Results of Yuletide Fanfic Contest...
Well, folks, your mods have some sad news regarding this contest. Perhaps we chose a bad time to hold a contest, what with Christmas and the New Years being a busy time for all, or perhaps we just didn't do enough pimping.
Whatever the case, sei_shoku had a grand total of ONE submission - as such, we've decided to scrap this Yuletide contest and hold a new one either in this month or the next.
We would like to thank miscetera for her participation - and dedication, in fact, because the lovely lady had the patience to edit and resend her fanfic - by presenting her with the option of a $5 Livejournal certificate or a $5 Yesasia gift certificate. misetera, please send an email to noniramen [at] email [dot] com with your decision. ♥
Without further ado, here is miscetera's wonderful piece of writing:
Rating: PG
Summary: Every time two roads diverge, it is a chance to prove that you can walk proudly down your own path. (Or, everyone wants to travel for a change and Nino doesn't see what's wrong with staying home.)
Notes: AU. Based on "Boku ga Boku no Subete". Huge thanks to R for betaing! ♥
In a Yellow Wood
Every day, the five of them meet in the same coffee shop. Nino works there, so he's always sure to save the same table and set of couches for them, but it's not like an organized convention in which they wait for all five of them to gather before ordering drinks and letting loose. Sometimes, it might only be Sho who swings by during his lunch break to talk to Nino who weaves around the tables, cursing the narrowness of the aisles. Other times, because Sho has to work overtime at the office and Nino can't get his butt in a chair longer than the time it takes to say, "I am going to stab the next person who asks for a scone," it might only be Jun and Aiba and Ohno
Despite the fact that the nexus which binds them together goes beyond friendship, the five of them are really a pretty haphazardly banded group. After all, they don't have much in common, whether it's family background, economic status, hobbies, or profession - but they don't really see that as much of a problem. It's been too long since they've known each other - been too many days of dreams and worries and laughter and laughter ago - that it doesn't make sense to start asking questions now. When roads wind in their favor, they don't doubt. That's the beauty of it all.
Aiba closes his eyes and points to a spot on the map. "Ussbekeaoiewfj - we should totally go there for Christmas," he says.
Nino wholeheartedly stabs a button on his DS, which makes triumphant sounds. "The day you learn how to read katakana properly, I promise you," he says at the same time Sho says, "Uzbekistan, you mean. And I was kind of thinking New York for New Year's Eve. Wouldn't it be nice to go watch the ball drop? I hear a lot of people go to New York to watch that. Or maybe they just go to get caught kissing at midnight on national television." He considers that and wrinkles his nose. "You never know with Americans."
"I want to go to Vegas to see the hotels," Jun says.
"Fishing would be nice for Christmas," Ohno muses.
"Fishing is good for you regardless of season," Nino says. "I think we should stay home. The economy sucks." He clicks a bunch of buttons in succession as concentration silvers his eyes. The rest of them wait for him to expound on what he says. When he doesn't, they move on, slightly thrown. He might have something on his mind, a topic he can't quite broach right out in the middle of a full Tokyo café - or he might just really, really want to advance to the next level in his game.
Later, Nino puts down his DS and rummages through his bag. He pulls out his checkbook and opens it. He says, as though there hadn't been a break at all in the conversation since his comment about the recession, "See, I was balancing my checkbook yesterday - "
"You - know how to balance your checkbook?" Sho says. He's so proud he looks like he might cry.
"Don't be dramatic," Nino says. "I'm telling you, when graphs start to look like potentially lethal ski slopes, this type of stuff is important. But anyway, you know how every year - "
"Oh!" Jun glances up suddenly at the giant analogue over the coffee maker and makes a face like he's having a brief aneurysm. "Sorry for interrupting I'm going to be late for rehearsals I have to take off I'll see you guys later," he says in one long breath, sans punctuation. He tips the rest of his coffee down his throat before tugging on his coat, putting his left arm in the wrong hole a couple of times before getting it right. He's pretty flustered.
They watch as he flies out the door, the tail of his coat catching on a stray nail outside. He swears and tugs it free carefully before hurrying along. There are many people shuffling all around him, sporting varying levels of anxiety in the slouches of their backs.
"Christmas should be more festive," Aiba observes, frowning.
"I think Nino's making bits of my croissant disappear," Ohno says, blinking down at his plate and then at Nino, whose chin is digging into his shoulder. "Is that a new trick?"
"Ah, no, sorry, I've been eating it," Sho says sheepishly. "I'll go buy you a new one later. I haven't eaten since this morning. We're trying to rush out this report before the end of the year."
Aiba's frown deepens.
"You're upsetting the Christmas Eve baby, Sho-san," Nino says. "Stop it."
"I'm sorry," Sho says and looks it. "My supervisor has a lot of faith in me, so I have to meet his expectations. I can't help it."
And that's just like him - like all of them, really. They're not particularly ambitious people, but they're good at rising to the occasion because it's what living honestly is all about: every day, you overcome some sadness and take one more step forward, just as you are.
Nino met Sho at a dinner party.
Nino didn't know what he was doing there. Well, no, that wasn't true: his mother had asked him to go because she'd received an invitation from an old friend from high school. (Out of pure politesse, Nino suspects. The rich bastard hadn't even known that she'd had a name change.) Nino didn't belong in this world in which "merger" and "stakeholders" were part of people's everyday vocabulary. People were not warm toward him, but they weren't rude either; and see, that was the worst part, the emptiest feeling in the world. When people don't even care enough to find you distasteful.
It made sense, then, that Nino fell a little for Sho, who wobbled toward him asking if he knew where the restroom was because man, no one told him daikons were so amazingly diuretic until after he gobbled down an entire bowl of the stew. Nino suppressed a smile and pointed Sho in the right direction. After Sho exited the restroom, visibly more at ease, Nino had expected him to re-immerse himself in the crowd of bald men and proper ladies, but he didn't. He joined Nino in his little niche in the back corner and asked him what his name was.
It was easy to love grand Cineplexes that made billions of dollars, brought magical worlds to millions of people, but true character showed when you found something beautiful in a theatre that could barely afford a real set. It went for people, too. Nino found that Sho was one of those people, smart and eloquent and overly scrupulous - but also genuine and good-humored and deeply appreciative of the same cheap food that Nino was fond of. By the end of the evening, Sho managed to win over a real laugh and smile from Nino. A step in the right direction.
It's seven in the morning on a lazy Sunday. Ohno has a lapful of Nino who is helping him decode the messages on holiday gifts he received from his students and Nino has a lapful of Sho who looks like he's making love to a financial journal.
Nino jostles his right thigh underneath Sho's shoulders. "Stop cheating on us with pedantic things and go make breakfast. The stomach underneath my head keeps whining in my ear and moving."
"I'm on kitchen probation," Sho says and turns a page.
"Then go put corn on bread," Nino says. "That much you can do, right?"
"Doubtful," Sho says.
Nino narrows his eyes and cranes his neck to look at Ohno upside down. "Do we happen to still have that sword from when we played ninjas? I just thought of a really practical use for it."
Ohno still seems to be teetering on the edge of consciousness. Sho and Nino rise too early for him. "Violence is bad," he mumbles half-assedly.
"You could always go make us something to eat," Sho says, just as he spots something of particular interest and brings his magazine a little closer to his face. He's at a prime distance to make out with it. It's pretty gross.
"But it's cold," Nino says. "You're better with the cold." After sundown and before sunrise, Nino refuses to walk around the apartment without bundling up. It gets a little miserable, but they cope with what they have. They're good at that. "And you," Nino says, patting Ohno on the thigh to wake him up. He sits a bear with a beanie butt and polka-dotted ribbon on his left leg, the one that the weight of Sho's shoulders isn't putting to sleep, and reads aloud the little card attached at the neck. "Are you leading your students on or something? They're, like, seven."
"I teach at a high school," Ohno says.
"Because that makes them any more legal," Nino says. "This is a complete love confession, no matter how you look at it. I mean, she's talking about your hands. How - explicit is that."
"She's only alluding to them, you know," Sho says, laughing. "Besides, Satoshi-kun does have excellent hands."
"But these people have only ever seen him in the classroom. What do they know about the lines and planes," Nino says. He keeps poking the bear in its plush tummy.
This isn't called jealousy and isn't Nino being ridiculous or difficult. Nino has an effective way of talking in veiled hints that reveal themselves in concealing, and it's easy for Sho and Ohno to tell that this is about what it's always been about when Nino looks over Ohno's shoulders as Ohno works on a demonstration drawing of fruit bowls or 3-D shapes for his students, and frowns but admits, later, that the drawings are good all the same. Nino loves Ohno's art and is as supportive as anyone of Ohno's work. There's just no fire without some smoke.
Sho gets up to make breakfast.
Ohno joined their group before Jun and after Aiba.
