DDD: WHY ME?
You know who are a bunch of bitches? 15th_moon, fluttering and lady_gemma. NO MORE PLOT BUNNIES. YOU GUYS SUCK. BOO.
(aslkdfjds title is so not funny, I swear) I wrote it in, like, two hours and it's not beta'd yet. I just have to get it off the computer before it takes over. Plus I have to pick up my husband from work 'cause I needed the car today.
ETA: And apparently I didn't copy-paste the last paragraph, either. Boo, fail! I'm sorry Jun's ending didn't make sense. I promise it makes more sense now.
The AU au: How I Met Your Other (self)
Aiba meets Nino mostly because Nino is cranky.
It's not that he hasn't seen Nino before-he sees Nino almost every single day. The combini that Nino works at is next door to the bake-shop that Aiba works in. They work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and Aiba lives across the street from where Nino lives. Nearly everyday for nearly three months Aiba has spent his entire commute right next to Nino and he never says a word. Nino has that sharp look of somebody clever. And he's somebody cool. Somehow, even though Nino is a little sarcastic, people really seem to like Nino. He can smile at somebody and make friends in an instant.
Aiba…isn't like that. Aiba is just a regular guy. Ordinary. So he has always figured that talking to Nino would be kind of pointless. Nino has better things to do, more interesting people to talk to.
Except today, as Aiba leaves work and falls into step with Nino like usual, Nino apparently doesn't have something better to do or anybody more interesting to talk to.
"This is really stupid," Nino says. He sounds pretty bitchy and Aiba slides a look over at him because he can't really believe that Nino is talking to him. "THIS," says Nino who is clearly talking to him because he's staring directly at him. Nino huffs and he flicks one wrist to indicate the both of them, the space between them, the space between them and the train station. "It's retarded."
"Well," Aiba says and then he can't think what to say. Everything seems like it would be the wrong thing to say. If he introduces himself, Nino will think that HE is stupid because they both wear nametags and already KNOW each other's names. He can't say 'nice to meet you' because it's been three months, at least, since they first saw each other. But then, it might turn out that Nino doesn't know these things because he has never cared to know those things. "It's awkward, isn't it?" is what he settles on.
"We work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and we live across the street from each other. It's more awkward to not say anything at all!"
"Oh," says Aiba. "I didn't know that you noticed."
Nino stops dead in the street and stares at him and so Aiba stops too. "We," Nino says slowly and clearly, "work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and we live across the street from each other."
The thing is, Aiba thinks, the thing is that Nino doesn't seem angry or irritated by him saying something so stupid. Nino…Nino sort of sounds like Aiba has just made him smile somewhere just out of sight. "You wanna be train-friends?" he asks, all in a rush.
"You're strange," says Nino, rolling his eyes and walking again. "We can probably just be regular friends."
Aiba isn't sure what to do with that statement and so he takes it at face value. "Okay. You wanna go have a drink and some ramen or something? I'm starving."
Nino meets Sho entirely by accident.
He's on break, watching Ghibli movies on his phone, when his phone rings with an unfamiliar number. On a whim, because he's bored and it's been a slow day to begin with, he answers it. "Hello?"
"Have you seen what the stock market is doing today?" the voice on the other end demands.
And he has-he's been reading the newspapers all day while waiting for customers to break his boredom. "I think it's just responding to the American and the European markets," he says. "The market is volatile but the commodity channel index is stable. I don't think it's anything to worry about in the long run."
"Are you kidding? The ADX is trending. This isn't just an oscillation."
Nino isn't quite sure what that means, only that the guy on the other end sounds like it matters to him. "Look," says Nino, "are you just worrying about your retirement accounts?"
"Aren't you?" says the other guy.
"Well," says Nino and he proceeds to have a very nice, half-hour chat with the stranger on the other end of the line. It's all about how open trading has lead to whiplash markets and how whiplash markets are cracking down hard on the poor and the lower-middle working class, and how this will all lead to an increase in occupational sudden death.
Somewhere on the other end of the line another phone rings. "I've got to take that," says the guy on the line. "Do you want to meet for coffee after work and finish the discussion?"
Honestly? Nino doesn't know how that guy talks so much about it to begin with. "You know you called a wrong number, right? I work at a convenience store."
"You don't want to drink coffee there, do you?"
Nino glares at the coffee pot in the break room. "I get free coffee here even if it is cheap and nasty," he says. "So unless you're paying for mine, yes."
