Nino Birthday Surprise (6)
SEISHOKU CONTEST ENTRY #6
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 1. Nino and Ohno live by the sea, and Sho doesn't. 2. Move-in boyfriends make good birthday presents. 3. (Hand-holding is definitely a recurring theme in this fic.)
Notes: See how many references to lyrics from Arashi songs you can pick out? :D I apologize for sending in such a last-minute-paste-and-dry fic. Hopefully, it's still somewhat enjoyable to read!
1. Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
- "The Bait", John Donne
Nino and Sho meet because Sho's razor is obnoxious. By excellent karmic distribution, he chooses to shave just as Nino is walking by on the way to grab lunch. The conversation starts with Nino asking if Sho is trying to bulldoze his face (because noise pollution is frowned upon in their town, did he know?) and ends with Ohno recognizing Sho as the guy he'd met at Aiba's father's restaurant last week.
("He looked super-happy eating gyoza," Ohno says. "He can't be a bad person."
"Ah." Nino nods along and pats Ohno on the back for that piece of unique Ohno-logic. "The microwaved gyoza, you mean.")
Sho is in their little town by the sea on vacation with his family. Their newly-purchased beach house is next door to Aiba's home, so it makes sense that Aiba gets to him first and invites him to go eat at their restaurant. And once Aiba meets someone he likes, everyone else ends up meeting him, too. That first night in Chiba, Sho spends until morning with Aiba, the two people he met in the afternoon, and another guy, Jun.
Jun, for the first three hours of their acquaintance, has a hero worship complex going for Sho. It all ends after Sho tries to help out in the kitchen and pours some oil into open fire. Sho is kind of relieved, though. (Not about the cloud of smoke that hit him in the face; about Jun not following him around, shooting him looks in a way he probably thinks is subtle.)
Nino, for his part, doesn't seem impressed with Sho's diploma or position on the corporate ladder at all. In fact, when he hears the name of the firm Sho worked at, he doesn't even look up from the cup he's pouring Sho's sake into.
"Pedant Land," he says, "where over-educated old men good at business and numbers and not much else thrive." He slides the glass across the table, meets Sho's eyes, and smiles cheekily. "Not that I'm necessarily talking about you."
"Nino doesn't like large conglomerates," Ohno explains when Nino toddles off to aggrieve Jun in the kitchen. "It's not about you."
"It's something from when he was little," Aiba adds, carefully vague. "You probably shouldn't bring it up again, though. He said before that he'd rather spend a month in Aibaland than spend a minute in one of those buildings."
Because Sho feels bad for touching on a sour spot right off the bat (even though, objectively speaking, it's not actually his fault at all, since it was Jun that asked about his work), he makes a mental note to take more care next time, and changes the subject. He asks about Aibaland.
"You're really going to talk about it?" Jun comes in holding a pot of soup. He's followed by Nino, who is carrying a plate of greens in one hand and rice balls in the other.
"Don't you want to maintain a quasi-intelligent image for a few more - " Nino begins.
Aiba jumps up and tucks Nino under his arm, making Jun ululate like a fire truck in distress as the contents of the plates threaten to tip onto the tablecloth.
"I'm not an idiot!" Aiba protests.
"Ow, ow, ow, that hurts! Stop being stupid!"
Judging by the way they are hiding little smirks, it seems that this is a familiar routine.
"Ugh," Nino groans, once Aiba lets go of him, and Jun rearranges the china that had been knocked askew. "I think I pulled a neck muscle."
"This pattern is kind of tiring, isn't it," Aiba says, settling back down in his chair. For having had just a few minutes of exercise pinning Nino down, he is sweating like he just ran a mile in the summer heat. "It's like an intra-generation version of whenever Captain and Nakai-kun meet."
"Except you two are always fighting over the same things," Jun remarks.
"Wait, why'd you start this time again?" Ohno asks, zoning into the conversation.
Aiba blinks. "Something about Ailand, I think?"
"You were telling Sho-chan about your daycare center of a zoo," Nino prompts. "I didn't even get around to calling you an idiot yet. This guy has no sense of timing, you see." He directs this last remark at Sho.
The ins and outs of Aibaland ("You can literally count all the good games he plays with the animals on one hand," is what Jun says, and Nino adds, "It's possible that you actually lose brain cells just by watching.") is only one of many things Sho learns about them and their town that night.
Ohno is the captain of his own boat, and he sometimes makes models out of dough at the bakery, owned by a small little boy that lived around the block. This is a fact that apparently makes Nino positively pissy and makes everyone else infinitely giggly. Or maybe the latter is just because of the sakura sake (their town's specialty) Jun's passing around.
A magician and an actor, Nino, they tell Sho, is something of a local celebrity because of all the work he does with the local theatres. Nino and Aiba have known each other forever because Aiba helps out in the theatres, like an unofficial AD. Nino likes to complain that he sees too much of Aiba's face day in and day out, but really, that's something you can only say to someone that knows you love them from the depths of your heart.
Jun, out of the four of them, is the only one who wasn't born by the sea, though he says that it's been so long ago since his family moved here that he doesn't have memories of any other home. His home-turned-restaurant is next door to Aiba's home-turned-restaurant. While the Aiba family diner serves Chinese food, Jun cooks up strictly traditional Japanese cuisine, but Aiba tells Sho that Jun cooks non-menu items too, for people he really, really likes.
The contrast between the two restaurants is stark. In the Chinese restaurant, everything is a little cramped, the tabletops are kind of sticky, and there is always mystery meat floating in your soup, but you feel at home because it's more comfortable this way, anyway. Jun's restaurant is close to spotless, cleaner than the dining room in Sho's apartment, certainly. (Aiba explains it by making a hole with his thumb and forefinger on one hand and sticking the pinky of his other hand through it. Sho figures out quickly enough that Aiba's trying to hint at Jun's anal retentive nature, but really, no matter how you look at it, it resembles an attempt to jumpstart a conversation about buttsex better.)
Despite that they are no more than good acquaintances at this point, conversation flows freely and easily, topics splitting off like the spokes of a spider web. There, under the soft light of Jun's living room, Sho feels a great deal lighter than he has in a long while, as if talking with the four of them is like taking a breath of fresh air, cool and wonderful in his veins.
And because of his loose atmosphere, Sho ends up learning about things they don't say outright, too.
It would be wrong to say that Sho discovers the truth about Ohno and Nino's relationship on his own. After all, it isn't as if they are trying to disguise it, given the frequency Nino feels compelled to grope Ohno's butt in front of company.
Sho never asks about it (because how would you even begin a conversation like that?), but it's just something he grows to know. The same way he just knows that days by the sea are longer, that everyone there have lived like this all their lives, that it is exactly as Ohno told him when midnight rolled around for the first time: "This is just a day in our life."
The same way he knows that next summer, regardless of anything, he would be back.
It happens apropos to something. This something is not anything tangible or concrete. If Sho has to put a name to it, this something is the feel of this lazy little town and the friends he's made: like he's known it - know them - all his life, like he can open up a passion for no reason at all.
His first kiss with Nino happens like a turning point and feels like the skin under a scab: raw, new and yet somehow completely familiar. It doesn't surprise Sho that Nino would murmur his way through a kiss because in all the time Sho has known him (two weeks, Sho has to keep reminding himself, it hasn't even been a month), Nino was always a loudmouth. But the way he feels his own name breathed against his lips, over and over and over, like a habit, a mindset, like oxygen, makes Sho teeter off balance on his own two feet.
This is his excuse for why he says, a little desperate, "But I like girls," after they pull apart.
Nino just looks at him. "Yeah, okay," he says, and kisses Sho again.
With Ohno, it happens a few minutes later, after Nino is done reassuring Sho how firmly he believed Sho's assertion that he is straight. Kissing Ohno is like a feeling he knows, like the touch of an old T-shirt: warm, comfortable, and lingering, something Sho knows he's going to remember forever and ever as something good and right in his life.
This time, when the kissing ends, Sho doesn't say anything to avoid looking stupid twice. The silence makes laughter bubble up from Ohno's throat, and the two of them laugh with each other until Nino decides that that is enough of that and pushes the three of them down, one on top of another.
2. Well, I'm New York City born and raised,
But nowadays, I'm lost between two shores.
LA's fine, but it ain't home,
New York's home but it ain't mine no more.
