[oneshot] A Song of Sixpence
Title: A Song of Sixpence
Author: Luna (dreamweavernyx )
Pairing: Ohmiya
Genre: Fluff
Rating: PG
Summary: AU. One day Ohno finds an actor from a travelling theatre troupe lurking outside his bakery.
Notes: Happy (early) birthday to Nino~ :3
Beta-ed by keeconk .
~
Ohno’s had this routine for a long while now.
Every morning at four he wakes up and takes a five-minute walk - still very much half-asleep - to his small bakery. He will bake for four hours before opening the shop and displaying the fresh breads and pastries and other baked goods. Baking continues until lunch, and by three or four in the afternoon everything is sold out.
He then closes his shop and heads to the seaside to get in about five or six hours of solid fishing, before heading home to sleep.
And the cycle repeats.
Sho, his best friend, often tells him it’s a crazy routine. However, Sho is a night-shift doctor at the A & E so Ohno figures Sho’s schedule is probably crazier than his own.
Even the customers who come in everyday are the same customers. Ohno knows which customers will come in at which times, and he always knows roughly what they will buy. Office ladies drop in around eight-thirty for scones, businessmen around nine usually buy sandwiches and coffee, and schoolchildren drop by around two to clear his stock of donuts at one go.
It’s repetitive, and slightly boring at times, but Ohno likes it that way.
~
Then that one spring day, there is a slight change in his routine day.
Even before he opens his store, there is already a tired-looking man looking in hungrily, probably lured by the smell of baking pastries.
Ohno sees him when he walks out of the kitchen for a breather.
“Do you want to come in?” he asks, poking his head out of the window.
The man smiles ruefully.
“You open at eight, don’t you?”
Ohno unlocks the front door anyway, and lets the man in. He watches as the man gratefully sinks into a chair.
“I smelled something good,” the man tells him. “I followed my nose here, but I suppose you’re not ready yet, are you? Sorry for causing trouble.”
Noticing that he has rings under his eyes and looks half-dead, Ohno heads back to the kitchen and fetches a fresh croissant for the man.
“Thanks,” the man says gratefully. “I’m Ninomiya, by the way. Most just call me Nino.”
“I’m Ohno,” Ohno says. “I don’t remember seeing you around before.”
Nino smiles.
“I’m part of a traveling theatre troupe. We just got here yesterday, our first show is tonight and we stayed up all night last night rehearsing like crazy.”
Muffling a large yawn, Nino begins to eat the croissant, trying his best not to get pastry flakes from falling everywhere.
“What’re you performing?” Ohno asks curiously.
“Phantom of the Opera,” Nino says. “I’m playing the Phantom.”
“I’ll come and watch,” Ohno promises.
~
Ohno ends up going to the play by himself. Sho absolutely refuses to go despite the fact that the play ends before his shift at the hospital starts, and Jun’s away in France promoting his new line of designer clothing.
Phantom turns out to be very captivating, but when it is all over Ohno realizes all he can remember is Nino’s acting and singing.
He wonders why, but can’t come up with an answer.
~
Nino pops by the next day, still at the same early hour, but this time Ohno’s half-expected his arrival.
“I think I saw you,” Nino says between bites. “In the crowd. Last night. You actually came?”
Ohno smiles.
“I did.”
“How was the show?”
“It was perfect.”
You were perfect, he nearly says, but bites his tongue hard to prevent the words from slipping out.
“You’re too nice, Ohno-san,” Nino says, smiling a crooked half-smile.
“There’s no need to be so formal,” Ohno tells him, walking back to the kitchen to fetch a milk bun.
Nino’s eyes light up.
“I love milk buns,” he says, sounding more cheerful. “As much as I love hamburgers. Or money.”
“Right.”
~
By day four it’s pretty much become a routine for Ohno to find Nino lurking around at seven sharp. It’s his breakfast, he says, before he heads off for rehearsals.
“How long will you guys be here?” Ohno asks curiously. “You’re part of a traveling theatre troupe, right?”
Nino nods.
“About three weeks,” he says. “But we may come back here next year with a different play.”
“You might?”
Nino seems to have detected the faint lilt of hope in Ohno’s voice, and he laughs.
“I’ll come and visit you even if we don’t come here next year,” he says. “It’s a promise.”
Ohno can only blink, and Nino grins, patting Ohno’s head and getting sticky breadcrumbs in it.
“You’re really a nice person, you know. It’s only been four days and I like you already.”
~
Jun pops into his bakery one day.
“You’re back from France!” Ohno says, looking up from behind the counter where he’s reading his fishing magazine.
Jun nods, and walks in to examine the pastries, holding his black fedora in one hand.
“Give me two palmiers,” he says, before stopping suddenly and scrutinizing Ohno’s face.
Ohno suddenly feels uncomfortable.
“…What? Is there still flour on my face? I thought I washed it all off…”
Jun shakes his head, smiling.
“I haven’t seen that look on your face for ages,” he says. “You’re in love, aren’t you?”