"Okay, I'll treat," says the guy. "Where do you want to meet?"
Nino really wants to remind this guy that they're strangers but this is the most fun he's had all day. "There's this bake-shop," he says and gives the guy the name and address of the shop next door. He really sort of wants Aiba to meet this guy. Aiba would love having a conversation with a wrong-number guy.
It's only when he hangs up that he realizes he never gave the guy his name. He shrugs it off. The guy probably isn't going to show but he was planning on hanging around until Aiba got of work anyhow and he can always make Aiba buy him coffee. It's discounted if Aiba buys it anyway.
But when he gets next door there's a guy in a suit sitting at a table with Aiba and three cups of coffee. "…a fish and my place is a mess," the guy is saying.
"Nino!" Aiba waves him over. "This is Sakurai-san! He said he was meeting 'some guy who works at a combini' here but that he didn't know his name because it was a wrong number and I think it was you. But he's not just a big brain and an expensive suit, you know. He likes baseball and he's got a fish and a messy apartment so he's regular just like us."
Sakurai ducks his head, smiling and blushing at the same time and Nino is utterly charmed by him. He rolls his eyes at himself because this is exactly how he got stuck with Aiba-being charmed by something stupid about him. But he sits down across from Sakurai and sticks out his hand. "Ninomiya Kazunari," he tells him. "The idiot is Aiba Masaki."
"Nice to meet you both," he says. The hand shake is solid and easy. "I'm Sakurai Sho and the American market dropped 900 points today. Their Dow-Jones is in the toilet."
"That's not something you get out with a plunger, is it?" Aiba asks and when Sakurai laughs like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard, Nino resigns himself to being stuck with both of them.
Sho meets Ohno just because he doesn't notice him.
To be fair, Sho is busy arguing with Nino. Nino, he has learned over the course of their friendship, likes two things: games and having rousing arguments about just about anything. It's a lot of fun because half the time Nino's arguments are based on fact and the other half of the time it's based on random nonsense that might-or might not-be coming from Aiba.
It's one of the crazier arguments so when Sho gets into the cab outside his office he just doesn't notice the other guy who gets in on the other side. He tells the driver to take him to Aiba's bake-shop and tells Nino that you can't actually buy other countries on the open market.
"I think you can buy Uzbekistan," says a soft voice and Sho startles and finally notices the other guy.
The other guy is obviously senior to Sho in the business world. His dress shirt, the suit jacket across his arm, and his briefcase are all of better quality than Sho's own and he's got a tired look that doesn't come just from long hours but also a lot of responsibility. "I'm so sorry," Sho starts.
But the other guy is frowning, his round face creased with thought. "I really think I saw that on the ticker today when I was brokering the Ministry's buy-in on the new wind-power grids. UZ…something. It's either Uzbekistan or that one cellular phone company. I wrote it down because it really looked like the country." And the guy opens his briefcase.
Sho sees company letterhead on the papers inside. His company letterhead. This guy is one of the big bosses. And from his age, from the deal he's talking about, Sho can figure out who this is. This is Ohno Satoshi. The wunderkind. The man who seems to guess every witchy turn of the stock market. This is the man who told the government to sell one of their key drill-bit stock holdings because it was heading for disaster. The stock in question had been soaring in price, an investor's dream stock. The government had listened, sold, made a modest profit, and inside of six months the stock had tanked amidst upper management scandal, embezzlement rumors, and some rather questionable business practices.
Sho is hijacking Ohno Satoshi to go argue with Nino (and Aiba) at a bakery. "I am so sorry, Ohno-sama," he splutters, bowing low in the hopes of some leniency.
Ohno looks at him with blank, soft-focus eyes. "Who?"
"Uh-you're…you're Ohno Satoshi, right? We work in the same firm? I'm no where near your level, of course," Sho says because he feels like his first few words are trying to boast of commonality. "I'm just a regular salaryman, Sakurai Sho…" he bows low again.
"We work together?" Ohno sounds…Sho chances a look up to see the shining star of the stock exchange smiling at him as though he's hapy to see him. "Then it's really nice to be going out somewhere together after work. I don't get invited out a lot."
"Um…" says Sho.
"Where are we going?" The car comes to a halt in front of the bakery before Sho can answer that and then subtly indicate to the driver to change direction. Ohno Satoshi beams at the bake-shop. Ohno pays the driver before Sho can fumble his wallet out, saying "Keep the change!" with a happy smile.