-- "I Am I Said", Neil Diamond
Usually, Sho does the saving. When Nino doesn't bring enough cash for meals (or doesn't bother to bring his wallet altogether), it's Sho that picks up the tab. When Ohno falls asleep under the air conditioner, it's Sho that covers him with a blanket. It would be a stretch to call Sho a superhero (because most of the time, he's less Yatterman and more Yattenaiman), but Sho's dependable and constant, like a safe house or a touchstone.
It's rare, then, that the safe house's new car will break down in the middle of the highway, and he will call Nino, hysterical like a little girl. And, see, this is why Sho isn't a superhero: he cracks like an egg under pressure. Or at any time he has a line of angry drivers honking at him from behind.
"Sho-san, a tow truck," Nino says. "You're supposed to call them. They don't have radars for broken Pajeros"
Ohno looks up over the top of his model. "Sho has a Pajero?"
Nino shrugs like, News to me too. "I guess he found a new love interest while we weren't watching. Secret love interest, too."
"We should bring in back-up," Ohno offers because Sho can hear every word of their conversation. Nino's good at conveniently turning phones on speaker like that. "Because Sho-chan really gets around."
"I would suggest Aiba-chan, but I think Jun-kun's finally coming to his senses. Pity."
On some busy highway between Tokyo and Chiba, Sakurai Sho is bashing himself against his steering wheel with enough force to leave stripes of half-arcs on his forehead.
It has been three summers since Sho's first visit to the seaside town. The plan this time around had been to arrive coolly his new car (landed via restaurant promotion dart board) and maybe correct some of his no-good image, but Sho hadn't counted on his prize breaking down so soon.
Fixing up the car occupies the entirety of Sho's first day there, so by the time he turns into the street his beach house sits by, he's justifiably exhausted. He'd been up since six in the morning in order to drive down to Chiba by noon, and dealing with Nagase-kun at the repair shop is never too much fun when you're frustrated, sleep-deprived, and niggling for a shower.
The moment he steps out of the car, slouch-backed and grouchy, someone takes hold of him by the elbow and drags him across the street. It very well could have been a criminal capturing him for ransom (even though crime around here is practically a figment of fiction), instead of Nino kidnapping him for cuddles - either way, he wouldn't have and doesn't struggle now as Nino's throwing him a quick, "Welcome back, Sho-chan," stuffing him through the door to Ohno, who tucks him into a hug. Immediately, Sho's throat funnels tight as he wraps his arms around Ohno, too, and he feels kind of grateful that Nino's bossy and territorial the way that he is.
Nino keeps a hand on Sho's waist and whines in a pitch he's dedicated the last 25 years of his life to perfecting, "You were supposed to come to us when you got here, don't you remember? Or did Jun-kun hit you over the head one time too many last year?"
"Hey," a voice drifts over from beyond the foyer. Jun appears with Aiba bobbing behind his shoulder. Despite that he's throwing Nino annoyed looks, he's smiling. "I rarely hit Sakurai, all right. Don't make it sound like I'm the problem child."
"That's right. Usually, I'm the victim of Matsujun's violence," Aiba says cheerily, before turning and throwing himself against Sho's backside.
"Sho-chan, welcome back! How've you been did you lose weight see even if you're super-mega-busy, you should eat properly," Aiba says on rapid-fire.
Just as it looks like Jun might be tempted to join in on the Sho-smothering, Nino begins to peel Aiba off of Sho and says he's throwing Aiba and Jun out into the heat. "I'm cutting you guys off the stuff. Boyfriends get priority, so you can get your fix tomorrow."
"Selfish," Jun says, but he understands the feeling and hardly blames Nino at all, so he takes his hand and squeezes, bumping Sho's elbow as he tugs Aiba along towards the door.
Sho gets the odd feeling that he's being double-teamed. He wants to contribute this sense to stress-induced paranoia, but with Nino lying between his legs in an amoeba-like sprawl and Ohno locking fingers with him and passing him kisses, right now might be the most relaxed he's been in weeks. But he definitely doesn't think he's imagining the twinkle in Nino's eyes when his meets Ohno's. Nino has been wearing that look ever since Aiba and Jun left, and Sho told them the whole story about the Pajero and the highway incident.
There's light falling through window. The moon, bright as a second sun, sweeps into the room, grazing its corners with gentle fingers, and washes over their skin, bleaching the parts of them that it reaches porcelain white. Nino is caught perfectly between the light and shadows, his face divided symbolically like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. An evil genius is what he reminds Sho of.
The image is driven home by the way Nino is hovering over Sho's cock, breathing on it in soft little puffs without making contact at all. Ohno has stopped touching him, too. Sho's squirming like a fish caught on hook; they have his full attention.
"Move in with us," Nino says suddenly. "It's the obvious answer to your problem."
Sho doesn't say anything because it takes him by surprise (though it would be a lie to say that the thought has never crossed his mind). And to further his shock, Nino doesn't push him to respond, even after beats of a white, static type of quiet. Instead, Nino smirks at him and ducks back down, and it scares Sho a little, the way Nino's prepared to lose one battle in order to win the war.
Ohno pulls Sho closer to his body and grinds against Sho's hip, to the annoyance of Nino who has to adjust to the new angle. Ohno puts his mouth next to Sho's ear, as if he were getting ready to whisper a great, lecherous secret. That would have been safer, actually.
"We don't want you to be the away team anymore," Ohno says instead, and it adds to fire in the pit of Sho's stomach, building a flame the world's rivers couldn't quench.
Sho walks into Jun's restaurant at 11 for lunch the next morning. After a night of fitful sleep, he woke up before the poultry. He asks for a small serving of pasta from Mao, who just got in from her break since it's still too early for the lunch rush. She's a hard-working, personable type of girl. Sho has a lot of respect for her.
A few moments later, Jun comes out with Sho's pasta, and as he places it down in front of him, eyes him through slits. "Did you catch something in Tokyo?"
Sho shakes his head, pleating his napkin into a triangle, a smaller one, then a smaller one still.
Jun probably would have said something if it weren't for Nino coming through the door then, Ohno in tow, shimmering like a freaking rainbow.
When he walks by Jun, he grins. "The usual."
"Increased risk of lifestyle diseases coming right up," Jun says. "I keep saying this, but don't come crying to me when you get hospitalized at thirty for heart disease."
"And don't be too down when you realize it's too late to extract that pole from your ass either," Nino returns.
The look in Nino's eyes says he feels pretty accomplished considering it's still early, Sho can tell when they make eye contact. Ohno just smiles at Sho in that way of his that makes you think he isn't entirely conscious of what he's doing.
As they sit down across the table from Sho, Nino says, "It's not nice to run off without saying anything, you know."
Sho knows, and feels guilty about it too, remembering the way Nino had curled into the warm spot he left. "Sorry," he says and stabs at the tomatos in the sauce some, as if the innocuous little pieces of vegetable are doing something to offend him just by being small and red. Nino is amused. For all that Sho is an academic, a professional, he really knows how to put up the act of a kid who wants to talk about his grudges but wants someone to ask about it first.
"Something the matter?" Nino asks because he knows exactly what Sho's problem is.
Sho looks at Ohno. Ohno looks at Sho's pasta. "I'm fine," he says.
"You don't look fine," Nino points out.
"Then stop looking," Jun says, coming up behind them with Nino and Ohno's hamburgers and a bowl of soup for himself. "Oh wait, that's right, there's that true love forever and ev-"
Nino trips him and almost makes him tip his soup.
To the relief of Sho's sanity, Nino and Ohno have some work to do, leaving Sho to read his newspapers alone. Nino has rehearsal at the theater, and Ohno had promised to help out constructing the set.
They return sometime around midnight, looking tired but accomplished-happy. It's a calm night, with the three of them huddled around each other in a way that is too sweaty and warm for summer. Nino finds his way between the other two. In his sleep, he's holding hands with Ohno and locking legs with Sho. That night, Sho sleeps deeply and restfully and dreams about living all his days like this, in this town by the sea.
When Sho wakes up the next morning, he finds that this was all calm before the storm. The second round of attacks began catching him unawares. Nino and Ohno are gone, having extricated themselves from Sho bright and early. In their place is left a wild trail of neon green post-its. At some point outside the door, it changes color into hot pink, and somewhere out into the hall, it's Matsujun purple.
"Nino?" Sho tries. No response. "Satoshi?" Nothing.
He groans. This is what it means to be baited along at Nino's pace. He would be sympathetic towards Ohno, who probably had to get up before the sun to play accomplice to Nino, except that it isn't exactly like Ohno's caught innocently in the middle.
