces at the memory; way to be condescending. He should probably just start a list of things he should apologize for at the earliest convenience. He suspects it’ll be pretty long before, well, long.
“So?” Aiba prompts. “Is he nice?”
Nice, Nino thinks, is a really weird word. Nice is what you would say about a shirt, it looks nice. Some people are nice, they’re the people you don’t know that well, that you meet in passing and can say later that yeah, they were nice when you saw them, they were nice when they inquired to your health and then said goodbye and see you around.
He finds that even after only a few days in Ohno’s company, Ohno fits in the box of nice. He also neatly makes the box explode into pieces, because Ohno also profoundly doesn’t fit in that box, as if he’s just way too much to be contained in a silly box. If he could just stop being confusing and make Nino feel off-kilter, that’d be a really, really nice thing.
“Gah,” Nino finally says.
Aiba nods sagely. “That sounds about right. Some guy.”
“You’re such an ass,” Nino says with feeling.
“You’re pretty screwed,” Aiba agrees. “Screwed. So he’s not a psychotic axe-wielding mass murderer and he has reduced your higher brain functions to sounds and gestures. I really, really want to meet him. He sounds awesome.”
Sometimes Nino really hates his friends.
“What is the matter with you, no, you stay out of my marriage, you jerk,” Nino hisses and frowns at the socks that won’t match no matter how much he squints. He gives up, throwing one at Aiba, who neatly ducks. He tries to find the words, god help him. “He’s. I’m not sure I can really figure out how he is. He’s - sweet. And quiet. He’s quiet in a good way. Like, really present? Somehow.”
To his credit, Aiba doesn’t stare at him like he’s ready for a nice, white jacket with very long sleeves.
“Like, he’s quiet, but I can feel him being there, with me, in the present?” He tries again. “Sometimes when we stopped somewhere, I could feel him go somewhere else with his brain, like he was very far away, but then, if I touched his hand, or his arm, or something, he was just there. And it was - it was good. It felt good. Feel free to stop me at any moment, by the way. No seriously, stop me, please.”
Aiba is looking thoughtful, head resting in his palm. He reaches out and taps gently at Nino’s wedding band. “I think, maybe - maybe we should get you to his place soon?”
Nino narrows his eyes, clenches his fist out from beneath Aiba’s touch. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nino, it’s not all that bad is it?”
No, it’s actually not that bad at all.
“I still call him Ohno-san.”
“That’s not a bad thing, either, Nino.”
And isn’t that absolutely terrifying?
*
“First things first,” Ohno says and whips out a piece of paper. Ah, all official-looking and everything, which means it’s orders from the Powers That Be. “We’re to go shopping for a bed.”
“What’s wrong with the one you already have?” Nino frowns and looks at the actually quite decently sized bed in Ohno’s bedroom. Beside it is Nino’s smaller bag, the bigger one already halfway empty with Nino’s haphazard attempt at ordering his stuff in Ohno’s closets.
“Hell if I know,” Ohno shrugs, rolls his eyes and then shrugs again in one fluid, impressive maneuver. “But I think it’s to test if we can survive Ikea together.”
Nino grins. “That sounds about right. I went there with my friend, once, it was hell on earth.”
Ohno cocks his head. “Aiba-san,” he guesses.
It pleases Nino way more than it should, by all means, that Ohno pays attention to what he says. “Yeah, Aiba-chan. He measured the closet space by going into them and closing the doors and then one of the doors actually jammed. It was a right nightmare getting him out and I bet the poor sales assistants are still completely traumatized by it.”
Ohno grins, and it’s stupidly charming.
“But actually, the worst part wasn’t that I had to get him out of the closet or enduring the following three days of coming out-jokes, but him thinking that only losers need the instructions. It didn’t look like a closet, is all I’m saying.”
Ohno’s laugh is welcome, bright and clear. “I’m sorry to say that even with instructions I’m probably not going to be much help assembling the bed.”
“You know what, as long as we don’t enlist Aiba-chan, I’m pretty sure we’ll be awesome. You can cheer me on.”
And that was that settled, and Nino supposes that married life is, if it continues like this (and he is pretty damn sure it won’t, but pretense is nice if delusional in the long run), a cake walk. However, Nino doesn’t do delusional very well, or at least he tries not to. It doesn’t change the fact that being in Ohno’s apartment - back in the daily life, back in the grind of things - finally makes something settle in his bones, like this is alright. That’s okay, it’s not a given thing, it’s not a magical solution to his life, but it’s alright, they can sort of try this out, this surreal play of house.
“So will you show me what it is that you do?”
Ohno blinks at the non-sequitur. “Show you?”
Nino slips his arm into Ohno’s. He can totally do that if he wants to, shut up. “My artsy husband. Show me some art.”
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to label my own stuff as art,” Ohno protests, it’s token at best, as Nino steers him… somewhere. Nino has no idea where he’s going. Sadly. Which Ohno knows, of course he does, but he doesn’t make it obvious besides the fact that he gently steps left when Nino hesitatingly steps right and there is a door that Ohno opens without fanfare. His fingers are a brand against the small of Nino’s back even through his t-shirt and hoodie when Ohno smoothly pushes him through the doorway, and really, Nino would prefer not to think about that until later. His wish is abruptly granted.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
Ohno makes a grimace, of what Nino isn’t quite sure, but he doesn’t actually care right now as it is, because whoa. Sweet motherfucking whoa.
He steps into the middle of the room and he sort of feels like he imagines Aladdin did in the Cave of Wonders (he likes Disney and Aiba likes Disney and they had a marathon when Aiba was ill), because there is so much to look at. The entire back wall is one big smatter of graffiti in so many different and colorful motives that Nino honestly doesn’t know where to look. There are canvases stacked and leaning against another wall, some covered with linen to protect them, there are boxes on the floor with cloth, pens, brushes, and Nino kind of gives up on figuring out what the things actually are. The entire room is overwhelming and chaotic, it’s intimate in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and it’s utterly beautiful.
“Whoa,” he says again, and he can feel a smile coming on, he just doesn’t know if it’s all awe or if there’s disbelief in it as well. How the fuck could he ever even begin to imagine this entire room? “I paint a little, you said. I sculpt a little, you said.”
Ohno wrinkles his nose and Nino is hit with the stunning realization that this, for Ohno, is not just being afraid of sounding full of himself, but his actual perception of his own skills. Which is to say, that Ohno is fucking amazing. Nino’s mind is effectively blown.
“Nothing serious, you said!”
Ohno squirms and Nino thinks it’s entirely too adorable for a man going on 30. “I own a gallery?” he offers meekly and Nino can’t resist slapping his arm, then gripping it and giving Ohno a gentle shake. “I showcase some of my own stuff from time to time, but mostly it’s my clients’ works.”
“Modest bastard,” he mutters and Ohno’s answering grin is bashful.
“Most of my stuff is in storage,” Ohno explains even as his fingers glide over the text of a material of something that looks carved. Carved. Nino is convinced this room will actually break his brain if he continues thinking about it.
“It’s beautiful,” Nino says honestly, and then what else can he say? He knows next to nothing about art, all he can do is be honest about what he likes and what he doesn’t. At least that he knows.
“Thank you,” Ohno says with another grimace even though the tiny smile is honest and maybe a little relieved, but he also appears pretty eager to talk about something else as well. Nino finds that he’s pretty eager to oblige, because if it had felt intimate to him, how had it felt to Ohno?
“So,” he says, so obviously changing the subject that Ohno actually laughs and rubs his face with a hand in a very obvious gesture of what the hell can we do? “Where can I plug in my game systems?”
Which, Ohno reminds him that he can’t do right now, because they have an assignment for the remainder of the day - mission: Get A Shared Bed From Ikea Without Killing Each Other Softly With This Song. Possibly better known as Mission Impossible when attempted with Aiba. Nino is pretty sure that a particularly sadistic bastard devised this plan even if the logic is pretty sound - he wasn’t lying when he said Ikea with Aiba is hell on earth and Nino would sooner attempt sawing off his legs with a pair of skis than going through that again. In short: Nino might not be Ikea’s biggest fan.
At least it’s part of the experiment, which means he’s not paying for the trip there or back and not for the bed either.