Sho calculates that the tip Ohno is leaving behind is somewhere in the seventy-to-eighty percent range. "I-" Sho says, scrabbling out of the cab after him. He's not sure, but he thinks that Ohno might not have even bothered to count the money he was handing over, let alone figure out the appropriate tip.
"I love bread!" Ohno says happily.
Sho scurries to open the door. He makes frantic motions at Aiba and Nino that he hopes conveys the 'this is important, please don't be yourselves' aspects of this turn of events. "Ninomiya-san, Aiba-san," he says very calmly and with deliberate care, "this is Ohno Satoshi." He can almost see the little question marks popping up over their heads as he turns to Ohno a little, "Ohno-sama…"
Ohno actually beats Nino and Aiba to the punch. "Who?" he asks.
"What?" asks Aiba.
"Ohno-sama?" says Nino. Nino likes to disregard hierarchy in favor of chaotic shifting.
"Ohno-sama," Sho says, aiming a warning glare at Nino.
"Oh," says Ohno. "It sounds like Ohno-mama which made me think of my 'kaa-chan."
"…" says Sho. Aiba smiles and leans across the table to Ohno. Nino smiles at Ohno and scoots his chair a little closer. Sho's stomach curls with dread.
Nino props his chin on his hand. "I'm Nino and you are…?"
"He's the lead broker in our firm!" Sho says firmly. He kicks Nino under the table; he's already done the introductions.
Aiba beams at Ohno while Nino shoots Sho a dirty look. "You're the leader, huh? Can we call you that? Leader sounds cool. It's a lot better than Assistant Manager."
"Leader," Ohno repeats. He smiles at Aiba. "But there's a lot of leaders, right, so it'd get confusing."
Aiba nods. "Like people would think you're in an idol band. Or both of us, since I'd be the one calling you that. Maybe Captain?"
"Captain sounds cool," Ohno agrees.
"I like 'Oh-chan'," Nino says, inching a little closer to Ohno's side. "You look like an Oh-chan to me."
Ohno's face lights from within as he laughs. "Oh-chan sounds silly."
"As silly as buying Uzbekistan," Nino agrees. "Right? So Aiba calls you Leader-"
"Or Captain!"
"Or Captain and I call you Oh-chan…what should Sho call you?" Nino turns a shark-like smile on Sho. "And it can't be Ohno-mama."
Sho cannot cause a scene in front of Ohno Satoshi. Ohno Satoshi who is beaming at him and…possibly he's now holding hands with Nino under the table. "Ohno-san?" he croaks.
"That's for at work, Sho-chan," Aiba scolds. "Something for after work, when it's just for fun. You can use Leader, too, if you want. Or Captain."
"It can't be Oh-chan," says Nino.
Sho sort of gives up. "…Satoshi-san?" he offers.
"We'll work on it, Sho-chan," says Aiba.
Ohno's suit-jacket beeps and when he looks at it in confusion, Nino fishes the keitai out and hands it to him. "Oh, it's-" Ohno says and flips open his phone. "Hi, 'kaa-chan. No, no, I'm out with a friend from work." There's a slight pause. "Sho-chan," he says.
Aiba giggles and Sho gives up entirely (because he's pretty sure it doesn't matter anymore) and reaches out to sock him on the arm. "Pass that to Nino," he says.
Ohno meets Jun for a dollar. And because Nino dares him.
Ever since making friends with Sho-chan, Ohno's been going to hang out Nino's combini or at Aiba's bake-shop if he manages to leave work early enough for either of them to still be there. He's sitting on top of the counter, still looking for Uzbekistan on the stocks (the face Sho makes is so funny and he is so glad that somebody finally stop treating him like he was anything other than regular, plain-old Ohno Satoshi) and he thought Nino was putting away cartons of cigarettes only it turns out that Nino was actually watching the street outside.
"What is she doing with him?" Nino growls under his breath.
Ohno looks out the window and sees Nino's older sister outside with a nice-looking young man with a trombone case. "Who is he?"
"That's what I want to know," Nino says. "Kazue said she had a date tonight and it's got to be that guy. "
Ohno has an older sister of his own and he sort of understands Nino so he's pretty sure that Nino just wants to know that this guy is good enough for Kazue. "She probably knows what she's doing?" he hazards. Nino and his sister are the same that way-aware of things around them and good at getting what they want.
Nino grins at him. "I will give you a dollar if you go out there and demand to know who he is and what he thinks he's doing with my sister."