Rolling reluctantly out of bed, Sho steps on one of the strips, which sticks to his foot. Good morning, Sho-chan, it says cheerfully in Nino's handwriting.
"Good morning," Sho mumbles at it, picking up the next note.
Nino wants you to know that you're holding a stolen piece of property, the next one reads in Ohno's big font. He took it from that Ryusei no Kizuna play he did a few months back, isn't that great. :D
It's only by the time Sho gets into the kitchen that the trail begins to address any relevant content. Some of the arguments are shockingly realistic.
You won't have to keep wasting the world's finite resources driving back and forth if you move in with us.
You won't have to waste time fixing up cheap cars that break down in the middle of busy highways.
You won't have to waste a ton money on mass transportation commuting back and forth.
Or on telephone bills.
Or stationary (seriously, how old are you?)
Sho has read through about fifty of these notes in all (and his legs are quite sore from the squatting) before he sees Ohno and Nino in the shower together, Nino bent over with his hands supporting him against the tiles and Ohno pressed behind him. Actually, Sho hears them and the sloshing of the water first, but details aren't of paramount importance right now.
Ohno and Nino notice him at about the same time. It appears that they've been waiting.
"This is our final argument," Nino says, voice rough like gravel and pitches lower than usual.
"We think it's our best one," Ohno says and trails a path of heat, red and proud, down the plane of Nino's stomach.
Twenty minutes pass before they make their way to the breakfast table to grab something to eat. (On the way there, Sho reprimands Nino about pilfering things from sets. Nino asks him how he can possibly find it in himself to preach so soon after sex.) About a third of the way into their miso soups, courtesy of Nino, they hear someone messing with the door, jamming the spare key into the lock haphazardly. There's only one person who'd intrude without knocking and fail to use the key properly.
Aiba comes in with a gust of fresh morning air and claims Sho for the day, hardly noticing the field of post-it notes scattered about. Nino makes a face at the way he's stepping on them and crumpling them, but doesn't disagree with him and Jun taking Sho, since he and Ohno have a full day of work again today. (He does, though, make Aiba agree to a set of terms and conditions to ensure he gets Sho back in one piece.)
They've barely made it halfway down the street when Aiba, shaking with uncontained excitement, turns to Sho and says, "BIG HAPPENINGS," in standard Aiba-Engrish TM©®.
The thing Sho finds wonderful about Aiba is that his enthusiasm is never half-assed and always contagious like laughter. Even though he's sometimes noisy and a bother to everyone within a 200-yard radius, you can't even find it in yourself to get mad at him in the same way you can't bear to kick a puppy who just wants the world to smile a little more.
He's just beginning to explain what the big happening is when they step up onto Jun's porch, where Jun's waiting with his arms crossed. He smacks Aiba over the head. "You don't know the meaning of secret, do you?" he says, herding them inside. "I'm sure people from Hiroshima heard you, not to mention Nino."
Aiba looks at him sheepishly and giggles nervously.
"So did he tell you about the surprise, the specifics?" Jun asks Sho, walking them towards his living room.
"It's for Nino's birthday, right?" Sho says.
"And it's kind of cheer-up party," Jun adds.
Sho frowns. "But there's nothing down with him."
"That's only because you're here," Aiba says. "For the past month, Nino's been off. Joking around less, whining and stuff. It's only since you got here that he's been distracted."
So that explained the suddenness of the moving proposal. "Distracted from what?"
Jun and Aiba exchange looks.
"That's..." Jun begins hesitantly.
"...something only Nino should be able to explain to you," Aiba finishes.
They're only protecting Nino's right to privacy the way friends should, but it makes Sho realize that he has only scratched the surface to what Nino is all about. It bothers him like a knot at his neck, frustrating and painful like a punch. But it makes sense that Aiba and Jun know about Nino, because after all, being around a person twenty out of 365 days, there is a limitation on what you can learn, and a voice over the phone can only tell you so much.
"What can I do?" Sho asks. "To help with the surprise."
"Right," Jun says, "that's what we wanted to plan out with you." From within a manila folder under the table, he takes out a piece of paper with a bunch of times and events and turns toward Sho. "For the actual party, it's going to be kind of a small occasion, just the five of us like how we've always done it, but we're getting a bunch of other people around town - for example, Mao-chan, Toma, Taichi-kun, Higashiyama-san, etc. - involved in the preparations. We're trying to avoid the rowdiness Nino doesn't like and to avoid taking up more of other people's work time as possible.
"We're going to ask people to be coming around all morning from seven in the morning to one in the afternoon to bring notes, letters, and items Nino will automatically associate with them. Aiba and I will take care of putting them around his apartment and cooking while this happens. So basically, we need you to occupy him and Ohno-kun for the day until we get everything set up."
Sho scans the schedule Jun drafted up. "So we're not going to tell Ohno-kun?"
"There isn't really any thing we need him to do," Jun says, "since he's already done a lot for Nino these past few weeks. He has enough on his hands as it is, I think."
"Because Nino's the mood-maker, you know?" Aiba rests an arm on Jun's shoulder as he looks past it, straight at Sho. "When the mood-maker can't even summon a smile, it makes it even harder on people like Captain ."
"And it's a hunch - or maybe just optimism - but I think he might already know about it. Not necessarily that we're throwing a surprise party, but that we have something stewing," Jun says, and then pauses for a moment, deliberating on something. "Actually, about Ohno-kun...I wanted to ask you about something weird he said yesterday during lunch."
"Weird?" Sho doesn't recall Ohno saying anything other than, "I partake," and "Delicious!" during lunch yesterday.
As if reading his mind, Jun explains, "He said it kind of quiet. I only heard it because I was wiping up some of the soup that spilt by his foot, but he mumbled something like, 'But he won't even move in with us.'"
"Ah! After you teased Nino about the true love forever and ever thing?" Aiba says.
"Yeah, after that. Are you seriously thinking about moving down here?" Jun asks.
Sho spears his fingers through the hairs at the base of his neck to give himself more time to think. He has only talked about it to Ohno and nino like they were sitting on bus with strangers between them. He has tried talking through the strangers, past the strangers, and around the strangers. Eventually, Sho knows, he will have to address the obstacles properly and ask them to move aside, the way he's about to now because when it comes down to it, Aiba and Jun's thoughts on this have just as much bearing in his decision.
"Kind of," Sho says. "I'm thinking about it, but I'm probably moving backwards as it is."
"Then you should stop. Thinking too much isn't good for your health," Aiba says, crawling across Jun's lap to get to Sho's so that he's flopped on top of both their laps. "I mean, it's like a feeling, knowing the difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn't make you unhappy. By instinct, you know that they're not one and the same. Knowing whether or not you want to live here is kind of the same principle."
Sho thinks about this. When Aiba lays it out like this, simple and plain, it seems like the answer should be obvious. He's beginning to think that Aiba's telling the truth when he says that his dumb act is purely "non-fict - no, no, I meant fiction!"
"Is there anything you don't want to leave behind in Tokyo?" Aiba asks. "Like, your job, your house, or your pool or something?"
"The ocean is right out there," Jun points out, and Sho retracts that thought about Aiba's act.
"Not exactly," he says. "There's actually a branch of my firm about five miles east of this town, so I could keep working. And my apartment...has a lot to be desired."
It's practically a pit shop, a haven of laundry and old newspapers and take-out long past its expiration date. It is no more than a place he visits between hours at the firm. It's funny, but not in a way that makes him want to laugh, that his house would be a place for him to sojourn, not to stay.
Nino's house, on the other hand, is great. Despite that it isn't even a mile from the sandy beach, the land it sits on is bright and alive. The buds of flowers open beautifully. Weeds sprout vigorously alongside. Everything grows so rank that Sho was almost sure if he let a 100 yen coin fall to Nino's doorstep that it would thrive and be happy there.
"It's just that I spent 27 years in Tokyo. It's where my home is."
Jun frowns at him. "A home isn't much of a home if your heart isn't in it."
"The only thing you've got to move is your brain," Aiba says, tossing over onto his back to look at Sho in the eyes properly. Aiba's eyes are a few shades lighter than Sho's, and they suck you in like mist. They're beautiful like mist; everything this town is so beautiful. "Because everything else has been here since the start."
It's around dinnertime when Sho returns to Nino's house because he had started talking about presents they were going to bring with Aiba and Jun. ("For you, a bunch of your boxes loaded on a truck would probably be the best thing," Jun says, and Sho says, "But I already got him a present," even though he thinks that might be true.) He walks in on the sight of Nino complaining at a frozen meal box. He could have been talking to Ohno, except Ohno is in the room Nino had originally introduced as the "storage" that Sho later found out is the room that held all of Ohno's art supplies.