He hadn’t exactly calculated on Ohno insisting on trying most of the beds, looking blissed out or annoyed (but mostly really, really blissed out) and what he really hadn’t counted on? Ohno tugging him down on the beds and looking at him expectantly, being stupidly pretty while not even trying.
The third thing he hadn’t counted on?
“I still think it’s too hard,” Nino says and frowns. He tries to bounce a bit. “Seriously, it’s too hard.”
Ohno snickers.
Nino valiantly tries to ward off the oncoming grin. “Shut up, you’re smiling too loudly. It is too hard.”
Ohno laughs some more and looks even more blissed out. “This feels amazing. Can we live here?”
“It’s Ikea,” Nino deadpans.
“It’s amazing,” Ohno repeats and he looks like he’s exactly two seconds from making the motions of snow angels.
“I would actually rather move into a single room apartment with my sister,” Nino says flatly.
Ohno laughs again.
Nino really wouldn’t be surprised if the Ikea staff started giving them weird looks, but this is what surprises Nino: he really, really doesn’t give a shit. He honestly, well and truly doesn’t give a single fuck. He’s also not conceding to this hardass mat of doom that Ohno insists is a comfortable mattress that makes him want to live here. In Ikea. Something will have to be done about Ohno’s sanity and choices in life.
“No,” he says and Ohno pouts, his lower lip jutting out. “No. Stop it. That won’t work. Really. It doesn’t work. Much. No, really. Stop it.”
“But it’s super comfortable,” Ohno says on a blissed out exhale and Nino is mere inches from giving in. His lower back gives a slow twinge at the thought and he narrows his eyes, steels his resolve.
“My back will actually kill me. I’m not saying this just to win, though that would be a fantastic bonus, but seriously, my poor back. This mattress would probably cripple me within a week.”
Something in Ohno’s eyes shifts almost imperceptibly, and Nino wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking intently. Ohno props up on his elbows. “Are you alright?”
Awesome. Nino, the great mood killer. Ohno is a touch too somber for his liking, but he took them there so he better also own up to it and actually be honest when Ohno asks. It’s so easy brushing people off, Nino finds, because telling someone about things that are personal, maybe weaknesses, maybe things that are essentially inconsequential but looming large at the back of his mind, is fucking scary, and it’s so much easier pretending no one needs to know anything. It’s always a gamble, sayings things that bother you, things that hurt, because what if the recipient of your words doesn’t actually care? What if they don’t take necessary care with what you trust them with?
Scary.
“I’m perhaps not blessed with the best back in the world,” he finally admits and Ohno can’t possibly know what it feels like, saying this to someone who’s essentially still a stranger albeit an endearing one. Nino, with a ring on his finger and hoarding his privacy like a dragon protecting treasures. He forces himself to keep talking. “I’m fine, sometimes it’s just a bitch.” He’s not sure what he’s expecting from Ohno, but Ohno just nods. There’s no disgusting, mind-numbing pity, just acceptance and, it seems, a readiness to adapt.
So Ohno says, calmly and as matter of fact, “So we’ll get a softer mattress.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re sabotaging the mission,” Nino says in lieu of anything with meaning, because it’s Ikea. Who in the universe has personal conversations on a bed in Ikea? Ninomiya Kazunari, that’s who. “Were we supposed to agree on this so quickly? I’m not sure we’re doing it right.”
Ohno shrugs and gets to his feet, extending a hand to Nino. “We agreed on compromise,” he says as if he honestly doesn’t give a damn. Maybe he doesn’t. Most probably, he doesn’t, Nino amends. “Besides, I can sleep anywhere, any time. It’s not a problem for me. I normally sleep on the couch.”
“On the couch? Why?” Nino looks up at Ohno’s standing form and takes his hand, swinging himself upright as Ohno pulls. He’s also pathetically grateful for the change of subject and he’s pretty sure Ohno knows it. “You have an actual bed.”
“It’s really comfy,” Ohno says apologetically. “The couch, I mean.”
“No sleeping on the couch unless I’m mad at you,” Nino then says and that prompts a grin from Ohno just as he’d hoped.
“Technically, it’s my bed,” Ohno says, still grinning, “so good luck kicking me out of it.”
“Not this one, it isn’t,” Nino laughs in return and throws himself onto a bed. It’s so soft it proceeds to swallow him spectacularly and Ohno laughs so hard he folds over and clutches at his stomach. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t help Nino up, still laughing, but his hand is warm and he doesn’t let go, all through actually agreeing on a bed, and he doesn’t let go even when they get into a pretty stupid discussion about kitchenware, because as it turns out, Ohno loves kitchenware. Nino might go as far as labelling it a rather unhealthy obsession judging by the hearts Ohno got in his eyes when looking at pots and pans (never mind that it’s Ikea), but then again, Ohno saw his rather impressive pride and joy, his collection of gaming consoles, and pointedly didn’t comment on it, so Nino figures he should let it go.
See, Nino is totally learning to pick his battles.
And perhaps not-so stealthily buys a set of matching mugs.
Ohno’s smile does things to him.
Oh.
*
Surprisingly, they make a good team. The bed is assembled in a very short amount of time (because Ohno is a lying liar who lies - he was doing most of the assembling and didn’t get himself permanently stuck in the bed frame, which Nino counts as a major win), and Nino texts Aiba a picture of the bed (pointedly leaving Ohno in the frame - well, Ohno’s back, at least, where he has faceplanted on the mattress - because Nino will let Aiba stew for a bit longer, he totally deserves it), and when Nino then announces he’ll get his consoles hooked up to the TV, Ohno makes himself scarce by escaping to the kitchen, where he’s getting started on dinner.
At least, Nino fervently hopes he’s starting on dinner, considering the noises coming from in there. His stomach growls painfully loudly when a delicious smell starts wafting in, and he plugs in his Wii as the last one before going to find Ohno.
Ohno looks back at him over his shoulder and smiles briefly and no, that totally didn’t make his stomach flip, nope. Nope. Okay, so maybe it jumped just a little bit.
“Smells good,” Nino allows magnanimously - it’s a pretty gross understatement with how much he’s actually salivating, but again, it’s one of those things that Ohno doesn’t mention. Good man.
Ohno’s kitchen is surprisingly neat and well-used and clearly built for one person, or two persons with no concept of personal space. Ohno moves easily, though, adding spices to a deep pan and humming a bit.
“I hope you like chahan,” he says and throws Nino another look, another slight smile. “It’s a family recipe.”
“I’m not a picky eater,” Nino shrugs. “And it does smell really good.”
Ohno beams at him.
Ohno, as it turns out, is one hell of a mean cook. Nino eats it all and would probably feel disgusting if he wasn’t too full to do anything but sit still and exist. It was a feat even cleaning the table and then rolling to bed. “I am never moving again,” Nino declares later, holding his stomach when he’s finally in bed. Their newly assembled bed with pristine, new sheets. It’s a novelty, really. “I sincerely hope you didn’t marry me for my body because I think I doubled in size. If you did, tough shit, you’re stuck with me.”
Stepping into the doorway between bathroom and bedroom, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, Ohno just blinks at him, takes the toothbrush out and blinks some more. “Wha?”
Nino rolls his eyes, feeling stupidly fond of this stupid person he’s known for such a short time, so few days, but it’s so easy. Is it too easy? Probably. When he looks down at his hand, he realizes that one thing he hasn’t thought much about all day is the weight of the wedding ring on his finger, not more than a fleeting, stray thought. It’s not heavy, it’s just there, warm when he touches it.
Ohno wears his as if he doesn’t even realize it anymore, as if it’s there because it is, because Nino put it there and because he wants to keep it. And it’s terrifying in these moments, these instants where it hits him, for real, over and over again just what the fuck he’s actually doing, and how frightening it is that he forgets.
“Finish brushing your teeth,” Nino orders and he knows he sounds fond.
When Ohno turns off all the lights except the one by the bedside and slips into bed, he slides close and hesitates only for the barest second before his hand finds Nino’s hip, palm flitting over to just fit. “Hi,” he murmurs and settles in to just look at Nino.