Sho met him first in the woods where he was chasing after the dog Aiba asked him to look after. He was just beginning to question whether it was a dog or a cheetah he was after when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a whole human being sprung out in front of him, sitting cross-legged on a rock in front of a river. He screamed, like a little girl. The man turned around, a piece of manila cloth in one hand and an ink pen in the other. He was so dark, though, that Sho just stared at him, at a loss.
"What country - " he said, bewildered.
"Japan," the guy said. "My 23rd year."
"Right," Sho said. "Right, I mean, just. Lemme make a call." He pulled out his cell phone and dialed for Nino, whom he didn't quite know how to explain the situation to. "In Hirata-san's - Aiba-kun's neighbor's woods, there's an..."
"Ohno," Ohno provided. "Me Ohno, you..."
"Sakurai. Sakurai Sho," Sho said as Nino said, "Stop playing Tarzan and Jane with people you don't know. I'm coming over, all right?"
And when Nino arrived, he was even worse. There was a quality in Ohno that was endearing like a child, healing like sticks of sunlight in autumn, but at the same time quirky like the wording of a riddle. It left Nino wanting to know more, Sho could tell. Anyone with eyes would be able to tell, really, with the way Nino had an arm leaning into the dip where Ohno's neck ran into his shoulder. Studying the portrait Ohno drew on the cloth by looking into the reflection of the river, Nino asked him if he was a freelance artist or if he worked for anyone. Ohno explained that he was still a college student. This was the last entry in his portfolio.
"When you graduate, it'd be good if you could stay like this," Nino considered aloud. "If you become a teacher or something, people will try to take this away from you, you know. You won't be able to randomly trespass and loiter on private property and do work that actually matters to you. They'll probably make you draw fruits and naked people."
"That wouldn't be the end of the world," Ohno said with a grin.
Nino smacked him over the head. "You were supposed to say something more sensible, like 'at least it pays the bills'."
"At least it pays the bills," Ohno repeated faithfully.
Jun arrives at the coffee shop with trombone case in hand and his hair saturated in melting snow. He looks impeccably like all those pictures in psychology textbooks of stressed people which you always thought were exaggerated. He sits down and closes his eyes, draping an arm over them without a word to anyone. He looks pressed down by a physical exhaustion that is haunting his body and about to reach for his soul.
Aiba orders him a coffee. ("Give him the strongest you've got," he says to the anxious young waitress who comes by, while throwing Jun worried looks. "Is Tylenol on your menu by any chance?" She gives him a look like a deer caught in headlights. He apologizes and lets her go.)
Waiting for Jun to be in the mood to talk is awkward in a crowd of four. Sho watches Ohno pleat napkins into endless mountains and valleys as Nino restlessly shifts around on the couch until Aiba puts a hand on his knee to hold him down. Then, Nino folds his legs and picks at the seams of his jeans. Aiba looks down at his boots. They're getting old; his big toe is about to break through the thinned leather.
"I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis," Jun says, eventually.
"We can imagine," Sho says, not unkindly, just like he wants Jun to know that they're all ready to understand.
Jun leans forward on his elbows. "You were right," he says to Nino, "the economy does suck. There are budget cutbacks everywhere. It's like. It's like how can people be expected to do their best if, regardless of whether or not they're killing themselves with work, they can't be guaranteed a job the next week. I try so hard it hurts, but I know I'm no musical genius, not that I think success is solely dependent on talent, but it sure doesn't hurt to have perfect pitch, and somehow. I don't know. Plus, to make matters worse, I can't find my Chapstick because I think Aiba stole it from me last week."
"Is your orchestra downsizing?" Nino asks.
"It'll be all right!" Aiba says, jumping up to throw his arms around Jun, enveloping him in a big bear hug. "I'll give you back your Chapstick even though it smells a little like garlic now, and we'll totally be here for you. Like, don't worry about this week's rent or the food or - "
"I didn't get cut," Jun says, whacking him over the head. "Yet, anyway. Thanks for the faith though."
Aiba sits back in his seat.
Jun frowns at his hands. "Don't you wonder if you'd be better off doing something else?"
"For you, 'something else' would be being a Johnny's, probably," Nino says. "You'd totally be the type that gets in with a picture audition, if you're really considering it."
"But he can't be a Johnny's," Aiba decides firmly. "Johnny's can't idle around in cafés with us."
"Right, because they'd be idoling on stage," Sho says.
Jun blinks at him a couple of times. "…Good one," he says but smiles anyway because Sho is sometimes such a living example of when failures can be just as charming as successes.
Sho is about to return with a grin when his cell phone begins to ring: moshi boku ga ano hi sukoshi chigau mirai wo eranda toshitara.... When he peers at the caller ID, he ducks his head apologetically and says, "Sorry, it's my supervisor. I'm going to take it."
Sho returns with a different light in his eyes, but when they ask him if he's okay, he insists it's nothing. "Just the usual," he says, which is about the most standard evasive response ever. He seats himself and takes a drink of coffee. Out of the corners of his eyes, he sneaks looks at the four of them. He takes another drink.
Sho is sitting out on the balcony with the paper. Only, instead of reading it, he's drawing little stick people skiing down all the line graphs. When Nino and Ohno round on him at once, wrapped up to their noses in woolen scarves and big Eskimo coats, Sho jumps. Nino says something muffled underneath all the clothing.
"Huh?"
Nino tries again, gesturing at the newspaper.
"What?"
"Mfn" - Ohno tugs down Nino's scarf a little - "guy is going to die a very painful death." He shivers and pulls his scarf back up, shooting laser beam eyes at Ohno. "Nhmmnru nyum," he says, which presumably translates something to the effect of "And so are you."
Sho laughs a little. "We haven't hit rock bottom yet. We're still measuring positives, you know," he says.
Incomprehensible protests.
"I should stop saying things that elicit responses, shouldn't I." Sho watches as Ohno and Nino take seats to either side of him. "But that might kind of be a good thing, since I want to talk to you guys a little about something. It might go over better without side commentary."
Ohno mimes taking a phone call and tilts his head.
"Yeah, the call from earlier," Sho says. "You guys know how my firm's been preparing for the opening of a new branch, so it's been crazy lately. This morning, what my supervisor called me for, he..."
Nino points to Sho, and then sticks his arms out like a tee and mimics a plane taking off.
Sho looks at Nino for a very, very long time. "Mm," he says finally.
Ohno waves a hand to prompt him to continue.
"It's just..." Sho says. He can't seem to find the words in himself.
Nino pushes him in the arm, universal for stop trying to be an intellectual prick and just spit it out, we won't laugh too hard if you sound like an idiot, promise.
It spills out, all at once, mindboggling and messy. "You guys know how because of this it's been crazy lately but my supervisor wants me to lead this new branch because he doesn't want to take chances with new people, which is understandable because everyone's struggling to stay afloat as it is, and we really don't need anyone to add chaos to disorder, and you know, if I do go, it'd only be for two years, until things settle down, and it's not like I'll have to move out; it's just that I'll spend more time on the road and less at home. But my supervisor's not assigning me this position, he's offering me the - choice." He stumbles at the end of his convoluted explanation because his own word choice offends him.
Nino levels a steady look at Sho.
"I didn't know what to say. What should I - what do you want me to tell him?" Sho flexes his fingers against his thigh.
"Yes," Nino says, stretching his neck out from its cozy alcove, "or no. Those tend to be the standard responses." His voice is carefully detached, neither giving his approval nor making any objection. Nino is trying to leave Sho margins to think for himself because answers are so much more meaningful when they are derived from your own mind.
When Sho looks to Ohno, Ohno offers him a soft smile. "You don't have to give him an answer right away, right?" he says.
"I have until New Year's to make my decision," Sho says.
"Then take it slow," Ohno says. "We'll think about it all together and even make a pros and cons list if you want."
He weaves his gloved fingers with Sho's bare ones. In his hands, Ohno holds amazing heat that radiates through the layers of chocolate brown yarn so that Sho's skin melts into it like a reflex, like a fairytale - an old, familiar story that resounds in your heart. And when Sho takes Nino's right hand in his left, it's a different type of tale. He can entrust the deepest crevices of his mind to this story because it's dynamic and alive and morphs to accommodate everything that's racing through Sho's mind like the final leg of a marathon. Knowing Nino is like peeling the bark of a tree: the underside isn't as rough as what you see on the surface.
"Just because the last one worked out in our favor," Nino says.
"Which must mean that it's a good idea," Ohno says. "Besides, you're benefitting from its success, aren't you?"
"Well." Nino makes a put-upon face and crosses his legs and sits on them. He's looking out over the tops of glass buildings, into the dark folds of night, refusing to meet Sho's or Ohno's eyes. After a seemingly interminable silence, he says quietly, like he's telling a secret, "Probably." He squeezes Sho's hand, softly, and the liquid affection of it spills through Sho's veins until it reaches Ohno, too, ever as warm.
