Gift Fic for lilly0
GIFT FIC for lilly0
Title: Completely Mental
Pairing: Matsumoto Jun x Sakurai Sho, Secondary pairings: Aiba Masaki X Ninomiya Kazunari, NInomiya Kazunari x Ohno Satoshi, (Yoko/Hina if you squint)
Rating: NC-17
Warning: the story happens in a mental institution and it could contain triggering parts.
Summary: Sho is sent away after he tried to off himself.
Beta: r
Notes: lilly0, I had this idea almost since I read your prompts I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also a thousand thanks to my beta, she was super fast!
The room was plain and just a little cold. It had just a pair of beds, two bedside tables with a lamp on them each and a closet. One side of the room had a cork board with several drawings and writings pinned on it and on the same side there was a radio on the bedside table.
“This will be your room, Sho-san,” the orderly said with a smile. “You have a roommate, but he’s in his therapy session right now. I guess you’ll meet him before dinner.”
“What’s his name?” Sho asked, putting his luggage on the bed that seemed unoccupied.
“Matsumoto Jun,” the other man said, still flashing his toothy smile. It began to annoy Sho.
“What is wrong with him?”
“I think you should meet him and ask first, Sho-san. Don’t go labeling everything around you. You’ll be happier if you don’t.” Sho clicked his tongue at the orderly’s answer. “It’ll be okay, Sho-san, Jun-kun is a nice person. Well, anyway, lights are turned off at 10:30 every night, dinner is at seven and you can watch TV in the common room afterwards or take a shower if you want to. Alarm goes on at eight in the morning; you have twenty minutes to get ready and go get breakfast. At 9:30 it’s compulsory physical activation in the courtyard, then everybody hits the shower. At eleven is occupational therapy. Have you already picked what workshop you want?” Sho shook his head before the other man began speaking again, “It’s okay, you can try a few ones this week and choose only one by next. We eat at 1:00 PM, then is nap time until three. If you do not take a nap you may watch TV at the common room, or we have a library if you would like to borrow a book. In the afternoon you have group therapy at 3:00 PM until 3:45, then individual therapy on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. After that, you have free time unless your chief doctor considers you might need another kind of intervention or unless we have a scheduled trip . After dinner is quiet time or group activities, your choice. Do you have any questions?”
“What’s your name?”
“Aiba Masaki.”
-------------------------------
Sho used the hour and a half he had before dinner putting away his clothes. He had his razor taken away when they searched his luggage for dangerous things, and they'd taken his ipod as well. He had been strip searched after he signed in voluntarily. Though saying he was there ‘voluntarily’ was stretching it. He knew it was for the best, he knew he needed it, or at least his family needed him there, but he still didn’t want to stay there the whole time. There were still three months until the election.
When the tall man walked in, Sho almost jumped out of his skin. The orderly, Aiba, had already told him about the man he was sharing the room with, but somehow he hadn't expected him yet. Sho tried to regain some dignity by trying to act cool.
“Oh we have company now,” the man informed seemingly to no one.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Sakurai Sho.” He introduced himself, extending his hand towards the man.
The man looked at the hand stretched at him for a while before asking, “You have no nanobots in there, right?”
“No, I don’t have any of… those things.” Sho let him know, insecure of what the man was talking about.
“Matsumoto Jun,” the man finally introduced himself reaching to shake the hand. The hand-shake lasted a little too long. “I like it, no nanobots.”
“You can call me Sho,” he told him as he pulled his hand back and turned to finish arranging his socks in his designated drawer.
“Oh, so we are friends now?” Jun plopped onto his bed, picking up a book on his bedside table.
“Sure.”
“Then you can call me Jun, then,” the man said before opening the book and starting reading.
That was the last time he spoke to ‘Jun’ that day.
-------------------------------
Sho was an early riser, so he had been awake for about twenty minutes before the alarms started to ring. Jun didn’t seem alright at all, but the man knew his way around and he was useful to not feel totally lost in the institution It was big - that was why his father chose it. Big, prestigious and far away from the city where the old man was running for another public charge.
The shower’s water was lukewarm and he was freezing by the time he was out, so he dressed quickly. Jun pulled him along to breakfast, sitting at a table where two other men sat. One of them was tanned with bleached hair and seemed to fall asleep holding his spoon with one hand and his head with the other; the other man was skinny and pale with dark hair. The first thing he thought was, ‘what’s wrong with them?’ and then he had to mentally scold himself for thinking that way. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ was the second thought that crossed his mind.
“Ohno-san, wake up!” Jun said, shaking the tanned man gently. “Ohno-san? One of these days you’re going to drown in your cereal bowl, I swear…”
“Who’s the pretty boy?” the skinny man asked, leaning towards Jun with interest. Being called pretty boy was mildly offensive, he must have been trying to make fun of him. Sho looked elsewhere. The tanned man started eating again, albeit slowly.
“This is Sakurai, Sho. These are Ninomiya Kazunari and Ohno Satoshi.” Jun introduced as he inspected his food.
After a round of polite nice to meet you’s they sat and ate in silence for a while. The man called Ninomiya wasn’t eating though; he just pushed his food from one side of his plate to the other.
“You should eat Nino-chan. Unless you’ve taken fondness of the feeding tube,” Jun lectured after a while. “After knowing you were fucking the girl with the headband, I wouldn’t be surprised, though,” he added in a playful tone.
“Are you jealous, Jun-Jun? ‘Cause you can have a ride whenever you want,” Nino said, reaching across the table to touch Jun.
Sho’s roommate let the lithe man take his hand, looking at it curiously. “Nice try Nino, but you must be more insane than any of us if you think I’ll go near that radioactive thing of yours.”
“Is it because I’m fat, Jun-Jun?” Nino asked, slouching on his seat. “Do you think I’m fat?” he asked Sho with his glassy eyes.
“No.” Sho answered curtly because he didn’t know what else to say. He had too many troubles of his own to be concerned with others'.
“Leave Sho-san alone, Nino. He’s not been here for even a day,” Jun snapped.