Nino, surprisingly, finds that he doesn’t mind. It’s intimate, certainly, but it’s alright. Good, even, because this is what he reads in all Ohno’s movements: it’s alright if you move away, but see, here is where I move closer, you can meet me somewhere halfway if you want. Sometimes, Nino wants to meet him halfway, sometimes he doesn’t. This time, he wants it, so he scoots a tiny bit closer, bumps their noses and Ohno grins. It’s Ohno that leans in first, but it’s Nino that leans into it, and he’s learning to love this easy slide of lips, how Ohno sighs into it and holds him close by his neck.
So Nino does what the only logical thing is to do when you’re getting kissed by a hot, gorgeous, sweet man - he presses himself flush to Ohno, slotting a leg in between Ohno’s, and kisses him, licks into his mouth and may make some embarrassing sounds at the back of his throat, tighten his fingers in Ohno’s shirt, arch into every touch. He can’t quite breathe just right, but does it matter? Ohno breaks away, panting.
“Nino,” Ohno says on a wet exhale into Nino’s neck.
“Oh-chan,” Nino decides. Screw that Ohno-san thing, having had his tongue down his throat kind of bypasses that formality, doesn’t it? Ohno breathes slowly and curls into him, lets a hand slide down Nino’s back in a broad swipe.
“I want -” Ohno starts, then unfurls and lays his head right next to Nino’s again, closer than before but not quite touching either. In the sparse bedside lamplight, Nino can only guess what Ohno wants. His hands are a scorching brand on Nino’s skin where they have pushed up under his shirt, nails lightly scratching. One hand slides out of his shirt and comes to rest on Nino’s face, around his ear, fingers light on Nino’s neck. “I want to- to look - can I look at you? Just look at you? For a little bit?”
And it’s embarrassing, Ohno so close and so searching, eyes wandering over Nino’s face, and he closes his eyes against the scrutiny, sort of expecting the gentle touch against his eyelids, down the slope of his nose and then a thumb at his lips.
“God, look at you.” A finger against his chin. “Mole,” Ohno whispers and even with his eyes closed, Nino knows he’s smiling, can hear it on his exhale like a promise.
“Silly,” Nino returns, equally whispering although he’s not entirely sure why, and he blinks his eyes open, sees Ohno so near, Ohno is a bit embarrassed too, this close, the way he lowers his eyes is telling, and his lovely grin is shy. Ohno ducks his head and Nino laughs, low and almost unnoticeable when Ohno tucks his head back in under Nino’s chin, and Nino just holds him close.
The rest of these four weeks can just come at him.
*
Part two
Pairing: Ohno Satoshi/Ninomiya Kazunari
Rating: R
Word count: 8,000-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:
So this happened. Like, almost three years later? I know I’m slow, but this is actually just ridiculous. Actually titled “Hold Hands And Fight” from the song by The Rosebuds, I kept affectionately referring to it as “This is not Las Vegas” and “Married At First Sight” and one of them actually stuck, so, there.
Anyway, first of all: the concept for the fic actually does exist in real life. It’s a TV show called Married At First Sight that was developed here in Denmark, and I was totally flabbergasted the first time I watched it - intrigued but totally flabbergasted. So the original concept is this:
They get married to a total stranger and live together as a married couple for five weeks and then have to decide whether or not they want to stay married. So far, in three seasons, my favorites have made it <3
I was so weirded out. And then totally fascinated and I gobbled everything up raw. So, boom. Fic. Except for the fact that I hit the undo button much more often than I was being actually productive, and then I didn’t like it and then I backtracked and then I wrote some and so on and so forth. Here it is, though. The concept itself has been sold to a plethora of countries and I’ve watched two disastrous US versions and one UK version already xD
Secondly; For obvious reasons, reality has been warped a lot to fit with my tweaking of the concept.
Thirdly: This is me. I seem to be permanently unable to write tragic and unhappy endings, so you know, just keep that in mind. Also, this fic is a study of love. Of love, physicality, and of intimacy. If you’re expecting some grand angst adventure, oh boy, this is not the fic for you. I think I gave myself cavities while writing this, even while trying desperately not to go full out fluff-mode. Results to be determined.
Fourthly: And they say it takes a village; it really does, I feel like I’ve had my own, personal army assembled for this, I hope to god I don’t forget anyone, haha! Bff for handholding, Van for laughing, Gati for early stage read through, neenashareefa for reaction checking, jade_lil for encouragement, Maddy for asskicking, A for eternal damnation (don’t ask xD), Em for having no clue about Arashi but laughing anyway, half the population of Elftown for not admitting me to the closed ward for all the angsting I’ve been doing and basically all my handholders <3
Fifth: SOUNDTRACK YAY because I’ve been listening to these songs a lot and they fit the fic <3 Download from Mega.
Tracklist:
- Chris Tomlin - Awake My Soul
- Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want
- The Rosebuds - Holds Hands and Fight
- One Republic - Wherever You Go
- Adele - Promise This
- Feist - The Water
- Jana Hunter - The Palms
- Darkness Falls - The Void
- Adam Lambert - The Light
- Ida Redig - Everywhere
- Roxette - Stars
- The National - You Were A Kindness
- Queen + Adam Lambert - Love Kills
- Woods of Birnam - The Healer
- Hozier - We Are Young (Block C cover)
- Jasmine Thompson - Titanium
- Avril Lavigne - Give You What You Like
- Melmack - The Bitter End (Acoustic Cover)
- Kris Allen - Make You Feel My Love
- Sia - Soon We'll Be Found
- Brambles - Arête
- Lovin’ Spoonful - Coconut Grove
ANYWAY long author's note is long. Onto the fic!
*
1.
Nino first meets Ohno the moment they get married. It’s an otherwise completely nondescript Friday and there are just so many damn butterflies in his stomach, or maybe it’s just nausea, or intense loss of equilibrium, but then he sees Ohno there, and he, at least, appears to be calm. For a moment, Nino intensely wishes Aiba was there to crack a joke, to rest a hand on his shoulder or just stay there in the background as silent support.
“Hi,” he tries when they’ve both signed the papers. He glances at the name - seeing it written down makes it all real, so real, maybe too real. He tries not to think about it, it seems too much like he has lost his mind completely.
“Hi,” Ohno Satoshi says, and there’s a shy smile, just the ghost of it on his lips. “Husband.”
There’s the unfamiliar weight of a ring on his finger where Ohno put it on him, and there’s a pit in his stomach that opens because fuck fuck fuck, what did he just say yes to?
*
To be very clear about things, Nino doesn’t sign up for the experiment entirely on his own volition.
He has a string of failed relationships behind him, he’s 27 and he’s pretty sure that everything he could start with anyone is positively doomed from the start, because to be really honest? It doesn’t interest him all that much, and it just takes so much effort, and what if it’s just not worth it? There’ll be hurt feelings, too much investment from one of the involved parties, and there’ll just be so many complications. There’ll be so much waste of time and energy and he won’t have anything to show for it, not a single thing besides emotional scars, and it won’t make him happier in the end, there’s no place for it in the grand scheme of things as far as he’s concerned.
There’s already been hurt feelings, there’s been cheating, there’s been too much that he doesn’t want to deal with.
He doesn’t need to be in a relationship with anyone, he shouldn’t have to just to please someone’s idea of a perfect life with career and family. Of course, that particular idea of perfect sailed a long time ago, since Nino has known since he was 17 that he’d much, much rather spend time with another guy than a girl, but there you go, sometimes society just doesn’t give two shits about what you want.
There is altogether one major reason Nino signs up for it, in the end. He’s heard so many times in his life that he doesn’t seem to care too much about things or people, but the two people he’ll most definitely care about until there’s no breath left in his body, his mother and his sister, they both think that he’d never ever do something like this, that he’s way too aware of imminent failure to ever even risk it, that he’s comfortable as he is and he won’t do anything to rock the boat.
He really does hate being predictable.
This is the experiment:
They all sign up to be married to a stranger, an all-expenses paid marriage, live together for four weeks, and by the end of the four weeks, they’ll decide if they want to stay married or if they want a divorce.
That’s the gist of it. Easy? It sounds easy, at least, on paper, that is. However, Nino has learned throughout life that nothing is ever that easy.