"It says to test the temperature of the meat to ensure that it's been cooked thoroughly - there's even a thermometer drawn - but who's going to put a goddamn thermometer to their chicken. Hi, Sho-chan. I know you're standing behind me. You're as loud as Aiba-chan when you unlock the door."
"Is that going to bother you if I do it seven days a week, 52 weeks a year?" Sho throws this out as casually as he can, though the way his fingers are shaking when he puts it on Nino's hip betrays him.
Nino throws the box in the trash. "You don't have the leave the house during the weekend," he says after a beat.
3. You find love in every dwelling someone calls home, but only fools find the two synonymous. Home lets you catch your breath and find where you're going. It's your love that carries you there and brings you back.
The three of them bring their dinner out onto the beach. The setting sun casts the world into a perfect tint of red.
"I'm still not sure how a toaster works, you know," Sho says.
"That's not something to be proclaiming with pride," Nino says.
"I'm just saying. For your information."
"This guy," Nino motions to Ohno, "still thinks 'minisuka' stands for 'minisuka police', so it's okay," he says. "We all have our vices."
"I'd think you were a different person if you weren't so sarcastic saying that."
"You love me."
"You knew that before I did, isn't that kind of an unfortunate story?"
"If it helps, I knew, too." Ohno raises a hand. The one he's not using to wolf down soba.
"I stand corrected," Sho says.
"I don't expect you to cook when you move in with us," Nino says. "If you'd just help take care of the bills a bit, that'd be great. Kind of like a husband from the 60s type of a character."
"If I move in with you guys," Sho stresses. "And God please don't be talking about marriage."
"Although if Sho-chan's the husband, what does that make the two of us?" Ohno asks.
"No, no, Sho's only playing the character of the husband because real men can cook without choking on the ball of smoke they create by spilling oil onto the stovetop. He even knows how to change a diaper properly. And besides, the frequency with which he loses sleep over other people losing sleep puts him as the mother by default," Nino explains, chewing his chicken thoughtfully. "You could probably be our teenage son, Oh-chan, the one who lives above our garage and paints for a living, never mind your real job. Or actually, you strike closer to Tara-chan than anything, right?"
Sho says, "Your imagination is frightening," as Ohno chortles so hard he has to lean on Sho's for support (not that slopey shoulders are really too convenient.
Nino looks quite pleased with himself. "Exercise yours a little more, Sho-chan." He points out at the horizon where the sun hisses as it hits the ocean, the cool, salty water dissipating the heat of the orange fireball. "Imagine being able to see this every day. Wouldn't you love that?"
"Sure I would."
Nino's looking out at the horizon, so he doesn't notice, but it's Ohno that meets Sho's eyes as Sho looks at the two of them instead of at the vanishing sun.
"Happy birthday! We're taking a trip," is what Sho says on the morning of the 15th, shaking Nino gently on the shoulder. He had waited thirty minutes more than Jun had instructed, but he thinks it's only fair to let Nino sleep in on his birthday. He's been working really hard for his play lately, besides.
"I'm glad you recognize that it's my birthday," Nino grumbles, pulling the covers over his and Ohno's heads when Sho doesn't go away after being ignored for a good two minutes. "Leave a message after the beep and go violate Aiba-chan. I've been too busy to piss off Jun-kun properly this week."
Sho smiles and presses a kiss to Nino's mouth before going to grab a shower. The great thing about Nino that is once you've got him to crack open an eye at an hour where light is filtering through the windows, it's only a matter of time before he drags his butt out of bed. Sho doesn't worry too much about getting Ohno up either. Ohno's grown so used to a warm body sleeping next to him, he feels cold almost immediately when it leaves.
It takes longer than Sho had counted on (and when he peeks outside, he sees Jun shooting him glares from behind the bushes and Aiba putting leaves in his hair) to get them dressed and out the door.
"So are you going to tell us where we're going, or are we supposed to read your mind?" Nino asks, piling into Sho's car, Ohno entering from the other side. They're both rubbing their eyes sleepily. Sho watches for a moment and then runs back into the house to make them tea to drink in the car, to the dismay of Jun, who is now picking the leaves Aiba put in out of his hair and elbowing Aiba in the arm.
Nino is squinting at the bushes when Sho returns with their drinks. "Is there someone back there?" he asks Sho, taking the styrofoam cup and putting Ohno's in the cupholder because Ohno's already asleep again in the backseat.
"No, why?" Sho says, avoiding Nino's eyes.
"Usually, our greenery doesn't move."
"Must be the wind, or a squirrel," Sho assures him. "Or the wind and a squirrel."
Nino probably picks up on that something fishy's going on under his nose, but it's either too early for him to care, or he thinks it's too small of a something to interrogate Sho about, because he just shrugs and takes a tip of his tea.
Immediately, he blanches. "Drinking questionable liquids on a trip to destination is a swell way to start the day."
"Oh, right," Sho says, remembering that he hadn't answered Nino's question before. "We're going to Tokyo, by the way."
There are gears turning in Nino's head, fast and furious. "Why?" he asks carefully.
"Because I'm no good at packing," Sho says.
With the three of them working together, they fit all of Sho's belongings into nine boxes and bags. ("Most of this is garbage," Nino had said, looking around. "I think we need to reassign that teenage son character because I'm sure you've been living this way since you were fifteen.") By two, they're already on their return trip.
They're playing an extraordinarily spirited game of shiritori when the car jolts to a stop.
Ohno stops mid-ringo to blink at Sho. Sho makes a pitiful face in return.
"Sho-kun," Nino whines, at length, "just sell this piece of trash already, before the cost of repairs exceed the price of the car."
"It's your car, actually," Sho says. "I was going to tell you that it's your birthday present when we got home."
"But I don't need a car, you realize. Everywhere I want to go is within walking distance," Nino says. The way he rolls his eyes is contrasted by the way his hand strays to touch Sho's.
"He means 'thank you'," Ohno translates.
"He knows," Nino snips shortly, embarrassed.
"You're welcome," Sho says and kisses them both, in the car in plain sight of the streets. At the same time that he's rational and cautious, he needs a way to express his gratitude because he's grateful for the honest way Nino loves people, even if he sometimes can't find proper ways to express it, and so grateful for the quiet way Ohno loves with all his heart and doesn't ask for much in return except a little bit of your warmth.
He's tugging them both now, into the back with him, wanting those little bits. The way they cling to each other creates a poetry of limbs: organic, without rhythm, with slanted rhyme.
Riding along the same lines as "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade," Nino reasons that because his car failed at the foot of a hill, that they should climb it. They're only a mile or two from the seaside town, so the air is much fresher, lighter than it was in the city. They lie down at the top of the mountain on their backs, and even though they're barely a hundred feet from sea level, Ohno swears he can tear off a piece of the cloud and eat it like cotton candy if he tries hard enough. Sho agrees. Nino calls them both idiots.
Late into the afternoon, when the sun starts to set ("We're going to become clichés if we keep staring out at twilight like this," Sho says fondly) Nino reveals to Sho the truth about his hatred for corporate business, just because he asked. It happened twenty years to the day, to his grandfather. He'd only been six, then, and hadn't really understood anything other than that he won't ever become someone from the city, one of those monsters that put his grandfather in the hospital and his grandmother in an early grave, from grief.
Sho begins to understand why Nino is the way he is, why he likes to avoid boisterous crowds, why he finds it hard to trust. If you met a loner, no matter what they try to persuade you to believe, what made them that way isn't their love of solitude. It's because they tried to blend into the world before, but people kept disappointing them.
He and Ohno hold Nino's hand through the whole thing, despite that Nino keeps protesting that they are being girls about this. Even as he's complaining, his hands tighten around theirs.
If belonging feels something like helium, then they are all swelling inside.
In the end, Nino doesn't make it to his own surprise party (he knew about it, so it wouldn't have made that great of a surprise anyway). Jun is kind of furious, but Aiba, by the time it came to sing Happy Birthday, was too fall-over drunk to notice that he is delivering his congratulations to the Nino cut-out Nakai had brought in.
(And when Aiba's done singing, he stumbles, clumsy and giddy, toward Jun. He presses their bodies flush against each other and kisses Jun sloppily on the mouth, tasting like beer and laughter. Their first kiss feels like a memory, like it's happened before. They go back for seconds, thirds, fourths to make sure that they're right.)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: 1. Nino and Ohno live by the sea, and Sho doesn't. 2. Move-in boyfriends make good birthday presents. 3. (Hand-holding is definitely a recurring theme in this fic.)