“Am I that obvious?” Ohno blinks.
Jun’s smile turns a little bittersweet.
“No, not really,” says Jun softly. “But I’d know that look anywhere. I’ve seen it many times before, a long time ago.”
Guilt wells up suddenly in Ohno’s heart, and he swallows.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Jun says, accepting the paper bag of palmiers from across the counter. “We’re still good friends, aren’t we? We just weren’t meant to be a couple.”
Ohno bites his lip and looks away, while Jun fishes in his pockets for money.
“Keep the change,” instructs Jun, placing a crisp bill next to the cash register. He turns and begins to walk out of the empty store.
“Oh, and Ohno?” Jun stops at the door and turns back his head.
“Yeah?”
“I hope it’ll work out this time. Be happy, alright?”
With that, he leaves the store. leaving Ohno staring blankly at the buns in the display case.
~
At the start of the second week Nino has already begun calling him ‘Oh-chan’, and one day Ohno finds not one, but two hungry actors outside his bakery.
“This is Aiba-chan,” Nino introduces. “He plays Raoul.”
Aiba Masaki - or Aiba-chan, as he insists on being called - is a happy-looking man, and Ohno somehow feels as if his store is brighter just from the human sunshine sitting in his bakery, tearing away at a hot dog bun.
When Nino disappears to the toilet, Aiba turns to Ohno with a conspirational look in his eye.
“Nino-chan really likes you, you know,” he says in a stage whisper.
Ohno blinks.
“I like him too,” Ohno says. “We get along very well, even though we’ve only known each other for a week.”
Aiba rolls his eyes.
“This isn’t a normal like, you know. All this week I’ve just been hearing about you and your wonderful baking and you and you and you.”
Ohno opens his mouth to reply, but at that moment Nino comes back, and he closes it, swallowing his words.
Nino doesn’t notice anything.
~
“Jun told me you’re in love,” Sho says one day, dropping by just before closing time for coffee and quiche.
Ohno groans and buries his face in his hands.
Sho laughs.
“I want to meet whoever you’ve fallen in love with, though,” he says. “Though really, you fall in love too easily.”
“Not that easily,” Ohno protest, and Sho sighs.
“Remember that time you fell for that ikemen-looking guy in the fishing gear shop? ‘Love at first sight’, you told me.”
“That was once!”
“I’d like to meet him,” Sho repeats seriously. “If it turns out you’ve fallen in love with another fishing mannequin…”
~
“Nino-chan doesn’t usually like people,” Aiba tells Ohno over tea, having dragged the baker out as soon as he’d finished closing up to a small café.
“He doesn’t?”
“No,” Aiba says. “So when he does like someone he’ll like them a lot.”
Ohno doesn’t see where this is going.
“The last time he really liked someone was that Nishikido guy,” Aiba continued. “But he turned out to be a total asshole. He almost raped Nino-chan, you know.”
“Aiba-kun, I don’t see what this has to do with me…”
Aiba shakes his head.
“Nino-chan was very upset for a very long time, you know. Now he really likes you. I just want you to swear you won’t make him sad again.”
Aiba’s eyes are forlorn, and something suddenly clicks in Ohno.
“You like Nino?”
“To him I’m his best friend since childhood, nothing more,” Aiba replies with a lopsided smile. “As long as he’s happy I’ll be content, so make sure you make him happy.”
Ohno exhales slowly.
“I’ll do my best,” he promises.
Aiba nods.
“Good. Then you’d best start off by letting him know you like him. Nino-chan doesn’t know, you know.”
There is a pause, and then Ohno sputters.
“Wait- Hold it- You knew I like him?”
“You keep staring at him,” Aiba says matter-of-factly. “I thought it was pretty obvious. Just not to Nino-chan, I guess.”
~
On day fourteen Ohno finally plucks up the courage to tell Nino.
“I like Nino,” he says, carefully watching to see how Nino takes this.
Nino puts his sandwich down.
“I like you too,” he says, voice not betraying anything.
Ohno takes a deep breath.
“No,” he says. “I really, really like you, Nino.”
He glances straight into Nino’s eyes as he says this, and is rewarded with a flare of hope in the younger man’s eyes.
Pretty, his mind thinks, but he ignores this as he waits for Nino’s reply.
“I really, really like Oh-chan too,” he says slowly.
Ohno feels a grin slowly break out across his face.
~
“But Oh-chan, I’ll be leaving in a week. For Osaka.”
It is a while before Ohno replies.
“Do you have a cell phone? Give me your number.”
Nino digs around in his satchel and fishes out a pen, scribbling a number hastily onto a napkin.
“Here,” he says, pushing the napkin to Ohno.
Ohno smiles.
“We can keep in touch this way, until the next time you get to come here again.”
~
Day seventeen is a public holiday, and thus the theatre troupe’s day off.
Ohno decides to bring Nino on one of his fishing expeditions. He keeps this a secret from Nino all the way till the wharf, and when Nino finds out he groans.
