moving towards (you)
Title: moving towards (you)
Pairing: Aiba x Nino
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1900+
Notes: I...I honestly don’t know what this is. But here you go anyway :) This is actually happy? di: yeah. just in case you’re doubting it, I am the second opinion.
Summary: Aiba is in love, and he waits.
moving towards (you)
“You’re in love with me,” Nino says, looking Aiba straight in the eye as he steals a squid ball from Aiba’s paper box.
Aiba blinks, and he has to remember that he still has food in his mouth. Takoyaki, he reminds himself. He loves this stuff. He chews mechanically, but panic has already begun to pool in his lungs, curling violently through his windpipe. He shouldn’t be surprised, but they’ve never talked about this before, not like this.
“I love everyone,” he tries. He means it too, but Nino’s always been a little different and they both know it.
“No,” Nino says. He’s slow, as if testing out the words, but Aiba doesn’t doubt for a second that Nino knows exactly what he is saying. His words are simple but razor sharp, so full of intent. They always have been, and somehow Aiba has always loved him for it. Nino has always meant every word he says.
But Aiba also knows that Nino is going to carve him out with each careful, precise word that comes out from Nino’s flat mouth no matter how Nino tries to avoid it, and there’s nothing he can do but wait for it.
“You love me,” Nino says, and waits patiently for Aiba to nod shakily. His eyes are dark, rimmed with smudged circles, and he doesn’t look happy. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping well, Aiba notes, concern rattling in his ears as he attempts to focus to what Nino’s saying.
“Why?” Nino asks, and Aiba doesn’t understand. Nino shuts his eyes, tipping his head back to rest on the back of the park bench. Aiba wants to reach out but he restrains himself. He knows better than to touch Nino away without permission, away from the cameras. “Why?” Nino asks again, tone harsher, and Aiba remembers that this is a stupid question.
“What do you mean?” Aiba asks, perplexedly. “Why do I love you?”
Nino glances at him, askance and disapproving. “No,” he snaps. “I meant why-” He swallows. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, why do you love me?”
At that, Aiba shrugs. “I just do,” Aiba says. But Aiba has always loved, and Nino has always known. Why is today any different? “I didn’t think this was a problem,” Aiba says cautiously, “it never has been before.”
“I-” Nino’s eyes narrow. “No, I just wanted to know.”
Aiba sits back, grabbing another squid ball just to do something with his hands. And also to avoid Nino’s gaze, strident and unyielding on his face. “If I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know,” Aiba says, sarcastic but he doesn’t mean it any less.
Nino looks at him, gaze searching and steady. “Okay,” he says.
He thinks: it’s not like he can help it. Not really. Maybe because he knows that Nino loves just as much.
It’s just that Aiba has a problem with loving, an addiction to it even. He loves because he can. He doesn’t see why he shouldn’t. Nino used to say Aiba’s love was like seaweed, wrapping around a person and squeezing the very life out of them. He’d say it scowling and mock-angry, and Aiba would always giggle in response. Their heads would loll in drunken contentment, Nino’s stubby fingers brushing against Aiba’s knuckles, and Aiba would cease all movement for that so brief moment.
It’s hard sometimes, giving away his love and expecting nothing back. But Aiba thinks the other option is even harder.
Because the other option is Nino. Nino. Nino Nino Nino, who’s so much more careful about things like this, like love. But oh, there is no doubt that Nino loves. Aiba knows it. Nino doesn’t hide his love; he’s not one for underhanded measures. But he’s cautious about whether he should show it or not and how. He keeps it carefully guarded, hidden and secret, but still - Aiba knows that Nino loves him. Because he looks at him sometimes and there’s so much warmth in each glance that it sears Aiba’s brain. Nino is tender when he touches Aiba, careful and sometimes painfully unsure.
But most importantly, he knows because months ago when he first said it, jokingly but not quite, Nino’s eyes widen and never leave his face.
At first Aiba thinks Nino must be so disgusted - god, why did he have that second bottle of soju - but then Nino continues to stare, eyes bright with something akin to amazement. It dries Aiba’s throat and he cracks his knuckles to distract himself from the fact that Nino has never looked at him like this before, like Aiba’s said the most revolutionary thing.