Notes: See how many references to lyrics from Arashi songs you can pick out? :D I apologize for sending in such a last-minute-paste-and-dry fic. Hopefully, it's still somewhat enjoyable to read!
1. Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands, and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
- "The Bait", John Donne
Nino and Sho meet because Sho's razor is obnoxious. By excellent karmic distribution, he chooses to shave just as Nino is walking by on the way to grab lunch. The conversation starts with Nino asking if Sho is trying to bulldoze his face (because noise pollution is frowned upon in their town, did he know?) and ends with Ohno recognizing Sho as the guy he'd met at Aiba's father's restaurant last week.
("He looked super-happy eating gyoza," Ohno says. "He can't be a bad person."
"Ah." Nino nods along and pats Ohno on the back for that piece of unique Ohno-logic. "The microwaved gyoza, you mean.")
Sho is in their little town by the sea on vacation with his family. Their newly-purchased beach house is next door to Aiba's home, so it makes sense that Aiba gets to him first and invites him to go eat at their restaurant. And once Aiba meets someone he likes, everyone else ends up meeting him, too. That first night in Chiba, Sho spends until morning with Aiba, the two people he met in the afternoon, and another guy, Jun.
Jun, for the first three hours of their acquaintance, has a hero worship complex going for Sho. It all ends after Sho tries to help out in the kitchen and pours some oil into open fire. Sho is kind of relieved, though. (Not about the cloud of smoke that hit him in the face; about Jun not following him around, shooting him looks in a way he probably thinks is subtle.)
Nino, for his part, doesn't seem impressed with Sho's diploma or position on the corporate ladder at all. In fact, when he hears the name of the firm Sho worked at, he doesn't even look up from the cup he's pouring Sho's sake into.
"Pedant Land," he says, "where over-educated old men good at business and numbers and not much else thrive." He slides the glass across the table, meets Sho's eyes, and smiles cheekily. "Not that I'm necessarily talking about you."
"Nino doesn't like large conglomerates," Ohno explains when Nino toddles off to aggrieve Jun in the kitchen. "It's not about you."
"It's something from when he was little," Aiba adds, carefully vague. "You probably shouldn't bring it up again, though. He said before that he'd rather spend a month in Aibaland than spend a minute in one of those buildings."
Because Sho feels bad for touching on a sour spot right off the bat (even though, objectively speaking, it's not actually his fault at all, since it was Jun that asked about his work), he makes a mental note to take more care next time, and changes the subject. He asks about Aibaland.
"You're really going to talk about it?" Jun comes in holding a pot of soup. He's followed by Nino, who is carrying a plate of greens in one hand and rice balls in the other.
"Don't you want to maintain a quasi-intelligent image for a few more - " Nino begins.
Aiba jumps up and tucks Nino under his arm, making Jun ululate like a fire truck in distress as the contents of the plates threaten to tip onto the tablecloth.
"I'm not an idiot!" Aiba protests.
"Ow, ow, ow, that hurts! Stop being stupid!"
Judging by the way they are hiding little smirks, it seems that this is a familiar routine.
"Ugh," Nino groans, once Aiba lets go of him, and Jun rearranges the china that had been knocked askew. "I think I pulled a neck muscle."
"This pattern is kind of tiring, isn't it," Aiba says, settling back down in his chair. For having had just a few minutes of exercise pinning Nino down, he is sweating like he just ran a mile in the summer heat. "It's like an intra-generation version of whenever Captain and Nakai-kun meet."
"Except you two are always fighting over the same things," Jun remarks.
"Wait, why'd you start this time again?" Ohno asks, zoning into the conversation.
Aiba blinks. "Something about Ailand, I think?"
"You were telling Sho-chan about your daycare center of a zoo," Nino prompts. "I didn't even get around to calling you an idiot yet. This guy has no sense of timing, you see." He directs this last remark at Sho.
The ins and outs of Aibaland ("You can literally count all the good games he plays with the animals on one hand," is what Jun says, and Nino adds, "It's possible that you actually lose brain cells just by watching.") is only one of many things Sho learns about them and their town that night.
Ohno is the captain of his own boat, and he sometimes makes models out of dough at the bakery, owned by a small little boy that lived around the block. This is a fact that apparently makes Nino positively pissy and makes everyone else infinitely giggly. Or maybe the latter is just because of the sakura sake (their town's specialty) Jun's passing around.
A magician and an actor, Nino, they tell Sho, is something of a local celebrity because of all the work he does with the local theatres. Nino and Aiba have known each other forever because Aiba helps out in the theatres, like an unofficial AD. Nino likes to complain that he sees too much of Aiba's face day in and day out, but really, that's something you can only say to someone that knows you love them from the depths of your heart.
Jun, out of the four of them, is the only one who wasn't born by the sea, though he says that it's been so long ago since his family moved here that he doesn't have memories of any other home. His home-turned-restaurant is next door to Aiba's home-turned-restaurant. While the Aiba family diner serves Chinese food, Jun cooks up strictly traditional Japanese cuisine, but Aiba tells Sho that Jun cooks non-menu items too, for people he really, really likes.
The contrast between the two restaurants is stark. In the Chinese restaurant, everything is a little cramped, the tabletops are kind of sticky, and there is always mystery meat floating in your soup, but you feel at home because it's more comfortable this way, anyway. Jun's restaurant is close to spotless, cleaner than the dining room in Sho's apartment, certainly. (Aiba explains it by making a hole with his thumb and forefinger on one hand and sticking the pinky of his other hand through it. Sho figures out quickly enough that Aiba's trying to hint at Jun's anal retentive nature, but really, no matter how you look at it, it resembles an attempt to jumpstart a conversation about buttsex better.)
Despite that they are no more than good acquaintances at this point, conversation flows freely and easily, topics splitting off like the spokes of a spider web. There, under the soft light of Jun's living room, Sho feels a great deal lighter than he has in a long while, as if talking with the four of them is like taking a breath of fresh air, cool and wonderful in his veins.
And because of his loose atmosphere, Sho ends up learning about things they don't say outright, too.
It would be wrong to say that Sho discovers the truth about Ohno and Nino's relationship on his own. After all, it isn't as if they are trying to disguise it, given the frequency Nino feels compelled to grope Ohno's butt in front of company.
Sho never asks about it (because how would you even begin a conversation like that?), but it's just something he grows to know. The same way he just knows that days by the sea are longer, that everyone there have lived like this all their lives, that it is exactly as Ohno told him when midnight rolled around for the first time: "This is just a day in our life."
The same way he knows that next summer, regardless of anything, he would be back.
It happens apropos to something. This something is not anything tangible or concrete. If Sho has to put a name to it, this something is the feel of this lazy little town and the friends he's made: like he's known it - know them - all his life, like he can open up a passion for no reason at all.
His first kiss with Nino happens like a turning point and feels like the skin under a scab: raw, new and yet somehow completely familiar. It doesn't surprise Sho that Nino would murmur his way through a kiss because in all the time Sho has known him (two weeks, Sho has to keep reminding himself, it hasn't even been a month), Nino was always a loudmouth. But the way he feels his own name breathed against his lips, over and over and over, like a habit, a mindset, like oxygen, makes Sho teeter off balance on his own two feet.
This is his excuse for why he says, a little desperate, "But I like girls," after they pull apart.
Nino just looks at him. "Yeah, okay," he says, and kisses Sho again.
With Ohno, it happens a few minutes later, after Nino is done reassuring Sho how firmly he believed Sho's assertion that he is straight. Kissing Ohno is like a feeling he knows, like the touch of an old T-shirt: warm, comfortable, and lingering, something Sho knows he's going to remember forever and ever as something good and right in his life.
This time, when the kissing ends, Sho doesn't say anything to avoid looking stupid twice. The silence makes laughter bubble up from Ohno's throat, and the two of them laugh with each other until Nino decides that that is enough of that and pushes the three of them down, one on top of another.
2. Well, I'm New York City born and raised,
But nowadays, I'm lost between two shores.
LA's fine, but it ain't home,
New York's home but it ain't mine no more.
-- "I Am I Said", Neil Diamond
Usually, Sho does the saving. When Nino doesn't bring enough cash for meals (or doesn't bother to bring his wallet altogether), it's Sho that picks up the tab. When Ohno falls asleep under the air conditioner, it's Sho that covers him with a blanket. It would be a stretch to call Sho a superhero (because most of the time, he's less Yatterman and more Yattenaiman), but Sho's dependable and constant, like a safe house or a touchstone.
It's rare, then, that the safe house's new car will break down in the middle of the highway, and he will call Nino, hysterical like a little girl. And, see, this is why Sho isn't a superhero: he cracks like an egg under pressure. Or at any time he has a line of angry drivers honking at him from behind.
"Sho-san, a tow truck," Nino says. "You're supposed to call them. They don't have radars for broken Pajeros"
Ohno looks up over the top of his model. "Sho has a Pajero?"
Nino shrugs like, News to me too. "I guess he found a new love interest while we weren't watching. Secret love interest, too."
"We should bring in back-up," Ohno offers because Sho can hear every word of their conversation. Nino's good at conveniently turning phones on speaker like that. "Because Sho-chan really gets around."
"I would suggest Aiba-chan, but I think Jun-kun's finally coming to his senses. Pity."
On some busy highway between Tokyo and Chiba, Sakurai Sho is bashing himself against his steering wheel with enough force to leave stripes of half-arcs on his forehead.
It has been three summers since Sho's first visit to the seaside town. The plan this time around had been to arrive coolly his new car (landed via restaurant promotion dart board) and maybe correct some of his no-good image, but Sho hadn't counted on his prize breaking down so soon.
Fixing up the car occupies the entirety of Sho's first day there, so by the time he turns into the street his beach house sits by, he's justifiably exhausted. He'd been up since six in the morning in order to drive down to Chiba by noon, and dealing with Nagase-kun at the repair shop is never too much fun when you're frustrated, sleep-deprived, and niggling for a shower.
The moment he steps out of the car, slouch-backed and grouchy, someone takes hold of him by the elbow and drags him across the street. It very well could have been a criminal capturing him for ransom (even though crime around here is practically a figment of fiction), instead of Nino kidnapping him for cuddles - either way, he wouldn't have and doesn't struggle now as Nino's throwing him a quick, "Welcome back, Sho-chan," stuffing him through the door to Ohno, who tucks him into a hug. Immediately, Sho's throat funnels tight as he wraps his arms around Ohno, too, and he feels kind of grateful that Nino's bossy and territorial the way that he is.
Nino keeps a hand on Sho's waist and whines in a pitch he's dedicated the last 25 years of his life to perfecting, "You were supposed to come to us when you got here, don't you remember? Or did Jun-kun hit you over the head one time too many last year?"
"Hey," a voice drifts over from beyond the foyer. Jun appears with Aiba bobbing behind his shoulder. Despite that he's throwing Nino annoyed looks, he's smiling. "I rarely hit Sakurai, all right. Don't make it sound like I'm the problem child."
"That's right. Usually, I'm the victim of Matsujun's violence," Aiba says cheerily, before turning and throwing himself against Sho's backside.
"Sho-chan, welcome back! How've you been did you lose weight see even if you're super-mega-busy, you should eat properly," Aiba says on rapid-fire.
Just as it looks like Jun might be tempted to join in on the Sho-smothering, Nino begins to peel Aiba off of Sho and says he's throwing Aiba and Jun out into the heat. "I'm cutting you guys off the stuff. Boyfriends get priority, so you can get your fix tomorrow."
"Selfish," Jun says, but he understands the feeling and hardly blames Nino at all, so he takes his hand and squeezes, bumping Sho's elbow as he tugs Aiba along towards the door.
Sho gets the odd feeling that he's being double-teamed. He wants to contribute this sense to stress-induced paranoia, but with Nino lying between his legs in an amoeba-like sprawl and Ohno locking fingers with him and passing him kisses, right now might be the most relaxed he's been in weeks. But he definitely doesn't think he's imagining the twinkle in Nino's eyes when his meets Ohno's. Nino has been wearing that look ever since Aiba and Jun left, and Sho told them the whole story about the Pajero and the highway incident.
There's light falling through window. The moon, bright as a second sun, sweeps into the room, grazing its corners with gentle fingers, and washes over their skin, bleaching the parts of them that it reaches porcelain white. Nino is caught perfectly between the light and shadows, his face divided symbolically like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. An evil genius is what he reminds Sho of.
The image is driven home by the way Nino is hovering over Sho's cock, breathing on it in soft little puffs without making contact at all. Ohno has stopped touching him, too. Sho's squirming like a fish caught on hook; they have his full attention.
"Move in with us," Nino says suddenly. "It's the obvious answer to your problem."
Sho doesn't say anything because it takes him by surprise (though it would be a lie to say that the thought has never crossed his mind). And to further his shock, Nino doesn't push him to respond, even after beats of a white, static type of quiet. Instead, Nino smirks at him and ducks back down, and it scares Sho a little, the way Nino's prepared to lose one battle in order to win the war.
Ohno pulls Sho closer to his body and grinds against Sho's hip, to the annoyance of Nino who has to adjust to the new angle. Ohno puts his mouth next to Sho's ear, as if he were getting ready to whisper a great, lecherous secret. That would have been safer, actually.
"We don't want you to be the away team anymore," Ohno says instead, and it adds to fire in the pit of Sho's stomach, building a flame the world's rivers couldn't quench.
Sho walks into Jun's restaurant at 11 for lunch the next morning. After a night of fitful sleep, he woke up before the poultry. He asks for a small serving of pasta from Mao, who just got in from her break since it's still too early for the lunch rush. She's a hard-working, personable type of girl. Sho has a lot of respect for her.
A few moments later, Jun comes out with Sho's pasta, and as he places it down in front of him, eyes him through slits. "Did you catch something in Tokyo?"
Sho shakes his head, pleating his napkin into a triangle, a smaller one, then a smaller one still.
Jun probably would have said something if it weren't for Nino coming through the door then, Ohno in tow, shimmering like a freaking rainbow.
When he walks by Jun, he grins. "The usual."
"Increased risk of lifestyle diseases coming right up," Jun says. "I keep saying this, but don't come crying to me when you get hospitalized at thirty for heart disease."
"And don't be too down when you realize it's too late to extract that pole from your ass either," Nino returns.
The look in Nino's eyes says he feels pretty accomplished considering it's still early, Sho can tell when they make eye contact. Ohno just smiles at Sho in that way of his that makes you think he isn't entirely conscious of what he's doing.
As they sit down across the table from Sho, Nino says, "It's not nice to run off without saying anything, you know."
Sho knows, and feels guilty about it too, remembering the way Nino had curled into the warm spot he left. "Sorry," he says and stabs at the tomatos in the sauce some, as if the innocuous little pieces of vegetable are doing something to offend him just by being small and red. Nino is amused. For all that Sho is an academic, a professional, he really knows how to put up the act of a kid who wants to talk about his grudges but wants someone to ask about it first.
"Something the matter?" Nino asks because he knows exactly what Sho's problem is.
Sho looks at Ohno. Ohno looks at Sho's pasta. "I'm fine," he says.
"You don't look fine," Nino points out.
"Then stop looking," Jun says, coming up behind them with Nino and Ohno's hamburgers and a bowl of soup for himself. "Oh wait, that's right, there's that true love forever and ev-"
Nino trips him and almost makes him tip his soup.
To the relief of Sho's sanity, Nino and Ohno have some work to do, leaving Sho to read his newspapers alone. Nino has rehearsal at the theater, and Ohno had promised to help out constructing the set.
They return sometime around midnight, looking tired but accomplished-happy. It's a calm night, with the three of them huddled around each other in a way that is too sweaty and warm for summer. Nino finds his way between the other two. In his sleep, he's holding hands with Ohno and locking legs with Sho. That night, Sho sleeps deeply and restfully and dreams about living all his days like this, in this town by the sea.
When Sho wakes up the next morning, he finds that this was all calm before the storm. The second round of attacks began catching him unawares. Nino and Ohno are gone, having extricated themselves from Sho bright and early. In their place is left a wild trail of neon green post-its. At some point outside the door, it changes color into hot pink, and somewhere out into the hall, it's Matsujun purple.
"Nino?" Sho tries. No response. "Satoshi?" Nothing.
He groans. This is what it means to be baited along at Nino's pace. He would be sympathetic towards Ohno, who probably had to get up before the sun to play accomplice to Nino, except that it isn't exactly like Ohno's caught innocently in the middle.
Rolling reluctantly out of bed, Sho steps on one of the strips, which sticks to his foot. Good morning, Sho-chan, it says cheerfully in Nino's handwriting.