“I get seasick. Extremely easily.”
Ohno is dumbfounded.
“Oh.”
He stays silent for a while, then an idea comes to him.
“We can still fish,” he says. “Without the boat.”
They spend an afternoon sitting with their legs dangling off the wharf, eating sandwiches and watching their lines cast into the water.
Neither catches a single fish by nightfall.
Ohno is slightly disappointed, until Nino stops by a taiyaki stand and buys two chocolate-flavoured ones.
“Here,” he says, handing one to Ohno. “This is the fish we didn’t find at the wharf today.”
Ohno beams at the gesture.
It is only much later that he realizes the money used to pay for the taiyaki had somehow disappeared from his wallet without him realizing.
Somehow, he doesn’t mind.
~
The theatre troupe leaves eventually, but almost every day Ohno gets pictures of the sea and of bread and of Nino sent to his phone.
Today I saw a man with a huge fish! Nino writes in his text message one day. I wonder if Oh-chan’s caught any this big before.
Ohno looks at the picture of an old man with a huge snapper and grins.
I haven’t, he begins to type out. But I’ve made huge baguettes before.
Several minutes later he gets back a message with a simple laughing emoticon, and he smiles to himself again.
~
But slowly, gradually, the text messages grow less and less frequent.
“Maybe he’s slowly forgetting about you,” Jun says at dinner one night, when Ohno brings this up.
Sho shakes his head.
“I only get letters from Maki-chan in England once a month,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean that she’s forgotten about me. It just means that we no longer have to stay up at unholy hours of the night to go on Skype for hours every day to know how the other is doing, we just know. It just means we’re past the honeymoon stage.”
“If you say so,” Ohno says.
~
It’s my birthday in two weeks, Nino’s new message says. I wonder if the troupe will all get a day off because of it? We didn’t for Kamenashi-kun’s but I guess one can hope. Today I went to a great bakery! But the buns don’t taste like yours…
Maybe I’ll bring you buns for your birthday, he writes back.
He gets no reply.
~
It’s a long journey, even by bullet train, but eventually Ohno finds himself in Kyoto, rather lost and clutching a big cake box.
“Excuse me,” he asks a salaryman walking by. “Do you happen to know where the Phantom of the Opera play is being held?”
“Just walk that way, you’ll get there in fifteen minutes if you go straight,” the salaryman says hurriedly, before rushing off to catch the train.
He does get to the theatre after two wrong turns, and wanders in until he finds a staff entrance. Feeling foolish, he knocks.
The door opens.
“Yes? Only troupe members are allowed backstage.”
“I’d like to see Nino,” Ohno tells the troupe member, who frowns.
“Only troupe members are allowed backstage-” he repeats, until a familiar voice cuts in.
“Ohno-kun?”
Ohno blinks to see Aiba standing behind the troupe member.
“I’m…here to see Nino,” Ohno says, suddenly feeling very stupid.
“Ah!” Aiba says, noticing the slightly bent cake box. “This way. He’s my guest now, Nakamaru-kun, so he’s allowed to come in, alright?”
Ohno follows Aiba down a maze of corridors, finally stopping outside a door.
“This is the dressing room Nino-chan and I share,” Aiba says. “Go ahead, he’s inside. Feeling pretty miserable about the bad sandwiches we had for lunch and all.”
Taking a deep breath, Ohno pushes open the door.
He sees Nino lounging on the sofa, jumping up immediately when the door squeaks open.
They stare at each other blankly for a while.
“…Oh-chan?” Nino asks disbelievingly.
“Happy birthday,” Ohno says, feeling slightly awkward. “Here, I brought you something.”
He sets down his cake box on the table, and opens it to reveal a concentric pyramid of milk buns with a Happy Birthday plastic sign stuck in front.
Nino stares at the milk buns, opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.
“You actually came,” he whispers.
“I did.”
Nino looks from him to the milk buns again, out of words to say.
“Let’s eat!” Aiba says excitedly from behind them, and Nino smiles, reaching for a milk bun.
“Thanks, Oh-chan,” he says. “And your buns are as delicious as ever.”
Ohno beams, patting Nino’s head.
“No problem. Happy birthday, Nino.”
“This is the best birthday I’ve had in a while,” Nino informs him with his mouth full of bread.
“Glad to hear it.”
~
Around Christmas Nino sends him a box of fishing gear via post.
Jun later complains about him spending the day walking around with a fishing vest of all things on, but Ohno just grins and waves him off.
~
One morning in spring Ohno pokes his head out of the bakery for a breath of fresh air, only to blink in surprise to see a familiar man leaning against the wall of his shop.
“We’re doing Carmen this time,” Nino informs him. “We’ll be here for three weeks.”
Ohno can’t help but smile.
“Welcome back,” he says. “I have some milk buns fresh out of the oven.”
“I’d very much like that,” Nino laughs, following Ohno into the store. “Oh, and Oh-chan?”
“Yeah?”
Nino gives Ohno a brief hug.
“Tadaima.”
fin.