“You’re such a prude Jun,” Nino said and turned to the tanned man who had fallen asleep again. “Mister Van-Gogh, sir, if you don’t eat, your stomach will be rumbling during shop and you won’t be able to paint,” Nino said, shaking him with a gentleness that contradicted his harsh voice.
“I was thinking about the painting again last night,” Ohno said as he resumed his breakfast.
Jun and Nino exchanged concerned looks, but said nothing else. The rest of the breakfast was silent. Nino did eat a couple of mouthfuls at the end, when the orderlies were starting to urge them into the courtyard for the compulsory exercise time.
Aiba smiled at them brightly when they walked past them. Nino stayed behind, trying to strike a conversation with the orderly, but he was rejected with kind words inviting him to go along with everybody else.
“He’s been trying to seduce Aiba since he got here. I don’t blame him, he’s hot,” Jun whispered into Sho’s ear.
“You are gay?” Sho questioned, getting just a little apart from his roommate.
“And you’re not?” Jun retorted with a hint of mockery.
“Of course not,” Sho muttered between his teeth with an offended gesture.
“Right… Jin says you are and Jin’s gay-dar is always on spot,” Jun said as they took place in the courtyard.
“Who’s Jin?” Sho asked though he didn’t get an answer because in that moment the instructor came to the yard and they started the exercises.
-------------------------------
That morning Sho decided to visit the art workshop, where Ohno seemed to be a thousand times more awake than while having breakfast or during the morning exercises even during the shower, He always seemed to be more asleep to be awake.
The canvass he was working on was filled with colors and shapes, but Sho couldn’t watch a lot because Nino started to flirt with him and Sho didn’t like that So he avoided his roommate’s friend and picked up a pastel to begin sketching on a paper the instructor put in front of him.
The world suddenly felt too wide and the air too thick to breathe in. The room was spinning so slowly around him, so slowly it stopped when he tried to look up. The paper seemed bigger than when the middle-aged man put it on the table. He hadn't noticed his breathing had become shallow and noisy until who he thought was the assistant instructor touched his shoulder and told him to breathe deep.
“I cannot… I won’t…” Sho gasped as his breathing came heavy and it hurt when he pulled air inside his lungs.
“It’s okay. Let’s take a walk, Sakurai-san.” the woman told him as she pulled him up to his feet. Sho nodded, following her.
The gardens around the building were magnificent and just after a few minutes he felt better.
“I don’t think art’s for me,” Sho said looking at the trees, sitting next to the woman.
“It’s okay, it’s not for all of us,” the woman replied. She had a calming quality in her voice. “I don’t think we have been introduced, I’m Nakama Yukie, and I’ll be your therapist.”
“Nice to meet you, Nakama-san,” Sho said, smiling brilliantly, exactly like he was taught to do his whole life.
-------------------------------
At lunch, he sat again with Jun, Nino and Ohno, who looked like he was enjoying his tuna. Nino kept smiling softly, content. Sho started to feel less uncomfortable with all of the situation. Of course, he had signed himself in. But he wouldn’t have done it if his father hadn't had to brush his little trouble under the rug.
That afternoon Sho had his first session with his therapist. He liked her voice - she was soothing but funny. He was glad he didn’t have to talk about his family and his past; at least not for this session. Yukie-chan, as she asked him to call her, gave him a notebook and told him his homework was to write everything he was thinking about, that every thought that made him unhappy he should write. At first it made Sho uneasy, but when she told him that she would only read what he wanted her to, that she was going to leave him assignments sometimes about what he wrote and discuss about the result but not whatever he wrote, Sho felt relieved.
Yukie-chan was nice and peaceful, but he didn’t think she could help, nor the group therapy or the other things that they did in the hospital. He was doing it because his mother and younger sister had insisted that he needed help, and his father needed Sho so his “juvenile problems” wouldn’t interfere with the election. He tried to stop this stupid, senseless train of thought as he made his way back to his room.
Jun was reading as he sat on the bed with his back against the wall and his knees drawn to his chest. There was something strangely dignifying about the way the big rimmed glasses slid down his nose and he bit his lower lip. Sho forced himself to stop staring and walked to his side of the room. He wanted to sleep, but he was taught that productive people don’t sleep during the day, and he didn’t have anything to entertain himself, so he went to the library where he could use a pen to start his diary under the orderlies supervision.
Then there was dinner and Aiba accompanied him to shave afterwards. The man was unable to keep quiet more than two minutes straight. Sho still found it comforting, the constant blabbering, like he wasn’t really alone.
A pill before going to bed and the next day started in a repetitive cycle. And the next day and the next, until the whole week had passed before Sho realized.
-------------------------------
“Then I was there in the middle of the cafeteria,” Jun was talking and Sho couldn’t but be interested in what his roommate was saying. “And everything was so overwhelming, and Jin wouldn’t stop talking.”
“Real life Jin?” one of the other patients asked quietly. Sho didn’t want to be bothered to know whom.
“No, the one who sounds like him,” Jun informed.
By then, Sho already knew that Jin was what Jun had named the voice in his head because it sounded exactly like his childhood friend, Akanishi Jin.
“I wanted to let everything out, because it was about to make me implode with pain.” Jun continued after the interruption, “So I asked for a pair of scissors, I told the lady I was going to cut a tag off my shirt because it was itchy. I went to the bathroom and into the stall…. Seeing the blood running across my leg felt liberating so I kept doing it.”
“How long since you last hurt yourself?” One of the therapists asked.
“Three months last Tuesday.”
-------------------------------
Being Jun’s roommate was easy. Jun was considerate and kind. He cared for everyone, not just for Sho. He always made sure Nino got at least a mouthful or two each meal and that Ohno-san didn’t drown in his soup. Sho was starting to think the nanobots bit had been a joke the man had played on him, but he didn’t give it much thought. Whether it was the medication or the therapy, he was feeling better some days, especially when he and Jun sat in their bedroom and talked about books.
Making Jun laugh was relatively easy and he enjoyed it greatly. He spent most of his time with Jun, even if his other friends sometimes made him uncomfortable. Ohno himself would stare at the wall for hours if people let him, but fortunately Nino was there to put a canvas and paint in front of him so Ohno would do more than just watch the empty space.