With his signature, he’ll say yes to turning up for all kinds of invasive psychological evaluations, he’ll talk to anthropologists and psychiatrists and a priest as well, there’ll be social workers and second thoughts and someone looking at his trillion personality tests through a looking glass, and based on that, they’ll find someone for him that they think is a perfect fit for him. If he’s entirely honest, he’s pretty sure he will resent the crap out of it, because this is not him, this is so not him, it’s not what he is so much he’s actually the complete opposite of this; he keeps his private things private, his emotions are not for anyone to poke and prod, but he’s also a stubborn fucker, so he’ll grit his teeth and stick it out.
If he sounds skeptic about the whole thing? Well, no one can exactly blame him, can they?
*
They leave for the honeymoon the second they’re outside the office they just inked down their marriage registration in, Nino just manages to get a hug from his mother and he supposes the woman hugging the absolute stuffing out of Ohno is his mother, and then they’re ushered out into the waiting car, and they’re sent away to a destination they don’t know.
He buckles in, waves out at his mother and then, after taking a deep breath, turns to look at Ohno, his lawfully wedded husband. Someone clearly just as insane as Nino himself, because what the fuck is this for an experiment anyway? Do they actually expect any of the chosen ten couples to make it out on the other side of these marriages and want to stay?
“Hello,” Ohno says and Nino forces a smile on his face.
“Hi,” he thinks he manages without too much of a grimace. The weight of a ring on his finger is unfamiliar, but he offers his hand anyway. “I’m Nino.”
“I’m Ohno,” Ohno says, and his smile seems honest, small and shy as it is. His hand is warm where it shakes Nino’s. “Ohno Satoshi.”
“I know,” Nino returns, and his smile falls a bit easier, recalling the scrawl Ohno had left on the documents. “Ninomiya Kazunari. Or Nino. Your pick.”
Now that he isn’t so focused on determinedly not being focused on Ohno, he takes the time to really look at him. The best part of Ohno, Nino decides on the spot, is his eyes. “So Ohno-san it is,” he says and he finds his lips are shaping a smile easier and easier the more he looks at Ohno. There’s skepticism at the back of his mind, but he hushes it, he can think on it later. Much later. Preferably never, actually, but he can settle for the dark after Ohno has gone to sleep.
“I guess it is,” Ohno says with a chuckle. “I guess it is. Nino.” He says it like he’s tasting Nino’s name, as if he’s deciding whether or not he likes it. Inexplicably, Nino finds that he hopes he does.
*
It turns out they’re going to Kyoto. That’s a first for Nino, but the way Ohno had said, “Ah,” in the car when he’d realized where they were going and the way he keeps chuckling to himself under his breath make Nino think that there might be more to the story. Nino wants to ask, but he doesn’t, because isn’t that just supremely awkward? Who decides the proper etiquette for when you can quiz someone on their lives? They’re married, but they don’t know each other - he doesn’t know Ohno, how will Ohno react to being frequently and intensively (and probably invasively) questioned about his entire life?
Hell, he can always ask for a divorce if it goes badly, or just wait the four weeks out and run away. “Have you been here before?”
Ohno grins. “Kind of. You can say that. I’ve lived here.”
Oh. Well. That. Nino didn’t expect that. “So you know people here?”
“I think,” Ohno says carefully, doesn’t answer him directly and turns his head away from the window to look at Nino properly, his eyes so dark and intent, “that we were supposed to go somewhere neither of us had an advantage or a home turf. To start on even ground.”
That makes sense. It’s also a moot point now that he knows that Ohno is familiar with the streets, and if Ohno hadn’t said anything, Nino might not have felt it, but he suddenly feels disadvantaged and unsteady. He really appreciated that Ohno is honest about it, at least. Lesser people (himself, honestly) would probably have kept it quiet. “Can you pretend you don’t know anything here? And anyone?”
“Yes,” Ohno says instantly and with a shrug as if it’s a no brainer for him.
“Okay,” Nino breathes and has no choice but to believe him. A leap of faith with a person he doesn’t know. Awesome. “Okay.”
When they’re out of the car, it’s already night, and they’re in the hotel room where Ohno doesn’t unpack anything besides something to sleep in and his tooth brush. Nino is willing to bet that by the time he comes out of the bathroom, Ohno will be fast asleep, because Ohno seems to be approaching sleep with frightening speed, and Nino did offer him the bathroom first.
Nino brushes his teeth and carefully avoids looking at himself in the mirror. Brushes, rinses, brushes again, rinses the brush and then brushes again. Repeat. Washes his face. And when he absolutely can’t delay it anymore, he looks at himself.
He’s 27. He’s kind of skinny, not what you would consider actually fit - he’s no slob, but he’s not going to the gym or going for a run every morning, he’s just not that guy. His work mostly consists of sitting by a computer, designing games. He wonders what Ohno sees when he looks at him. Is he disappointed? Is he happy with whom he was assigned in this weird game of lottery turned marriage?
In the car between the awkward silences and the glances, they’d done the base questions: What do you do, how old are you, do you have any surprise children, are there any axe murderers in your family or is your hobby axe murdering? (In Ohno’s case, he owns a gallery, he’s going on 30, no, none that he’s aware of, even if Ohno had been laughing at that point and finally stuttered no.) Ohno says he paints a little, sculpts a little, nothing serious. Nino frowns at his reflection in the mirror. He has never ever seen himself as someone who would end up with a gallery owner, the artsy type. Nino is pragmatic. Ohno, for how little he actually speaks, seems to be a dreamer, Nino can see it in his eyes with how soft they are and how they seem to be looking at what he wants to see, not what is actually there.
But Ohno’s eyes are also kind, so kind, so dark and heavy, with laugh lines etched so prettily on his face, and Nino knows that he doesn’t exactly have a specific type, but Ohno is nothing he expected, like Ohno had taken a look at the definition of expectation and thought screw it.
Nino doesn’t even know what he wants from this. Married. Four weeks with a stranger. Holy shit, he really, really didn’t think this all the way through, and now Ohno is lying on their shared bed, resting there because he has the right to. Because they’re married. He holds the edge of the sink, feels the cold porcelain under his fingers, feels the wedding band dig into his skin, and he desperately tries to breathe. He’s insane, he must be. It’s not even a nightmare because even his brain couldn’t cook this kind of insane scenario up.
He’s so profoundly not the relationship type of person, so what the hell is he doing?
It’s just four weeks. Four weeks, and that’s that, no strings attached if either of them or both of them doesn’t want anything to do with each other after that. Four weeks he can handle and convince Ohno that this is probably the worst idea Nino has ever had.
He has mostly talked himself out of hyperventilating when he decides that if Ohno is still conscious, he will most likely have concluded that either a) Nino has a severe case of diarrhea, b) is the most thorough tooth brusher in the history of tooth brushing, or c) has fallen asleep in the bath tub. At this point, all three seems like plausible situations and he finally leaves the bathroom.
He stops in the doorway.
Ohno is on his side on top of the covers, curled up, a hand under the pillow, breath steady and easy.
Being brave: maybe it’s not so much about saving someone from a burning building, maybe it’s lying down next to a stranger and sleep like there’s nothing that can hurt you while they’re near. It’s a fearlessness he hasn’t even considered before, something that only a select people are graced with. It’s a kind of bravery Nino doesn’t think he possesses even if Ohno does.
“Nino,” Ohno says on an exhale and Nino jolts, sees Ohno slowly scoot even further to the side, making so much room for Nino that the bed could easily hold four of him. He lies down gingerly, trying not to jostle the bed too much, but Ohno’s easy half-smile is all that is visible on the pillow.
“So this is what they do with equality when gay marriage is legal,” Nino says, because fuck, he should just say something, anything, anything at all, and Ohno might as well learn early on that Nino is an absolute star at saying all the wrong things at the wrong times.
“Your pillow talk,” Ohno laughs and opens one bleary eye, “is one of a kind.”
He reaches for Nino’s hand, ghosts his fingers over his knuckles while Nino valiantly tries not to shiver. He’s married to this man. Four weeks. Ohno’s fingers, one of them with a wedding ring on, come to a rest on his own, tighten and hold on.
