Random fic of randomness! (All Arashi)
Ever since Edward left for Europe (a long awaited, long-long-long saved for birthday gift) my brain has pretty much been pulp. So I went around and collected a few prompts. Meg's prompt is not in here because 1: It's Kabuto. 2: So very awesome that I must do it justice. 3: This entry is too long as is.
But other than that, random Arashi fic. I don't know if this is \o/ or DD:
For waxrose. Prompt: Aiba/Jun "Because you're special." (In the most sappy or extremely retarded sense of the word OR BOTH take your pick)
Special kind of special
"Aiba," Jun says softly, sincerely, "because you're special-very special-"
"To you?" Aiba asks winsomely.
"Very, very special," Jun goes on doggedly.
"I think he means in the 'needs help to cross the street, goes to the special school' way," Nino interjects helpfully.
"Thank you, Nino," Jun says through gritted teeth. "I can handle this on my own."
"If you kill him, Sho is going to be pissed. I'm not big enough to hold back a pissed off Sho," says Nino. "Not that I'd try much, because Aiba is special to me-"
"I love you too, Nino!" Aiba chirps.
Jun would like to slam his head against the wall. Or theirs. "You know, Leader is in the building somewhere," he says dangerously.
"Oh, he is not," Nino says, but he gets up and leaves the room anyhow.
"I will let you live," Jun starts over.
Aiba puts his arms around Jun's neck and smiles at him. Just smiles. "You're not mad," he says. "You know I honestly didn't think it would explode at all because if I'd thought that it even had a chance of blowing up, I'd have had a film crew with me and not just Nino."
"You blew out sound-studio four. We have to find a new studio to record in because we're on a deadline and we can't afford to lose a day of work. I'm pretty sure I'm furious."
"No, no you're not. Because I'm shirtless and soaking wet from when you put out the fire so it's a pretty good deal, huh?" Aiba gives him a quirky smile, one that is too amused for the accusing twist he's trying to put into it. "It was cold water, Jun-chan. I'm freezing and look I'm all covered in goose-bumps."
He knows better. Jun absolutely knows better than to look and verify this claim. He knows that doing so is playing right into Aiba's hands. One of Aiba's hands wraps around the back of Jun's neck, his long, cool fingers squeezing lightly. Jun looks down and takes a deep, hard breath.
Aiba still has his August tan and he almost glows under the crappy studio resting-room lights, a golden summer peach. And he looks just as soft, just as smoothly touchable. Jun adores peaches but that doesn't mean he's going to bite into the inviting curve of Aiba's shoulder and lick away the sweetness he knows he's going to find. He can't resist touching, though. He puts one careful finger on the cusp of Aiba's shoulder and follows the line down to his bicep; Aiba's skin is cool, chill like an autumn pond. A wave of gooseflesh breaks out in the wake of his touch. "Liar," Jun says softly.
"Jun-tan has warm hands," Aiba tells him, his voice quiet. "But I'm cold, right? My nipples are all hard."
They are. Dark-bronze with the pucker of cold, Aiba's nipples are hard and they draw Jun's hand uncontrollably. Jun has always been attracted to pretty things and this is just too much. He stops with his fingers just inches away, fingertips pressing in to the firm sketch of muscle. "I'm still furious with you." He sounds faint to his own ears, like he really isn't that mad at all, like it's all just for the sake of saying it.
Aiba hums softly, a short and tuneless note. "No you're not. You know I meant it for the best."
Oh, god, and he does know that. Aiba does everything for the best, to make people smile, to make the world happy. Aiba, Jun thinks now, is one of those fantastically rare people who are beautiful all the way through. And he's Aiba, so he's annoying and loud and clueless even as he's sweet and gentle and smart and Jun loves him. Jun loves him like he loves Arashi, so much that at times he feels like he could die from it and Aiba can never, ever know this. If Aiba knew it would be a complete disaster. Aiba would bring it up in the MCs, would sing a song about it, would tell Nino and Jun really would die. "You're a moron," Jun whispers.
Aiba chuckles under his breath. "Now tell me you love me," he orders.
Jun is too helpless. He surges forward and crushes their mouths together because otherwise he will give Aiba the words that will make his life a very special sort of hell. Aiba is still laughing, so very happy, and so Jun lets his hand move and pinches Aiba's nipple because he should be furious anyhow.
"I thought you said Jun was about to kill him," Sho's voice cuts suddenly across the pounding of Jun's blood in his ears. "You said he was going to kill him."
"I love seeing your trauma face. If Oh-chan were here I'd have brought him too and he'd have said something that would have made you cry."
Jun pulls away from Aiba's mouth and does not look at the way his lips are parted, the way they're sheened from the stroke of Jun's tongue, or the pretty color that Jun's kiss has brought out in them. "I'm going to kill you first," he tells Aiba seriously, "and Nino next."
For…me. Because I finally figured out how Ohno/Aiba would happen.
In absence of both booze and orgy
"Let's do it," said Aiba, apropos of nothing.
Ohno paused with his glass of juice centimeters from his mouth. "Do what?" he asked before taking a sip.
Aiba grinned at him. "Have sex!"
Ohno drank and considered that. "With each other?" he asked once he'd swallowed.
"Yeah!" Aiba nodded enthusiastically.
Ohno thought about that. He tilted his head and thought a little more. "Okay," he said at last. "Now?"
"You want to?" Aiba asked.
"I…" Ohno paused. "I guess it depends on what you want to do. We might not have time." He glanced regretfully at the clock over the door.
Aiba touched the tip of his nose and grinned, crinkle-eyed, at Ohno. "I suppose so, I suppose so. And the staff might be mad if we mess up the clothes before we do the shoot."
"That's true." Ohno said with a nod. He sort of wished the fans could see Aiba at moments like this: rather stupidly smart and so bright it almost hurt to look at him. "I'm free after the shoot today."
"I have filming," Aiba said. "But I'm free on Wednesday and then again on Friday morning. Morning sex is nice. We could take our time and do whatever we want."
Ohno put down his juice and took out the organizer that Nino had given him for his last birthday and kept updated for him. "Not Wednesday but I'm free Friday morning, too. I don't have anything until the Tongari CM filming."
Aiba peeked warmly over his shoulder. "Oh, oh, that's all of us for that one. I can give you a ride to the studio after we do it. Do you want me to put that in there for you?"
"Okay. I don't know why Nino even gave me that thing. I never know how to work it. And half the time he puts his stuff in there too, so I get confused."
Aiba nodded absently, thumbing in information. "Me too, he does that to me, too. I almost went to Yoko's to do a magic trick last week and I didn't even think about it because I was in a hurry and so I was half panicked because I couldn't find my deck of cards."
Ohno leaned back in his seat and let his head loll onto Aiba's shoulder. "Nino's mean like that," he commiserated. He took his organizer back and smiled at the entry.
"Oh-chan, are you trying to update your schedule without me again? Because if you wipe it out again, I'm not putting anything in there," Nino vaulted the back of the sofa and sat down next to him, taking the little device away from him. "Huh. What's 'freestyle with Masaki' supposed to mean?"
Ohno looked at Jun and Sho, who had both come in with Nino. Then he nudged Nino's hip with his arm to get him to look up. "Aiba-chan and I are going to have 'whatever we want' sex."
"I put us in for the whole morning," Aiba said lounging companionably against his shoulder, grinning lazily at Jun and Sho. "Because I think we can make it take that long."
Jun looked at Sho.
Sho looked at Jun.
Nino watched them both like a hawk.
"I didn't hear that," Jun said at last, sitting down across from Nino. Ohno let Jun steal the last of his juice because Jun looked like he really, really needed something to drink.
"Hear what?" Sho muttered darkly as he squeezed in between Nino and Ohno. Ohno put an arm around him, patting his shoulder comfortingly.
"They said they're going to have sex on Friday morning," Nino said helpfully. "All morning. Free style."
"There might be pictures," said Aiba. "I like Leader's photography."
And as cute as Nino's beaming smile was, as heart-warmly good as Aiba's scrunched-up-laughing face was, Ohno was sort of glad that the fans could not see Jun and Sho making a suicide pact together as the staff came to fetch them for wardrobe.
He did a running jump into the Freestyle pose on the way. "Five more days!"