But Nino, he was his own kind. It was easy to talk to Nino, when he wasn’t bothering Sho with his worries about being overweight. But that just happened a handful of times out of the week. But sometimes, when he was feeling particularly ignored by the painter, he’d engage in what the staff of the hospital called inappropriate behavior. Sho had been object of this. It was mostly Nino nuzzling his jaw and neck or Nino trying to get his pants off. Once one member of the staff had talked to Nino about stopping, he’d just slipped back into his usual easygoing self.
Sho had walked into Nino doing things with other people a few times. The first time he had been looking for Jun after his therapy session and she was the girl who worked at the reception desk - the one with the green eyes. Nino was sitting on her chair and she was on his lap. His hand had crawled up her skirt and Sho felt ashamed and defiled, so he'd fled.
The second time he stumbled on Nino doing his thing, he was with another patient - a man who could sometimes talk people to death saying absolutely nothing. They looked kind of cute on the stairs together, kissing, half lying half sitting on the steps. It stopped being cute when Sho noticed the movement of Nino’s elbow, which brought his attention to Maru’s jogging pants and how the Nino’s short fingers were curled around his penis.
The heat traveled to his face and ears fast, and Sho ran away from there trying to erase any trace of what he just saw from his memory. Still, actually accomplishing that proved more difficult than Sho initially thought. Because as he lay on the bed (not his bed, but the bed) listening to Jun’s deep breathing -almost bordering in a snore- the image of Nino handling the other’s body kept haunting him. He thought about how small Nino’s hands were and how the man’s penis looked huge in them. He realized he wasn’t breathing when Jun gave a soft moan in his sleep as he turned to his side. Sho’s attention shifted to the bundle of blankets barely lit by the light that came from the hall, and for just a moment, he allowed his mind to picture Jun reaching into Sho’s jeans to grab his dick. He dismissed the image, the thought, the general idea of even start to shape that thought and forced himself to sleep.
There was a time he found Nino blowing Ohno on his knees as the painter kept moving his brush across the canvas, and also a time when he found him by himself. Avoiding sexual thoughts had become something he had to put in actual effort to do. So when he was tired, and Jun sounded asleep enough, Sho would let his hand wander into his pants and play.
Nino came into his and Jun’s room one afternoon, talking about Aiba (though to be fair he talked about Aiba often), and they sat on Sho’s bed to play cards and talk. Nino took the cards from their last game into his small hands to shuffle them and the strange look in Sho’s face didn’t go unnoticed. So, not without hesitation, Nino stopped shuffling the cards and put his hand on the older man’s thigh, just leaving it there while he still held the rest of the cards tightly in the other.
Sho's heart did a somersault in his chest and a need to prevent anything from happening pressed at his subconscious, but he ignored it as he met Nino's eyes.
The rest was fuzzy, like being enclosed in a sauna: Nino was small but hot and all over him when they kissed. Sho let Nino push him on the bed and they started to touch. Sho wasn’t unaccustomed to sex, he just never thought of a man like that before and before the incident that made his family force him into committing here it had been at least a sexless year but really.
Nino’s backside was soft in his hand as Sho pulled him even closer to his own body when the door opened. For a moment, he wanted to ignore whoever was there, just for a moment, but then his eyes shot open and Sho saw his roommate, face perfect and numbed between the yellow light of their room and the white light of the halls. Jun’s mouth was gaping and his eyes seemed a little glassy.
He was going to push Nino away, he really was, but somehow his body didn’t respond, and the smaller guy didn’t seem to have noticed as he bit his neck, making Sho’s body shudder. None of the three changed anything for a minute or so, until a loud voice made its way across the hall, “Are you okay, MatsuJun?” Aiba was asking as his energetic steps came closer, “Why aren’t you going into your room? Is something wrong?”
By the time the orderly finished his questions, he had reached the door. Jun turned to see him out of the corner of his eye and gestured into the room. When Aiba looked inside, Sho was already pushing Nino away, though still kissing him.
“Nino, get off Sho-chan right now. You know you are not allowed into anyone’s room,” Aiba informed, walking in to pull Nino away from the other man. Nino complied, immediately standing up. “Come with me,” Aiba said in a serious tone, looking at their clothing to assure everything was in place. “Both of you,” he added when Sho stayed in the same spot.
-------------------------------
He had been locked away with both Nino’s therapist, a guy named Takizawa and with Yukie-chan for a long while. They first inquired about how it started, and stuff like that. Sho realized they wanted to know if Nino had forced himself into Sho, but he let them know that he knew what he was doing and that he had wanted to do it. Nino looked a little relieved by that. Then there was a lecture, long and tedious about how sexual intercourse was forbidden inside the institution.
Sho hadn't had such a long chat about sex since junior high and having them at this point of his life was embarrassing to say the least. They were left to go and have supper and during it neither Jun nor Ohno spoke at all. Jun barely lifted his eyes from his food and left without waiting for Sho as he usually did.
When Sho went to the room, the radio beside his roommate’s bed was on with some old melody coming out of it. The volume was loud enough for them to hear but not too much to bother anyone else. Jun was reading sprawled on his bed, thick rimmed glasses down on his nose. Sho entered slowly as if he wasn’t going to get noticed that way.
“Are you angry?” Sho asked as he slid on his bed, taking the book he had borrowed from the library.
“You told me you weren’t gay,” Jun said after a moment in which he turned the page and sighed.
“I-I thought I-” Sho said and his voice trailed off.
"You told me you weren’t gay and I respect that. I would have respected you even if you are. What I do not respect is a liar. And if you excuse me, I’m reading right now," Jun responded. Sho wanted to say something else, but he just picked up the book he had left on his own bedside table and lay on his own bed to read. The music stretched from the radio, filling the space their silence made.
-------------------------------
“Why does it bother you so much that Matsumoto-san is not so friendly with you anymore?” Yukie-chan asked as they sat on the floor of her office, having tea in front of the coffee table.