The game started when Sho walked in on the two of them, Nino and Ohno, pressed to each other against the back wall of Nino's bedroom. They kissed smooth like statues - an optical illusion, a mirror image that was folding into itself. It was dizzying, dizzying like drinking frost and swallowing heat. He tried to back out, but Ohno's voice called out to him and he was hooked. They draped his name around him like a net, and the only thing that fell through was any inhibition that told him no. Three months in, it stopped being a game. Games were fun, and being torn between diverging roads was anything but.
Eventually, Sho faced that he had a decision at his feet. Ohno and Nino encouraged him to settle it his own way. Sho didn't exactly know what his own way was so he thought back to the nights in college before class registration was due and all the times he spent pinning the positives against the negatives (this professor was kinder, more patient; but this subject interested him more).
When Sho slid his double-column list across the table, Nino read it carefully. The three of them were rolling an orange around, and it stopped in Nino's hands for a moment. The pros and cons were balanced, but when Nino met Sho's eyes, Sho saw that Nino's were clouded with disappointment, the loneliest look in the world, like trying to divide by zero. Nino didn't say anything. He was looking, just looking. It drove Sho crazy.
"What?"
"You're pretty bad at this," Nino said, pushing the orange toward Ohno. "You completely evaded the point."
"Well, the point was - "
"Because I'm guessing that when it really comes down to it, Ohno-kun's towels aren't going to stop you from being with us any more than my 'shady but kind of cool' collection of video game action figures are honestly going to convince you." Nino pressed the piece of paper back into Sho's hands, lingering just long enough that Sho's forefinger jumped against the bump of Nino's pulse.
"And my towels really aren't that bad," Ohno said, watching as Sho trapped his pass. "I'll let you wash them if it really bothers you."
"It doesn't, not really," Sho admitted.
"You like him the way he is," Nino said. He didn't phrase it like one, but it was a question, one he was asking for both of them.
Sho picked a little at the skin of the orange with his right hand and wordlessly balled up the list with his left. He moved the hand with the orange by accident and shot it at the trash. He turned back around to face Nino and Ohno, sheepish. He cleared his throat and threw the list behind him, too. "Well, you get the point."
"I've always wondered," Aiba says, "but what is this 'flan' thing you guys have on the menu?" He brings the menu a little closer to his face, like it's his vision that is the problem, not his culinary knowledge. "Like, flaaaan, or - Fran? A foreigner's name?"
Nino just stares up at him and pushes aside the deck of cards he's holding. Aiba puts down the menu and tilts his head at Nino. He has been gnawing on his straw watching Nino do the same trick over and over. Nino knows he gets shifty as hell when he's anxious, but that can't be helped.
"So, really, what's up?" Aiba asks.
"Do you ever regret not going to college?" Nino says.
"Is this going to lead to another conversation in which you make pick at my intelligence," Aiba says, pout forming at his lips.
"No," Nino says. "Just curious."
Aiba shrugs. "You know how it went."
Just about.
Aiba didn't try hard enough in school to get in any prestigious college, but he was no flunky either. He had enough curiosity to want to learn, just not about all the traditional stuff. He didn't give a damn about whether it was Perry or Polo who opened Japan to the West, nor did he care at all about what the capital of Russia was. If you asked him about trivia though, all those obscure facts that people would shoot weird looks at you for asking, he'd give you an answer in point six seconds flat. The reaches of his mind simply could not be contained by a dull, grey tutelage measured by rules and tradition, barren of actual ideas; but he didn't seem to have too much of a problem with that. He never liked school anyway.
Though honestly, that still isn't why he didn't go to college. Much as he despised school, he could have pushed on because it would open more paths for him. Honestly, he doesn't because of a girl, a girl he liked with all his heart - and see, there's the problem. It's never been about the boundaries of Aiba's mind. It is about that Aiba has a strong heart and that he is loyal to it to the end. Nino would call him an idiot for it except at the very least, Aiba closed the gate to roads ahead because of something he believed in. Nino just didn't have the drive for it. It isn't that he wants to remain in place as much as it is that he just wants to walk steadily forward on the road he's on. He does try hard and treat his responsibilities seriously; he just doesn't always see the need to apply himself to the fullest.
Sho, on the other hand - Sho has everything he needs to sprint onto higher ground because he welcomes new experiences, loves a good challenge. Even so, even though they would take different routes, they would see each other from where they are, and well. Sho's always been good at meeting people in the middle.
He would do well at the new branch.
"I should get going," Aiba says. "I have to finish shopping for gifts. I still haven't gotten anything for Yuu-chan."
"Yuu-chan?" Nino echoes, even though there's nothing strange about the fact that the girl Aiba's running around for has changed again. "What happened with Sorime-chan? The one who wouldn't eat anything orange?"
Aiba makes a face. "I wonder," he says, and that isn't anything unusual either. He always devotes so much of himself to a relationship that it never quite makes sense to him why it doesn't work out. "I guess she didn't like me eating anything orange either? I ordered fried chicken the last time we met."
"Are you sure it's not because you kept saying things that would offend a girl with any degree of sensitivity, her mother, her sister, her aunt, and her two female dogs?" Nino says. "Because you say things like that sometimes."
"Do not," Aiba protests.
"Then Aiba-san," Nino says, watching Aiba stand and gather his scarf around his neck, "this year when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, instead of wishing for chocolate and manga, maybe you should wish for a girl who'll put up with you for more than two weeks."
Aiba punches Nino in the shoulder and laughs. It's only when Aiba turns away that Nino notices that it all reaches a little short.
As Jun walks towards his car after rehearsal, he spots a familiar figure in the park adjacent to the parking lot. When he strolls closer, he sees that it's Ohno, sitting on a snow-covered boulder, holding up a white canvas with his left hand and drawing on it with his right.
"Your ass is going to freeze," Jun calls out to him.
Ohno doesn't respond.
Jun rolls his eyes and walks up behind Ohno and puts both hands on Ohno's shoulders. Ohno jumps a little. When he turns around, he blinks a few times before showing a sheepish smile. "Hey," he says. "I missed my bus."
"And started wandering around until something you wanted to draw caught your eye, of course you did," Jun says fondly, seating himself back-to-back with Ohno on the boulder. He twists his head around to look over Ohno's shoulders at the triangle of three snow-covered fern trees he's drawing, then down at his canvas. Jun recognizes faces in Ohno's drawing that he doesn't see in the trees. "That's...Sakurai, isn't it?" Jun points to the one on the left, the one with a protruding birch in the center that resembles Sho's nose.
"You can tell?" Ohno says, pleased.
"Mm," Jun says, "but can you actually see the three of you in those trees?"
"Can't you?" Ohno says, smiling up at the trees. "Those two long, thin-ish leaves here, don't those look like Nino's eyes?"
"You guys are gross," Jun says, even though he is admittedly a little jealous. Jealous of the simplicity of their relationship because having something work between two people is enough of a feat as it is, but the three of them seem to pull it off so easily. Maybe it is that they don't try to merge themselves into a single unity. They let one another walk along at their own pace because you just have that much more fun when there's no pressure on your back to weigh you down. Playing trombone is that way, too - or used to be, anyway.
Jun's cell phone rings then. He reaches into his back pocket to get it, delving by mistake into Ohno's pocket first. Ohno laughs at him and half-heartedly says, "Stop that." Jun does it once more just to play with him.
"Hello?" Jun is about to say before Aiba's voice booms through the receiver.
"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE HAVE THEIR CELL PHONES ON." Aiba is screaming over what sounds like the wailing of a small principality of babies. "Department stores are ridiculous and I am so lost and there are, like, seventy of these creatures crying their heads off because they don't want to get their pictures taken, Matssun you're my only hope, come rescue me."
"First, take a deep breath," Jun says. "And then, don't let it out for a very, very long time."
"HEY," Aiba says. "I'M SERIOUS YOU KNOW IT'S REALLY DANGEROUS IN HERE."
"All right, I get it. I think I know where you are. Don't wander too far away, okay?" Jun says. "Let me just go retrieve a white horse from the farm and my armor from the museum and I'll be on my way." He hangs up and says to Ohno, who's cracking up at the way Aiba's flailing is fully audible but completely incomprehensible from where he's sitting, "Do you want to come with? We'll go rescue this guy and I'll drop you off at home."
"It's all right," Ohno says. "The next bus is coming in about twenty minutes. I want to finish this."
"If you're sure," Jun says, flicking the ball on Ohno's hat.
"Oh," Ohno says, "but I think Nino was looking for you earlier. He said he wanted your help on something or another. Call him sometime today?"
"If he wants to check on the status of his New Year's money, tell him he needs to build a time capsule that'll catapult him back to when he was about seven," Jun says but agrees to going over to their apartment later. He walks toward his car.
The next day, a monstrous blizzard greets Sho when he throws open the curtains in the morning.
"Oh, god," Sho says. "It's December 12."
"It's the end of the world," he and Nino and Ohno say at the same time.