For blood_opal. Prompt: Sho coming home to find a giant hunk of meat in his refrigerator (and Nino in his bedroom) on his return from Beijing. XDDD Bonus points for the other Arashi members leaving him some messages alongside the meat.
Too Long, Too Far
Giving a key to Nino was like playing a game of Russian roulette with the future state of your apartment. Sho had known that even when he'd given Nino the key. He was vaguely surprised to walk in and find things pretty much the way he had left them. Considering it was what Jun called 'fuck-you-go-away-and-die-o'clock' in the morning, Sho was tempted to find Nino and kiss him for this blessed turn of events.
"God, I am so tired," he said to himself, kicking off his shoes, stripping off his socks, and wandering barefoot to his refrigerator. "Food," he told himself, "shower, then bed."
He wasn't sure what he had in his refrigerator that was still going to be good after three weeks, but he certainly wasn't expecting a gigantic hunk of meat to be taking up most of the top shelf. At least, from the way it was wrapped he assumed it was meat. It was also covered in post-it notes.
The first that Sho pulled off was Jun's and it read: 'For the weight-losing Yatterman, meat as a souvenir. Missed you in Chiba.' Sho smiled and set it down on the counter. It was bound to be a better souvenir than the meat itself.
The next note was from Aiba and it was actually seven post-its long, detailing the origin of the meat, the other possible form of the meat (one with a big bone in it, Sho-chan! But MatsuJun said I was too much of a pervert and we couldn't show that on t.v.) and an apology for disturbing Sho at work in Beijing. He set it with Jun's note.
Ohno's note was a picture of chairs with music coming out of them and a sad face in the corner. Sho stuck that one on his refrigerator with a rainbow magnet.
He had deliberately saved Nino's note for last.
"More meat, ready to eat, in the bedroom," he read out loud.
"Actually," came Nino's voice from the kitchen doorway, "it's not in there anymore."
"Please don't be naked, please don't be naked," Sho muttered feverishly. "I am way too exhausted to do anything with you naked. Please don't be naked."
"I'm not naked," Nino said.
Sho turned.
Nino was not naked.
Nino was wearing a mesh thong.
"That's not any better," Sho told him seriously.
"But it is what you were asking for," Nino replied with a sly smile.
"God, you're an idiot," Sho said and then reached out to pull Nino into his arms. He buried his face in Nino's hair and breathed deeply. Nino smelled like Aiba's shampoo and Ohno's cologne and Jun's cooking and Nino. "We have filming in three hours. What are you even doing here?"
Nino hugged him harder, pressing closer. "I fell asleep waiting for you. Thought you were supposed to get in hours ago."
Sho's heart twisted with an almost miserable longing. He should have been home hours ago, holding Nino and breathing him in and not starving and exhausted. "Flight was delayed due to mechanical problems. I ended up on the same plane as Ogu-san."
"Well, that's gone and killed any hard-on I might have been getting," Nino remarked cheerfully into his shoulder. "Why don't you grab a shower and I'll make you something to eat." Nino drew back and smiled at him, his hands warm against Sho's cheeks and his eyes clear and bright.
Sho kissed him, taking Nino's face into his hands and holding him steady as he slid his tongue past Nino's smiling lips into the heat of his mouth. Nino tasted familiar and sleepy and a little turned on. "Jesus," Sho said as he pulled away to grab a short breath. "I missed you," he added, diving in for another kiss. He ran his hand down the long column of Nino's throat and felt Nino's quiet moan before he heard it.
He lost track of time, kissing Nino over and over, half in love with the soft, wet sounds their mouths made together. There was a tight, empty feeling in his belly that was a hunger entirely unrelated to food. He slid his hands down Nino's body, moving around to cup the firm curve of his ass and stopped. "Why is your butt so cold?" he asked. Sho had never worn thong underwear before but he was pretty sure that being bare-cheeked was not enough to make somebody noticeably cold.
Nino made a low sound, dragging his hands through Sho's hair in a way that sent shivers down his spine. "You put your naked butt in this refrigerator and see if it doesn't come out frosty," he mumbled. "Kiss me again."
Sho dropped a kiss on the tip of Nino's nose and then lifted his head to take in his surroundings. He'd been standing with the door of the refrigerator open and hadn't bothered to shut it, too busy getting Nino into his arms to care. As a result, pressing Nino against the nearest stable surface as he'd kissed him meant that he'd pushed Nino up against the edge of the open appliance door. He chuckled and kissed Nino's forehead. "I think I might have to re-heat my meat before I eat it," he teased.
"Lame," Nino told him, smiling up at him and stretching up to kiss him again.
"Sho-chan!" Aiba's voice was low, considering the early hour, but very awake and very much outside Sho's door. "Sho-chan! Nino set your alarm and I know it's going off! I know you're awake."
"You set my alarm?" Sho asked him.
Nino groaned and banged his forehead against Sho's shoulder. "Yeah. We were going to have that steak for breakfast. All of us," he clarified.
"God, Masaki, how are you this energetic this early?" Jun's voice had joined Aiba's, distorted by an obvious yawn.
"I don't go drinking with Oguri-san at one in the morning," Aiba answered him. "Hi, Leader, are you actually awake?"
There was no answer from Ohno but Sho could clearly see the fuzzy half-nod that Ohno would have used.
Nino kissed his cheek. "Go shower," he said, smiling ruefully and touching the place he'd kissed. "It'll wake you up enough to eat."
Sho nodded, catching Nino's hand to kiss his fingers lightly before letting go and heading for his bathroom. It was only as he stripped down to his underwear that he remembered that Nino was mostly naked. "Nino? Did you put on pants?" he called over the sound of the water.
Ohno's head poked in. "He's wearing the underwear that Aiba gave MatsuJun," he reported. "We believe that those count as 'pants' but Jun's arguing the point." Ohno frowned. "Probably only because Nino stole them from Aiba to begin with."
"Tell him to put on clothes," Sho said, stretching out to nuzzle his cheek against Ohno's in greeting. "I don't want my meat burnt."
Ohno nuzzled him back. "That'll make Jun choke," he said agreeably and ducked back out of the room.
Sho ducked his head under the spray from the shower nozzle just as the sounds of a good-natured fight broke out in his kitchen. "I'm home," he said quietly to himself and smiled.
PS. My brain kept trying to go 'lolz, u no whut? the rest of Arashi is in the bedroom. and then sho wakes up to barbeque because Aiba cannot resist the call of that huge slab of meat.' I really sort of hate my brain.
This is one that happened to be in my head and when blood_opal first mentioned Sho/Ohno (it's not that I want to stay away from it-more like I think writing it would be like eating potato chips. Plus Nino would ninja his way in somehow) I said 'orz, now I have to write it'. So.
Absorb
Sho arrives for Music Station about twenty minutes before they have to go on. He's been briefed by phone so it's mostly a matter of getting him dressed and wired for sound.
Jun thinks that this would be a much easier and quicker process if Nino would let go of him.
Nino is clinging to Sho; legs around his waist, arms around his chest, and his face tucked into Sho's neck. Ostensibly, Nino is bitching about things. Things like the heat, the prep work for 24hrs, the fact that there is going to be a lunch on a boat in Chiba, and how nobody liked his idea of a cardboard-cutout Sho being dragged along on their trip. Really, Jun thinks, really Nino is trying to somehow absorb Sho, trying to get as much of him as he possibly can using as much of himself as he's able. Like some sort of drug addict given a bag of cocaine and two straws. His hands are tight against Sho's shoulder blades, occasionally sweeping up to curl over his shoulders or stroking down to touch the dip of his spine.
"Which one of you is sleeping with Sho again?" Jun asks, still staring at Nino and Sho and the way Sho is holding on to Nino, too, like he doesn't want to let him go again.
Ohno raises his hand politely. "Me," he says, "but it's okay if Nino hogs him right now. Nino is…" he trails off, frowning as he searches for the word.
"Co-dependant?" Aiba offers after a moment, also staring at the way Nino is impeding Sho's (admittedly lackluster) attempts to change his pants.
"Psycho?" Jun volunteers dryly. The staff is trying to gently peel Nino off of Sho and Nino's bitching is ramping up, trying to get out the last of his complaints (how Jun hits him when he worries about Sho's safety in Beijing, how Aiba wouldn't treat him to lunch saying that Nino would only order Sho's favorite and then sigh at it, how Ohno's new shampoo doesn't smell like the right brand) before the staff succeeds in untangling them.