“He used to be so nice, and now he barely looks at me and he won’t sit with me and Nino and Oh-chan for meals anymore,” Sho informed, looking at his mostly drained cup of tea, playing with the ripples produced by moving it. “He said I lied to him, but I really didn’t know.”
“Try telling him how you feel, even if he doesn’t seem to be listening,” Yukie told him.
“Maybe I will…” Sho said, sipping the last of his tea. It had gone cold and it was nasty against his throat, the same way he imagined telling Jun would feel.
-------------------------------
Jun was nowhere to be found after Sho’s therapy session. He wanted to talk after the pep-talk with Yukie-chan, he wanted to tell him that he was missing Jun. He settled in the library trying to write in his diary and pulled another book to read.
Jun didn’t have dinner either. Nino was looking for him, pushing his food around his plate. Sho tried to be the one who got Nino to eat something, but the man only glared at him before dumping the plate on the floor and going away.
This feeling, the total despair, the absolute knowledge that he was no good at all - it was something that had started to wane since he got to the hospital. Until this moment in which Jun had disappeared and Nino wasn’t talking or eating. Ohno sighed, stirring up before asking, “Where did Nino go?” Sho shrugged and ended his meal.
-------------------------------
Jun was holding a book when Sho stepped into the room, his knees drawn up to his chest in his usual reading position, but his face wasn't looking at the pages. He was looking up, somewhere between the wall and the ceiling, his lips moving as though he were muttering something, but no sound came out.
“Jun?” Sho called him. But the younger man didn’t shift his attention; he just kept doing what he was doing. “Jun-kun?” Sho tried again, sitting on his own bed facing the other man, trying to not think about Nino or what he had done with the skinny man on that very bed, even if it hadn’t progressed too much. “I want to say I am sorry I lied to you, and that I miss you a lot. You are my best friend in here and it would mean a lot to me if you could find a way to forgive me.” Sho looked intently at Jun for a while, but the other man wasn’t reacting in any way.
At the end Sho clicked his tongue in annoyance and lay down on his bed to stare at his own book, but too bothered to make sense of more than a sentence. When Aiba came in with his soothing smile, he noticed Jun barely registered and only took his pills in his mouth after the orderly had guided him to do so.
Next morning Jun was almost the same way he had been to Sho before the Nino incident.
Something was still off with him, though Sho couldn’t pinpoint what was different. Jun even got Nino to eat three mouthfuls of cereal at the breakfast table.
-------------------------------
Sho swept the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand as he stood up from where he had been planting some flowers in the gardens of the institution. He looked for Jun, as they both liked this, and they had talked a lot during and after this. But Jun hadn’t said anything after they finished breakfast, and Sho started to fear the forgiveness had been shallow that he hadn’t forgiven Sho for real.
When his eyes left the ground and looked for Jun, Sho felt a bad shudder run down his spine like a lightning that his body understood before his mind could catch up. Jun was a couple of large flowerbeds from Sho, staring at his hand where blood was running down to the recently disturbed earth. Jun’s face was amused, as if he was watching one of those stupid shows they sometimes had on in the TV room.
Sho stumbled the first two steps and then ran towards his roommate. “What happened Jun-kun?” Sho asked, grabbing a towel that was hanging from Jun’s pocket and wrapping it around the hand. Then he looked around to find someone to help. Aiba was already coming towards them.
The next few minutes were a blur, because Jun wouldn’t budge from his spot in front of the flower bed, and then he started to punch everyone who tried to touch him that wasn’t Sho. In the end Sho talked him into going to the infirmary where the doctor had to sedate him to be able to look at the injured hand and Sho was shooed out.
Sho didn’t feel like going to the cafeteria or eating, but he knew he had to go or he would be knocked out too. Nino was anxious and kept staring at Sho; even Ohno knew something had happened. At last Nino asked, “Why do you have blood on your pants, Sho-kun?”
“Eat your vegetables Nino, and I’ll tell you,” Sho said, glaring at the shorter man. Nino winced and pouted. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry… Jun hurt himself while we were doing gardening. Eat, please.”
Nino grudgingly put a spoonful into his mouth, chewed it slowly and swallowed before asking, “Is he alright?”
“They had to sedate him to be able to take care of his wound. I think he’ll be alright.” Sho said softly.
“Sedate him?” Ohno intervened, more aware of anything than ever.
“Yeah, I don’t think he’s going to be available later…” Ohno arched his brows before he started eating again.
-------------------------------
“You have a pudgy belly, she said, you should let go of those chips.” Nino’s voice was sort of wobbly in the afternoon. Jun’s spot was empty and it distracted Sho more than anything could have. “She spent an awful lot of time checking everything me or my sister were eating.”
“How do you feel about her now?” The therapist asked and Sho snapped out of his thoughts.
“I don’t feel anything. I don’t hate her. I don’t love her. She’s no-one.” Sho wondered how it would be not feeling anything. How his life would change if he didn’t feel the guilt, the emptiness, the hopelessness of his situation. If he couldn’t feel anything, he wouldn't care about Jun not being able to attend group therapy or how he, Sakurai Sho, had screwed up the only person who had cared about him in this god forsaken hospital.
“Sho-san what do you think?” The therapist pulled him out of his train of thoughts. He didn’t know what they were talking or how much time had passed, so he just shrugged and looked away. Luckily the woman didn’t press him on.
-------------------------------
At his return to his room, Jun was sound asleep in his bed. As Sho changed into his pajamas, Jun moaned and changed positions. Wondering for a minute if he should help Jun to get changed, he finished buttoning his pajama’s top. He tried to wake his roommate by touching his shoulder and calling his name, but the other man didn’t wake. Sho lay on his bed and read until they turned off the lights.
He felt the sudden shake and felt his bed move under the weight of somebody else. Sho gasped and his heart pounded heavy against his chest. For a moment he couldn’t make heads or tails of where he was or what was happening and it scared the daylights out of him.
“Nanobots,” Sho heard his roommate say as Jun patted his forehead softly “They’re here, Sho. Help me Sho.” Jun continued tracing Sho’s face with his hands and shaking him when he arrived to his shoulders. Jun's voice was not high, but it was filled with anxiety anyway.