"Good morning," Sho mumbles at it, picking up the next note.
Nino wants you to know that you're holding a stolen piece of property, the next one reads in Ohno's big font. He took it from that Ryusei no Kizuna play he did a few months back, isn't that great. :D
It's only by the time Sho gets into the kitchen that the trail begins to address any relevant content. Some of the arguments are shockingly realistic.
You won't have to keep wasting the world's finite resources driving back and forth if you move in with us.
You won't have to waste time fixing up cheap cars that break down in the middle of busy highways.
You won't have to waste a ton money on mass transportation commuting back and forth.
Or on telephone bills.
Or stationary (seriously, how old are you?)
Sho has read through about fifty of these notes in all (and his legs are quite sore from the squatting) before he sees Ohno and Nino in the shower together, Nino bent over with his hands supporting him against the tiles and Ohno pressed behind him. Actually, Sho hears them and the sloshing of the water first, but details aren't of paramount importance right now.
Ohno and Nino notice him at about the same time. It appears that they've been waiting.
"This is our final argument," Nino says, voice rough like gravel and pitches lower than usual.
"We think it's our best one," Ohno says and trails a path of heat, red and proud, down the plane of Nino's stomach.
Twenty minutes pass before they make their way to the breakfast table to grab something to eat. (On the way there, Sho reprimands Nino about pilfering things from sets. Nino asks him how he can possibly find it in himself to preach so soon after sex.) About a third of the way into their miso soups, courtesy of Nino, they hear someone messing with the door, jamming the spare key into the lock haphazardly. There's only one person who'd intrude without knocking and fail to use the key properly.
Aiba comes in with a gust of fresh morning air and claims Sho for the day, hardly noticing the field of post-it notes scattered about. Nino makes a face at the way he's stepping on them and crumpling them, but doesn't disagree with him and Jun taking Sho, since he and Ohno have a full day of work again today. (He does, though, make Aiba agree to a set of terms and conditions to ensure he gets Sho back in one piece.)
They've barely made it halfway down the street when Aiba, shaking with uncontained excitement, turns to Sho and says, "BIG HAPPENINGS," in standard Aiba-Engrish TM©®.
The thing Sho finds wonderful about Aiba is that his enthusiasm is never half-assed and always contagious like laughter. Even though he's sometimes noisy and a bother to everyone within a 200-yard radius, you can't even find it in yourself to get mad at him in the same way you can't bear to kick a puppy who just wants the world to smile a little more.
He's just beginning to explain what the big happening is when they step up onto Jun's porch, where Jun's waiting with his arms crossed. He smacks Aiba over the head. "You don't know the meaning of secret, do you?" he says, herding them inside. "I'm sure people from Hiroshima heard you, not to mention Nino."
Aiba looks at him sheepishly and giggles nervously.
"So did he tell you about the surprise, the specifics?" Jun asks Sho, walking them towards his living room.
"It's for Nino's birthday, right?" Sho says.
"And it's kind of cheer-up party," Jun adds.
Sho frowns. "But there's nothing down with him."
"That's only because you're here," Aiba says. "For the past month, Nino's been off. Joking around less, whining and stuff. It's only since you got here that he's been distracted."
So that explained the suddenness of the moving proposal. "Distracted from what?"
Jun and Aiba exchange looks.
"That's..." Jun begins hesitantly.
"...something only Nino should be able to explain to you," Aiba finishes.
They're only protecting Nino's right to privacy the way friends should, but it makes Sho realize that he has only scratched the surface to what Nino is all about. It bothers him like a knot at his neck, frustrating and painful like a punch. But it makes sense that Aiba and Jun know about Nino, because after all, being around a person twenty out of 365 days, there is a limitation on what you can learn, and a voice over the phone can only tell you so much.
"What can I do?" Sho asks. "To help with the surprise."
"Right," Jun says, "that's what we wanted to plan out with you." From within a manila folder under the table, he takes out a piece of paper with a bunch of times and events and turns toward Sho. "For the actual party, it's going to be kind of a small occasion, just the five of us like how we've always done it, but we're getting a bunch of other people around town - for example, Mao-chan, Toma, Taichi-kun, Higashiyama-san, etc. - involved in the preparations. We're trying to avoid the rowdiness Nino doesn't like and to avoid taking up more of other people's work time as possible.
"We're going to ask people to be coming around all morning from seven in the morning to one in the afternoon to bring notes, letters, and items Nino will automatically associate with them. Aiba and I will take care of putting them around his apartment and cooking while this happens. So basically, we need you to occupy him and Ohno-kun for the day until we get everything set up."
Sho scans the schedule Jun drafted up. "So we're not going to tell Ohno-kun?"
"There isn't really any thing we need him to do," Jun says, "since he's already done a lot for Nino these past few weeks. He has enough on his hands as it is, I think."
"Because Nino's the mood-maker, you know?" Aiba rests an arm on Jun's shoulder as he looks past it, straight at Sho. "When the mood-maker can't even summon a smile, it makes it even harder on people like Captain ."
"And it's a hunch - or maybe just optimism - but I think he might already know about it. Not necessarily that we're throwing a surprise party, but that we have something stewing," Jun says, and then pauses for a moment, deliberating on something. "Actually, about Ohno-kun...I wanted to ask you about something weird he said yesterday during lunch."
"Weird?" Sho doesn't recall Ohno saying anything other than, "I partake," and "Delicious!" during lunch yesterday.
As if reading his mind, Jun explains, "He said it kind of quiet. I only heard it because I was wiping up some of the soup that spilt by his foot, but he mumbled something like, 'But he won't even move in with us.'"
"Ah! After you teased Nino about the true love forever and ever thing?" Aiba says.
"Yeah, after that. Are you seriously thinking about moving down here?" Jun asks.
Sho spears his fingers through the hairs at the base of his neck to give himself more time to think. He has only talked about it to Ohno and nino like they were sitting on bus with strangers between them. He has tried talking through the strangers, past the strangers, and around the strangers. Eventually, Sho knows, he will have to address the obstacles properly and ask them to move aside, the way he's about to now because when it comes down to it, Aiba and Jun's thoughts on this have just as much bearing in his decision.
"Kind of," Sho says. "I'm thinking about it, but I'm probably moving backwards as it is."
"Then you should stop. Thinking too much isn't good for your health," Aiba says, crawling across Jun's lap to get to Sho's so that he's flopped on top of both their laps. "I mean, it's like a feeling, knowing the difference between something that makes you happy and something that doesn't make you unhappy. By instinct, you know that they're not one and the same. Knowing whether or not you want to live here is kind of the same principle."
Sho thinks about this. When Aiba lays it out like this, simple and plain, it seems like the answer should be obvious. He's beginning to think that Aiba's telling the truth when he says that his dumb act is purely "non-fict - no, no, I meant fiction!"
"Is there anything you don't want to leave behind in Tokyo?" Aiba asks. "Like, your job, your house, or your pool or something?"
"The ocean is right out there," Jun points out, and Sho retracts that thought about Aiba's act.
"Not exactly," he says. "There's actually a branch of my firm about five miles east of this town, so I could keep working. And my apartment...has a lot to be desired."
It's practically a pit shop, a haven of laundry and old newspapers and take-out long past its expiration date. It is no more than a place he visits between hours at the firm. It's funny, but not in a way that makes him want to laugh, that his house would be a place for him to sojourn, not to stay.
Nino's house, on the other hand, is great. Despite that it isn't even a mile from the sandy beach, the land it sits on is bright and alive. The buds of flowers open beautifully. Weeds sprout vigorously alongside. Everything grows so rank that Sho was almost sure if he let a 100 yen coin fall to Nino's doorstep that it would thrive and be happy there.
"It's just that I spent 27 years in Tokyo. It's where my home is."
Jun frowns at him. "A home isn't much of a home if your heart isn't in it."
"The only thing you've got to move is your brain," Aiba says, tossing over onto his back to look at Sho in the eyes properly. Aiba's eyes are a few shades lighter than Sho's, and they suck you in like mist. They're beautiful like mist; everything this town is so beautiful. "Because everything else has been here since the start."
It's around dinnertime when Sho returns to Nino's house because he had started talking about presents they were going to bring with Aiba and Jun. ("For you, a bunch of your boxes loaded on a truck would probably be the best thing," Jun says, and Sho says, "But I already got him a present," even though he thinks that might be true.) He walks in on the sight of Nino complaining at a frozen meal box. He could have been talking to Ohno, except Ohno is in the room Nino had originally introduced as the "storage" that Sho later found out is the room that held all of Ohno's art supplies.