Sometimes Nino lacks imagination, is what Ohno thinks as he slides to his feet and wanders out. He puts his arms around Kazue's waist and nuzzles her shoulder, just the way he would if she were Nino. "Hi, honey," he says, "how's my wife been today? And the baby?"
The guy with the trombone drops it.
Kazue throws him off with a huff and stomps into the combini shrieking "Kazunari!" at the top of her voice.
"I'm Ohno," he says to the guy. "Kazunari is Kazue's brother."
"I'm so sorry," the guy whispers. "I am so, so sorry."
"Nino's giving me a dollar to find out who you are and why you're dating his sister," Ohno says, patting the guy on the shoulder. "I'm not really married to her or anything. She says I'm too spacey."
The guy stares at him.
Oh. "And I don't think she's pregnant." He sticks out his hand. "What's your name?"
"Matsumoto Jun," the guy says. He sounds a little shell-shocked. "You did that for a dollar?"
"Yeah. Except I changed the script so Nino probably won't pay me. He's like that. But that's all right," he shrugs "since only he's going to get in trouble for this whole thing." It is also going to make Nino smile slyly to get away with not paying him and Aiba will probably laugh when he hears about it and when Aiba tells him about it, Sho will almost definitely make that face that says he can't believe his life. Ohno knows that feeling. Sometimes he can't believe his life, either. "You want to come over to the bakery and have a coffee? She's probably going to yell for a little while."
"The-" says Matsumoto Jun.
"She'll know where we are," he assures him. "That's where Nino and me and Sho-chan and Aiba hang out."
Jun meets Aiba because his life is hard like that.
He wakes up late, he misses his first bus, rehearsal runs late, he misses dinner reservations with the girl his conductor set him up with, and then some guy comes out and calls her his wife, asks after his baby, tells him it's his date's brother's fault and then holds his hand all the way into a bakery. He barely even remembers to grab his trombone on the way.
There's a guy in a suit apologizing to him while Ohno-the hand-holding guy-laughs with the guy behind the counter.
Counter-guy sets a tray of coffee cups and pastries on the table. "Jun-kun, you want a cream horn?" he asks.
"What the hell?" Jun asks him.
And the guy grins at him. "It's a twisty-pastry thingie filled with whipped cream. And once I tried custard but that didn't go over so well. It's dusted with powdered sugar."
"They're seriously good," Ohno tells him.
Jun sits down because everything is sinking in and he doesn't want to look as mortified as he is. There goes looking cool in front of his date. There goes making friends with her family (if it ever got that far) and four complete strangers were either witness to-or instigators of-the whole thing. "Great," he mutters.
"I'm sorry," the suit tells him. "Sakurai Sho," he introduces himself.
"He's our sane grown-up," the counter-cream-horn-guy says.
"Aiba," mutters the suit now known as Sakurai Sho.
"And you met Leader," Aiba-counter-cream-horn-guy says.
"A pleasure," Jun mutters.
"And you'll probably meet Nino when Kazue drags him in here to apologize for being a Ninomiya."
"He's a pain in the ass is what he is," Kazue says from the door. She's got a short, dark-haired guy by the ear and she's pulling him along. Obviously the brother-called-Nino.
"I'm sorry, Jun-chan," he says. He's grinning wickedly, though. "It's an ice-breaker, though, right? And now you've seen her temper…"
Jun stands up abruptly. "I've got to clean my case off," he says. "I'll be right back." He needs a minute to himself to regain some composure and he can check his instrument while he's at it.
The bathroom is mercifully empty and quiet. He wipes down the case and flips it open for a quick check on the trombone. He's just settling the bell back in place when the door opens and Aiba comes in.
Aiba crouches down and smiles at him. "It's okay," he says and Jun gets the weirdest feeling like he's not asking after the trombone at all. He thinks it's the eyes. Happy, serious eyes and a warm smile that's just a little apologetic around the edges.
"Yeah," Jun says slowly. "I guess it's all right." He's not sure he's talking about the trombone either.
"Then," says Aiba, "let's go."
And Jun goes.
It's not like the night can get worse, he thinks as he follows Aiba back into the shop. It's not like he's going to be stuck with these people for the rest of his life. With that in mind he feels free to smack the back of Nino's head as he takes his seat again. Kazue and Sakurai both smile at him and Ohno gives him happy look even as he pats that rat Nino on the shoulder, and Aiba laughs and when he winds down into a smile Jun can see that 'it's okay' look in his eyes, minus the apology. Jun suddenly has a bad feeling about how everything feels all right.