“What?” It wasn’t really a reply, but it was the best Sho could do considering how groggy he still was.
“They’re here Sho!” Jun exclaimed between his teeth, obviously trying to keep his voice under control.
“Where?” Sho asked, pushing Jun off and sitting up. Now that he was more or less awake, he was also aware of the fact that his roommate was on his bed, hovering over him. He could see him clearly against the door, light filtering through the gaps under and around the edges.
“There,” the man answered, gesturing vaguely towards his own bed.
“Mhh… I can’t see anything.” Sho said falling on his back. “Go back to sleep, Jun-kun-“
“I can’t… I can’t… please don’t make me.” Jun said again, hovering over Sho.
The younger man was trembling and Sho scooted over; he had no heart to send him back now. “Okay just get off me, Jun.”
“And if they come after me?”
“I’ll swat them dead.”
“Okay.” Jun lied down next to Sho. “Okay-okay. It’s okay, is it okay?”
“Yes Jun, it is,” Sho muttered, turning away from Jun. “Just sleep.”
“Okay.” Jun whispered a few more things but Sho was already falling asleep.
When an orderly, a man named Nagase, came to wake them up in the morning, Jun was spooning against his back.
-------------------------------
Instead of going to the compulsory physical activation, both Jun and Sho were required to go to their therapist's office. It was awkward, uncomfortable and it seemed to stretch for hours. In part, it was exactly like the time with Nino. At least the therapist part was the same - the questioning and the lecture - but she didn't seem to believe them entirely. What was different was Jun, who didn't seem to pay attention, shrinking in his place, holding his knees tight against his chest.
He seemed kind of calm at first sight, but then Sho noticed how Jun’s toes were wriggling relentlessly and his hands seemed tense.
“Matsumoto-kun? Are you listening to me?” Yukie called him from the ottoman she was sitting on. “Matsumoto-kun?”
“Jun?” Sho called him and reached forward to touch his knee.
“The nanobots, they go into people and turn them.”
Their therapist sighed and sat next to Jun and passed her arm behind his back protectively. “We’ve talked about that already, didn’t we? They’re from that book you liked.”
“They’re from the book, but from the book they come. They want Sho-san and Nino is already lost to them. And they fly to the light and make computers human.”
“Matsumoto-kun, have you been taking your medication?” the therapist asked gently.
“Pills have nanobots gleaming and moving and slithering under the bed.” Jun shook, tightening his arms around his legs. “They’re all over the floor.”
Yukie-chan sighed again, patting Jun on the back. “So you didn’t have sexual intercourse with Matsumoto-kun, Sho-san?” she asked thoughtfully.
“No, he woke me up in the middle of the night mumbling about nanobots, like he’s doing now-” Sho explained.
“Because they were over the-in the door and I-Sho-kun, he swatted them off.” Jun said, finally releasing his legs and pushing his upper body forward, as if he was trying to defend Sho.
“Mhh…” Yukie-chan hummed, going to the door. She stepped out for a moment in which Jun was looking anxiously around the office and Sho just sat there a little dumbfounded, observing his roommate.
When their therapist came back, she was holding a Ziploc bag with several pills in it, some of them were damaged or opened. “Sho-kun, please go back to your regular activities. I need to speak to Matsumoto-kun alone. I’ll see you this afternoon,” she said as soon as she had closed the door behind her.
Sho wanted to stay and help Jun through it, but something in the therapist's eyes made him just stand up and pat Jun on the head caringly before going to the gardens to start working.
-------------------------------
The day had passed and he still hadn’t got a glimpse of his roommate, Sho didn’t know what had happened or if Jun was in some sort of problem. He wondered many times over the hours, over the gardening shores, over the meal he had with Ohno but not Nino, over his routine to wash his mouth carefully, taking an awful lot of time to brush each of his teeth.
Jun was in his room when Sho walked into it, lying on his bed with his eyes closed, the radio pouring music into the thick, slightly cold air of the room. The younger man opened his eyes when he heard Sho move in the room.
Jun didn’t say anything - he just sat up, pulled an old book from under his pillow and offered it to Sho. “I want you to have it,” he said softly and let himself fall on the bed again, turning away from Sho, like he was going to take a nap.
Sho looked at the book’s cover: Midnight by Dean Koontz, it read. He had never heard of the author or the book, but his appointment with Yukie-chan was almost due, so he walked out instead of thinking much of what had happened.
Yukie-chan smiled at him when he went into the office and invited him to drink some tea at the area that resembled a living room. They sat at the coffee table as usual.
“I see Matsumoto-kun gave you his book,” Yukie-chan commented after sipping her cup gracefully as most of her movements were.
“Oh- “ Sho stared at the book stupidly, not realizing he had brought it with him. “Yeah, just before I came here.”
“That book - it’s very important to him, you know?” the therapist observed as she shifted in her seat, just a little closer to her patient.
“No, he didn’t tell me anything except that he wanted me to have.”
“Most of his hallucinations and delusions come from that book,” she informed, and Sho could see in her face how she was evaluating the impact her words had in him. He felt really uncomfortable with that.
“Oh, I see,” Sho voiced because he didn’t know what else to say.
“I think is better if you and Matsumoto-kun don’t share a room anymore,” Yukie-chan stated matter-of-factly.
“Why?” Sho questioned, still feeling how his therapist was still looking at him, how she was judging his posture and his face.
“Because I think Matsumoto-kun has feelings for you, and that you can’t return those feelings.”
Sho felt numbed as the therapist's words sank into his head, into his heart, into his hands, into his body. “I-I don’t th-think you’re right…” Sho ventured, but stopped talking when he noticed the patronizing look he was getting from her.
“He lets you call him Jun. Who besides Nino and yourself call him Jun? He doesn’t let ME call him Jun even if I’ve been his therapist over a year,” She let him know. Air began to thicken then, making it difficult to breathe. “He's slept in your bed, he rarely lets people touch him…”
“He let Nino grab his hand,” he countered swiftly.