"Attached," Ohno decides.
"In more ways than one," Jun mutters as Nino's voice reaches a crescendo and there is an actual, audible ripping sound as the staff finally separates him from Sho.
Ohno rises from his chair and goes to Nino, putting an arm around him. "C'mon, Kazu," he says coaxingly, "come sit with me. I hugged Sho-chan earlier and this shoulder," he points to the shoulder of the arm curled around Nino, "still sort of smells like him."
Nino calls Ohno an idiot but Jun notices that he slides himself into the space Ohno indicated anyhow, sighing a tiny bit and looking more content than he has in days.
Jun looks at Aiba. "No, really," he says under his breath, "which of them is sleeping with Sho?"
Another one that just happened to be in my head. Because I have VERY STRONG FEELINGS about this.
Buzzed
Sho felt good about his new hairstyle. The stylist had cooed over it, his manager had smiled, the driver assigned to take him over to the station had high-fived him. Sho thought he looked good right up until he walked into the greenroom and had his bandmates stop what they were doing to stare at him, silent and unmoving.
"What did you do to your hair?" Aiba broke the silence first, pattering over to him and reaching out like he was going to touch Sho's hair but stopping before he made contact.
"It's not okay?" Sho asked self-consciously, touching the short bits around his ear.
"No, no," Jun physically shook himself. "It's just…it looks different. We're used to the other style."
Nino approached from Sho's other side, stopping when he was in line with Aiba, and stared at him. His eyes were solemn, his lips turned down in a tiny frown. "They're straight," he said quietly, at last. Like Aiba he reached out, his fingers stopping a breath away from the straight fringe of Sho's bangs. "You can't push them to the side anymore. Too short." He pulled his hand back, putting his fingers over his lips like he was using them to stop whatever words might have been in his mouth. Or to hide his unhappy smile.
"I can a little. I do," Sho said, feeling slightly desperate. He nudged his bangs to the side, wincing as they fell back across his forehead. "Satoshi, what do you think?"
Ohno came up behind Nino and hid his face against Nino's shoulder. He muttered something that sounded like the word 'fluffy' and something that might-or might not-have been the word 'miss'.
"Eh?" Sho touched the back of his head. "Everybody else seemed to think it was all right," he said. He meant to sound defensive but he thought he sounded more dismayed than anything else. He was upsetting his bandmates in a way that he could neither stop nor fix and it felt awful.
"It's nice," Jun assured him hastily. "It's a nice cut. Very fresh. It just takes getting used to."
"Hey!" Aiba had circled around to study him from behind. "Hey, hey! Look!" Sho couldn't see what Aiba was talking about but he figured it out when Aiba's nose was suddenly nuzzling at the nape of his neck, which had been left bare and sensitive by the new style.
"Masaki!" he swatted behind him, trying to push him away and get rid of the ticklish feeling. "Quit that!"
Jun, Nino, and Ohno tilted their heads to the side, blinking at Aiba questioningly.
"You can reach his neck now," Aiba explained, ignoring Sho's attempts to dislodge him. The tickle increased as Aiba inhaled audibly. "I think he's got cologne back here."
"Oh?"
"Yeah?"
"Really?"
Sho dropped his chin to his chest in resignation as the other members of Arashi clustered behind him. "Somebody is going to come in here and think this is weird," he said. He shivered as somebody blew softly on his neck.
"It feels soft," Ohno said in time with fingers carding through the short strands at the base of his skull. "It's still soft but now it feels silky, too." Those fingers tugged gently, testing.
"Here, too," Nino said. "You can reach that spot right under his ear now, too."
A nose-possibly Nino's but just as easily not-poked into that spot. "Oooohhh," four voices said.
"Really, you guys, weird," Sho warned.
"I like Sho-chan's new haircut," Ohno announced.
"Me too," said Nino. His arms wrapped warmly around Sho's middle. "It's cute."
"I found it," Aiba reminded them all. "I was the one who found out it was cute. Somebody has to treat me to lunch."
"Not me," Jun said immediately. "I said it looked good even before you started feeling him up like a chimp."
"I will," Sho offered, catching Aiba with an arm around his waist and pulling him around his body. "But only if you all get out of my hair before the staff comes looking for us and decides we're all crazy."
"Excuse me, Arashi-sa…oh."
(Sho ended up buying everybody lunch, anyhow, just because he felt so great about his new hairstyle.)
For jelly_fic (aka 15th_Moon). Prompt: Jun-centric with (optional) Nino. Causality
It's the Relationship
Jun didn't realize it until he stepped out for lunch, but the dance studio they were using for play rehearsals was right next door to the theater where Nino was doing his own work. He weighed the take-away box in his hands for a moment, thinking about getting to know his new co-workers versus visiting somebody he saw practically every day. Checking for traffic he crossed the street to Nino's building.
Nobody stopped him at the door but one of the lighting people snagged him halfway down the aisle and told him that Nino was behind the building, apparently smoking for lunch. In fact, Nino was crouched next to a gutter drain pipe lighting one cigarette off the butt of another.
"Healthy," Jun deadpanned, crouching next to him.
Nino smiled wryly down at his hands. "It's the MatsuJun diet-nicotine, caffeine, and two hours of sleep."
"Two? That's indulgent. You're going to get fat from that, you know." He took the cigarette when Nino passed it to him and choked. "What the hell is this?" he asked, checking the filter.
"Cheap," Nino said, looking over at him for the first time. "Some of us budget our money."
He'd known Nino for far too long. Nino never skimped on tobacco. He nudged his shoulder into Nino's and left it there against him. "What's up?"
Nino looked away, taking his nasty cigarette back. "New Dragon Quest game coming out soon and I want it."
Watching Nino blow smoke (in more ways than one), Jun sighed. He stole the cigarette from Nino's hands and stubbed it out on the ground. He fished out his own pack and tapped one out, handing it to Nino. "Light that," he instructed, putting his cigarettes away and getting out his cell phone.
Nino lit the cigarette but didn't take a drag. "Who're you calling?"
"Leader." Jun grabbed Nino's wrist to bring his hand up so he could take a quick puff as he scrolled through his contacts. He glanced at Nino. "Unless you want me to call Sho or Masaki first."
"Asshole," Nino muttered. His free hand rubbed at the back of his neck and Jun shut his phone off, knowing that gesture. Nino let out a huff. "My father called yesterday."
Jun pulled Nino's hand over again, more to offer Nino physical contact than because he wanted the smoke. "Did you talk?" Nino's father could send his son into an emotional tailspin for days. Nino managed to hide it well from people who didn't know him but for those who did it wasn't easy watching him wear himself out.
"He called my mom while I was there." Nino gave a dry laugh, bringing the cigarette to his mouth. "She said he asked about me."
There really wasn't much to say about that. "And now you're on the Matsumoto Jun diet," was what he chose. "Which, today, includes pressed mackerel," he added, reaching for the lunch he'd set down earlier. "I picked it up at the new place down the street." He offered the first piece to Nino. "Tell me how it is."
Nino let him feed him, his unreadable smile curling around his mouth. "It's crap," he said, chewing. "Give me another piece just to make sure."
"You're such a liar." But he fed Nino another bite anyhow because he appreciated Nino's caustic temperament.
"Still crap," Nino told him around the mouthful. "I really shouldn't let you eat any of this."
And then he smiled and Jun had to put down the chopsticks because he'd have sooner died than let Nino see him drop them over a smile. Not even over Nino's real smile. Because that was what it was. Jun saw Nino smile all the time but, according to Sho, it was never the real thing. He'd been pretty sure that Sho had just made it up to needle him about his (at the time) crush on Nino, saying that it was like seeing Nino naked. Well, Jun had seen Nino in the nude plenty of times-hell, he'd seen puberty hit-but sitting in that grungy little alley he saw Nino naked for the very first time. And it was because of something he'd said, something he'd done, something that he was. He set lunch aside, leaned over, and kissed him, feeling that smile with his own lips. It was light, chaste, not about sexual attraction so much as it was about returning Nino's gesture with his own.
When he pulled back, Nino was still smiling at him. The real one was hiding behind the customary smirk but Jun could still see it there. "I didn't know that the MatsuJun diet was so queer," he said conversationally.