(aslkdfjds title is so not funny, I swear) I wrote it in, like, two hours and it's not beta'd yet. I just have to get it off the computer before it takes over. Plus I have to pick up my husband from work 'cause I needed the car today.
ETA: And apparently I didn't copy-paste the last paragraph, either. Boo, fail! I'm sorry Jun's ending didn't make sense. I promise it makes more sense now.
The AU au: How I Met Your Other (self)
Aiba meets Nino mostly because Nino is cranky.
It's not that he hasn't seen Nino before-he sees Nino almost every single day. The combini that Nino works at is next door to the bake-shop that Aiba works in. They work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and Aiba lives across the street from where Nino lives. Nearly everyday for nearly three months Aiba has spent his entire commute right next to Nino and he never says a word. Nino has that sharp look of somebody clever. And he's somebody cool. Somehow, even though Nino is a little sarcastic, people really seem to like Nino. He can smile at somebody and make friends in an instant.
Aiba…isn't like that. Aiba is just a regular guy. Ordinary. So he has always figured that talking to Nino would be kind of pointless. Nino has better things to do, more interesting people to talk to.
Except today, as Aiba leaves work and falls into step with Nino like usual, Nino apparently doesn't have something better to do or anybody more interesting to talk to.
"This is really stupid," Nino says. He sounds pretty bitchy and Aiba slides a look over at him because he can't really believe that Nino is talking to him. "THIS," says Nino who is clearly talking to him because he's staring directly at him. Nino huffs and he flicks one wrist to indicate the both of them, the space between them, the space between them and the train station. "It's retarded."
"Well," Aiba says and then he can't think what to say. Everything seems like it would be the wrong thing to say. If he introduces himself, Nino will think that HE is stupid because they both wear nametags and already KNOW each other's names. He can't say 'nice to meet you' because it's been three months, at least, since they first saw each other. But then, it might turn out that Nino doesn't know these things because he has never cared to know those things. "It's awkward, isn't it?" is what he settles on.
"We work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and we live across the street from each other. It's more awkward to not say anything at all!"
"Oh," says Aiba. "I didn't know that you noticed."
Nino stops dead in the street and stares at him and so Aiba stops too. "We," Nino says slowly and clearly, "work the same shifts, ride the same trains, and we live across the street from each other."
The thing is, Aiba thinks, the thing is that Nino doesn't seem angry or irritated by him saying something so stupid. Nino…Nino sort of sounds like Aiba has just made him smile somewhere just out of sight. "You wanna be train-friends?" he asks, all in a rush.
"You're strange," says Nino, rolling his eyes and walking again. "We can probably just be regular friends."
Aiba isn't sure what to do with that statement and so he takes it at face value. "Okay. You wanna go have a drink and some ramen or something? I'm starving."
Nino meets Sho entirely by accident.
He's on break, watching Ghibli movies on his phone, when his phone rings with an unfamiliar number. On a whim, because he's bored and it's been a slow day to begin with, he answers it. "Hello?"
"Have you seen what the stock market is doing today?" the voice on the other end demands.
And he has-he's been reading the newspapers all day while waiting for customers to break his boredom. "I think it's just responding to the American and the European markets," he says. "The market is volatile but the commodity channel index is stable. I don't think it's anything to worry about in the long run."
"Are you kidding? The ADX is trending. This isn't just an oscillation."
Nino isn't quite sure what that means, only that the guy on the other end sounds like it matters to him. "Look," says Nino, "are you just worrying about your retirement accounts?"
"Aren't you?" says the other guy.
"Well," says Nino and he proceeds to have a very nice, half-hour chat with the stranger on the other end of the line. It's all about how open trading has lead to whiplash markets and how whiplash markets are cracking down hard on the poor and the lower-middle working class, and how this will all lead to an increase in occupational sudden death.
Somewhere on the other end of the line another phone rings. "I've got to take that," says the guy on the line. "Do you want to meet for coffee after work and finish the discussion?"
Honestly? Nino doesn't know how that guy talks so much about it to begin with. "You know you called a wrong number, right? I work at a convenience store."
"You don't want to drink coffee there, do you?"
Nino glares at the coffee pot in the break room. "I get free coffee here even if it is cheap and nasty," he says. "So unless you're paying for mine, yes."
"Okay, I'll treat," says the guy. "Where do you want to meet?"
Nino really wants to remind this guy that they're strangers but this is the most fun he's had all day. "There's this bake-shop," he says and gives the guy the name and address of the shop next door. He really sort of wants Aiba to meet this guy. Aiba would love having a conversation with a wrong-number guy.
It's only when he hangs up that he realizes he never gave the guy his name. He shrugs it off. The guy probably isn't going to show but he was planning on hanging around until Aiba got of work anyhow and he can always make Aiba buy him coffee. It's discounted if Aiba buys it anyway.
But when he gets next door there's a guy in a suit sitting at a table with Aiba and three cups of coffee. "…a fish and my place is a mess," the guy is saying.
"Nino!" Aiba waves him over. "This is Sakurai-san! He said he was meeting 'some guy who works at a combini' here but that he didn't know his name because it was a wrong number and I think it was you. But he's not just a big brain and an expensive suit, you know. He likes baseball and he's got a fish and a messy apartment so he's regular just like us."
Sakurai ducks his head, smiling and blushing at the same time and Nino is utterly charmed by him. He rolls his eyes at himself because this is exactly how he got stuck with Aiba-being charmed by something stupid about him. But he sits down across from Sakurai and sticks out his hand. "Ninomiya Kazunari," he tells him. "The idiot is Aiba Masaki."
"Nice to meet you both," he says. The hand shake is solid and easy. "I'm Sakurai Sho and the American market dropped 900 points today. Their Dow-Jones is in the toilet."
"That's not something you get out with a plunger, is it?" Aiba asks and when Sakurai laughs like this is the funniest thing he's ever heard, Nino resigns himself to being stuck with both of them.
Sho meets Ohno just because he doesn't notice him.
To be fair, Sho is busy arguing with Nino. Nino, he has learned over the course of their friendship, likes two things: games and having rousing arguments about just about anything. It's a lot of fun because half the time Nino's arguments are based on fact and the other half of the time it's based on random nonsense that might-or might not-be coming from Aiba.
It's one of the crazier arguments so when Sho gets into the cab outside his office he just doesn't notice the other guy who gets in on the other side. He tells the driver to take him to Aiba's bake-shop and tells Nino that you can't actually buy other countries on the open market.
"I think you can buy Uzbekistan," says a soft voice and Sho startles and finally notices the other guy.
The other guy is obviously senior to Sho in the business world. His dress shirt, the suit jacket across his arm, and his briefcase are all of better quality than Sho's own and he's got a tired look that doesn't come just from long hours but also a lot of responsibility. "I'm so sorry," Sho starts.
But the other guy is frowning, his round face creased with thought. "I really think I saw that on the ticker today when I was brokering the Ministry's buy-in on the new wind-power grids. UZ…something. It's either Uzbekistan or that one cellular phone company. I wrote it down because it really looked like the country." And the guy opens his briefcase.
Sho sees company letterhead on the papers inside. His company letterhead. This guy is one of the big bosses. And from his age, from the deal he's talking about, Sho can figure out who this is. This is Ohno Satoshi. The wunderkind. The man who seems to guess every witchy turn of the stock market. This is the man who told the government to sell one of their key drill-bit stock holdings because it was heading for disaster. The stock in question had been soaring in price, an investor's dream stock. The government had listened, sold, made a modest profit, and inside of six months the stock had tanked amidst upper management scandal, embezzlement rumors, and some rather questionable business practices.
Sho is hijacking Ohno Satoshi to go argue with Nino (and Aiba) at a bakery. "I am so sorry, Ohno-sama," he splutters, bowing low in the hopes of some leniency.
Ohno looks at him with blank, soft-focus eyes. "Who?"
"Uh-you're…you're Ohno Satoshi, right? We work in the same firm? I'm no where near your level, of course," Sho says because he feels like his first few words are trying to boast of commonality. "I'm just a regular salaryman, Sakurai Sho…" he bows low again.
"We work together?" Ohno sounds…Sho chances a look up to see the shining star of the stock exchange smiling at him as though he's hapy to see him. "Then it's really nice to be going out somewhere together after work. I don't get invited out a lot."
"Um…" says Sho.
"Where are we going?" The car comes to a halt in front of the bakery before Sho can answer that and then subtly indicate to the driver to change direction. Ohno Satoshi beams at the bake-shop. Ohno pays the driver before Sho can fumble his wallet out, saying "Keep the change!" with a happy smile.