Does Ohno want this? Does Ohno actually want a marriage out of this, a proper one, one that works, one that is real? Does he know he’s married to a man who actually is completely crap at relationships and is as mercurial as he’s fearful? Does he realize that Nino isn’t sure why he signed up for this and that he, right now in this moment, doesn’t know if he actually really wants it to stay?
“You know what’s really nice to know?” Ohno asks, his voice low and soothing and when Nino looks, there is a new brand of mischief in his hooded eyes as he turns his face slightly up, “I knew that I was going to marry you the moment I saw you.”
Nino can’t help it. He laughs and hides his face with his free hand, because oh god. So this is who he’s married to, someone who looks positively smug right now. God help them both.
“Think on it tomorrow,” Ohno then pleads lowly. Nino finds that he doesn’t mind so much doing what he’s told when Ohno asks like this, soft and mellow. He’ll sleep. And he’ll hold Ohno’s hand while he sleeps, so sue him, he’s kind of okay with that. He likes it.
*
Breakfast is awkward, there is no other word for it. Well, massively uncomfortable would be another way to describe it, but Nino likes awkward better, because it’s short and to the point.
He didn’t sleep well, not used to having another person on the other side of the bed even if Ohno, even sleeping, kept largely to his side of the bed, but the thought of it was enough to be somewhat disruptive. He’d kept jerking awake, and every time he’d been awake, Ohno’s breath had been even and calm on the opposite side of the bed.
At least one of them had gotten a good night’s sleep. Not that he’d know by looking at Ohno, who looks more asleep than awake, but then again, when Nino had looked at himself in the mirror this morning he’d looked more dead than alive, so it’s not like he’s has much room to talk.
“Ohno-san?”
Ohno blinks from where he’s been staring at his coffee as if it holds all the answers. If it does, Nino wants it and he’s not above fighting dirty for it either. Anything but this silence that he doesn’t know how to break, and Ohno, who’d been if not talkative yesterday, then responsive at least, seems pretty much comatose this morning.
He smiles at Nino. Nino doesn’t quite know what to do with that, if he’s entirely honest. “Hm?”
“Our itinerary for today,” he starts. “Do you have any ideas for it?”
Ohno’s hands around his cup of coffee, breath even. He tilts his head and says, careful, “I think we decided that I don’t know anything about Kyoto at all.”
“Just if there are any good places to eat,” Nino tries, and Ohno feigns complete innocence when he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
If he knew Ohno better, he’d say that Ohno was being an ass on purpose, but he doesn’t know him that well at all, so he doesn’t say it. God, it’s all so terribly confusing. It all comes back to marrying a complete stranger, fucking hell.
They dress warmly as it’s a cool, late Autumn, and Nino is stunned by Kyoto in the October colors. Ohno looks inordinately pleased when Nino says so, as if it means something to him, which is kind of ridiculous since it’s not like Kyoto is Ohno’s home. However, he finds he’ll take it if it makes Ohno smile at him like that.
And that’s something Nino really hadn’t expected to like - when they go to see the Golden Pavilion, Ohno rests a hand against the small of his back, just a very light weight, the indication that he’s there, and Nino simultaneously wants to lean into it and run in the opposite direction. Is he being lured into the concept, into some kind of false security, knowing that Ohno will be there, whether he wants him to or not, for at least four weeks? Whatever it is, it’s Ohno’s gentle, careful touches on his back, his shoulder, fingers down his arm to his wrist, and when they stop for lunch Nino looks at how their hands lie entwined on the table. He reaches with his other hand, turns Ohno’s and looks at it, the darker, rough spots.
Ohno chuckles, tired, and somewhat sheepish. “I did a lot of figures the past week,” he says and makes it sound like an epic confession, which just makes Nino laugh even though he’s incredibly curious. “When I couldn’t sleep.”
“My artsy husband,” he says and there’s no way he doesn’t grimace a little.
“I know,” Ohno says and there’s no small measure of self-consciousness hidden in his eyes and the quirk of his mouth. “It’s weird.”
“It’s totally weird,” Nino agrees, breathes in relief, thank fuck.
“The weirdest,” Ohno says and now he’s really smiling. “Come on, let’s go, still places to go today.”
Nino arches an eyebrow but obediently slides to his feet when Ohno does. “I thought we agreed you didn’t know anything here?”
Ohno laughs. “I totally cheated and looked at your itinerary when you weren’t looking.”
Nino gasps in mock-outrage.
He’s suddenly struck with how lovely Ohno looks when he laughs like that, uninhibited and silly, and Nino kind of wants to touch the corner of his eyes and the seam of his curved mouth. Maybe that’s okay too, feeling that, what with them being married at all. Would it be weird? It would be weird. He’s still calling Ohno Ohno-san and Ohno sounds like he’s stumbling over the sounds every time he says Nino, and their names really shouldn’t mean so much, but they do. They totally do. All the same, Ohno laughs at him and with him, and Nino kind of chases him out of the little café they’d enjoyed their late lunch in, and he doesn’t pull away when Ohno reaches for his hand. That’s okay.
It’s okay.
It’s a wonder, allowing someone to touch any part of you - an even bigger wonder, someone allowing you to touch them, wanting you to and welcoming even the slightest, fleeting touch. It’s even kind of a heady feeling. Nino thinks he might be in trouble, he may plead insanity by the time the day is over, but Ohno’s fingers are dry and warm and holds on to his hand as if it’s all he wants from life right now - or rather, it’s an absentminded touch, as if anything else Ohno does is just that, anything else, and holding on to Nino’s hand is just something he does, just like that. He holds on as if it’s the foundation of it, and so he builds on it: Holding Nino’s hand and watching the clouds, holding Nino’s hand and doing window shopping. Holding Nino’s hand and tugging when there’s something he wants him to see, holding Nino’s hand and laughing when there’s a guy dressed up as a maiko, following a real maiko who looks like she doesn’t know whether she should laugh or cry at the masculine voice coming out from beneath the white make-up. There’s a guy in a yukata behind them, laughing and bowing and making excuses as they go, and then a camera crew follows them all.
Nino decides it’s not even the weirdest thing he’s ever seen, which should probably be kind of telling, but Ohno keeps chuckling at random intervals, swinging their hands as they go, so it’s okay.
It’s also okay when Ohno, tentatively and soft-spoken, asks about their upcoming living arrangements.
“Yeah,” Nino says, not willing to offer anymore. He knows they’ll have to figure it out - they’re going to live together in either of their apartments for the duration of the experiment, it’s just that neither of the options is very appealing. He really should’ve thought it through before he signed up for it, but hindsight is a massive, vindictive bitch. Staying in his apartment, inviting a practical stranger inside his home is not something he’d like in any scenario, but Ohno is his husband, isn’t he? Ohno does have the right to seeing him in his natural habitat, but that doesn’t make it any less provoking for his boundaries. Besides, he figures Ohno is feeling the same way.
“I really don’t mind, I mean, if you want to stay at my place,” Ohno says.
Or not.
Ohno continues, still hesitant, “because, um, it’s really weird? My place is quite big so you can have some space to yourself, if you want. Space. I mean, if you want space. God, this is so weird.”
Nino is torn between taking offense (because he can) at Ohno’s assumption that his place is larger than Nino’s (he would be right, though, a shoebox is bigger than Nino’s apartment, but that’s entirely beside the point) and being really happy that he won’t have to let Ohno entirely in. At least like this, he has somewhere to go and be himself if the need arises. Which it just might.
“My place really is a tight fit,” Nino concedes, deciding on feeling grateful and relieved. “Housing us both would be…interesting.”
“Good or bad interesting?”
“I think this is initially why I asked you about axe murderers,” Nino admits with a grin. “My subconscious had a hidden agenda.”
Ohno chuckles, that soft one that often accompanies Nino’s quips, which is really nice, and then that’s settled, somehow. Without big tantrums or arguments and Nino somehow feels like they’re doing it wrong. Shouldn’t it be more difficult?
However, it’s okay. Somehow, it is. Weird, but okay.
Okay.