Jun ignored him and took a bite of some really rather excellent mackerel. "It's fabulous. You're just not ready for that level of greatness."
This is for aatash because she put the idea into my head. Which is to say: no, Jun never mentions his sister aside from that one story. In fact, all of Arashi are pretty closed-mouthed about their families (and naturally so). We don't have any names aside from Aiba's brother. So I made up names! Because, damn it, I DID want to write that fic. DDD: If I didn't love you, I would hate you a lot.
Little Miss Mister
"Mom!"
"Yoriko, I already told you that your ballet skirt is in your drawer."
Yoriko planted her fists on her hips. "It's not that! Come see Jun!"
"What's he done now?"
Yoriko pointed at her three-year-old brother when her mother got to her room. "Isn't he cute?" she giggled. "Jun-chan, show off for Mama," she instructed.
Jun lifted his hands over his head and twirled the way she'd taught him. Her ballet skirt flared out and floated around him, drifting like a little pink cloud. Her purple Hello-Kitty shirt whirled with him, too, and would have slipped off his shoulders if he hadn't had his arms over his head. Yoriko was pretty sure that the best part of the outfit was the white feather boa and wrist scarves. "'Nee-chan!" Jun twirled to a stop, lower-lip jutting out. "'Nee-chan fix my hair!" He pointed to where one of her star barrettes had come loose and was dangling over his eye.
"You're the prettiest boy in the world, Jun-chan," Yoriko soothed, fixing the barrette.
"Mama, am I pretty?" Jun looked to their mother.
Their mother shook her head. "Yes, Jun-chan. Yoriko, get that off of him and get ready for your lesson or else you'll be late."
--
"Moooom!" Yoriko glared at her little brother. "Jun-chan's got my shirt and he won't give it back!"
Six-year-old Jun rubbed his cheek against his arm and glared back at her. "It fits me! I want it! It's soft." Jun rubbed against his arm again, sounding enthralled.
"Mom!"
Their mother glared at both of them. "Matsumoto Jun, that is a girl's sweater. You take it off this minute and put it back on the hanger. Yoriko, I am not buying you a cashmere sweater, you're eight."
"But it's purple!" Yoriko wailed.
Jun folded his arms, his lip trembling. "What does it matter that it's a girl sweater? It fits me and I look cute. All the salesladies said so. I'd take good care of it."
"Mom!" Yoriko didn't understand why her mother went bright red and dragged her and her brother out of the store. She figured it had something to do with the cost of the sweater, though, because they never did go back.
---
"What are they wearing?" Jun demanded.
"Shh, Jun-chan. I'm watching." Yoriko waved him off, staring at her boyfriend. Well, he was going to be her boyfriend once they finally met.
"'Nee-chan, what are they wearing?" Jun persisted.
"Jun-chan, please go bug Mom. I'm trying to watch Tsuyoshi. Mai-chan says that they're going to ask what sort of girls KK want to date when they're allowed."
"But what is that that they're wearing," Jun asked again, plopping down beside her and pointing at the television.
Yoriko buried her head in her arms and then half rolled over, twisting toward the kitchen. "Mom! Tell Jun to stop bugging me."
Jun stuck his lower lip out. "I just want to know where they got those clothes," he said meekly as their mother came out of the kitchen, holding a handful of washed carrots and a knife. He pointed to the screen again.
Their mother sighed. "The company they work for dresses them, honey, they don't have any say. They have to wear bright, flashy things so that people will look at them. You shouldn't make fun."
Yoriko looked at her mother. "He's not making fun, Mom. He likes to see what they wear because it looks cool. Does Johnny's really dress them up?" She thought she might have to give up the dream of Tsuyoshi taking her shopping in the fashion district, if that was the case. At least until she could see clothes he picked for himself.
"Is that boy wearing a skirt?" Their mom was ignoring her, staring at the screen.
"Can I join Johnny's?" Jun asked hopefully.
---
"Mom! Jun's going to be on soon!" Yoriko hugged a pillow to her chest and tried to contain her smile. Her baby brother was going to be on t.v. as one of the new Juniors. He was a little dork but she was willing to bet he was going to be the best looking kid on the show. "Mom!"
"I'm here, I'm here." Her mother hugged her shoulders. "You know, Jun just e-mailed me; he's a little upset about the outfit he has to wear. When he gets home you are not going to tease him about it. No matter what he had to wear. Do you hear me, young lady?"
Yoriko rolled her eyes. "M~~om," she moaned. "You act like they dress like girls. It's probably just a little outrageous or something. Jun's probably just mad that it's not his favorite color. It's not like Jun's going to be in a dress or anything."
"All the same," their mother said firmly.
The screen flickered and the JE logo came up on the screen. "This is it, Mom!"
On the television, the Junior boys tumbled out onto the stage in a variety of flips and spins and jumps. They were all, to a member, wearing blue and white track-suits. Yoriko spotted her brother immediately. "There he is! Oo, he's got a nice spin, Mom! Look at his hands!"
"I don't understand…is it too big on him?" Their mother was frowning at the screen.
Jun, on screen, ended his spin with a jump and shoved his hair out of his eyes.
Yoriko blinked. "Hey, Mom," she grinned and pointed. "You know what I just remembered? I used to dress Jun up in my ballet stuff when he was a baby! Do you think he learned that from me? Mom? Mom? Do you remember that?"
Their mother was giving her a measuring look. "Yes," she said at last, "I do."
---
"Mom, I'm going to look at those skirts over there, okay?" Yoriko didn't wait for her mother's answer, instead scurrying over to the nearby rack. Her mom and brother were fighting and hanging out with them was the last thing she wanted to do.
Their mother was sighing at Jun. "I don't see why this couldn't wait until this weekend, Jun. Your pants are only a little short at the ankle."
Jun folded his arms. "You don't have to listen to Ninomiya. If I show up in pants that are too short again he's going to be horrible about it."
"Well, why don't you just ignore him, Jun?"
"Because I work with him. And he's louder than both Aiba and Ikuta put together."
"Well," their mother started again.
"He's not mean, Mom," Jun said soothingly, rolling his eyes. "He's just jealous because I'm going to be taller than him. And I don't think he wants to go to Osaka tomorrow, either. Which is why I need new pants."
"All right, all right," their mother sighed. "The boys section is…Jun, where are you going?"
Yoriko looked up from the cute plaid skirt she'd been investigating to find Jun standing a few racks over, flicking through some rhinestone-studded jeans. "Jun?" she asked curiously. "This is the girls section."
"Uh-huh," Jun muttered, picking up a size two and frowning at it. "Do these come in a low-rise, do you think?"
"Sure." She pointed to the corner. "You can also get them in colors instead of just plain denim. Oh, and sequins."
"Yoriko! Jun!" Their mother glared at them. "What are you doing?"
"Mom," Yoriko laughed. "He's not going to buy them! He's just teasing."
---
"Just teasing?"
"Mom, stop saying that." Yoriko slouched down in her seat and gave her brother a half-hearted wave as he turned at the door of the bus and waved brightly at her. He was wearing red jeans with glitter on the pockets. Glitter that he'd applied himself after he'd been dragged over to the boy's section of the department store.
"He'll never be debuted if he keeps up like that. You shouldn't encourage that wildness, Yoriko. He really wants to make it and you know that company is as cutthroat as it gets."
"He looks good, Mom. And anyhow, what about his talent, huh?"
---
"Hello?" Yoriko answered the phone and then had to hold it away from her ear. "Mom?"
"This is on your head, young lady," their mother shrieked. "Your brother just bought all of his clothes in the junior miss department."
Yoriko rubbed her forehead. "Mom, he's twenty-four years old. I quit dressing him up when I was six."
"Three of his shirts were pink."
"Mother."
"One of the costume people from his late-night show came by and raised his eyebrows."
Yoriko sighed and handed the phone to her husband.
"Mom?" her husband said. "I know, I know, and I'm sure she is sorry…but at least he dresses the rest of the band so that it looks natural, right? Oh, I see. I see, so Ohno-san is still dressed by his mother…?"
Yoriko left the apartment before she could hear the tirade start up. Getting into the car she thumbed a text message to Jun, letting him know that she was on her way over to see his new wardrobe. Maybe he'd let her borrow a shirt for Mai's party.