Sho calculates that the tip Ohno is leaving behind is somewhere in the seventy-to-eighty percent range. "I-" Sho says, scrabbling out of the cab after him. He's not sure, but he thinks that Ohno might not have even bothered to count the money he was handing over, let alone figure out the appropriate tip.
"I love bread!" Ohno says happily.
Sho scurries to open the door. He makes frantic motions at Aiba and Nino that he hopes conveys the 'this is important, please don't be yourselves' aspects of this turn of events. "Ninomiya-san, Aiba-san," he says very calmly and with deliberate care, "this is Ohno Satoshi." He can almost see the little question marks popping up over their heads as he turns to Ohno a little, "Ohno-sama…"
Ohno actually beats Nino and Aiba to the punch. "Who?" he asks.
"What?" asks Aiba.
"Ohno-sama?" says Nino. Nino likes to disregard hierarchy in favor of chaotic shifting.
"Ohno-sama," Sho says, aiming a warning glare at Nino.
"Oh," says Ohno. "It sounds like Ohno-mama which made me think of my 'kaa-chan."
"…" says Sho. Aiba smiles and leans across the table to Ohno. Nino smiles at Ohno and scoots his chair a little closer. Sho's stomach curls with dread.
Nino props his chin on his hand. "I'm Nino and you are…?"
"He's the lead broker in our firm!" Sho says firmly. He kicks Nino under the table; he's already done the introductions.
Aiba beams at Ohno while Nino shoots Sho a dirty look. "You're the leader, huh? Can we call you that? Leader sounds cool. It's a lot better than Assistant Manager."
"Leader," Ohno repeats. He smiles at Aiba. "But there's a lot of leaders, right, so it'd get confusing."
Aiba nods. "Like people would think you're in an idol band. Or both of us, since I'd be the one calling you that. Maybe Captain?"
"Captain sounds cool," Ohno agrees.
"I like 'Oh-chan'," Nino says, inching a little closer to Ohno's side. "You look like an Oh-chan to me."
Ohno's face lights from within as he laughs. "Oh-chan sounds silly."
"As silly as buying Uzbekistan," Nino agrees. "Right? So Aiba calls you Leader-"
"Or Captain!"
"Or Captain and I call you Oh-chan…what should Sho call you?" Nino turns a shark-like smile on Sho. "And it can't be Ohno-mama."
Sho cannot cause a scene in front of Ohno Satoshi. Ohno Satoshi who is beaming at him and…possibly he's now holding hands with Nino under the table. "Ohno-san?" he croaks.
"That's for at work, Sho-chan," Aiba scolds. "Something for after work, when it's just for fun. You can use Leader, too, if you want. Or Captain."
"It can't be Oh-chan," says Nino.
Sho sort of gives up. "…Satoshi-san?" he offers.
"We'll work on it, Sho-chan," says Aiba.
Ohno's suit-jacket beeps and when he looks at it in confusion, Nino fishes the keitai out and hands it to him. "Oh, it's-" Ohno says and flips open his phone. "Hi, 'kaa-chan. No, no, I'm out with a friend from work." There's a slight pause. "Sho-chan," he says.
Aiba giggles and Sho gives up entirely (because he's pretty sure it doesn't matter anymore) and reaches out to sock him on the arm. "Pass that to Nino," he says.
Ohno meets Jun for a dollar. And because Nino dares him.
Ever since making friends with Sho-chan, Ohno's been going to hang out Nino's combini or at Aiba's bake-shop if he manages to leave work early enough for either of them to still be there. He's sitting on top of the counter, still looking for Uzbekistan on the stocks (the face Sho makes is so funny and he is so glad that somebody finally stop treating him like he was anything other than regular, plain-old Ohno Satoshi) and he thought Nino was putting away cartons of cigarettes only it turns out that Nino was actually watching the street outside.
"What is she doing with him?" Nino growls under his breath.
Ohno looks out the window and sees Nino's older sister outside with a nice-looking young man with a trombone case. "Who is he?"
"That's what I want to know," Nino says. "Kazue said she had a date tonight and it's got to be that guy. "
Ohno has an older sister of his own and he sort of understands Nino so he's pretty sure that Nino just wants to know that this guy is good enough for Kazue. "She probably knows what she's doing?" he hazards. Nino and his sister are the same that way-aware of things around them and good at getting what they want.
Nino grins at him. "I will give you a dollar if you go out there and demand to know who he is and what he thinks he's doing with my sister."