“I think his feelings for you, and his inability to cope with your choice to sleep with Nino culminated in Jun feeling alone and needing Jin back, so he stopped his medication.” She continued as though she hadn't heard what Sho had just interjected.
“I didn’t sleep with Nino,” Sho defended, but just barely.
“But you were going to, if Aiba-san hadn’t shown up.”
Sho gaped at her with his eyes wide and tears threatening to fall.
“So it’s better if you could room with someone else.”
“But Jun! He’s going to be alone?”
“He’s going to have a new roommate.”
“But-but, I won’t let him sleep with me again. Nino and I aren’t together, we’re just friends. I don’t want to go to other room!” Sho tried to negotiate.
“I think it’s better if you're apart, so Jun won’t get the wrong idea about your relationship. You can remain friends even if you don’t share the room.” What Yukie-chan was saying made perfect sense; it was logical and true. Sho’s chest constricted in grief anyway.
“I don’t want to.” Sho sighed, finally crying.
“Sho-san, I think you should consider what’s best for Jun, if you care about him.”
Sho remained silent for a moment, looking at his own hands resting on his thighs.
“Right now I want you to go to your room and start packing.”
Sho wanted to say something, but he couldn’t, so he just nodded and walked toward the door.
“What if I could?” Sho asked without facing his therapist. “What if I could answer Jun’s feelings?”
“Why would you try to sleep with Ninomiya-kun if you had feelings for Jun?” She countered from her spot, calmly.
“He jumped me, and I was frustrated because Jun was cold?” Sho tried to justify his behavior, but even to him the excuse was weak.
“Did you even try to talk with him about your feelings before jumping into that with Nino?”
“I-I…” Sho tried but he knew he hadn’t. “I will?”
“No, right now you won’t. In the state his mind is in, you’d be taking advantage of him. He needs you to back off, give him space and maybe read that book you are carrying under your arm.”
“Okay.” Sho accepted quietly. “I’m going to take my leave now.”
-------------------------------
Sho’s new roommate was Yokoyama. The man was quiet and pale and Sho had seen him around clutching a plush cat. Right now the cat was on Yokoyama's bedside table and the man himself was sitting on his bed rigidly, looking attentively to his newly arrived roommate.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Sho finally said, getting tired of being stared at.
“Then why did they take Hina-chan to Matsumoto’s room?” Yoko asked in a loud voice, the kind of voice that showed he was struggling to make the words come out.
“Because sex between patients is forbidden,” Sho answered quietly, as though a louder voice would make the taller man cower away.
“You’re in a relationship with Matsumoto?” the man asked but he seemed starting to relax.
“No. Not yet.”
“Oh, well, good luck.”
-------------------------------
The next morning, Jun looked bothered and he barely glanced away from his plate as he played with its contents and took languid spoonfuls of oatmeal and banana.
“Jun-kun?” Sho called him softly as if he didn’t want to attract Ohno and Nino’s attention, but of course the other two turned up to look at him, while his ex-roommate continued ignoring him. “I didn’t change rooms because I wanted to, but because Yukie-chan asked me to.”
“Why would she do that?” It wasn’t Jun’s question; it was Nino asking it, but Sho understood that his ex-roommate was wondering the same.
“It’s something I’ll tell Jun in due time. For now, I just want to know if you took your morning pill,” Sho said, avoiding the subject. He had talked with Yukie again and both agreed he must not confess until Jun was stable again. He also agreed to help keep Jun on his meds.
“I took it,” Jun answered, acting annoyed.
“You sure? You didn’t sweep it under your bed?” Sho nagged on.
“What is it to you?” Jun asked at last, turning to see Sho.
“I was told I can go back to our room when you start taking your pills again. I miss you.” Sho figured he was at least allowed to do that.
“I did take it,” Jun said and his voice was calmer. Sho could even say it sounded happy.
-------------------------------
Taking care of Jun for the following week and then the following months was surprisingly easy. It came natural to Sho. He wasn’t over his ex-roommate all the time, but he tried to be there for the times that mattered, like the time of their medication. Being there for Jun made the oppression in his chest, the need to stop living fade away; it made him feel at home, just comfortable.
Just being silent by his side as they dug in the garden to plant another tree, then quietly filling it back when the tree was in place, and exchanging smiles after that as they walked toward the cafeteria covered in dirt, made Sho’s heart swell.
Those little moments where they sat side by side in the library reading, and Jun found something worth sharing, and they both exchanged funny, deep or beautiful passages of their books, made Sho feel even closer to Jun.
Even the frightening moments when Jun trembled all over and screamed because the nanobots were so close to him he could feel them crawl up and down his skin, made Sho want to take care of and protect him even more. Though when he started to take his medication regularly that stopped happening.
Sho had also started to feel more confident around Nino again; he stopped fearing the skinnier man would jump him and abuse him. It might have to do with the fact that Nino had apologized for taking advantage of him like that. He had seen Aiba talking to Nino often, both smiling in a way he hadn’t seen before and that was hard, because Aiba usually had a bright smile on his face.
Ohno seemed as impassive as always, just dedicating himself to his paintings. He didn’t seem to have noticed Nino’s lack of attention lately.
-------------------------------
Sho had been in the hospital a total of five and a half months and the treatment was coming to an end. He didn’t want to go home, since with the help of Yukie-chan he had determined that his family didn’t help with the feelings of uselessness and despair. So she proposed for him to go to a halfway house, and after talking about it with Jun, he thought it was good too.
Jun’s condition seemed to have improved lots, and they had grown closer too. Yukie had told Sho a week ago that now was the time to confess and to tell Jun about leaving the hospital. Sho knew she was right, but he just felt too scared of being rejected, even if things had gotten to the point it was only natural.
It was a Friday when he decided to tell Jun about his feelings, and the afternoon was fresh with gentle wind flowing between the flowerbeds, lifting a sweet aroma to the whole garden. Jun sat against the same tree Sho was leaning his back against.
“Hey, Jun?” Sho called, just gathering enough courage to take his nose out of the book he wasn’t actually reading and begin the talk he had rehearsed with his therapist.