Eta: Actually, it turns out that there IS family information out there. I am just lazy. This surprises nobody.
But other than that, random Arashi fic. I don't know if this is \o/ or DD:
For waxrose. Prompt: Aiba/Jun "Because you're special." (In the most sappy or extremely retarded sense of the word OR BOTH take your pick)
Special kind of special
"Aiba," Jun says softly, sincerely, "because you're special-very special-"
"To you?" Aiba asks winsomely.
"Very, very special," Jun goes on doggedly.
"I think he means in the 'needs help to cross the street, goes to the special school' way," Nino interjects helpfully.
"Thank you, Nino," Jun says through gritted teeth. "I can handle this on my own."
"If you kill him, Sho is going to be pissed. I'm not big enough to hold back a pissed off Sho," says Nino. "Not that I'd try much, because Aiba is special to me-"
"I love you too, Nino!" Aiba chirps.
Jun would like to slam his head against the wall. Or theirs. "You know, Leader is in the building somewhere," he says dangerously.
"Oh, he is not," Nino says, but he gets up and leaves the room anyhow.
"I will let you live," Jun starts over.
Aiba puts his arms around Jun's neck and smiles at him. Just smiles. "You're not mad," he says. "You know I honestly didn't think it would explode at all because if I'd thought that it even had a chance of blowing up, I'd have had a film crew with me and not just Nino."
"You blew out sound-studio four. We have to find a new studio to record in because we're on a deadline and we can't afford to lose a day of work. I'm pretty sure I'm furious."
"No, no you're not. Because I'm shirtless and soaking wet from when you put out the fire so it's a pretty good deal, huh?" Aiba gives him a quirky smile, one that is too amused for the accusing twist he's trying to put into it. "It was cold water, Jun-chan. I'm freezing and look I'm all covered in goose-bumps."
He knows better. Jun absolutely knows better than to look and verify this claim. He knows that doing so is playing right into Aiba's hands. One of Aiba's hands wraps around the back of Jun's neck, his long, cool fingers squeezing lightly. Jun looks down and takes a deep, hard breath.
Aiba still has his August tan and he almost glows under the crappy studio resting-room lights, a golden summer peach. And he looks just as soft, just as smoothly touchable. Jun adores peaches but that doesn't mean he's going to bite into the inviting curve of Aiba's shoulder and lick away the sweetness he knows he's going to find. He can't resist touching, though. He puts one careful finger on the cusp of Aiba's shoulder and follows the line down to his bicep; Aiba's skin is cool, chill like an autumn pond. A wave of gooseflesh breaks out in the wake of his touch. "Liar," Jun says softly.
"Jun-tan has warm hands," Aiba tells him, his voice quiet. "But I'm cold, right? My nipples are all hard."
They are. Dark-bronze with the pucker of cold, Aiba's nipples are hard and they draw Jun's hand uncontrollably. Jun has always been attracted to pretty things and this is just too much. He stops with his fingers just inches away, fingertips pressing in to the firm sketch of muscle. "I'm still furious with you." He sounds faint to his own ears, like he really isn't that mad at all, like it's all just for the sake of saying it.
Aiba hums softly, a short and tuneless note. "No you're not. You know I meant it for the best."
Oh, god, and he does know that. Aiba does everything for the best, to make people smile, to make the world happy. Aiba, Jun thinks now, is one of those fantastically rare people who are beautiful all the way through. And he's Aiba, so he's annoying and loud and clueless even as he's sweet and gentle and smart and Jun loves him. Jun loves him like he loves Arashi, so much that at times he feels like he could die from it and Aiba can never, ever know this. If Aiba knew it would be a complete disaster. Aiba would bring it up in the MCs, would sing a song about it, would tell Nino and Jun really would die. "You're a moron," Jun whispers.
Aiba chuckles under his breath. "Now tell me you love me," he orders.
Jun is too helpless. He surges forward and crushes their mouths together because otherwise he will give Aiba the words that will make his life a very special sort of hell. Aiba is still laughing, so very happy, and so Jun lets his hand move and pinches Aiba's nipple because he should be furious anyhow.
"I thought you said Jun was about to kill him," Sho's voice cuts suddenly across the pounding of Jun's blood in his ears. "You said he was going to kill him."
"I love seeing your trauma face. If Oh-chan were here I'd have brought him too and he'd have said something that would have made you cry."
Jun pulls away from Aiba's mouth and does not look at the way his lips are parted, the way they're sheened from the stroke of Jun's tongue, or the pretty color that Jun's kiss has brought out in them. "I'm going to kill you first," he tells Aiba seriously, "and Nino next."
For…me. Because I finally figured out how Ohno/Aiba would happen.
In absence of both booze and orgy
"Let's do it," said Aiba, apropos of nothing.
Ohno paused with his glass of juice centimeters from his mouth. "Do what?" he asked before taking a sip.
Aiba grinned at him. "Have sex!"
Ohno drank and considered that. "With each other?" he asked once he'd swallowed.
"Yeah!" Aiba nodded enthusiastically.
Ohno thought about that. He tilted his head and thought a little more. "Okay," he said at last. "Now?"
"You want to?" Aiba asked.
"I…" Ohno paused. "I guess it depends on what you want to do. We might not have time." He glanced regretfully at the clock over the door.
Aiba touched the tip of his nose and grinned, crinkle-eyed, at Ohno. "I suppose so, I suppose so. And the staff might be mad if we mess up the clothes before we do the shoot."
"That's true." Ohno said with a nod. He sort of wished the fans could see Aiba at moments like this: rather stupidly smart and so bright it almost hurt to look at him. "I'm free after the shoot today."
"I have filming," Aiba said. "But I'm free on Wednesday and then again on Friday morning. Morning sex is nice. We could take our time and do whatever we want."
Ohno put down his juice and took out the organizer that Nino had given him for his last birthday and kept updated for him. "Not Wednesday but I'm free Friday morning, too. I don't have anything until the Tongari CM filming."
Aiba peeked warmly over his shoulder. "Oh, oh, that's all of us for that one. I can give you a ride to the studio after we do it. Do you want me to put that in there for you?"
"Okay. I don't know why Nino even gave me that thing. I never know how to work it. And half the time he puts his stuff in there too, so I get confused."
Aiba nodded absently, thumbing in information. "Me too, he does that to me, too. I almost went to Yoko's to do a magic trick last week and I didn't even think about it because I was in a hurry and so I was half panicked because I couldn't find my deck of cards."
Ohno leaned back in his seat and let his head loll onto Aiba's shoulder. "Nino's mean like that," he commiserated. He took his organizer back and smiled at the entry.
"Oh-chan, are you trying to update your schedule without me again? Because if you wipe it out again, I'm not putting anything in there," Nino vaulted the back of the sofa and sat down next to him, taking the little device away from him. "Huh. What's 'freestyle with Masaki' supposed to mean?"
Ohno looked at Jun and Sho, who had both come in with Nino. Then he nudged Nino's hip with his arm to get him to look up. "Aiba-chan and I are going to have 'whatever we want' sex."
"I put us in for the whole morning," Aiba said lounging companionably against his shoulder, grinning lazily at Jun and Sho. "Because I think we can make it take that long."
Jun looked at Sho.
Sho looked at Jun.
Nino watched them both like a hawk.
"I didn't hear that," Jun said at last, sitting down across from Nino. Ohno let Jun steal the last of his juice because Jun looked like he really, really needed something to drink.
"Hear what?" Sho muttered darkly as he squeezed in between Nino and Ohno. Ohno put an arm around him, patting his shoulder comfortingly.
"They said they're going to have sex on Friday morning," Nino said helpfully. "All morning. Free style."
"There might be pictures," said Aiba. "I like Leader's photography."
And as cute as Nino's beaming smile was, as heart-warmly good as Aiba's scrunched-up-laughing face was, Ohno was sort of glad that the fans could not see Jun and Sho making a suicide pact together as the staff came to fetch them for wardrobe.
He did a running jump into the Freestyle pose on the way. "Five more days!"
For blood_opal. Prompt: Sho coming home to find a giant hunk of meat in his refrigerator (and Nino in his bedroom) on his return from Beijing. XDDD Bonus points for the other Arashi members leaving him some messages alongside the meat.