“Love, huh?” Nino exhales, and Aiba sucks a sharp breath in in response.
It wasn’t rejection. Not yet. And that’s enough for Aiba.
Aiba thinks they see each other perfectly clearly, and that is what makes this hard. If Aiba’s honest, which he is all too much, he’s one hundred and fifty percent frightened. Maybe one hundred and seventy. He and Nino both know that Nino has all of Aiba in his clammy palms, childlike fingers scraping against his heart. The problem is, it’s clear that he also has no idea what he’s supposed to do with it.
Aiba’s vulnerable, sure, but so is Nino. Because something is stopping Nino, and while Aiba doesn’t know what it is, he knows that pushing Nino is going to be exactly that. He’ll push Nino until he’s so far back that Aiba can’t reach him anymore and Nino won’t let him. Aiba knows this, knows that this is the only way Nino’s going to respond.
This is why he waits.
Nino kissed him once, some months after Aiba had confessed. Aiba reminds himself of the event whenever he has the urge to storm up to Nino and capture his lithe frame in his hands, to shake him and make him see reason, that there’s no reason to wait. To remember that he hasn’t waited for nothing.
This is what happened.
They’re walking down a residential alleyway from Sho’s apartment to the subway station.
They are not drunk. They are not angrily fighting. There isn’t even any sexual tension in the air.
Instead, there is just this: right before they enter the busy street and reveal themselves under bright streetlights, Nino pulls him back by the sleeve. They’re in public and this is stupid but Nino kisses so thoroughly, like he’s searching for something in Aiba’s mouth and he won’t rest until he finds it. Aiba is careful as he returns Nino’s touches, mouth pliant and responsive. He knows, perhaps more than Nino does, how he scares so easily. But Aiba can’t help the rush of feeling that flows to the tips of his fingers. He wants so badly to touch Nino, wants to surge forward and press needy shaky hands on every part of Nino. On Nino.
Aiba will never remember many of the details of that night. You’ve never been a details person, Nino laughs one day, when Aiba comes in with a TV remote in his pocket instead of his cell phone. I don’t think I’d recognize you if you were, Nino continues, when later that day the group discovers that Aiba is wearing one purple sock and one striped blue sock; both are meant to be worn on the right foot.
So he doesn’t remember them. But maybe he doesn’t need to remember that Nino’s hair is slightly oily that night, flecks of dandruff barely visible on the nape of his neck. That Nino’s lips are chapped and taste of miso and grape gum. That Nino’s hands are tentative as they rest on Aiba’s hood, clenched tight as if Nino is making sure they do not stray on their own. Maybe it just doesn’t matter.
Either way, he does remember this:
“That was nice,” Nino says, as if they are talking about their kouhai, or about weather patterns. And maybe they are. Nino’s voice is soft, forcibly light, as if what happened was more of an idle distraction than a thorough, heat-searing kiss. And if Aiba knew Nino any less, if he didn’t know how to read Nino as he does, he would think all was lost. To admit defeat, wave a proverbial white flag, abort ship or risk sinking with it. But he knows Nino, knows the bare curl of his lip is there to hide confusion, that the glint in his eye is not due to boredom, that the fingers flexing in his pockets means that his hands are itching to be elsewhere.
And despite all this, though it pains him, he lets Nino go.
(You have such a gorgeous mouth, is what Aiba really remembers Nino saying, the murmur low and slightly embarrassed right before they part in the station. He doesn’t know what Nino means by it, but the words stick to Aiba like putty, messy and sickening and Aiba never, never wants to wash them away. So he doesn’t, tucking them in the pockets of his mind he pretends not to have sewn for this very purpose.)
“What do you want from me?” Nino asks later that night. They’re still in the park, sitting closer to each other than necessary - because the bench is small, to conserve body heat; at least, that had been Aiba’s excuse. Aiba’s takoyaki has grown cold and Aiba briefly laments the loss.
Aiba looks at him, as calmly as he can. Which isn’t much, because now all he can think about is that kiss so many nights ago, and how Nino’s thigh is pressed against his. “What do you mean?”