"Except, you know, it's kind of coming three years earlier than the Mayans expected," Nino says, as he throws an armful of Sho's clothes to Ohno who throws it out into the hall. Some days, Nino goes berserk and starts cleaning like a banshee. Today, he reasons that if they are all going to die, they are going to die in a clean environment not littered haphazardly with Sho's laundry and Ohno's fishing magazines.
Walking by on the way to the restroom, Sho gets hit in the head with one of his own socks. He peels it off his face. "You know, it might not be the disaster outside that kills us," he says, "but that you two might just bury us all alive under my clothes."
"Isn't this mine?" Nino says, holding up a blue t-shirt. "Why is it under the bed?"
"No, that's mine," Sho says. "I liked yours so I bought my own, except it isn't really the same thing. I think I only like yours because it smelled like you."
"Don't say creepy things so early in the morning," Nino grumbles. He's trying to hide his face behind the shirt. He feels around under the bed a little more and comes into contact with a couple more shirts and some unpaired socks, too. "I would say that I'm performing one of those magic tricks that involves me pulling out clothing for days on end from under here if it weren't for that I'm really, really afraid of that." He feels something paper and rolls his eyes. "Fishing magazines, too. Seriously, this trick would be revolutionary." He pulls it out - it's a single piece of paper, not a magazine like he thought - and reads.
Ohno and Sho turn to look at him because he's grown quiet, and Sho winces when he sees what Nino is holding.
"You got a formal offer letter," Nino says, "for your new position."
Sho spears his fingers through his hair and makes a face like he's realized he's slipped up. "Yeah, I guess under the bed wasn't really a great place to hide that. It makes it feel kind of...real, when you actually see it on paper, doesn't it?"
Nino taps his fingers on the metal frame of the bed. "Do you want it to be real?" he asks.
"Maybe. Kind of. Yes." Sho bites his lip.
Nino raises an eyebrow.
"Yes," Sho repeats with more conviction. "It's just that I, I won't have time to hang out at the coffee shop during the week anymore. I bet the other branch's coffee is crappy."
"Your prioritization prowess, I am so underwhelmed by it," Nino says. He laughs softly and shrugs. "But I mean, I guess that means when you get home, I'll have to make you really awesome coffee, to compensate. Or at least bully Oh-chan into making you coffee."
"I'm surprisingly amazing at it," Ohno asserts.
"Don't you guys want a say at all in this?" Sho says. "I mean, it's not really just my decision, right?"
At first, there's no response. Nino hands the paper to Ohno, who throws it out into the hall at Sho, like they've done with all of Sho's other things. Sho can't pitch to save his life, but he catches beautifully. He looks down at the letter in his hands, then up at the two people in front of him.
"No matter how the decision goes through the two of us," Nino says, "the real choice is in your hands. Isn't that the way we've always rolled?"
Sho considers this and folds the letter twice before tucking it into his breast pocket. "Right."
Nino and Ohno exchange small, proud smiles before ducking back down to dump more things into the hall. They'll miss Sho while he's away, but Sho would miss the chance to step into the future he believes in the most. That would be much, much crueler.
"What you said about it only being two years," Ohno says, "that'd better be true."
"When the world does end in 2012," Nino says, "you'd better be here and not away calculating the effect the imminent apocalypse is having on the economy or anything. Otherwise, whatever cataclysmic natural disaster really won't be the cause of your death."
Sho is smiling so hard he knows his cheeks are going to ache once he stops. "I promise," he says, with heavy sincerity that contrasts the air that flows through his lungs, warm and easy.
After the apartment is satisfactorily clean, the three of them turn off all the lights and live off the moonlight. It's brighter out tonight, the glimmer of the snow reflecting into the sky. The shadow of the laundry Sho left out to dry the previous day looms into the room. When the moon shifts in the sky, there is a different shadow, of the bald branches of the trees outside. Nino points out that it looks like a demon with long hair. Kids would freak out if they saw a scary image like that through their window. Sho looks at the thin branches that splinter off the trunk and thinks about how they can't receive the same support and nourishment from the root but have no choice but to push on. They can't give up until their gangly, trying arms embrace the gentle moon; otherwise, the pain wouldn't be worth it. He'll have to work hard at his new position.
But until then, he wraps the three of them under the same blanket in front of the television. They pass each other kisses, heat rising from their lips into the air and murmurs rolling across the room like a ball of yarn unraveling. When they fall asleep, whites and fairy blues light their faces as they hear the enthusiasm of commercial actors in their dreams.
The snow doesn't quit all the way up until Christmas Eve. It's a freak of nature that locks everyone up right at home, with the people who matter most anyway.
Nino's kitchen smells like a cultural festival.
"You have enough food in here to last a month," Jun says. "Or three. Are you guys always equipped for severe weather conditions like this?"
"The refrigerator was the only part of the house we didn't clear out. Everything else went out into the hall - and oh dear god, you're going to burn down the apartment," Nino says, covering his face with his hands.
"It's okay, I have it under control!" Aiba says. "Men do this in Uzbekistan all the time. In fact, they actually pride themselves on their ability to make praavbhoepf."
"I hope you don't pride yourself on your ability to read katakana," Nino says.
"Plov, all right? I know how to read," Aiba insists. "It just sounds miserable because it's short. I was trying to, you know, give it some sparkle." He turns the stove off high and leaves his plov simmering. "Okay, who wants some? Ohno-kun?"
"You try it first!" Nino and Jun and Sho scream at him at once.
"It's not like I'm going to poison him," Aiba says as Ohno gets up from the couch and opens his mouth when Aiba comes at him a spoonful of meat-onion-blueberry-rice mush. The visual is absolutely revolting.
Ohno chews it through thoughtfully. The conclusion: "Ah, this is good. You should sell this."
Aiba looks ecstatic.
"It's because there are enablers that people with problems can't change," Nino says, but goes all the same when Aiba waves him over for a little taste of the plov, too.
After dinner, a giant custard comes out of the oven.
"Um," Aiba says.
"So the letters came out a little illegible," Nino says. "But you can still tell what it says, right?"
Aiba looks like he's close to tears. His birthday has been blended in with Christmas celebrations for as long as he can remember. The message on the cake always read "Merry Xmas!" He loves being the Christmas Eve baby because he loves feeling like he was born on the verge of a day on which people are close to the people they love; eating cookies, drinking hot cider, watching the reflection of the twinkling of the Christmas lights in contented eyes. But sometimes it's hard, sharing the spotlight with so much happiness.
"We can't exactly put candles on it," Jun says, "but here, take a bite out of it and make a wish." He hands Aiba a silver spoon.
Aiba smiles, feeling like a prince. He digs into the section with his name and stuffs the custard into his mouth, giggling as some of the syrup dribbles down his chin. He makes his wish and motions for everyone else to have some, too.
"This is, like, maximum flan," Sho says, draping an arm over Nino's shoulder. "You and Matsujun really went for it, huh."
Aiba blinks. "This is what flan is?!" he says.
Nino and Jun whack him over the head from both left and right.
"Keep that up and you won't be getting your present," Jun says.
"You'll like it," Ohno says.
"I get another present?" Aiba asks eagerly. "But we just exchanged Christmas presents."
"Everyone gets presents on their birthday. It's common sense," Nino says reasonably, and there's an apology in there, too, because up until now, it hadn't been. "Ohno got something last month, and Sho's going to get something next month, even if we have to track him down at his new office and embarrass him in front of his underlings."
They present Aiba with a new pair of boots. They're brown and light and warm. When Aiba tries them on and sees that they fit him with the comfort of a pair of worn gloves, he doesn't take them off for the rest of the night. Or the entire day after that. He wears them to work, to the coffee shop, to pick up Yuu-chan. A wonderful pair of shoes will take you to wonderful places.
Aiba never doubts that just as the five of them never doubt that they're all good travelers. It's okay to advance slowly, so long as there's faith in life and fate. Every crossroads is just another chance to prove that you can walk on proudly, facing forward; to prove that you can shine.
That winter, Sho begins work at the new branch. The coffee is awful, but there's always a better pot sitting at home when he returns, late at night. There is always light in the house, so the shadows of the trees aren't so lonely.
In spring, Jun makes progress in his orchestra. He still isn't quite section leader, but he's improving much faster now that he sees that being the lead isn't the point of playing music.
In summer, Ohno starts to fish again. He regains his Tarzan-like appearance around the second week. Sometimes, Sho still can't help but ask, "What country...?" and Ohno replies, "Japan. My 29th year," without fail.
In autumn, Aiba meets a girl in the department store who looks as lost as he is. He invites her to ramen after being led out of the building by security, and they hit it off well from there. Halfway through the fourth week of fall, his birthday wish comes true.
In winter, Nino's boss discovers that Nino is good at magic, and he gets his own little show every Saturday at the café. The other four come to watch faithfully, forever hogging the front row seats. Nino's complaints about the narrowness of the aisles lessen considerably.