“Yeah?” Jun asked, closing the book he had in his hands to indicate he was listening.
“Did Yukie tell you why she got me moved out of your room?” Sho started as he was coached to do.
“She said our friendship had changed,” Jun said, suddenly paying more attention to Sho and what he was saying.
“Do you think it’s true?” the older man asked, playing with the book in his hands.
“I was upset that you were sleeping with Nino, and that made our friendship change.”
“I was not sleeping with Nino, and I’m not sleeping with Nino,” Sho said defensively.
“Oh, you did not?” Jun asked, visibly pleased.
“No, but I was confused and I didn’t reject him when he kissed me,” Sho revealed slowly.
“Confused?” Jun furrowed his brows clearly thinking it was a pretty lame excuse.
“Because I liked someone I shouldn’t have liked, or at least I thought it wasn’t right.” Sho continued, turning his body to face his ex-roommate.
“Oh,” Jun uttered, becoming flustered or maybe frustrated because Sho wasn’t really telling him anything he didn’t know.
“Wanna know who?” Sho purred slowly, his deep voice doing something ridiculously sweet.
Jun nodded and Sho leaned forward so his nose was just an inch short from touching Jun’s wavy hair, and whispered into his ear. The younger man took a moment to process what the other had said. Sho pulled away and smiled, waiting to see some kind of reaction from Jun, when the other man smiled back, he dived again to peck him on the lips.
-------------------------------
“This is why Yukie-chan thought it was better for us to be in separate rooms,” Sho said after a while that they had been kissing. “I promised her we wouldn’t have sex until we’re out of here,” Sho interjected when Jun’s hand moved down his chest to stroke the front of his jeans.
“So you can’t come back to our room.” Sho shook his head no. “Oh, but we can kiss, right?”
“Yeah… Listen Jun, my treatment is going to end in two weeks.”
Jun went rigid and pulled away immediately. “What?”
“I’m going to a halfway-house. Maybe if we talk with Yukie you can come with me too,” Sho said.
“I haven’t been out for almost six months…” Jun looked insecure, almost diminished as he talked.
“Maybe it’s time…”
“I don’t think my mom wants me around my sister anymore…”
“That’s why you’d go to the halfway-house with me. We will get stable jobs and keep taking our meds and live together after that,” Sho said, sitting straight to be able to see into Jun’s eyes while he spoke.
“I don’t think it’s that easy,” Jun mumbled, leaning back on the tree and pulling Sho to lie against his chest. They spent the rest of the afternoon there in silence, just enjoying the other.
-------------------------------
The two weeks before Sho left the hospital went by really fast, but in that time they managed to talk to their therapist and she agreed that Jun should try go out to the world real soon, after all he had been stable for at least three months. So she gave Jun two weeks too. But he actually was going to be released from the hospital a week after Sho. It suited them both.
Nino had tried to conceal the fact that he was crying. But in the end he ended up hugging Sho hard before turning around and waving as he walked away.
The halfway house had five bedrooms, two of which had been occupied by other ex-patients. One of them was Subaru, an awkward little man that sometimes said really interesting things, and the other one was Yokoyama’s ex-roommate Murakami Shingo, who tried to control everything in the house, but at the same time was struggling with not to control everything.
Sho still had a weekly appointment with Yukie and Aiba promised to come by and check them out a couple of times a week. The job Sho took was assigned by the hospital as an office clerk. When Jun came to live with them, he took a position as a salesman in a very big bookstore.
Murakami had reacted badly when he realized Jun and Sho were a couple. But after Aiba came and mediated the situation, they agreed that they wouldn’t have sex under that roof and Murakami wouldn’t flip out if they were kissing in the common areas. It was a little uncomfortable, but they agreed because Subaru watching them while they were being lovey-dovey was creepy. The last person to join their home was Nino.
Nino was looking healthier and Aiba started coming every evening to cuddle with Nino on the sofa as they played old famicon games from a console Aiba had brought.
-------------------------------
The evening was cold and they had been in the halfway-house for almost two months. Jun was stepping out of the train station when he noticed the familiar suit and the slanting shoulders walking a few meters from him and decided that they should walk home together since they happened to be there at the same time. It was a rare occurrence.
Sho was surprised when he heard Jun’s voice calling him, but he stopped walking and grabbed his boyfriend’s hand as soon as he was close enough to be able to do that.
“We should have a date,” Jun suggested hopefully as they walked hand in hand. The weather was getting colder with the sun disappearing below the horizon.
“Sure. Where do you wanna go?” Sho answered, stopping to wait for suggestion and a change of direction.
“Let’s have Italian and then let’s go to a love hotel,” Jun proposed shyly.
“Eh?” The older man’s face seemed embarrassed and avoided the other’s gaze.
“We’ve been dating almost three months and we have only kissed… I think it’s time,” the bookstore clerk explained, his face turning redder each word. “And Aiba-chan gave me this last night.” He said, pulling something out of his coat’s pocket and putting it in Sho’s hand.
Sho looked at the packet in his hand and it read ‘lubrication’ in pink letters over a metallic background. The man nodded timidly before they started to walk back to the train-station.
-------------------------------
It was the third time in his life that Sho had entered a love hotel, but the first time he was in one with a man, and he didn’t know which of the two made him more uncomfortable.
Jun seemed a little more at ease as they entered and took a seat on the bed, even if there was a small living area with a karaoke system in the room too. They had been offered some drinks, but they refused to drink anything but non-alcoholic drinks because they knew that the fragile equilibrium the meds and therapy had brought to them could be destroyed by something so simple.
Jun offered Sho a bottle of carbonated water before sitting down next to him. The younger man seemed to be so much more in control than he felt, so Sho just decided to go with anything the other wanted.
Jun smiled before leaning over and kissing him. For Sho, it was easy to get lost in the moment after so much time spent wishing and then finally having it. He let Jun take over, pushing him onto bed and covering him with his slightly longer body.
It felt hot and was getting hotter as his boyfriend’s hands started to caress his chest and abdomen before undoing the shirt’s buttons. Sho was wearing a tank top under his shirt, but it was soon crumpled up under his armpits as Jun had pulled it to be able to stroke his nipples. He could feel Jun’s hard on rubbing against his thigh as rocked back and forwards.