And it keeps being okay for the rest of the day they as walk around Gion, as they watch everything happen around them, and all through dinner, Nino has to cement the fact that Ohno is incredibly pleasant to talk to and is incredibly easy to be around. He doesn’t talk a whole bunch, but he’s listening, he’s actually interested (or he’s extremely good at pretending to be interested, which is something Nino wouldn’t put past him, but for now he’ll give Ohno the benefit of the doubt, see, he so can do the mature, grown-up thing sometimes), and he smiles at Nino when Nino looks at him.
It’s totally weird.
What’s also really weird is that after seriously the longest tea ceremony Nino has ever been witness to (and honestly, Ohno in a yukata had sort of short-circuited his brain, oh, Ohno is apparently insisting on upping the ante in the looks department and Nino so isn’t protesting, nope, nope, nope), Ohno finds a smaller street, narrow and almost deserted, something he’d only be able to find if he already knew it was there (the cheating jerk, he totally knew about it already) and presses him against the wall and just breathes.
Later, Nino is pretty sure protesting didn’t even register as an option in his mind, it fled along with any kind of coherence when Ohno kissed him like he’d wanted to do just that for quite some time. Seeing as they have, at this point, known each other for just over twenty-four hours, it has definitely moved much, much slower than some of Nino’s other relationships, but something about it seems really incredibly quick (and they only have four weeks, knock on wood, to get their shit sorted out,) and Nino kind of likes it even if it does confuse him a bit. Okay, it confuses him a lot.
Ohno is an incredible kisser, okay, no one would be able to retain all sensible thoughts while being occupied with that mouth. That is Nino’s story and he’ll stick to it.
To be entirely fair, Nino doesn’t actually remember much of dinner, either, because. Well, because. He’s apparently still a teenager, the world’s only 27-year-old teenager, because he’s all about staring at Ohno and his stupid pretty, which Nino is pretty convinced Ohno is fully aware of.
But Ohno is bashful and very lovely, shy in ways that Nino would never ever have been able to predict; Nino is stupidly smitten in such a short amount of time and it feels dangerous somehow, jumping into this so carelessly, but then again - they’re already married. Married. If the most reckless thing they’ve done this far has been some kissing, what does an impulsive, spontaneous, possibly incredibly stupid decision like marrying a stranger qualify as?
Nino is pretty sure he doesn’t want to go there.
So for now, he’ll kiss Ohno’s clever, smiling mouth even if the chuckling makes kissing kind of difficult, and Ohno’s careful hands are fever on his arms when he loses his jacket - the way Ohno carefully doesn’t insist on diving anywhere near skin that isn’t already bared is pretty awesome too, because Nino, well, Nino doesn’t have any good reasoning for that, actually. He just likes it. A guy doesn’t need reasons for liking awesome kisses and tender touches.
Ohno kisses him goodnight and looks extremely pleased when Nino kisses him first as he gets to bed, and when Ohno (and his kiss swollen lips) falls asleep right next to him, the distance is smaller than it was the first night, and fuck it, Nino scoots closer. He likes body heat, he likes someone’s steady breathing, and if that has always been what he likes best whenever he could convince himself to commit in some ways, then that is his own damn business. He’s still not sure how much closer he’s welcome, he doesn’t know if Ohno will appreciate having his own private Nino-shaped furnace, but it’s better than the gaping distance from last night, and it’s infinitely better than what he’d dared hoping for.
Expectations had: none. They’ve been exceeded anyway.
It’s pretty clear to Nino that they’re treading water admirably so far, but he’s under no illusions that they’re not even two days into this little four-week adventure, and damn, so much can happen, so much that can go wrong. He knows this, he feels it as an uncomfortable knot, but as he looks at the ring on his finger, and then lets his fingers touch Ohno’s ring, it’s just that it’s getting more difficult to remember all the reasons why it could be dangerous to let himself fall.
*
“So, he’s nice?”
Nino pauses his mental list as he packs, then resumes and mutters under his breath, “toothbrush, t-shirts, shirts, pants - ”
“I guess he’s nice and that he’s isn’t a psychotic axe murderer either, since you haven’t killed him or run away screaming,” Aiba continues from his perch on the floor, and he looks entirely too pleased with himself when Nino glances at him.
“Aren’t you even going to pretend that you’re here to actually help me pack?”
“Nope,” Aiba shrugs and leans back on his hands, “because I’m not. It’s much funnier to watch you panic on your own.”
Nino flips him off because that’s the mature, considered thing to do.
“Nino, you just got married.”
Nino ignores him, that’s his plan and he’ll stick to it.
“Married. Lawfully wedded husband. Married.”
Fuck it, his plan wasn’t that good anyway. “Your observational skills are awesome,” Nino says and continues, “ - socks, underwear, shaver - ”
“Tell me about your husband. Give me the deets. All of them.”
“It’s none of your business,” Nino frowns, “and also, ew. No. If there were any deets, just, ew no. Privacy, you know, privacy and all that jazz.”
Aiba narrows his eyes. “Deflecting.”
“Psht, no,” Nino returns, “I’m flat out avoiding it.”
“That’s not healthy, I have it good authority that it’s not good for your mental wellness and I’m sure your therapist will be telling you that repressing isn’t the way to go.”
“Please,” Nino snorts, “You’re so far from being my therapist that it’s embarrassing.”
“Spill. It. Without the deets.”
Nino sighs. Aiba’s mangling of language aside, it’s not like he can avoid it forever, he supposes. Unfortunately. Saying goodbye to Ohno a few hours ago, a short goodbye before reconvening back at Ohno’s place in another few hours, had been pretty weird even if Ohno had kissed him pretty silly, sweet and soft and he’d looked oddly hesitant. Nino had patted his cheek a few times for that, and he winces at the memory; way to be condescending. He should probably just start a list of things he should apologize for at the earliest convenience. He suspects it’ll be pretty long before, well, long.
“So?” Aiba prompts. “Is he nice?”
Nice, Nino thinks, is a really weird word. Nice is what you would say about a shirt, it looks nice. Some people are nice, they’re the people you don’t know that well, that you meet in passing and can say later that yeah, they were nice when you saw them, they were nice when they inquired to your health and then said goodbye and see you around.
He finds that even after only a few days in Ohno’s company, Ohno fits in the box of nice. He also neatly makes the box explode into pieces, because Ohno also profoundly doesn’t fit in that box, as if he’s just way too much to be contained in a silly box. If he could just stop being confusing and make Nino feel off-kilter, that’d be a really, really nice thing.
“Gah,” Nino finally says.
Aiba nods sagely. “That sounds about right. Some guy.”
“You’re such an ass,” Nino says with feeling.
“You’re pretty screwed,” Aiba agrees. “Screwed. So he’s not a psychotic axe-wielding mass murderer and he has reduced your higher brain functions to sounds and gestures. I really, really want to meet him. He sounds awesome.”
Sometimes Nino really hates his friends.
“What is the matter with you, no, you stay out of my marriage, you jerk,” Nino hisses and frowns at the socks that won’t match no matter how much he squints. He gives up, throwing one at Aiba, who neatly ducks. He tries to find the words, god help him. “He’s. I’m not sure I can really figure out how he is. He’s - sweet. And quiet. He’s quiet in a good way. Like, really present? Somehow.”
To his credit, Aiba doesn’t stare at him like he’s ready for a nice, white jacket with very long sleeves.
“Like, he’s quiet, but I can feel him being there, with me, in the present?” He tries again. “Sometimes when we stopped somewhere, I could feel him go somewhere else with his brain, like he was very far away, but then, if I touched his hand, or his arm, or something, he was just there. And it was - it was good. It felt good. Feel free to stop me at any moment, by the way. No seriously, stop me, please.”
Aiba is looking thoughtful, head resting in his palm. He reaches out and taps gently at Nino’s wedding band. “I think, maybe - maybe we should get you to his place soon?”
Nino narrows his eyes, clenches his fist out from beneath Aiba’s touch. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nino, it’s not all that bad is it?”
No, it’s actually not that bad at all.
“I still call him Ohno-san.”
“That’s not a bad thing, either, Nino.”
And isn’t that absolutely terrifying?
*
“First things first,” Ohno says and whips out a piece of paper. Ah, all official-looking and everything, which means it’s orders from the Powers That Be. “We’re to go shopping for a bed.”
“What’s wrong with the one you already have?” Nino frowns and looks at the actually quite decently sized bed in Ohno’s bedroom. Beside it is Nino’s smaller bag, the bigger one already halfway empty with Nino’s haphazard attempt at ordering his stuff in Ohno’s closets.
“Hell if I know,” Ohno shrugs, rolls his eyes and then shrugs again in one fluid, impressive maneuver. “But I think it’s to test if we can survive Ikea together.”
Nino grins. “That sounds about right. I went there with my friend, once, it was hell on earth.”
Ohno cocks his head. “Aiba-san,” he guesses.
It pleases Nino way more than it should, by all means, that Ohno pays attention to what he says. “Yeah, Aiba-chan. He measured the closet space by going into them and closing the doors and then one of the doors actually jammed. It was a right nightmare getting him out and I bet the poor sales assistants are still completely traumatized by it.”
Ohno grins, and it’s stupidly charming.
“But actually, the worst part wasn’t that I had to get him out of the closet or enduring the following three days of coming out-jokes, but him thinking that only losers need the instructions. It didn’t look like a closet, is all I’m saying.”
Ohno’s laugh is welcome, bright and clear. “I’m sorry to say that even with instructions I’m probably not going to be much help assembling the bed.”
“You know what, as long as we don’t enlist Aiba-chan, I’m pretty sure we’ll be awesome. You can cheer me on.”
And that was that settled, and Nino supposes that married life is, if it continues like this (and he is pretty damn sure it won’t, but pretense is nice if delusional in the long run), a cake walk. However, Nino doesn’t do delusional very well, or at least he tries not to. It doesn’t change the fact that being in Ohno’s apartment - back in the daily life, back in the grind of things - finally makes something settle in his bones, like this is alright. That’s okay, it’s not a given thing, it’s not a magical solution to his life, but it’s alright, they can sort of try this out, this surreal play of house.
“So will you show me what it is that you do?”
Ohno blinks at the non-sequitur. “Show you?”
Nino slips his arm into Ohno’s. He can totally do that if he wants to, shut up. “My artsy husband. Show me some art.”
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to label my own stuff as art,” Ohno protests, it’s token at best, as Nino steers him… somewhere. Nino has no idea where he’s going. Sadly. Which Ohno knows, of course he does, but he doesn’t make it obvious besides the fact that he gently steps left when Nino hesitatingly steps right and there is a door that Ohno opens without fanfare. His fingers are a brand against the small of Nino’s back even through his t-shirt and hoodie when Ohno smoothly pushes him through the doorway, and really, Nino would prefer not to think about that until later. His wish is abruptly granted.
“Whoa,” he breathes.
Ohno makes a grimace, of what Nino isn’t quite sure, but he doesn’t actually care right now as it is, because whoa. Sweet motherfucking whoa.
He steps into the middle of the room and he sort of feels like he imagines Aladdin did in the Cave of Wonders (he likes Disney and Aiba likes Disney and they had a marathon when Aiba was ill), because there is so much to look at. The entire back wall is one big smatter of graffiti in so many different and colorful motives that Nino honestly doesn’t know where to look. There are canvases stacked and leaning against another wall, some covered with linen to protect them, there are boxes on the floor with cloth, pens, brushes, and Nino kind of gives up on figuring out what the things actually are. The entire room is overwhelming and chaotic, it’s intimate in a way he hadn’t anticipated, and it’s utterly beautiful.
“Whoa,” he says again, and he can feel a smile coming on, he just doesn’t know if it’s all awe or if there’s disbelief in it as well. How the fuck could he ever even begin to imagine this entire room? “I paint a little, you said. I sculpt a little, you said.”
Ohno wrinkles his nose and Nino is hit with the stunning realization that this, for Ohno, is not just being afraid of sounding full of himself, but his actual perception of his own skills. Which is to say, that Ohno is fucking amazing. Nino’s mind is effectively blown.
“Nothing serious, you said!”
Ohno squirms and Nino thinks it’s entirely too adorable for a man going on 30. “I own a gallery?” he offers meekly and Nino can’t resist slapping his arm, then gripping it and giving Ohno a gentle shake. “I showcase some of my own stuff from time to time, but mostly it’s my clients’ works.”
“Modest bastard,” he mutters and Ohno’s answering grin is bashful.
“Most of my stuff is in storage,” Ohno explains even as his fingers glide over the text of a material of something that looks carved. Carved. Nino is convinced this room will actually break his brain if he continues thinking about it.
“It’s beautiful,” Nino says honestly, and then what else can he say? He knows next to nothing about art, all he can do is be honest about what he likes and what he doesn’t. At least that he knows.
“Thank you,” Ohno says with another grimace even though the tiny smile is honest and maybe a little relieved, but he also appears pretty eager to talk about something else as well. Nino finds that he’s pretty eager to oblige, because if it had felt intimate to him, how had it felt to Ohno?
“So,” he says, so obviously changing the subject that Ohno actually laughs and rubs his face with a hand in a very obvious gesture of what the hell can we do? “Where can I plug in my game systems?”
Which, Ohno reminds him that he can’t do right now, because they have an assignment for the remainder of the day - mission: Get A Shared Bed From Ikea Without Killing Each Other Softly With This Song. Possibly better known as Mission Impossible when attempted with Aiba. Nino is pretty sure that a particularly sadistic bastard devised this plan even if the logic is pretty sound - he wasn’t lying when he said Ikea with Aiba is hell on earth and Nino would sooner attempt sawing off his legs with a pair of skis than going through that again. In short: Nino might not be Ikea’s biggest fan.
At least it’s part of the experiment, which means he’s not paying for the trip there or back and not for the bed either.
He hadn’t exactly calculated on Ohno insisting on trying most of the beds, looking blissed out or annoyed (but mostly really, really blissed out) and what he really hadn’t counted on? Ohno tugging him down on the beds and looking at him expectantly, being stupidly pretty while not even trying.
The third thing he hadn’t counted on?
“I still think it’s too hard,” Nino says and frowns. He tries to bounce a bit. “Seriously, it’s too hard.”
Ohno snickers.
Nino valiantly tries to ward off the oncoming grin. “Shut up, you’re smiling too loudly. It is too hard.”
Ohno laughs some more and looks even more blissed out. “This feels amazing. Can we live here?”
“It’s Ikea,” Nino deadpans.
“It’s amazing,” Ohno repeats and he looks like he’s exactly two seconds from making the motions of snow angels.
“I would actually rather move into a single room apartment with my sister,” Nino says flatly.
Ohno laughs again.
Nino really wouldn’t be surprised if the Ikea staff started giving them weird looks, but this is what surprises Nino: he really, really doesn’t give a shit. He honestly, well and truly doesn’t give a single fuck. He’s also not conceding to this hardass mat of doom that Ohno insists is a comfortable mattress that makes him want to live here. In Ikea. Something will have to be done about Ohno’s sanity and choices in life.
“No,” he says and Ohno pouts, his lower lip jutting out. “No. Stop it. That won’t work. Really. It doesn’t work. Much. No, really. Stop it.”
“But it’s super comfortable,” Ohno says on a blissed out exhale and Nino is mere inches from giving in. His lower back gives a slow twinge at the thought and he narrows his eyes, steels his resolve.
“My back will actually kill me. I’m not saying this just to win, though that would be a fantastic bonus, but seriously, my poor back. This mattress would probably cripple me within a week.”
Something in Ohno’s eyes shifts almost imperceptibly, and Nino wouldn’t have seen it if he hadn’t been looking intently. Ohno props up on his elbows. “Are you alright?”
Awesome. Nino, the great mood killer. Ohno is a touch too somber for his liking, but he took them there so he better also own up to it and actually be honest when Ohno asks. It’s so easy brushing people off, Nino finds, because telling someone about things that are personal, maybe weaknesses, maybe things that are essentially inconsequential but looming large at the back of his mind, is fucking scary, and it’s so much easier pretending no one needs to know anything. It’s always a gamble, sayings things that bother you, things that hurt, because what if the recipient of your words doesn’t actually care? What if they don’t take necessary care with what you trust them with?
Scary.
“I’m perhaps not blessed with the best back in the world,” he finally admits and Ohno can’t possibly know what it feels like, saying this to someone who’s essentially still a stranger albeit an endearing one. Nino, with a ring on his finger and hoarding his privacy like a dragon protecting treasures. He forces himself to keep talking. “I’m fine, sometimes it’s just a bitch.” He’s not sure what he’s expecting from Ohno, but Ohno just nods. There’s no disgusting, mind-numbing pity, just acceptance and, it seems, a readiness to adapt.
So Ohno says, calmly and as matter of fact, “So we’ll get a softer mattress.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re sabotaging the mission,” Nino says in lieu of anything with meaning, because it’s Ikea. Who in the universe has personal conversations on a bed in Ikea? Ninomiya Kazunari, that’s who. “Were we supposed to agree on this so quickly? I’m not sure we’re doing it right.”
Ohno shrugs and gets to his feet, extending a hand to Nino. “We agreed on compromise,” he says as if he honestly doesn’t give a damn. Maybe he doesn’t. Most probably, he doesn’t, Nino amends. “Besides, I can sleep anywhere, any time. It’s not a problem for me. I normally sleep on the couch.”
“On the couch? Why?” Nino looks up at Ohno’s standing form and takes his hand, swinging himself upright as Ohno pulls. He’s also pathetically grateful for the change of subject and he’s pretty sure Ohno knows it. “You have an actual bed.”
“It’s really comfy,” Ohno says apologetically. “The couch, I mean.”
“No sleeping on the couch unless I’m mad at you,” Nino then says and that prompts a grin from Ohno just as he’d hoped.
“Technically, it’s my bed,” Ohno says, still grinning, “so good luck kicking me out of it.”
“Not this one, it isn’t,” Nino laughs in return and throws himself onto a bed. It’s so soft it proceeds to swallow him spectacularly and Ohno laughs so hard he folds over and clutches at his stomach. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t help Nino up, still laughing, but his hand is warm and he doesn’t let go, all through actually agreeing on a bed, and he doesn’t let go even when they get into a pretty stupid discussion about kitchenware, because as it turns out, Ohno loves kitchenware. Nino might go as far as labelling it a rather unhealthy obsession judging by the hearts Ohno got in his eyes when looking at pots and pans (never mind that it’s Ikea), but then again, Ohno saw his rather impressive pride and joy, his collection of gaming consoles, and pointedly didn’t comment on it, so Nino figures he should let it go.
See, Nino is totally learning to pick his battles.
And perhaps not-so stealthily buys a set of matching mugs.
Ohno’s smile does things to him.
Oh.
*
Surprisingly, they make a good team. The bed is assembled in a very short amount of time (because Ohno is a lying liar who lies - he was doing most of the assembling and didn’t get himself permanently stuck in the bed frame, which Nino counts as a major win), and Nino texts Aiba a picture of the bed (pointedly leaving Ohno in the frame - well, Ohno’s back, at least, where he has faceplanted on the mattress - because Nino will let Aiba stew for a bit longer, he totally deserves it), and when Nino then announces he’ll get his consoles hooked up to the TV, Ohno makes himself scarce by escaping to the kitchen, where he’s getting started on dinner.
At least, Nino fervently hopes he’s starting on dinner, considering the noises coming from in there. His stomach growls painfully loudly when a delicious smell starts wafting in, and he plugs in his Wii as the last one before going to find Ohno.
Ohno looks back at him over his shoulder and smiles briefly and no, that totally didn’t make his stomach flip, nope. Nope. Okay, so maybe it jumped just a little bit.
“Smells good,” Nino allows magnanimously - it’s a pretty gross understatement with how much he’s actually salivating, but again, it’s one of those things that Ohno doesn’t mention. Good man.
Ohno’s kitchen is surprisingly neat and well-used and clearly built for one person, or two persons with no concept of personal space. Ohno moves easily, though, adding spices to a deep pan and humming a bit.
“I hope you like chahan,” he says and throws Nino another look, another slight smile. “It’s a family recipe.”
“I’m not a picky eater,” Nino shrugs. “And it does smell really good.”
Ohno beams at him.
Ohno, as it turns out, is one hell of a mean cook. Nino eats it all and would probably feel disgusting if he wasn’t too full to do anything but sit still and exist. It was a feat even cleaning the table and then rolling to bed. “I am never moving again,” Nino declares later, holding his stomach when he’s finally in bed. Their newly assembled bed with pristine, new sheets. It’s a novelty, really. “I sincerely hope you didn’t marry me for my body because I think I doubled in size. If you did, tough shit, you’re stuck with me.”
Stepping into the doorway between bathroom and bedroom, toothbrush sticking out of his mouth, Ohno just blinks at him, takes the toothbrush out and blinks some more. “Wha?”
Nino rolls his eyes, feeling stupidly fond of this stupid person he’s known for such a short time, so few days, but it’s so easy. Is it too easy? Probably. When he looks down at his hand, he realizes that one thing he hasn’t thought much about all day is the weight of the wedding ring on his finger, not more than a fleeting, stray thought. It’s not heavy, it’s just there, warm when he touches it.
Ohno wears his as if he doesn’t even realize it anymore, as if it’s there because it is, because Nino put it there and because he wants to keep it. And it’s terrifying in these moments, these instants where it hits him, for real, over and over again just what the fuck he’s actually doing, and how frightening it is that he forgets.
“Finish brushing your teeth,” Nino orders and he knows he sounds fond.
When Ohno turns off all the lights except the one by the bedside and slips into bed, he slides close and hesitates only for the barest second before his hand finds Nino’s hip, palm flitting over to just fit. “Hi,” he murmurs and settles in to just look at Nino.
Nino, surprisingly, finds that he doesn’t mind. It’s intimate, certainly, but it’s alright. Good, even, because this is what he reads in all Ohno’s movements: it’s alright if you move away, but see, here is where I move closer, you can meet me somewhere halfway if you want. Sometimes, Nino wants to meet him halfway, sometimes he doesn’t. This time, he wants it, so he scoots a tiny bit closer, bumps their noses and Ohno grins. It’s Ohno that leans in first, but it’s Nino that leans into it, and he’s learning to love this easy slide of lips, how Ohno sighs into it and holds him close by his neck.
So Nino does what the only logical thing is to do when you’re getting kissed by a hot, gorgeous, sweet man - he presses himself flush to Ohno, slotting a leg in between Ohno’s, and kisses him, licks into his mouth and may make some embarrassing sounds at the back of his throat, tighten his fingers in Ohno’s shirt, arch into every touch. He can’t quite breathe just right, but does it matter? Ohno breaks away, panting.
“Nino,” Ohno says on a wet exhale into Nino’s neck.
“Oh-chan,” Nino decides. Screw that Ohno-san thing, having had his tongue down his throat kind of bypasses that formality, doesn’t it? Ohno breathes slowly and curls into him, lets a hand slide down Nino’s back in a broad swipe.
“I want -” Ohno starts, then unfurls and lays his head right next to Nino’s again, closer than before but not quite touching either. In the sparse bedside lamplight, Nino can only guess what Ohno wants. His hands are a scorching brand on Nino’s skin where they have pushed up under his shirt, nails lightly scratching. One hand slides out of his shirt and comes to rest on Nino’s face, around his ear, fingers light on Nino’s neck. “I want to- to look - can I look at you? Just look at you? For a little bit?”
And it’s embarrassing, Ohno so close and so searching, eyes wandering over Nino’s face, and he closes his eyes against the scrutiny, sort of expecting the gentle touch against his eyelids, down the slope of his nose and then a thumb at his lips.
“God, look at you.” A finger against his chin. “Mole,” Ohno whispers and even with his eyes closed, Nino knows he’s smiling, can hear it on his exhale like a promise.
“Silly,” Nino returns, equally whispering although he’s not entirely sure why, and he blinks his eyes open, sees Ohno so near, Ohno is a bit embarrassed too, this close, the way he lowers his eyes is telling, and his lovely grin is shy. Ohno ducks his head and Nino laughs, low and almost unnoticeable when Ohno tucks his head back in under Nino’s chin, and Nino just holds him close.
The rest of these four weeks can just come at him.
*
Part two