“I just, I need to know,” Nino is saying, rambling, and Aiba swallows, forcing himself to pay full attention. “You haven’t done anything and-I need to know why.”
Aiba breathes out shakily. “I don’t want anything from you,” he says slowly, and anger flashes across Nino’s features, those eyes so expressive and dark. He opens his mouth and Aiba quickly interjects before Nino can tear him into pieces. “Besides you,” Aiba says, and Nino freezes. Aiba wonders if this is going to ruin his chances forever. There’s something lodged in his throat and Aiba’s lungs hurt. “Just you,” he admits, voice soft and shaky.
Nino is silent, cruelly so. Aiba avoids his gaze, staring intently at Nino’s fingers, which curl into his jacket, twisting and smoothing out errant creases. Sometimes, Aiba thinks, Nino’s silence is worse than any callous word, and Aiba finally thinks, oh. Here it comes.
After a few more minutes of unendurable silence, Nino cracks. “Why me?” Nino asks. He sounds almost broken.
Aiba is confused. “Why you what?”
“I mean.” Nino squeezes his eyes shut, and his voice is so small. “Me. Me, just me. Why?” Before Aiba can even register the words, he takes a deep breath. “You know I love you too, right?” The words feel as if they’re being pulled from Nino’s system, from that secret space they both pretend not to know about.
The words hurtle at Aiba, smack him straight in the face. But oh, as surprising as they are, it also feels so, so brilliant.
He nods, just barely. “Of course.” And it’s true, that’s never needed to be contested. “I just,” Aiba says. He just cannot believe this is actually happening. He doesn’t think he has any idea what he’s supposed to say. Or maybe he just never dared hope they’d actually reach this point.
“You had to move first,” Aiba finally murmurs. It’s all he can say.
Nino breathes out shakily, and his eyes slowly open. “I can do that.” The expression on his face, determined and more than a little amazed, says that this time he will.
So he does.
AN: ...Yup, this is what I do in lectures, apparently. I can write happy things, really! IT SADDENS ME THAT PEOPLE (AKA DI) DOUBT D:
Pairing: Aiba x Nino
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1900+
Notes: I...I honestly don’t know what this is. But here you go anyway :) This is actually happy? di: yeah. just in case you’re doubting it, I am the second opinion.
Summary: Aiba is in love, and he waits.
moving towards (you)
“You’re in love with me,” Nino says, looking Aiba straight in the eye as he steals a squid ball from Aiba’s paper box.
Aiba blinks, and he has to remember that he still has food in his mouth. Takoyaki, he reminds himself. He loves this stuff. He chews mechanically, but panic has already begun to pool in his lungs, curling violently through his windpipe. He shouldn’t be surprised, but they’ve never talked about this before, not like this.
“I love everyone,” he tries. He means it too, but Nino’s always been a little different and they both know it.
“No,” Nino says. He’s slow, as if testing out the words, but Aiba doesn’t doubt for a second that Nino knows exactly what he is saying. His words are simple but razor sharp, so full of intent. They always have been, and somehow Aiba has always loved him for it. Nino has always meant every word he says.
But Aiba also knows that Nino is going to carve him out with each careful, precise word that comes out from Nino’s flat mouth no matter how Nino tries to avoid it, and there’s nothing he can do but wait for it.
“You love me,” Nino says, and waits patiently for Aiba to nod shakily. His eyes are dark, rimmed with smudged circles, and he doesn’t look happy. He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping well, Aiba notes, concern rattling in his ears as he attempts to focus to what Nino’s saying.
“Why?” Nino asks, and Aiba doesn’t understand. Nino shuts his eyes, tipping his head back to rest on the back of the park bench. Aiba wants to reach out but he restrains himself. He knows better than to touch Nino away without permission, away from the cameras. “Why?” Nino asks again, tone harsher, and Aiba remembers that this is a stupid question.
“What do you mean?” Aiba asks, perplexedly. “Why do I love you?”
Nino glances at him, askance and disapproving. “No,” he snaps. “I meant why-” He swallows. “Yes,” he says. “Yes, why do you love me?”