“I-I want you, Jun-kun.” Sho sighed when the other left his mouth and traced his jaw and neck with his lips and teeth.
“Me too, Sho-chan,” Jun replied as his he started to press Sho’s nipple between his thumb and forefinger, making the latter gasp.
Next thing Jun did was undo his belt and his slacks button as he looked into Sho’s eyes as if he was asking silently if it was really okay or as if he was looking for any doubt or hesitance in case he needed to stop. When Sho bit his own lower lip as he tugged Jun’s bookstore uniform to be able to slide the t-shirt over his head, Jun smiled and let him before he started kissing him again.
Jun’s lips felt so good covering Sho’s mouth and the way his tongue played with Sho's was heavenly. The older man grabbed Jun by his butt and pulled him closer, causing him to shudder and kiss more aggressively.
Sho almost forgot this was his first time with a man and for a moment he felt lost as to what should happen now. Jun seemed to know as he pulled down his own jeans and finished pulling off Sho’s clothes.
Jun fumbled around the room a little before continuing; he retrieved the package of lube from his coat and he also grabbed a condom from the table where they had left them. When he knelt on the bed again, he was fisting his own cock and he looked amazingly beautiful even if the hotel light sucked. Sho felt the need to kneel in front of him to kiss him hard.
Jun hands stroked Sho’s back and buttocks. Sho was trembling because Jun’s skin was a little cold flush against his own body Then Jun kneaded his buttocks and Sho groaned; none of his girlfriends or fuck-buddies had done that to him before and he wondered if it was because he had a nice rear.
He didn’t realize when Jun had opened the lube until he felt the fingers separating his ass cheeks and sliding to touch his anus. He hadn’t expected it and he moved away from Jun in shock.
“Do you want to stop?” Jun asked with gentleness and a hint of disappointment.
“No, please don’t stop.” Sho shook his head and then leaned over to kiss Jun’s neck to lick it and suck it.
Jun’s fingers resumed what they were doing, first massaging him in circles to help Sho relax, and let his finger go in.
This wasn’t at all what Sho had in mind when he had thought about having sex with Jun. He had researched the issue when he had the chance at an internet café. But since he was shy and he felt like everyone knew what he was doing on the computer even if he knew they didn’t, Sho didn’t get to know but the most technical aspects of the act.
He had pictured Jun moaning under him as he drove his own cock in and out of him, but he had to confess that feeling Jun’s finger abusing his hole was making him hornier than anything he had done before had.
“Another one?” Jun told him as he did something with his other hand. Sho nodded avidly; he wanted more and he wanted it now.
For a moment Sho felt nothing but the emptiness the finger that had slipped out his rear had left. But then Jun gave a small warning before he pushed the fingers inside Sho again. It hurt - the first finger hadn’t hurt, but this time it hurt.
“Just hold on for a moment, Sho-chan. It’ll go away,” Jun whispered soothingly to his ear as his other hand palmed Sho’s erect cock.
Jun was right; after a couple of minutes the pain subsided and what was left was the pleasure of his cock being handled by his boyfriend, and the intrusion in his ass started to feel good again.
“Let me lie down,” Sho requested when he felt that his legs weren’t going to hold him much longer.
So they shifted on the bed until Sho was lying on his back with his thighs pulled apart, even if he had never been too flexible. Though his legs weren’t all that much apart, Jun’s fingers found their way inside him again quickly. Because of the change in positions, the fingers inside Sho reached deeper and it felt amazingly good - so good that the older man was seeing stars.
When Jun inserted a third finger, it had hurt again, but like the first time it wasn't long before Jun was moving them in and out making Sho squirm in pleasure.
“Jun, hurry up.” Sho grunted between one kiss and the next.
“You be on top. It’s your first time you should be able to control how you want it,” Jun said as he pulled his fingers away and he reached for the condom he had brought to the bed. “Is it okay?”
Sho nodded and waited until Jun was lying on the bed to straddle him. Now that the possibility of Jun’s cock to fuck him was nearer than ever, it seemed enormous and Sho started to feel fear invading him. He looked up and met Jun’s eyes. He looked lustful, but also there was something reassuring about his eyes so Sho reached back and grabbed Jun's cock to guide it to his anus.
Once the cock was against his hole everything else was easy. It felt good to let it slide inside a little at a time and watch Jun closely as he reacted to what was being done to him. Sooner than Sho thought, his ass was resting against Jun’s thighs and the cock was fully inside him.
Jun was the first to move; he couldn’t do much given the position they were in, but Sho moaned and got the message, lifting his hips just a bit and moving down again. They built a rhythm quickly and it almost seemed that either they had been doing this forever or that they were meant to be fucking the rest of their lives. Both seemed appealing to Sho, who had fisted his own cock and was tugging it at the same pace of Jun’s hips.
Jun came in waves first, thrusting his hips deeper into Sho as he finished. Sho followed just a bit behind, releasing his load on Jun’s torso.
For the next couple of hours they stayed on the bed, kissing lazily and enjoying the presence of the other.
-------------------------------
When they arrived home, Murakami’s light was out and Subaru sat on the armchair looking at the game Aiba and Nino were playing. The three of them muttered a greeting when they heard them come in.
“Evening,” Sho said, walking slowly as he still felt stiff from their earlier activities. All he wanted was to go to bed.
“Why are you so late?” Aiba asked, pausing the game.
“Ho-ly-cow!” Nino exclaimed after he turned to see both of his housemates. “They were fucking!” he informed a little too loudly.
“No…” Aiba interjected a little incredulously, but examining them quickly. “Oh my god, it’s true!”
“WE WENT ON A DATE!” Jun defended, glaring at his housemates.
“Leave it Jun. I’m going to bed,” Sho said quietly, going upstairs as fast as he could.
“Not cool, Kazunari and Masaki. Not cool,” Jun said before disappearing upstairs too.
“They did fuck, right?” Subaru asked at last, making Aiba and Nino laugh loudly.