Too Long, Too Far
Giving a key to Nino was like playing a game of Russian roulette with the future state of your apartment. Sho had known that even when he'd given Nino the key. He was vaguely surprised to walk in and find things pretty much the way he had left them. Considering it was what Jun called 'fuck-you-go-away-and-die-o'clock' in the morning, Sho was tempted to find Nino and kiss him for this blessed turn of events.
"God, I am so tired," he said to himself, kicking off his shoes, stripping off his socks, and wandering barefoot to his refrigerator. "Food," he told himself, "shower, then bed."
He wasn't sure what he had in his refrigerator that was still going to be good after three weeks, but he certainly wasn't expecting a gigantic hunk of meat to be taking up most of the top shelf. At least, from the way it was wrapped he assumed it was meat. It was also covered in post-it notes.
The first that Sho pulled off was Jun's and it read: 'For the weight-losing Yatterman, meat as a souvenir. Missed you in Chiba.' Sho smiled and set it down on the counter. It was bound to be a better souvenir than the meat itself.
The next note was from Aiba and it was actually seven post-its long, detailing the origin of the meat, the other possible form of the meat (one with a big bone in it, Sho-chan! But MatsuJun said I was too much of a pervert and we couldn't show that on t.v.) and an apology for disturbing Sho at work in Beijing. He set it with Jun's note.
Ohno's note was a picture of chairs with music coming out of them and a sad face in the corner. Sho stuck that one on his refrigerator with a rainbow magnet.
He had deliberately saved Nino's note for last.
"More meat, ready to eat, in the bedroom," he read out loud.
"Actually," came Nino's voice from the kitchen doorway, "it's not in there anymore."
"Please don't be naked, please don't be naked," Sho muttered feverishly. "I am way too exhausted to do anything with you naked. Please don't be naked."
"I'm not naked," Nino said.
Sho turned.
Nino was not naked.
Nino was wearing a mesh thong.
"That's not any better," Sho told him seriously.
"But it is what you were asking for," Nino replied with a sly smile.
"God, you're an idiot," Sho said and then reached out to pull Nino into his arms. He buried his face in Nino's hair and breathed deeply. Nino smelled like Aiba's shampoo and Ohno's cologne and Jun's cooking and Nino. "We have filming in three hours. What are you even doing here?"
Nino hugged him harder, pressing closer. "I fell asleep waiting for you. Thought you were supposed to get in hours ago."
Sho's heart twisted with an almost miserable longing. He should have been home hours ago, holding Nino and breathing him in and not starving and exhausted. "Flight was delayed due to mechanical problems. I ended up on the same plane as Ogu-san."
"Well, that's gone and killed any hard-on I might have been getting," Nino remarked cheerfully into his shoulder. "Why don't you grab a shower and I'll make you something to eat." Nino drew back and smiled at him, his hands warm against Sho's cheeks and his eyes clear and bright.
Sho kissed him, taking Nino's face into his hands and holding him steady as he slid his tongue past Nino's smiling lips into the heat of his mouth. Nino tasted familiar and sleepy and a little turned on. "Jesus," Sho said as he pulled away to grab a short breath. "I missed you," he added, diving in for another kiss. He ran his hand down the long column of Nino's throat and felt Nino's quiet moan before he heard it.
He lost track of time, kissing Nino over and over, half in love with the soft, wet sounds their mouths made together. There was a tight, empty feeling in his belly that was a hunger entirely unrelated to food. He slid his hands down Nino's body, moving around to cup the firm curve of his ass and stopped. "Why is your butt so cold?" he asked. Sho had never worn thong underwear before but he was pretty sure that being bare-cheeked was not enough to make somebody noticeably cold.
Nino made a low sound, dragging his hands through Sho's hair in a way that sent shivers down his spine. "You put your naked butt in this refrigerator and see if it doesn't come out frosty," he mumbled. "Kiss me again."
Sho dropped a kiss on the tip of Nino's nose and then lifted his head to take in his surroundings. He'd been standing with the door of the refrigerator open and hadn't bothered to shut it, too busy getting Nino into his arms to care. As a result, pressing Nino against the nearest stable surface as he'd kissed him meant that he'd pushed Nino up against the edge of the open appliance door. He chuckled and kissed Nino's forehead. "I think I might have to re-heat my meat before I eat it," he teased.
"Lame," Nino told him, smiling up at him and stretching up to kiss him again.
"Sho-chan!" Aiba's voice was low, considering the early hour, but very awake and very much outside Sho's door. "Sho-chan! Nino set your alarm and I know it's going off! I know you're awake."
"You set my alarm?" Sho asked him.
Nino groaned and banged his forehead against Sho's shoulder. "Yeah. We were going to have that steak for breakfast. All of us," he clarified.
"God, Masaki, how are you this energetic this early?" Jun's voice had joined Aiba's, distorted by an obvious yawn.
"I don't go drinking with Oguri-san at one in the morning," Aiba answered him. "Hi, Leader, are you actually awake?"
There was no answer from Ohno but Sho could clearly see the fuzzy half-nod that Ohno would have used.
Nino kissed his cheek. "Go shower," he said, smiling ruefully and touching the place he'd kissed. "It'll wake you up enough to eat."
Sho nodded, catching Nino's hand to kiss his fingers lightly before letting go and heading for his bathroom. It was only as he stripped down to his underwear that he remembered that Nino was mostly naked. "Nino? Did you put on pants?" he called over the sound of the water.
Ohno's head poked in. "He's wearing the underwear that Aiba gave MatsuJun," he reported. "We believe that those count as 'pants' but Jun's arguing the point." Ohno frowned. "Probably only because Nino stole them from Aiba to begin with."
"Tell him to put on clothes," Sho said, stretching out to nuzzle his cheek against Ohno's in greeting. "I don't want my meat burnt."
Ohno nuzzled him back. "That'll make Jun choke," he said agreeably and ducked back out of the room.
Sho ducked his head under the spray from the shower nozzle just as the sounds of a good-natured fight broke out in his kitchen. "I'm home," he said quietly to himself and smiled.
PS. My brain kept trying to go 'lolz, u no whut? the rest of Arashi is in the bedroom. and then sho wakes up to barbeque because Aiba cannot resist the call of that huge slab of meat.' I really sort of hate my brain.
This is one that happened to be in my head and when blood_opal first mentioned Sho/Ohno (it's not that I want to stay away from it-more like I think writing it would be like eating potato chips. Plus Nino would ninja his way in somehow) I said 'orz, now I have to write it'. So.
Absorb
Sho arrives for Music Station about twenty minutes before they have to go on. He's been briefed by phone so it's mostly a matter of getting him dressed and wired for sound.
Jun thinks that this would be a much easier and quicker process if Nino would let go of him.
Nino is clinging to Sho; legs around his waist, arms around his chest, and his face tucked into Sho's neck. Ostensibly, Nino is bitching about things. Things like the heat, the prep work for 24hrs, the fact that there is going to be a lunch on a boat in Chiba, and how nobody liked his idea of a cardboard-cutout Sho being dragged along on their trip. Really, Jun thinks, really Nino is trying to somehow absorb Sho, trying to get as much of him as he possibly can using as much of himself as he's able. Like some sort of drug addict given a bag of cocaine and two straws. His hands are tight against Sho's shoulder blades, occasionally sweeping up to curl over his shoulders or stroking down to touch the dip of his spine.
"Which one of you is sleeping with Sho again?" Jun asks, still staring at Nino and Sho and the way Sho is holding on to Nino, too, like he doesn't want to let him go again.
Ohno raises his hand politely. "Me," he says, "but it's okay if Nino hogs him right now. Nino is…" he trails off, frowning as he searches for the word.
"Co-dependant?" Aiba offers after a moment, also staring at the way Nino is impeding Sho's (admittedly lackluster) attempts to change his pants.
"Psycho?" Jun volunteers dryly. The staff is trying to gently peel Nino off of Sho and Nino's bitching is ramping up, trying to get out the last of his complaints (how Jun hits him when he worries about Sho's safety in Beijing, how Aiba wouldn't treat him to lunch saying that Nino would only order Sho's favorite and then sigh at it, how Ohno's new shampoo doesn't smell like the right brand) before the staff succeeds in untangling them.