Sometimes Nino lacks imagination, is what Ohno thinks as he slides to his feet and wanders out. He puts his arms around Kazue's waist and nuzzles her shoulder, just the way he would if she were Nino. "Hi, honey," he says, "how's my wife been today? And the baby?"
The guy with the trombone drops it.
Kazue throws him off with a huff and stomps into the combini shrieking "Kazunari!" at the top of her voice.
"I'm Ohno," he says to the guy. "Kazunari is Kazue's brother."
"I'm so sorry," the guy whispers. "I am so, so sorry."
"Nino's giving me a dollar to find out who you are and why you're dating his sister," Ohno says, patting the guy on the shoulder. "I'm not really married to her or anything. She says I'm too spacey."
The guy stares at him.
Oh. "And I don't think she's pregnant." He sticks out his hand. "What's your name?"
"Matsumoto Jun," the guy says. He sounds a little shell-shocked. "You did that for a dollar?"
"Yeah. Except I changed the script so Nino probably won't pay me. He's like that. But that's all right," he shrugs "since only he's going to get in trouble for this whole thing." It is also going to make Nino smile slyly to get away with not paying him and Aiba will probably laugh when he hears about it and when Aiba tells him about it, Sho will almost definitely make that face that says he can't believe his life. Ohno knows that feeling. Sometimes he can't believe his life, either. "You want to come over to the bakery and have a coffee? She's probably going to yell for a little while."
"The-" says Matsumoto Jun.
"She'll know where we are," he assures him. "That's where Nino and me and Sho-chan and Aiba hang out."
Jun meets Aiba because his life is hard like that.
He wakes up late, he misses his first bus, rehearsal runs late, he misses dinner reservations with the girl his conductor set him up with, and then some guy comes out and calls her his wife, asks after his baby, tells him it's his date's brother's fault and then holds his hand all the way into a bakery. He barely even remembers to grab his trombone on the way.
There's a guy in a suit apologizing to him while Ohno-the hand-holding guy-laughs with the guy behind the counter.
Counter-guy sets a tray of coffee cups and pastries on the table. "Jun-kun, you want a cream horn?" he asks.
"What the hell?" Jun asks him.
And the guy grins at him. "It's a twisty-pastry thingie filled with whipped cream. And once I tried custard but that didn't go over so well. It's dusted with powdered sugar."
"They're seriously good," Ohno tells him.
Jun sits down because everything is sinking in and he doesn't want to look as mortified as he is. There goes looking cool in front of his date. There goes making friends with her family (if it ever got that far) and four complete strangers were either witness to-or instigators of-the whole thing. "Great," he mutters.
"I'm sorry," the suit tells him. "Sakurai Sho," he introduces himself.
"He's our sane grown-up," the counter-cream-horn-guy says.
"Aiba," mutters the suit now known as Sakurai Sho.
"And you met Leader," Aiba-counter-cream-horn-guy says.
"A pleasure," Jun mutters.
"And you'll probably meet Nino when Kazue drags him in here to apologize for being a Ninomiya."
"He's a pain in the ass is what he is," Kazue says from the door. She's got a short, dark-haired guy by the ear and she's pulling him along. Obviously the brother-called-Nino.
"I'm sorry, Jun-chan," he says. He's grinning wickedly, though. "It's an ice-breaker, though, right? And now you've seen her temper…"
Jun stands up abruptly. "I've got to clean my case off," he says. "I'll be right back." He needs a minute to himself to regain some composure and he can check his instrument while he's at it.
The bathroom is mercifully empty and quiet. He wipes down the case and flips it open for a quick check on the trombone. He's just settling the bell back in place when the door opens and Aiba comes in.
Aiba crouches down and smiles at him. "It's okay," he says and Jun gets the weirdest feeling like he's not asking after the trombone at all. He thinks it's the eyes. Happy, serious eyes and a warm smile that's just a little apologetic around the edges.
"Yeah," Jun says slowly. "I guess it's all right." He's not sure he's talking about the trombone either.
"Then," says Aiba, "let's go."
And Jun goes.
It's not like the night can get worse, he thinks as he follows Aiba back into the shop. It's not like he's going to be stuck with these people for the rest of his life. With that in mind he feels free to smack the back of Nino's head as he takes his seat again. Kazue and Sakurai both smile at him and Ohno gives him happy look even as he pats that rat Nino on the shoulder, and Aiba laughs and when he winds down into a smile Jun can see that 'it's okay' look in his eyes, minus the apology. Jun suddenly has a bad feeling about how everything feels all right.