At that, Aiba shrugs. “I just do,” Aiba says. But Aiba has always loved, and Nino has always known. Why is today any different? “I didn’t think this was a problem,” Aiba says cautiously, “it never has been before.”
“I-” Nino’s eyes narrow. “No, I just wanted to know.”
Aiba sits back, grabbing another squid ball just to do something with his hands. And also to avoid Nino’s gaze, strident and unyielding on his face. “If I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know,” Aiba says, sarcastic but he doesn’t mean it any less.
Nino looks at him, gaze searching and steady. “Okay,” he says.
He thinks: it’s not like he can help it. Not really. Maybe because he knows that Nino loves just as much.
It’s just that Aiba has a problem with loving, an addiction to it even. He loves because he can. He doesn’t see why he shouldn’t. Nino used to say Aiba’s love was like seaweed, wrapping around a person and squeezing the very life out of them. He’d say it scowling and mock-angry, and Aiba would always giggle in response. Their heads would loll in drunken contentment, Nino’s stubby fingers brushing against Aiba’s knuckles, and Aiba would cease all movement for that so brief moment.
It’s hard sometimes, giving away his love and expecting nothing back. But Aiba thinks the other option is even harder.
Because the other option is Nino. Nino. Nino Nino Nino, who’s so much more careful about things like this, like love. But oh, there is no doubt that Nino loves. Aiba knows it. Nino doesn’t hide his love; he’s not one for underhanded measures. But he’s cautious about whether he should show it or not and how. He keeps it carefully guarded, hidden and secret, but still - Aiba knows that Nino loves him. Because he looks at him sometimes and there’s so much warmth in each glance that it sears Aiba’s brain. Nino is tender when he touches Aiba, careful and sometimes painfully unsure.
But most importantly, he knows because months ago when he first said it, jokingly but not quite, Nino’s eyes widen and never leave his face.
At first Aiba thinks Nino must be so disgusted - god, why did he have that second bottle of soju - but then Nino continues to stare, eyes bright with something akin to amazement. It dries Aiba’s throat and he cracks his knuckles to distract himself from the fact that Nino has never looked at him like this before, like Aiba’s said the most revolutionary thing.
“Love, huh?” Nino exhales, and Aiba sucks a sharp breath in in response.
It wasn’t rejection. Not yet. And that’s enough for Aiba.
Aiba thinks they see each other perfectly clearly, and that is what makes this hard. If Aiba’s honest, which he is all too much, he’s one hundred and fifty percent frightened. Maybe one hundred and seventy. He and Nino both know that Nino has all of Aiba in his clammy palms, childlike fingers scraping against his heart. The problem is, it’s clear that he also has no idea what he’s supposed to do with it.
Aiba’s vulnerable, sure, but so is Nino. Because something is stopping Nino, and while Aiba doesn’t know what it is, he knows that pushing Nino is going to be exactly that. He’ll push Nino until he’s so far back that Aiba can’t reach him anymore and Nino won’t let him. Aiba knows this, knows that this is the only way Nino’s going to respond.
This is why he waits.
Nino kissed him once, some months after Aiba had confessed. Aiba reminds himself of the event whenever he has the urge to storm up to Nino and capture his lithe frame in his hands, to shake him and make him see reason, that there’s no reason to wait. To remember that he hasn’t waited for nothing.
This is what happened.
They’re walking down a residential alleyway from Sho’s apartment to the subway station.
They are not drunk. They are not angrily fighting. There isn’t even any sexual tension in the air.
Instead, there is just this: right before they enter the busy street and reveal themselves under bright streetlights, Nino pulls him back by the sleeve. They’re in public and this is stupid but Nino kisses so thoroughly, like he’s searching for something in Aiba’s mouth and he won’t rest until he finds it. Aiba is careful as he returns Nino’s touches, mouth pliant and responsive. He knows, perhaps more than Nino does, how he scares so easily. But Aiba can’t help the rush of feeling that flows to the tips of his fingers. He wants so badly to touch Nino, wants to surge forward and press needy shaky hands on every part of Nino. On Nino.