"Attached," Ohno decides.
"In more ways than one," Jun mutters as Nino's voice reaches a crescendo and there is an actual, audible ripping sound as the staff finally separates him from Sho.
Ohno rises from his chair and goes to Nino, putting an arm around him. "C'mon, Kazu," he says coaxingly, "come sit with me. I hugged Sho-chan earlier and this shoulder," he points to the shoulder of the arm curled around Nino, "still sort of smells like him."
Nino calls Ohno an idiot but Jun notices that he slides himself into the space Ohno indicated anyhow, sighing a tiny bit and looking more content than he has in days.
Jun looks at Aiba. "No, really," he says under his breath, "which of them is sleeping with Sho?"
Another one that just happened to be in my head. Because I have VERY STRONG FEELINGS about this.
Buzzed
Sho felt good about his new hairstyle. The stylist had cooed over it, his manager had smiled, the driver assigned to take him over to the station had high-fived him. Sho thought he looked good right up until he walked into the greenroom and had his bandmates stop what they were doing to stare at him, silent and unmoving.
"What did you do to your hair?" Aiba broke the silence first, pattering over to him and reaching out like he was going to touch Sho's hair but stopping before he made contact.
"It's not okay?" Sho asked self-consciously, touching the short bits around his ear.
"No, no," Jun physically shook himself. "It's just…it looks different. We're used to the other style."
Nino approached from Sho's other side, stopping when he was in line with Aiba, and stared at him. His eyes were solemn, his lips turned down in a tiny frown. "They're straight," he said quietly, at last. Like Aiba he reached out, his fingers stopping a breath away from the straight fringe of Sho's bangs. "You can't push them to the side anymore. Too short." He pulled his hand back, putting his fingers over his lips like he was using them to stop whatever words might have been in his mouth. Or to hide his unhappy smile.
"I can a little. I do," Sho said, feeling slightly desperate. He nudged his bangs to the side, wincing as they fell back across his forehead. "Satoshi, what do you think?"
Ohno came up behind Nino and hid his face against Nino's shoulder. He muttered something that sounded like the word 'fluffy' and something that might-or might not-have been the word 'miss'.
"Eh?" Sho touched the back of his head. "Everybody else seemed to think it was all right," he said. He meant to sound defensive but he thought he sounded more dismayed than anything else. He was upsetting his bandmates in a way that he could neither stop nor fix and it felt awful.
"It's nice," Jun assured him hastily. "It's a nice cut. Very fresh. It just takes getting used to."
"Hey!" Aiba had circled around to study him from behind. "Hey, hey! Look!" Sho couldn't see what Aiba was talking about but he figured it out when Aiba's nose was suddenly nuzzling at the nape of his neck, which had been left bare and sensitive by the new style.
"Masaki!" he swatted behind him, trying to push him away and get rid of the ticklish feeling. "Quit that!"
Jun, Nino, and Ohno tilted their heads to the side, blinking at Aiba questioningly.
"You can reach his neck now," Aiba explained, ignoring Sho's attempts to dislodge him. The tickle increased as Aiba inhaled audibly. "I think he's got cologne back here."
"Oh?"
"Yeah?"
"Really?"
Sho dropped his chin to his chest in resignation as the other members of Arashi clustered behind him. "Somebody is going to come in here and think this is weird," he said. He shivered as somebody blew softly on his neck.
"It feels soft," Ohno said in time with fingers carding through the short strands at the base of his skull. "It's still soft but now it feels silky, too." Those fingers tugged gently, testing.
"Here, too," Nino said. "You can reach that spot right under his ear now, too."
A nose-possibly Nino's but just as easily not-poked into that spot. "Oooohhh," four voices said.
"Really, you guys, weird," Sho warned.
"I like Sho-chan's new haircut," Ohno announced.
"Me too," said Nino. His arms wrapped warmly around Sho's middle. "It's cute."
"I found it," Aiba reminded them all. "I was the one who found out it was cute. Somebody has to treat me to lunch."
"Not me," Jun said immediately. "I said it looked good even before you started feeling him up like a chimp."
"I will," Sho offered, catching Aiba with an arm around his waist and pulling him around his body. "But only if you all get out of my hair before the staff comes looking for us and decides we're all crazy."
"Excuse me, Arashi-sa…oh."
(Sho ended up buying everybody lunch, anyhow, just because he felt so great about his new hairstyle.)
For jelly_fic (aka 15th_Moon). Prompt: Jun-centric with (optional) Nino. Causality
It's the Relationship
Jun didn't realize it until he stepped out for lunch, but the dance studio they were using for play rehearsals was right next door to the theater where Nino was doing his own work. He weighed the take-away box in his hands for a moment, thinking about getting to know his new co-workers versus visiting somebody he saw practically every day. Checking for traffic he crossed the street to Nino's building.
Nobody stopped him at the door but one of the lighting people snagged him halfway down the aisle and told him that Nino was behind the building, apparently smoking for lunch. In fact, Nino was crouched next to a gutter drain pipe lighting one cigarette off the butt of another.
"Healthy," Jun deadpanned, crouching next to him.
Nino smiled wryly down at his hands. "It's the MatsuJun diet-nicotine, caffeine, and two hours of sleep."
"Two? That's indulgent. You're going to get fat from that, you know." He took the cigarette when Nino passed it to him and choked. "What the hell is this?" he asked, checking the filter.
"Cheap," Nino said, looking over at him for the first time. "Some of us budget our money."
He'd known Nino for far too long. Nino never skimped on tobacco. He nudged his shoulder into Nino's and left it there against him. "What's up?"
Nino looked away, taking his nasty cigarette back. "New Dragon Quest game coming out soon and I want it."
Watching Nino blow smoke (in more ways than one), Jun sighed. He stole the cigarette from Nino's hands and stubbed it out on the ground. He fished out his own pack and tapped one out, handing it to Nino. "Light that," he instructed, putting his cigarettes away and getting out his cell phone.
Nino lit the cigarette but didn't take a drag. "Who're you calling?"
"Leader." Jun grabbed Nino's wrist to bring his hand up so he could take a quick puff as he scrolled through his contacts. He glanced at Nino. "Unless you want me to call Sho or Masaki first."
"Asshole," Nino muttered. His free hand rubbed at the back of his neck and Jun shut his phone off, knowing that gesture. Nino let out a huff. "My father called yesterday."
Jun pulled Nino's hand over again, more to offer Nino physical contact than because he wanted the smoke. "Did you talk?" Nino's father could send his son into an emotional tailspin for days. Nino managed to hide it well from people who didn't know him but for those who did it wasn't easy watching him wear himself out.
"He called my mom while I was there." Nino gave a dry laugh, bringing the cigarette to his mouth. "She said he asked about me."
There really wasn't much to say about that. "And now you're on the Matsumoto Jun diet," was what he chose. "Which, today, includes pressed mackerel," he added, reaching for the lunch he'd set down earlier. "I picked it up at the new place down the street." He offered the first piece to Nino. "Tell me how it is."
Nino let him feed him, his unreadable smile curling around his mouth. "It's crap," he said, chewing. "Give me another piece just to make sure."
"You're such a liar." But he fed Nino another bite anyhow because he appreciated Nino's caustic temperament.
"Still crap," Nino told him around the mouthful. "I really shouldn't let you eat any of this."
And then he smiled and Jun had to put down the chopsticks because he'd have sooner died than let Nino see him drop them over a smile. Not even over Nino's real smile. Because that was what it was. Jun saw Nino smile all the time but, according to Sho, it was never the real thing. He'd been pretty sure that Sho had just made it up to needle him about his (at the time) crush on Nino, saying that it was like seeing Nino naked. Well, Jun had seen Nino in the nude plenty of times-hell, he'd seen puberty hit-but sitting in that grungy little alley he saw Nino naked for the very first time. And it was because of something he'd said, something he'd done, something that he was. He set lunch aside, leaned over, and kissed him, feeling that smile with his own lips. It was light, chaste, not about sexual attraction so much as it was about returning Nino's gesture with his own.
When he pulled back, Nino was still smiling at him. The real one was hiding behind the customary smirk but Jun could still see it there. "I didn't know that the MatsuJun diet was so queer," he said conversationally.
Jun ignored him and took a bite of some really rather excellent mackerel. "It's fabulous. You're just not ready for that level of greatness."