"It says to test the temperature of the meat to ensure that it's been cooked thoroughly - there's even a thermometer drawn - but who's going to put a goddamn thermometer to their chicken. Hi, Sho-chan. I know you're standing behind me. You're as loud as Aiba-chan when you unlock the door."
"Is that going to bother you if I do it seven days a week, 52 weeks a year?" Sho throws this out as casually as he can, though the way his fingers are shaking when he puts it on Nino's hip betrays him.
Nino throws the box in the trash. "You don't have the leave the house during the weekend," he says after a beat.
3. You find love in every dwelling someone calls home, but only fools find the two synonymous. Home lets you catch your breath and find where you're going. It's your love that carries you there and brings you back.
The three of them bring their dinner out onto the beach. The setting sun casts the world into a perfect tint of red.
"I'm still not sure how a toaster works, you know," Sho says.
"That's not something to be proclaiming with pride," Nino says.
"I'm just saying. For your information."
"This guy," Nino motions to Ohno, "still thinks 'minisuka' stands for 'minisuka police', so it's okay," he says. "We all have our vices."
"I'd think you were a different person if you weren't so sarcastic saying that."
"You love me."
"You knew that before I did, isn't that kind of an unfortunate story?"
"If it helps, I knew, too." Ohno raises a hand. The one he's not using to wolf down soba.
"I stand corrected," Sho says.
"I don't expect you to cook when you move in with us," Nino says. "If you'd just help take care of the bills a bit, that'd be great. Kind of like a husband from the 60s type of a character."
"If I move in with you guys," Sho stresses. "And God please don't be talking about marriage."
"Although if Sho-chan's the husband, what does that make the two of us?" Ohno asks.
"No, no, Sho's only playing the character of the husband because real men can cook without choking on the ball of smoke they create by spilling oil onto the stovetop. He even knows how to change a diaper properly. And besides, the frequency with which he loses sleep over other people losing sleep puts him as the mother by default," Nino explains, chewing his chicken thoughtfully. "You could probably be our teenage son, Oh-chan, the one who lives above our garage and paints for a living, never mind your real job. Or actually, you strike closer to Tara-chan than anything, right?"
Sho says, "Your imagination is frightening," as Ohno chortles so hard he has to lean on Sho's for support (not that slopey shoulders are really too convenient.
Nino looks quite pleased with himself. "Exercise yours a little more, Sho-chan." He points out at the horizon where the sun hisses as it hits the ocean, the cool, salty water dissipating the heat of the orange fireball. "Imagine being able to see this every day. Wouldn't you love that?"
"Sure I would."
Nino's looking out at the horizon, so he doesn't notice, but it's Ohno that meets Sho's eyes as Sho looks at the two of them instead of at the vanishing sun.
"Happy birthday! We're taking a trip," is what Sho says on the morning of the 15th, shaking Nino gently on the shoulder. He had waited thirty minutes more than Jun had instructed, but he thinks it's only fair to let Nino sleep in on his birthday. He's been working really hard for his play lately, besides.
"I'm glad you recognize that it's my birthday," Nino grumbles, pulling the covers over his and Ohno's heads when Sho doesn't go away after being ignored for a good two minutes. "Leave a message after the beep and go violate Aiba-chan. I've been too busy to piss off Jun-kun properly this week."
Sho smiles and presses a kiss to Nino's mouth before going to grab a shower. The great thing about Nino that is once you've got him to crack open an eye at an hour where light is filtering through the windows, it's only a matter of time before he drags his butt out of bed. Sho doesn't worry too much about getting Ohno up either. Ohno's grown so used to a warm body sleeping next to him, he feels cold almost immediately when it leaves.
It takes longer than Sho had counted on (and when he peeks outside, he sees Jun shooting him glares from behind the bushes and Aiba putting leaves in his hair) to get them dressed and out the door.
"So are you going to tell us where we're going, or are we supposed to read your mind?" Nino asks, piling into Sho's car, Ohno entering from the other side. They're both rubbing their eyes sleepily. Sho watches for a moment and then runs back into the house to make them tea to drink in the car, to the dismay of Jun, who is now picking the leaves Aiba put in out of his hair and elbowing Aiba in the arm.
Nino is squinting at the bushes when Sho returns with their drinks. "Is there someone back there?" he asks Sho, taking the styrofoam cup and putting Ohno's in the cupholder because Ohno's already asleep again in the backseat.
"No, why?" Sho says, avoiding Nino's eyes.
"Usually, our greenery doesn't move."
"Must be the wind, or a squirrel," Sho assures him. "Or the wind and a squirrel."
Nino probably picks up on that something fishy's going on under his nose, but it's either too early for him to care, or he thinks it's too small of a something to interrogate Sho about, because he just shrugs and takes a tip of his tea.
Immediately, he blanches. "Drinking questionable liquids on a trip to destination is a swell way to start the day."
"Oh, right," Sho says, remembering that he hadn't answered Nino's question before. "We're going to Tokyo, by the way."
There are gears turning in Nino's head, fast and furious. "Why?" he asks carefully.
"Because I'm no good at packing," Sho says.
With the three of them working together, they fit all of Sho's belongings into nine boxes and bags. ("Most of this is garbage," Nino had said, looking around. "I think we need to reassign that teenage son character because I'm sure you've been living this way since you were fifteen.") By two, they're already on their return trip.
They're playing an extraordinarily spirited game of shiritori when the car jolts to a stop.
Ohno stops mid-ringo to blink at Sho. Sho makes a pitiful face in return.
"Sho-kun," Nino whines, at length, "just sell this piece of trash already, before the cost of repairs exceed the price of the car."
"It's your car, actually," Sho says. "I was going to tell you that it's your birthday present when we got home."
"But I don't need a car, you realize. Everywhere I want to go is within walking distance," Nino says. The way he rolls his eyes is contrasted by the way his hand strays to touch Sho's.
"He means 'thank you'," Ohno translates.
"He knows," Nino snips shortly, embarrassed.
"You're welcome," Sho says and kisses them both, in the car in plain sight of the streets. At the same time that he's rational and cautious, he needs a way to express his gratitude because he's grateful for the honest way Nino loves people, even if he sometimes can't find proper ways to express it, and so grateful for the quiet way Ohno loves with all his heart and doesn't ask for much in return except a little bit of your warmth.
He's tugging them both now, into the back with him, wanting those little bits. The way they cling to each other creates a poetry of limbs: organic, without rhythm, with slanted rhyme.
Riding along the same lines as "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade," Nino reasons that because his car failed at the foot of a hill, that they should climb it. They're only a mile or two from the seaside town, so the air is much fresher, lighter than it was in the city. They lie down at the top of the mountain on their backs, and even though they're barely a hundred feet from sea level, Ohno swears he can tear off a piece of the cloud and eat it like cotton candy if he tries hard enough. Sho agrees. Nino calls them both idiots.
Late into the afternoon, when the sun starts to set ("We're going to become clichés if we keep staring out at twilight like this," Sho says fondly) Nino reveals to Sho the truth about his hatred for corporate business, just because he asked. It happened twenty years to the day, to his grandfather. He'd only been six, then, and hadn't really understood anything other than that he won't ever become someone from the city, one of those monsters that put his grandfather in the hospital and his grandmother in an early grave, from grief.
Sho begins to understand why Nino is the way he is, why he likes to avoid boisterous crowds, why he finds it hard to trust. If you met a loner, no matter what they try to persuade you to believe, what made them that way isn't their love of solitude. It's because they tried to blend into the world before, but people kept disappointing them.
He and Ohno hold Nino's hand through the whole thing, despite that Nino keeps protesting that they are being girls about this. Even as he's complaining, his hands tighten around theirs.
If belonging feels something like helium, then they are all swelling inside.
In the end, Nino doesn't make it to his own surprise party (he knew about it, so it wouldn't have made that great of a surprise anyway). Jun is kind of furious, but Aiba, by the time it came to sing Happy Birthday, was too fall-over drunk to notice that he is delivering his congratulations to the Nino cut-out Nakai had brought in.
(And when Aiba's done singing, he stumbles, clumsy and giddy, toward Jun. He presses their bodies flush against each other and kisses Jun sloppily on the mouth, tasting like beer and laughter. Their first kiss feels like a memory, like it's happened before. They go back for seconds, thirds, fourths to make sure that they're right.)