And then, Christmas again.
Whatever the case, sei_shoku had a grand total of ONE submission - as such, we've decided to scrap this Yuletide contest and hold a new one either in this month or the next.
We would like to thank miscetera for her participation - and dedication, in fact, because the lovely lady had the patience to edit and resend her fanfic - by presenting her with the option of a $5 Livejournal certificate or a $5 Yesasia gift certificate. misetera, please send an email to noniramen [at] email [dot] com with your decision. ♥
Without further ado, here is miscetera's wonderful piece of writing:
Rating: PG
Summary: Every time two roads diverge, it is a chance to prove that you can walk proudly down your own path. (Or, everyone wants to travel for a change and Nino doesn't see what's wrong with staying home.)
Notes: AU. Based on "Boku ga Boku no Subete". Huge thanks to R for betaing! ♥
In a Yellow Wood
Every day, the five of them meet in the same coffee shop. Nino works there, so he's always sure to save the same table and set of couches for them, but it's not like an organized convention in which they wait for all five of them to gather before ordering drinks and letting loose. Sometimes, it might only be Sho who swings by during his lunch break to talk to Nino who weaves around the tables, cursing the narrowness of the aisles. Other times, because Sho has to work overtime at the office and Nino can't get his butt in a chair longer than the time it takes to say, "I am going to stab the next person who asks for a scone," it might only be Jun and Aiba and Ohno
Despite the fact that the nexus which binds them together goes beyond friendship, the five of them are really a pretty haphazardly banded group. After all, they don't have much in common, whether it's family background, economic status, hobbies, or profession - but they don't really see that as much of a problem. It's been too long since they've known each other - been too many days of dreams and worries and laughter and laughter ago - that it doesn't make sense to start asking questions now. When roads wind in their favor, they don't doubt. That's the beauty of it all.
Aiba closes his eyes and points to a spot on the map. "Ussbekeaoiewfj - we should totally go there for Christmas," he says.
Nino wholeheartedly stabs a button on his DS, which makes triumphant sounds. "The day you learn how to read katakana properly, I promise you," he says at the same time Sho says, "Uzbekistan, you mean. And I was kind of thinking New York for New Year's Eve. Wouldn't it be nice to go watch the ball drop? I hear a lot of people go to New York to watch that. Or maybe they just go to get caught kissing at midnight on national television." He considers that and wrinkles his nose. "You never know with Americans."
"I want to go to Vegas to see the hotels," Jun says.
"Fishing would be nice for Christmas," Ohno muses.
"Fishing is good for you regardless of season," Nino says. "I think we should stay home. The economy sucks." He clicks a bunch of buttons in succession as concentration silvers his eyes. The rest of them wait for him to expound on what he says. When he doesn't, they move on, slightly thrown. He might have something on his mind, a topic he can't quite broach right out in the middle of a full Tokyo café - or he might just really, really want to advance to the next level in his game.
Later, Nino puts down his DS and rummages through his bag. He pulls out his checkbook and opens it. He says, as though there hadn't been a break at all in the conversation since his comment about the recession, "See, I was balancing my checkbook yesterday - "
"You - know how to balance your checkbook?" Sho says. He's so proud he looks like he might cry.
"Don't be dramatic," Nino says. "I'm telling you, when graphs start to look like potentially lethal ski slopes, this type of stuff is important. But anyway, you know how every year - "
"Oh!" Jun glances up suddenly at the giant analogue over the coffee maker and makes a face like he's having a brief aneurysm. "Sorry for interrupting I'm going to be late for rehearsals I have to take off I'll see you guys later," he says in one long breath, sans punctuation. He tips the rest of his coffee down his throat before tugging on his coat, putting his left arm in the wrong hole a couple of times before getting it right. He's pretty flustered.
They watch as he flies out the door, the tail of his coat catching on a stray nail outside. He swears and tugs it free carefully before hurrying along. There are many people shuffling all around him, sporting varying levels of anxiety in the slouches of their backs.
"Christmas should be more festive," Aiba observes, frowning.
"I think Nino's making bits of my croissant disappear," Ohno says, blinking down at his plate and then at Nino, whose chin is digging into his shoulder. "Is that a new trick?"
"Ah, no, sorry, I've been eating it," Sho says sheepishly. "I'll go buy you a new one later. I haven't eaten since this morning. We're trying to rush out this report before the end of the year."
Aiba's frown deepens.
"You're upsetting the Christmas Eve baby, Sho-san," Nino says. "Stop it."
"I'm sorry," Sho says and looks it. "My supervisor has a lot of faith in me, so I have to meet his expectations. I can't help it."
And that's just like him - like all of them, really. They're not particularly ambitious people, but they're good at rising to the occasion because it's what living honestly is all about: every day, you overcome some sadness and take one more step forward, just as you are.
Nino met Sho at a dinner party.
Nino didn't know what he was doing there. Well, no, that wasn't true: his mother had asked him to go because she'd received an invitation from an old friend from high school. (Out of pure politesse, Nino suspects. The rich bastard hadn't even known that she'd had a name change.) Nino didn't belong in this world in which "merger" and "stakeholders" were part of people's everyday vocabulary. People were not warm toward him, but they weren't rude either; and see, that was the worst part, the emptiest feeling in the world. When people don't even care enough to find you distasteful.
It made sense, then, that Nino fell a little for Sho, who wobbled toward him asking if he knew where the restroom was because man, no one told him daikons were so amazingly diuretic until after he gobbled down an entire bowl of the stew. Nino suppressed a smile and pointed Sho in the right direction. After Sho exited the restroom, visibly more at ease, Nino had expected him to re-immerse himself in the crowd of bald men and proper ladies, but he didn't. He joined Nino in his little niche in the back corner and asked him what his name was.
It was easy to love grand Cineplexes that made billions of dollars, brought magical worlds to millions of people, but true character showed when you found something beautiful in a theatre that could barely afford a real set. It went for people, too. Nino found that Sho was one of those people, smart and eloquent and overly scrupulous - but also genuine and good-humored and deeply appreciative of the same cheap food that Nino was fond of. By the end of the evening, Sho managed to win over a real laugh and smile from Nino. A step in the right direction.
It's seven in the morning on a lazy Sunday. Ohno has a lapful of Nino who is helping him decode the messages on holiday gifts he received from his students and Nino has a lapful of Sho who looks like he's making love to a financial journal.
Nino jostles his right thigh underneath Sho's shoulders. "Stop cheating on us with pedantic things and go make breakfast. The stomach underneath my head keeps whining in my ear and moving."
"I'm on kitchen probation," Sho says and turns a page.
"Then go put corn on bread," Nino says. "That much you can do, right?"
"Doubtful," Sho says.
Nino narrows his eyes and cranes his neck to look at Ohno upside down. "Do we happen to still have that sword from when we played ninjas? I just thought of a really practical use for it."
Ohno still seems to be teetering on the edge of consciousness. Sho and Nino rise too early for him. "Violence is bad," he mumbles half-assedly.
"You could always go make us something to eat," Sho says, just as he spots something of particular interest and brings his magazine a little closer to his face. He's at a prime distance to make out with it. It's pretty gross.
"But it's cold," Nino says. "You're better with the cold." After sundown and before sunrise, Nino refuses to walk around the apartment without bundling up. It gets a little miserable, but they cope with what they have. They're good at that. "And you," Nino says, patting Ohno on the thigh to wake him up. He sits a bear with a beanie butt and polka-dotted ribbon on his left leg, the one that the weight of Sho's shoulders isn't putting to sleep, and reads aloud the little card attached at the neck. "Are you leading your students on or something? They're, like, seven."
"I teach at a high school," Ohno says.
"Because that makes them any more legal," Nino says. "This is a complete love confession, no matter how you look at it. I mean, she's talking about your hands. How - explicit is that."
"She's only alluding to them, you know," Sho says, laughing. "Besides, Satoshi-kun does have excellent hands."
"But these people have only ever seen him in the classroom. What do they know about the lines and planes," Nino says. He keeps poking the bear in its plush tummy.
This isn't called jealousy and isn't Nino being ridiculous or difficult. Nino has an effective way of talking in veiled hints that reveal themselves in concealing, and it's easy for Sho and Ohno to tell that this is about what it's always been about when Nino looks over Ohno's shoulders as Ohno works on a demonstration drawing of fruit bowls or 3-D shapes for his students, and frowns but admits, later, that the drawings are good all the same. Nino loves Ohno's art and is as supportive as anyone of Ohno's work. There's just no fire without some smoke.
Sho gets up to make breakfast.
Ohno joined their group before Jun and after Aiba.
Sho met him first in the woods where he was chasing after the dog Aiba asked him to look after. He was just beginning to question whether it was a dog or a cheetah he was after when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, a whole human being sprung out in front of him, sitting cross-legged on a rock in front of a river. He screamed, like a little girl. The man turned around, a piece of manila cloth in one hand and an ink pen in the other. He was so dark, though, that Sho just stared at him, at a loss.
"What country - " he said, bewildered.
"Japan," the guy said. "My 23rd year."
"Right," Sho said. "Right, I mean, just. Lemme make a call." He pulled out his cell phone and dialed for Nino, whom he didn't quite know how to explain the situation to. "In Hirata-san's - Aiba-kun's neighbor's woods, there's an..."
"Ohno," Ohno provided. "Me Ohno, you..."
"Sakurai. Sakurai Sho," Sho said as Nino said, "Stop playing Tarzan and Jane with people you don't know. I'm coming over, all right?"
And when Nino arrived, he was even worse. There was a quality in Ohno that was endearing like a child, healing like sticks of sunlight in autumn, but at the same time quirky like the wording of a riddle. It left Nino wanting to know more, Sho could tell. Anyone with eyes would be able to tell, really, with the way Nino had an arm leaning into the dip where Ohno's neck ran into his shoulder. Studying the portrait Ohno drew on the cloth by looking into the reflection of the river, Nino asked him if he was a freelance artist or if he worked for anyone. Ohno explained that he was still a college student. This was the last entry in his portfolio.
"When you graduate, it'd be good if you could stay like this," Nino considered aloud. "If you become a teacher or something, people will try to take this away from you, you know. You won't be able to randomly trespass and loiter on private property and do work that actually matters to you. They'll probably make you draw fruits and naked people."
"That wouldn't be the end of the world," Ohno said with a grin.
Nino smacked him over the head. "You were supposed to say something more sensible, like 'at least it pays the bills'."
"At least it pays the bills," Ohno repeated faithfully.
Jun arrives at the coffee shop with trombone case in hand and his hair saturated in melting snow. He looks impeccably like all those pictures in psychology textbooks of stressed people which you always thought were exaggerated. He sits down and closes his eyes, draping an arm over them without a word to anyone. He looks pressed down by a physical exhaustion that is haunting his body and about to reach for his soul.
Aiba orders him a coffee. ("Give him the strongest you've got," he says to the anxious young waitress who comes by, while throwing Jun worried looks. "Is Tylenol on your menu by any chance?" She gives him a look like a deer caught in headlights. He apologizes and lets her go.)
Waiting for Jun to be in the mood to talk is awkward in a crowd of four. Sho watches Ohno pleat napkins into endless mountains and valleys as Nino restlessly shifts around on the couch until Aiba puts a hand on his knee to hold him down. Then, Nino folds his legs and picks at the seams of his jeans. Aiba looks down at his boots. They're getting old; his big toe is about to break through the thinned leather.
"I think I'm going through a mid-life crisis," Jun says, eventually.
"We can imagine," Sho says, not unkindly, just like he wants Jun to know that they're all ready to understand.
Jun leans forward on his elbows. "You were right," he says to Nino, "the economy does suck. There are budget cutbacks everywhere. It's like. It's like how can people be expected to do their best if, regardless of whether or not they're killing themselves with work, they can't be guaranteed a job the next week. I try so hard it hurts, but I know I'm no musical genius, not that I think success is solely dependent on talent, but it sure doesn't hurt to have perfect pitch, and somehow. I don't know. Plus, to make matters worse, I can't find my Chapstick because I think Aiba stole it from me last week."
"Is your orchestra downsizing?" Nino asks.
"It'll be all right!" Aiba says, jumping up to throw his arms around Jun, enveloping him in a big bear hug. "I'll give you back your Chapstick even though it smells a little like garlic now, and we'll totally be here for you. Like, don't worry about this week's rent or the food or - "
"I didn't get cut," Jun says, whacking him over the head. "Yet, anyway. Thanks for the faith though."
Aiba sits back in his seat.
Jun frowns at his hands. "Don't you wonder if you'd be better off doing something else?"
"For you, 'something else' would be being a Johnny's, probably," Nino says. "You'd totally be the type that gets in with a picture audition, if you're really considering it."
"But he can't be a Johnny's," Aiba decides firmly. "Johnny's can't idle around in cafés with us."
"Right, because they'd be idoling on stage," Sho says.
Jun blinks at him a couple of times. "…Good one," he says but smiles anyway because Sho is sometimes such a living example of when failures can be just as charming as successes.
Sho is about to return with a grin when his cell phone begins to ring: moshi boku ga ano hi sukoshi chigau mirai wo eranda toshitara.... When he peers at the caller ID, he ducks his head apologetically and says, "Sorry, it's my supervisor. I'm going to take it."
Sho returns with a different light in his eyes, but when they ask him if he's okay, he insists it's nothing. "Just the usual," he says, which is about the most standard evasive response ever. He seats himself and takes a drink of coffee. Out of the corners of his eyes, he sneaks looks at the four of them. He takes another drink.
Sho is sitting out on the balcony with the paper. Only, instead of reading it, he's drawing little stick people skiing down all the line graphs. When Nino and Ohno round on him at once, wrapped up to their noses in woolen scarves and big Eskimo coats, Sho jumps. Nino says something muffled underneath all the clothing.
"Huh?"
Nino tries again, gesturing at the newspaper.
"What?"
"Mfn" - Ohno tugs down Nino's scarf a little - "guy is going to die a very painful death." He shivers and pulls his scarf back up, shooting laser beam eyes at Ohno. "Nhmmnru nyum," he says, which presumably translates something to the effect of "And so are you."
Sho laughs a little. "We haven't hit rock bottom yet. We're still measuring positives, you know," he says.
Incomprehensible protests.
"I should stop saying things that elicit responses, shouldn't I." Sho watches as Ohno and Nino take seats to either side of him. "But that might kind of be a good thing, since I want to talk to you guys a little about something. It might go over better without side commentary."
Ohno mimes taking a phone call and tilts his head.
"Yeah, the call from earlier," Sho says. "You guys know how my firm's been preparing for the opening of a new branch, so it's been crazy lately. This morning, what my supervisor called me for, he..."
Nino points to Sho, and then sticks his arms out like a tee and mimics a plane taking off.
Sho looks at Nino for a very, very long time. "Mm," he says finally.
Ohno waves a hand to prompt him to continue.
"It's just..." Sho says. He can't seem to find the words in himself.
Nino pushes him in the arm, universal for stop trying to be an intellectual prick and just spit it out, we won't laugh too hard if you sound like an idiot, promise.
It spills out, all at once, mindboggling and messy. "You guys know how because of this it's been crazy lately but my supervisor wants me to lead this new branch because he doesn't want to take chances with new people, which is understandable because everyone's struggling to stay afloat as it is, and we really don't need anyone to add chaos to disorder, and you know, if I do go, it'd only be for two years, until things settle down, and it's not like I'll have to move out; it's just that I'll spend more time on the road and less at home. But my supervisor's not assigning me this position, he's offering me the - choice." He stumbles at the end of his convoluted explanation because his own word choice offends him.
Nino levels a steady look at Sho.
"I didn't know what to say. What should I - what do you want me to tell him?" Sho flexes his fingers against his thigh.
"Yes," Nino says, stretching his neck out from its cozy alcove, "or no. Those tend to be the standard responses." His voice is carefully detached, neither giving his approval nor making any objection. Nino is trying to leave Sho margins to think for himself because answers are so much more meaningful when they are derived from your own mind.
When Sho looks to Ohno, Ohno offers him a soft smile. "You don't have to give him an answer right away, right?" he says.
"I have until New Year's to make my decision," Sho says.
"Then take it slow," Ohno says. "We'll think about it all together and even make a pros and cons list if you want."
He weaves his gloved fingers with Sho's bare ones. In his hands, Ohno holds amazing heat that radiates through the layers of chocolate brown yarn so that Sho's skin melts into it like a reflex, like a fairytale - an old, familiar story that resounds in your heart. And when Sho takes Nino's right hand in his left, it's a different type of tale. He can entrust the deepest crevices of his mind to this story because it's dynamic and alive and morphs to accommodate everything that's racing through Sho's mind like the final leg of a marathon. Knowing Nino is like peeling the bark of a tree: the underside isn't as rough as what you see on the surface.
"Just because the last one worked out in our favor," Nino says.
"Which must mean that it's a good idea," Ohno says. "Besides, you're benefitting from its success, aren't you?"
"Well." Nino makes a put-upon face and crosses his legs and sits on them. He's looking out over the tops of glass buildings, into the dark folds of night, refusing to meet Sho's or Ohno's eyes. After a seemingly interminable silence, he says quietly, like he's telling a secret, "Probably." He squeezes Sho's hand, softly, and the liquid affection of it spills through Sho's veins until it reaches Ohno, too, ever as warm.
The game started when Sho walked in on the two of them, Nino and Ohno, pressed to each other against the back wall of Nino's bedroom. They kissed smooth like statues - an optical illusion, a mirror image that was folding into itself. It was dizzying, dizzying like drinking frost and swallowing heat. He tried to back out, but Ohno's voice called out to him and he was hooked. They draped his name around him like a net, and the only thing that fell through was any inhibition that told him no. Three months in, it stopped being a game. Games were fun, and being torn between diverging roads was anything but.
Eventually, Sho faced that he had a decision at his feet. Ohno and Nino encouraged him to settle it his own way. Sho didn't exactly know what his own way was so he thought back to the nights in college before class registration was due and all the times he spent pinning the positives against the negatives (this professor was kinder, more patient; but this subject interested him more).
When Sho slid his double-column list across the table, Nino read it carefully. The three of them were rolling an orange around, and it stopped in Nino's hands for a moment. The pros and cons were balanced, but when Nino met Sho's eyes, Sho saw that Nino's were clouded with disappointment, the loneliest look in the world, like trying to divide by zero. Nino didn't say anything. He was looking, just looking. It drove Sho crazy.
"What?"
"You're pretty bad at this," Nino said, pushing the orange toward Ohno. "You completely evaded the point."
"Well, the point was - "
"Because I'm guessing that when it really comes down to it, Ohno-kun's towels aren't going to stop you from being with us any more than my 'shady but kind of cool' collection of video game action figures are honestly going to convince you." Nino pressed the piece of paper back into Sho's hands, lingering just long enough that Sho's forefinger jumped against the bump of Nino's pulse.
"And my towels really aren't that bad," Ohno said, watching as Sho trapped his pass. "I'll let you wash them if it really bothers you."
"It doesn't, not really," Sho admitted.
"You like him the way he is," Nino said. He didn't phrase it like one, but it was a question, one he was asking for both of them.
Sho picked a little at the skin of the orange with his right hand and wordlessly balled up the list with his left. He moved the hand with the orange by accident and shot it at the trash. He turned back around to face Nino and Ohno, sheepish. He cleared his throat and threw the list behind him, too. "Well, you get the point."
"I've always wondered," Aiba says, "but what is this 'flan' thing you guys have on the menu?" He brings the menu a little closer to his face, like it's his vision that is the problem, not his culinary knowledge. "Like, flaaaan, or - Fran? A foreigner's name?"
Nino just stares up at him and pushes aside the deck of cards he's holding. Aiba puts down the menu and tilts his head at Nino. He has been gnawing on his straw watching Nino do the same trick over and over. Nino knows he gets shifty as hell when he's anxious, but that can't be helped.
"So, really, what's up?" Aiba asks.
"Do you ever regret not going to college?" Nino says.
"Is this going to lead to another conversation in which you make pick at my intelligence," Aiba says, pout forming at his lips.
"No," Nino says. "Just curious."
Aiba shrugs. "You know how it went."
Just about.
Aiba didn't try hard enough in school to get in any prestigious college, but he was no flunky either. He had enough curiosity to want to learn, just not about all the traditional stuff. He didn't give a damn about whether it was Perry or Polo who opened Japan to the West, nor did he care at all about what the capital of Russia was. If you asked him about trivia though, all those obscure facts that people would shoot weird looks at you for asking, he'd give you an answer in point six seconds flat. The reaches of his mind simply could not be contained by a dull, grey tutelage measured by rules and tradition, barren of actual ideas; but he didn't seem to have too much of a problem with that. He never liked school anyway.
Though honestly, that still isn't why he didn't go to college. Much as he despised school, he could have pushed on because it would open more paths for him. Honestly, he doesn't because of a girl, a girl he liked with all his heart - and see, there's the problem. It's never been about the boundaries of Aiba's mind. It is about that Aiba has a strong heart and that he is loyal to it to the end. Nino would call him an idiot for it except at the very least, Aiba closed the gate to roads ahead because of something he believed in. Nino just didn't have the drive for it. It isn't that he wants to remain in place as much as it is that he just wants to walk steadily forward on the road he's on. He does try hard and treat his responsibilities seriously; he just doesn't always see the need to apply himself to the fullest.
Sho, on the other hand - Sho has everything he needs to sprint onto higher ground because he welcomes new experiences, loves a good challenge. Even so, even though they would take different routes, they would see each other from where they are, and well. Sho's always been good at meeting people in the middle.
He would do well at the new branch.
"I should get going," Aiba says. "I have to finish shopping for gifts. I still haven't gotten anything for Yuu-chan."
"Yuu-chan?" Nino echoes, even though there's nothing strange about the fact that the girl Aiba's running around for has changed again. "What happened with Sorime-chan? The one who wouldn't eat anything orange?"
Aiba makes a face. "I wonder," he says, and that isn't anything unusual either. He always devotes so much of himself to a relationship that it never quite makes sense to him why it doesn't work out. "I guess she didn't like me eating anything orange either? I ordered fried chicken the last time we met."
"Are you sure it's not because you kept saying things that would offend a girl with any degree of sensitivity, her mother, her sister, her aunt, and her two female dogs?" Nino says. "Because you say things like that sometimes."
"Do not," Aiba protests.
"Then Aiba-san," Nino says, watching Aiba stand and gather his scarf around his neck, "this year when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake, instead of wishing for chocolate and manga, maybe you should wish for a girl who'll put up with you for more than two weeks."
Aiba punches Nino in the shoulder and laughs. It's only when Aiba turns away that Nino notices that it all reaches a little short.
As Jun walks towards his car after rehearsal, he spots a familiar figure in the park adjacent to the parking lot. When he strolls closer, he sees that it's Ohno, sitting on a snow-covered boulder, holding up a white canvas with his left hand and drawing on it with his right.
"Your ass is going to freeze," Jun calls out to him.
Ohno doesn't respond.
Jun rolls his eyes and walks up behind Ohno and puts both hands on Ohno's shoulders. Ohno jumps a little. When he turns around, he blinks a few times before showing a sheepish smile. "Hey," he says. "I missed my bus."
"And started wandering around until something you wanted to draw caught your eye, of course you did," Jun says fondly, seating himself back-to-back with Ohno on the boulder. He twists his head around to look over Ohno's shoulders at the triangle of three snow-covered fern trees he's drawing, then down at his canvas. Jun recognizes faces in Ohno's drawing that he doesn't see in the trees. "That's...Sakurai, isn't it?" Jun points to the one on the left, the one with a protruding birch in the center that resembles Sho's nose.
"You can tell?" Ohno says, pleased.
"Mm," Jun says, "but can you actually see the three of you in those trees?"
"Can't you?" Ohno says, smiling up at the trees. "Those two long, thin-ish leaves here, don't those look like Nino's eyes?"
"You guys are gross," Jun says, even though he is admittedly a little jealous. Jealous of the simplicity of their relationship because having something work between two people is enough of a feat as it is, but the three of them seem to pull it off so easily. Maybe it is that they don't try to merge themselves into a single unity. They let one another walk along at their own pace because you just have that much more fun when there's no pressure on your back to weigh you down. Playing trombone is that way, too - or used to be, anyway.
Jun's cell phone rings then. He reaches into his back pocket to get it, delving by mistake into Ohno's pocket first. Ohno laughs at him and half-heartedly says, "Stop that." Jun does it once more just to play with him.
"Hello?" Jun is about to say before Aiba's voice booms through the receiver.
"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE HAVE THEIR CELL PHONES ON." Aiba is screaming over what sounds like the wailing of a small principality of babies. "Department stores are ridiculous and I am so lost and there are, like, seventy of these creatures crying their heads off because they don't want to get their pictures taken, Matssun you're my only hope, come rescue me."
"First, take a deep breath," Jun says. "And then, don't let it out for a very, very long time."
"HEY," Aiba says. "I'M SERIOUS YOU KNOW IT'S REALLY DANGEROUS IN HERE."
"All right, I get it. I think I know where you are. Don't wander too far away, okay?" Jun says. "Let me just go retrieve a white horse from the farm and my armor from the museum and I'll be on my way." He hangs up and says to Ohno, who's cracking up at the way Aiba's flailing is fully audible but completely incomprehensible from where he's sitting, "Do you want to come with? We'll go rescue this guy and I'll drop you off at home."
"It's all right," Ohno says. "The next bus is coming in about twenty minutes. I want to finish this."
"If you're sure," Jun says, flicking the ball on Ohno's hat.
"Oh," Ohno says, "but I think Nino was looking for you earlier. He said he wanted your help on something or another. Call him sometime today?"
"If he wants to check on the status of his New Year's money, tell him he needs to build a time capsule that'll catapult him back to when he was about seven," Jun says but agrees to going over to their apartment later. He walks toward his car.
The next day, a monstrous blizzard greets Sho when he throws open the curtains in the morning.
"Oh, god," Sho says. "It's December 12."
"It's the end of the world," he and Nino and Ohno say at the same time.
"Except, you know, it's kind of coming three years earlier than the Mayans expected," Nino says, as he throws an armful of Sho's clothes to Ohno who throws it out into the hall. Some days, Nino goes berserk and starts cleaning like a banshee. Today, he reasons that if they are all going to die, they are going to die in a clean environment not littered haphazardly with Sho's laundry and Ohno's fishing magazines.
Walking by on the way to the restroom, Sho gets hit in the head with one of his own socks. He peels it off his face. "You know, it might not be the disaster outside that kills us," he says, "but that you two might just bury us all alive under my clothes."
"Isn't this mine?" Nino says, holding up a blue t-shirt. "Why is it under the bed?"
"No, that's mine," Sho says. "I liked yours so I bought my own, except it isn't really the same thing. I think I only like yours because it smelled like you."
"Don't say creepy things so early in the morning," Nino grumbles. He's trying to hide his face behind the shirt. He feels around under the bed a little more and comes into contact with a couple more shirts and some unpaired socks, too. "I would say that I'm performing one of those magic tricks that involves me pulling out clothing for days on end from under here if it weren't for that I'm really, really afraid of that." He feels something paper and rolls his eyes. "Fishing magazines, too. Seriously, this trick would be revolutionary." He pulls it out - it's a single piece of paper, not a magazine like he thought - and reads.
Ohno and Sho turn to look at him because he's grown quiet, and Sho winces when he sees what Nino is holding.
"You got a formal offer letter," Nino says, "for your new position."
Sho spears his fingers through his hair and makes a face like he's realized he's slipped up. "Yeah, I guess under the bed wasn't really a great place to hide that. It makes it feel kind of...real, when you actually see it on paper, doesn't it?"
Nino taps his fingers on the metal frame of the bed. "Do you want it to be real?" he asks.
"Maybe. Kind of. Yes." Sho bites his lip.
Nino raises an eyebrow.
"Yes," Sho repeats with more conviction. "It's just that I, I won't have time to hang out at the coffee shop during the week anymore. I bet the other branch's coffee is crappy."
"Your prioritization prowess, I am so underwhelmed by it," Nino says. He laughs softly and shrugs. "But I mean, I guess that means when you get home, I'll have to make you really awesome coffee, to compensate. Or at least bully Oh-chan into making you coffee."
"I'm surprisingly amazing at it," Ohno asserts.
"Don't you guys want a say at all in this?" Sho says. "I mean, it's not really just my decision, right?"
At first, there's no response. Nino hands the paper to Ohno, who throws it out into the hall at Sho, like they've done with all of Sho's other things. Sho can't pitch to save his life, but he catches beautifully. He looks down at the letter in his hands, then up at the two people in front of him.
"No matter how the decision goes through the two of us," Nino says, "the real choice is in your hands. Isn't that the way we've always rolled?"
Sho considers this and folds the letter twice before tucking it into his breast pocket. "Right."
Nino and Ohno exchange small, proud smiles before ducking back down to dump more things into the hall. They'll miss Sho while he's away, but Sho would miss the chance to step into the future he believes in the most. That would be much, much crueler.
"What you said about it only being two years," Ohno says, "that'd better be true."
"When the world does end in 2012," Nino says, "you'd better be here and not away calculating the effect the imminent apocalypse is having on the economy or anything. Otherwise, whatever cataclysmic natural disaster really won't be the cause of your death."
Sho is smiling so hard he knows his cheeks are going to ache once he stops. "I promise," he says, with heavy sincerity that contrasts the air that flows through his lungs, warm and easy.
After the apartment is satisfactorily clean, the three of them turn off all the lights and live off the moonlight. It's brighter out tonight, the glimmer of the snow reflecting into the sky. The shadow of the laundry Sho left out to dry the previous day looms into the room. When the moon shifts in the sky, there is a different shadow, of the bald branches of the trees outside. Nino points out that it looks like a demon with long hair. Kids would freak out if they saw a scary image like that through their window. Sho looks at the thin branches that splinter off the trunk and thinks about how they can't receive the same support and nourishment from the root but have no choice but to push on. They can't give up until their gangly, trying arms embrace the gentle moon; otherwise, the pain wouldn't be worth it. He'll have to work hard at his new position.
But until then, he wraps the three of them under the same blanket in front of the television. They pass each other kisses, heat rising from their lips into the air and murmurs rolling across the room like a ball of yarn unraveling. When they fall asleep, whites and fairy blues light their faces as they hear the enthusiasm of commercial actors in their dreams.
The snow doesn't quit all the way up until Christmas Eve. It's a freak of nature that locks everyone up right at home, with the people who matter most anyway.
Nino's kitchen smells like a cultural festival.
"You have enough food in here to last a month," Jun says. "Or three. Are you guys always equipped for severe weather conditions like this?"
"The refrigerator was the only part of the house we didn't clear out. Everything else went out into the hall - and oh dear god, you're going to burn down the apartment," Nino says, covering his face with his hands.
"It's okay, I have it under control!" Aiba says. "Men do this in Uzbekistan all the time. In fact, they actually pride themselves on their ability to make praavbhoepf."
"I hope you don't pride yourself on your ability to read katakana," Nino says.
"Plov, all right? I know how to read," Aiba insists. "It just sounds miserable because it's short. I was trying to, you know, give it some sparkle." He turns the stove off high and leaves his plov simmering. "Okay, who wants some? Ohno-kun?"
"You try it first!" Nino and Jun and Sho scream at him at once.
"It's not like I'm going to poison him," Aiba says as Ohno gets up from the couch and opens his mouth when Aiba comes at him a spoonful of meat-onion-blueberry-rice mush. The visual is absolutely revolting.
Ohno chews it through thoughtfully. The conclusion: "Ah, this is good. You should sell this."
Aiba looks ecstatic.
"It's because there are enablers that people with problems can't change," Nino says, but goes all the same when Aiba waves him over for a little taste of the plov, too.
After dinner, a giant custard comes out of the oven.
"Um," Aiba says.
"So the letters came out a little illegible," Nino says. "But you can still tell what it says, right?"
Aiba looks like he's close to tears. His birthday has been blended in with Christmas celebrations for as long as he can remember. The message on the cake always read "Merry Xmas!" He loves being the Christmas Eve baby because he loves feeling like he was born on the verge of a day on which people are close to the people they love; eating cookies, drinking hot cider, watching the reflection of the twinkling of the Christmas lights in contented eyes. But sometimes it's hard, sharing the spotlight with so much happiness.
"We can't exactly put candles on it," Jun says, "but here, take a bite out of it and make a wish." He hands Aiba a silver spoon.
Aiba smiles, feeling like a prince. He digs into the section with his name and stuffs the custard into his mouth, giggling as some of the syrup dribbles down his chin. He makes his wish and motions for everyone else to have some, too.
"This is, like, maximum flan," Sho says, draping an arm over Nino's shoulder. "You and Matsujun really went for it, huh."
Aiba blinks. "This is what flan is?!" he says.
Nino and Jun whack him over the head from both left and right.
"Keep that up and you won't be getting your present," Jun says.
"You'll like it," Ohno says.
"I get another present?" Aiba asks eagerly. "But we just exchanged Christmas presents."
"Everyone gets presents on their birthday. It's common sense," Nino says reasonably, and there's an apology in there, too, because up until now, it hadn't been. "Ohno got something last month, and Sho's going to get something next month, even if we have to track him down at his new office and embarrass him in front of his underlings."
They present Aiba with a new pair of boots. They're brown and light and warm. When Aiba tries them on and sees that they fit him with the comfort of a pair of worn gloves, he doesn't take them off for the rest of the night. Or the entire day after that. He wears them to work, to the coffee shop, to pick up Yuu-chan. A wonderful pair of shoes will take you to wonderful places.
Aiba never doubts that just as the five of them never doubt that they're all good travelers. It's okay to advance slowly, so long as there's faith in life and fate. Every crossroads is just another chance to prove that you can walk on proudly, facing forward; to prove that you can shine.
That winter, Sho begins work at the new branch. The coffee is awful, but there's always a better pot sitting at home when he returns, late at night. There is always light in the house, so the shadows of the trees aren't so lonely.
In spring, Jun makes progress in his orchestra. He still isn't quite section leader, but he's improving much faster now that he sees that being the lead isn't the point of playing music.
In summer, Ohno starts to fish again. He regains his Tarzan-like appearance around the second week. Sometimes, Sho still can't help but ask, "What country...?" and Ohno replies, "Japan. My 29th year," without fail.
In autumn, Aiba meets a girl in the department store who looks as lost as he is. He invites her to ramen after being led out of the building by security, and they hit it off well from there. Halfway through the fourth week of fall, his birthday wish comes true.
In winter, Nino's boss discovers that Nino is good at magic, and he gets his own little show every Saturday at the café. The other four come to watch faithfully, forever hogging the front row seats. Nino's complaints about the narrowness of the aisles lessen considerably.
And then, Christmas again.