This is for aatash because she put the idea into my head. Which is to say: no, Jun never mentions his sister aside from that one story. In fact, all of Arashi are pretty closed-mouthed about their families (and naturally so). We don't have any names aside from Aiba's brother. So I made up names! Because, damn it, I DID want to write that fic. DDD: If I didn't love you, I would hate you a lot.
Little Miss Mister
"Mom!"
"Yoriko, I already told you that your ballet skirt is in your drawer."
Yoriko planted her fists on her hips. "It's not that! Come see Jun!"
"What's he done now?"
Yoriko pointed at her three-year-old brother when her mother got to her room. "Isn't he cute?" she giggled. "Jun-chan, show off for Mama," she instructed.
Jun lifted his hands over his head and twirled the way she'd taught him. Her ballet skirt flared out and floated around him, drifting like a little pink cloud. Her purple Hello-Kitty shirt whirled with him, too, and would have slipped off his shoulders if he hadn't had his arms over his head. Yoriko was pretty sure that the best part of the outfit was the white feather boa and wrist scarves. "'Nee-chan!" Jun twirled to a stop, lower-lip jutting out. "'Nee-chan fix my hair!" He pointed to where one of her star barrettes had come loose and was dangling over his eye.
"You're the prettiest boy in the world, Jun-chan," Yoriko soothed, fixing the barrette.
"Mama, am I pretty?" Jun looked to their mother.
Their mother shook her head. "Yes, Jun-chan. Yoriko, get that off of him and get ready for your lesson or else you'll be late."
--
"Moooom!" Yoriko glared at her little brother. "Jun-chan's got my shirt and he won't give it back!"
Six-year-old Jun rubbed his cheek against his arm and glared back at her. "It fits me! I want it! It's soft." Jun rubbed against his arm again, sounding enthralled.
"Mom!"
Their mother glared at both of them. "Matsumoto Jun, that is a girl's sweater. You take it off this minute and put it back on the hanger. Yoriko, I am not buying you a cashmere sweater, you're eight."
"But it's purple!" Yoriko wailed.
Jun folded his arms, his lip trembling. "What does it matter that it's a girl sweater? It fits me and I look cute. All the salesladies said so. I'd take good care of it."
"Mom!" Yoriko didn't understand why her mother went bright red and dragged her and her brother out of the store. She figured it had something to do with the cost of the sweater, though, because they never did go back.
---
"What are they wearing?" Jun demanded.
"Shh, Jun-chan. I'm watching." Yoriko waved him off, staring at her boyfriend. Well, he was going to be her boyfriend once they finally met.
"'Nee-chan, what are they wearing?" Jun persisted.
"Jun-chan, please go bug Mom. I'm trying to watch Tsuyoshi. Mai-chan says that they're going to ask what sort of girls KK want to date when they're allowed."
"But what is that that they're wearing," Jun asked again, plopping down beside her and pointing at the television.
Yoriko buried her head in her arms and then half rolled over, twisting toward the kitchen. "Mom! Tell Jun to stop bugging me."
Jun stuck his lower lip out. "I just want to know where they got those clothes," he said meekly as their mother came out of the kitchen, holding a handful of washed carrots and a knife. He pointed to the screen again.
Their mother sighed. "The company they work for dresses them, honey, they don't have any say. They have to wear bright, flashy things so that people will look at them. You shouldn't make fun."
Yoriko looked at her mother. "He's not making fun, Mom. He likes to see what they wear because it looks cool. Does Johnny's really dress them up?" She thought she might have to give up the dream of Tsuyoshi taking her shopping in the fashion district, if that was the case. At least until she could see clothes he picked for himself.
"Is that boy wearing a skirt?" Their mom was ignoring her, staring at the screen.
"Can I join Johnny's?" Jun asked hopefully.
---
"Mom! Jun's going to be on soon!" Yoriko hugged a pillow to her chest and tried to contain her smile. Her baby brother was going to be on t.v. as one of the new Juniors. He was a little dork but she was willing to bet he was going to be the best looking kid on the show. "Mom!"
"I'm here, I'm here." Her mother hugged her shoulders. "You know, Jun just e-mailed me; he's a little upset about the outfit he has to wear. When he gets home you are not going to tease him about it. No matter what he had to wear. Do you hear me, young lady?"
Yoriko rolled her eyes. "M~~om," she moaned. "You act like they dress like girls. It's probably just a little outrageous or something. Jun's probably just mad that it's not his favorite color. It's not like Jun's going to be in a dress or anything."
"All the same," their mother said firmly.
The screen flickered and the JE logo came up on the screen. "This is it, Mom!"
On the television, the Junior boys tumbled out onto the stage in a variety of flips and spins and jumps. They were all, to a member, wearing blue and white track-suits. Yoriko spotted her brother immediately. "There he is! Oo, he's got a nice spin, Mom! Look at his hands!"
"I don't understand…is it too big on him?" Their mother was frowning at the screen.
Jun, on screen, ended his spin with a jump and shoved his hair out of his eyes.
Yoriko blinked. "Hey, Mom," she grinned and pointed. "You know what I just remembered? I used to dress Jun up in my ballet stuff when he was a baby! Do you think he learned that from me? Mom? Mom? Do you remember that?"
Their mother was giving her a measuring look. "Yes," she said at last, "I do."
---
"Mom, I'm going to look at those skirts over there, okay?" Yoriko didn't wait for her mother's answer, instead scurrying over to the nearby rack. Her mom and brother were fighting and hanging out with them was the last thing she wanted to do.
Their mother was sighing at Jun. "I don't see why this couldn't wait until this weekend, Jun. Your pants are only a little short at the ankle."
Jun folded his arms. "You don't have to listen to Ninomiya. If I show up in pants that are too short again he's going to be horrible about it."
"Well, why don't you just ignore him, Jun?"
"Because I work with him. And he's louder than both Aiba and Ikuta put together."
"Well," their mother started again.
"He's not mean, Mom," Jun said soothingly, rolling his eyes. "He's just jealous because I'm going to be taller than him. And I don't think he wants to go to Osaka tomorrow, either. Which is why I need new pants."
"All right, all right," their mother sighed. "The boys section is…Jun, where are you going?"
Yoriko looked up from the cute plaid skirt she'd been investigating to find Jun standing a few racks over, flicking through some rhinestone-studded jeans. "Jun?" she asked curiously. "This is the girls section."
"Uh-huh," Jun muttered, picking up a size two and frowning at it. "Do these come in a low-rise, do you think?"
"Sure." She pointed to the corner. "You can also get them in colors instead of just plain denim. Oh, and sequins."
"Yoriko! Jun!" Their mother glared at them. "What are you doing?"
"Mom," Yoriko laughed. "He's not going to buy them! He's just teasing."
---
"Just teasing?"
"Mom, stop saying that." Yoriko slouched down in her seat and gave her brother a half-hearted wave as he turned at the door of the bus and waved brightly at her. He was wearing red jeans with glitter on the pockets. Glitter that he'd applied himself after he'd been dragged over to the boy's section of the department store.
"He'll never be debuted if he keeps up like that. You shouldn't encourage that wildness, Yoriko. He really wants to make it and you know that company is as cutthroat as it gets."
"He looks good, Mom. And anyhow, what about his talent, huh?"
---
"Hello?" Yoriko answered the phone and then had to hold it away from her ear. "Mom?"
"This is on your head, young lady," their mother shrieked. "Your brother just bought all of his clothes in the junior miss department."
Yoriko rubbed her forehead. "Mom, he's twenty-four years old. I quit dressing him up when I was six."
"Three of his shirts were pink."
"Mother."
"One of the costume people from his late-night show came by and raised his eyebrows."
Yoriko sighed and handed the phone to her husband.
"Mom?" her husband said. "I know, I know, and I'm sure she is sorry…but at least he dresses the rest of the band so that it looks natural, right? Oh, I see. I see, so Ohno-san is still dressed by his mother…?"
Yoriko left the apartment before she could hear the tirade start up. Getting into the car she thumbed a text message to Jun, letting him know that she was on her way over to see his new wardrobe. Maybe he'd let her borrow a shirt for Mai's party.
Eta: Actually, it turns out that there IS family information out there. I am just lazy. This surprises nobody.