Aiba will never remember many of the details of that night. You’ve never been a details person, Nino laughs one day, when Aiba comes in with a TV remote in his pocket instead of his cell phone. I don’t think I’d recognize you if you were, Nino continues, when later that day the group discovers that Aiba is wearing one purple sock and one striped blue sock; both are meant to be worn on the right foot.
So he doesn’t remember them. But maybe he doesn’t need to remember that Nino’s hair is slightly oily that night, flecks of dandruff barely visible on the nape of his neck. That Nino’s lips are chapped and taste of miso and grape gum. That Nino’s hands are tentative as they rest on Aiba’s hood, clenched tight as if Nino is making sure they do not stray on their own. Maybe it just doesn’t matter.
Either way, he does remember this:
“That was nice,” Nino says, as if they are talking about their kouhai, or about weather patterns. And maybe they are. Nino’s voice is soft, forcibly light, as if what happened was more of an idle distraction than a thorough, heat-searing kiss. And if Aiba knew Nino any less, if he didn’t know how to read Nino as he does, he would think all was lost. To admit defeat, wave a proverbial white flag, abort ship or risk sinking with it. But he knows Nino, knows the bare curl of his lip is there to hide confusion, that the glint in his eye is not due to boredom, that the fingers flexing in his pockets means that his hands are itching to be elsewhere.
And despite all this, though it pains him, he lets Nino go.
(You have such a gorgeous mouth, is what Aiba really remembers Nino saying, the murmur low and slightly embarrassed right before they part in the station. He doesn’t know what Nino means by it, but the words stick to Aiba like putty, messy and sickening and Aiba never, never wants to wash them away. So he doesn’t, tucking them in the pockets of his mind he pretends not to have sewn for this very purpose.)
“What do you want from me?” Nino asks later that night. They’re still in the park, sitting closer to each other than necessary - because the bench is small, to conserve body heat; at least, that had been Aiba’s excuse. Aiba’s takoyaki has grown cold and Aiba briefly laments the loss.
Aiba looks at him, as calmly as he can. Which isn’t much, because now all he can think about is that kiss so many nights ago, and how Nino’s thigh is pressed against his. “What do you mean?”
“I just, I need to know,” Nino is saying, rambling, and Aiba swallows, forcing himself to pay full attention. “You haven’t done anything and-I need to know why.”
Aiba breathes out shakily. “I don’t want anything from you,” he says slowly, and anger flashes across Nino’s features, those eyes so expressive and dark. He opens his mouth and Aiba quickly interjects before Nino can tear him into pieces. “Besides you,” Aiba says, and Nino freezes. Aiba wonders if this is going to ruin his chances forever. There’s something lodged in his throat and Aiba’s lungs hurt. “Just you,” he admits, voice soft and shaky.
Nino is silent, cruelly so. Aiba avoids his gaze, staring intently at Nino’s fingers, which curl into his jacket, twisting and smoothing out errant creases. Sometimes, Aiba thinks, Nino’s silence is worse than any callous word, and Aiba finally thinks, oh. Here it comes.
After a few more minutes of unendurable silence, Nino cracks. “Why me?” Nino asks. He sounds almost broken.
Aiba is confused. “Why you what?”
“I mean.” Nino squeezes his eyes shut, and his voice is so small. “Me. Me, just me. Why?” Before Aiba can even register the words, he takes a deep breath. “You know I love you too, right?” The words feel as if they’re being pulled from Nino’s system, from that secret space they both pretend not to know about.
The words hurtle at Aiba, smack him straight in the face. But oh, as surprising as they are, it also feels so, so brilliant.
He nods, just barely. “Of course.” And it’s true, that’s never needed to be contested. “I just,” Aiba says. He just cannot believe this is actually happening. He doesn’t think he has any idea what he’s supposed to say. Or maybe he just never dared hope they’d actually reach this point.
“You had to move first,” Aiba finally murmurs. It’s all he can say.
Nino breathes out shakily, and his eyes slowly open. “I can do that.” The expression on his face, determined and more than a little amazed, says that this time he will.
So he does.
AN: ...Yup, this is what I do in lectures, apparently. I can write happy things, really! IT SADDENS ME THAT PEOPLE (AKA DI) DOUBT D: