Shine Around Me (Like A Million Suns) 3/3
SHINE AROUND ME (LIKE A MILLION SUNS) 3/3
2558
--
"Ow!" Jun grumbled, trying to elbow the android away from him. "You idiot!"
Aiba laughed, keeping his hands firmly over Jun's eyes as he shoved the man forward into the small dining room. "Almost there!"
"Let go of me already!" Jun demanded, but of course, Aiba was stronger than ten of him.
Sho smiled, putting the finishing touches on the enormous bowl of rice. Some broccoli here, some carrots there. It was rather colorful, now that the food had been rehydrated. It was still going to taste boring, but at least it looked fancy. They didn't have any candles to light, but he supposed it was enough that they were still using an Earth chronometer to determine what date and time it was.
"Something smells burnt," Jun complained.
And then Aiba let him go.
"Happy birthday!" Sho and Aiba cheered. They'd even used some of the spare paper from Ohno's trunk to make a sign, which they'd set down in front of the rice bowl. Happy birthday, Caretaker Jun! 30 Years Old!
Jun scowled. "The hell is this?"
"Well, it's not like we can give you a cake," Aiba teased him, shoving Jun into the chair. "This is the next best thing."
"Who made this?" Jun grumbled.
"Chef Sakurai, at your service," Sho said, bowing as Jun picked up his chopsticks.
"No wonder it smells so bad," Jun complained, digging in anyway and taking a big bite.
Sho met Aiba's eyes, and the android smiled before they both sat down and helped themselves to their own meals. Jun was happy they'd thought of him, though he'd never admit it.
It had been almost two years now, living like this on board the Shirase. Much had remained the same. Jun still wore white clothes and white slippers, if only to be all the more defiant when Sho wandered the ship in his t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of obnoxiously colored socks. He'd even gotten Aiba to take his side, and now the android regularly wandered around in a pair of bright yellow pajama pants and a pink t-shirt. Who needed to match in space anyway? The ship itself kept all three of them busy, and they'd all gotten into a steady routine. The Shirase was run efficiently, and even Aiba admitted that it was helpful to have a third person around to help the Caretaker.
But where some things hadn't changed, others had. He and Jun had come to some degree of understanding. And if Sho had to say so, he considered them genuine friends more than just unavoidable shipmates now. Jun's trust in him had developed and grown as each month passed by. Sho was allowed to check the freezer level without supervision, could plot minor ship reroutes without needing to run his calculations past Aiba for approval. He was 32 years old, and Jun was finally treating him like a fellow adult, Sho thought with a grin.
As for how Sho felt about Jun himself, that was a little more complicated. Sure, they got along, and on most days Jun would even initiate conversation, talking about this or that system on board the ship or about hobbies they shared. Jun was apparently an avid soccer fan, and he kept promising Sho that they'd scan the ship's manifest someday, find one of the passenger bins that had a soccer ball they could borrow.
Sho liked Jun. He liked Jun a lot, and though it didn't interfere with the work they had to do (since they usually had to be in different places for much of the day), Sho didn't know what he was supposed to do about his feelings. Because it was ridiculous, of course, being in love. Even after two years, Sho hadn't said a word about it, to Jun or even to Aiba. Things were finally in balance now. Jun respected and trusted him, and the last thing Sho needed to do was force Jun back into the shell he'd been in when they'd first met or to make things between them awkward.
Because Jun was spoken for, wasn't he? He'd been in love with Nino, and Nino was gone, and Jun had spent nearly three years blaming himself, hating himself for it. Sho couldn't interfere with that, with any residual feelings Jun had for the person he'd lost. How could Sho even compare? Jun had let his family depart for Epsilon Eridani without him, had let all his friends go on ahead because he waited for Nino. How could Sho ever mean that much to him? There was no comparison.
So it was pointless, Sho figured, to try and pursue anything. He was content enough to run through the cargo hold with Jun, to eat meals with Jun, listen to Jun's endless complaints about the way Sho dared to dress. He and Jun were stuck with each other, and hopefully in time Sho would come around to the idea that maybe that was enough.
But it was so difficult sometimes. When Jun would crack a smile at one of Sho's terrible jokes or when he'd find Jun sleeping like a baby at the console on the bridge, exhausted from overworking himself. Or the way Jun looked when he worked, utterly focused and his large eyes nothing but brown pools of pure concentration. How could Sho ever stop feeling this way about him? He sometimes wished that Ohno was still around, that maybe he'd have some words of wisdom to get Sho out of his teenage hormonal funk. It was lonely as hell on a ship like this, with only your hand and an android for company. How had Ohno gotten through it?
Aiba had finally opened up a bit, taking over a year to drop the slightest hint that his android programming made him human enough where it counted. Sho knew that Caretaker Becky had lived to the ripe old age of 95, and so it was kind of gross to imagine her and Aiba...together somehow. But Becky hadn't always been 95, and Aiba had clearly loved her in his way, and maybe she'd loved him in return.
So if an android and a human could figure this whole damn thing out, how come Sho couldn't?
--
Sho made his way down the aisle, halfway through his shift. "Mizusawa-san, good morning," he said, passing by one tank. "Harada-san, Kuriyama-san." Green lights, green lights, green lights.
It was Jun who'd started Sho on the names. "If you learn their names, if you think about them as individuals," he'd explained back when he was still training Sho, "then you'll be better at protecting them. It won't be tank 101 failing, it would be Suzuki-san, and you'd want to save him all the more."
And it was true. It had taken Sho the better part of these two years trying to find a way to memorize names, or at least most of the people in each row. He was getting much better, spending his off time reading through profiles in the computer. Three Doujimas in a row, a family. Most families were placed together, and it helped immensely with remembering them. Ten Terajimas, three generations. And their neighbor, Wada-san. He filled in blanks that the computer left out or made things up if only to serve as a mnemonic device. He imagined that Takahashi three rows down had known Suzumiya in college, that Ogata and Ariyoshi had had an affair.
They became people, all of them in need of safe passage to the new star system, and Sho understood how Jun felt, wanted to protect them just as strongly.
He made it to the next row, pausing in front of a tank with a blinking red light and letting out a quiet buzzing alarm. Recalibration necessary. There hadn't been one in a few weeks, and Sho tried not to panic. "Ah, it's okay, Yaguchi-kun." A child, eight years old. A little boy nestled in between his parents. "It's going to be okay."
The green light beneath the red one proved that the child wasn't in the danger zone yet, his vitals remaining steady. Sho crouched down and popped open the panel underneath Yaguchi-kun's tank. Recalibration could be a simple short circuit, easily repaired, or a completely frayed wire, requiring Jun or Aiba's help. After hundreds of years, Sho was amazed that more of the tanks didn't experience failures like this. The wiring on Sho's own tank had seemingly melted from the inside out, and that was why it had been impossible to fix his.
Sho's heart started to race when he was greeted with the sight of not one but three snapped wires. They'd been nudged inside the unit rather haphazardly by whoever had been responsible for freezing the boy. It was startling that a problem had waited this long to present itself. "I'll be right back," Sho told the tank's oblivious occupant, scrambling to his feet and racing for the comm link panel near the lift.
"Sho to the bridge, Sho to the bridge," he said hurriedly. The longer it took to get Yaguchi-kun recalibrated, the longer it would take him to finish the remainder of his shift and ensure that the rest of the passengers were safe.
"Aiba here!"
"Aiba, got a complex recalibration down here. I need immediate assistance."
"Ah, Sho-chan..." Aiba said in his calm manner. A few frayed wires never seemed to worry him too much, but that was Aiba for you. "We are coming up on a bit of tricky flying here, remember the solar storm we tried to avoid yesterday? Well, it's bigger than we thought, but yours truly will get us through it and..."
Sho was losing patience. "Aiba, can you just send Jun down please?"
"Roger that."
Sho shook his head, heading for the supply crates gathered near the lift, retrieving the tools he and Jun would need to get Yaguchi-kun back on the power grid safely. He had everything laid out and set up, the panel yanked fully out of the unit so Jun could work.
He heard Jun's voice moments later. "Sho? Sho, call out a number!"
"6179! 6-1-7-9!"
Jun came running at the sound of Sho's voice, his slippers clapping against the floor in a way that usually amused Sho, but not at a time like this.
"I've got everything set up here," Sho said, holding out a handful of wires for Jun to use. "Let me know what you need."
Jun took a look at the tank, crouching down to examine everything Sho had pulled together, and then he met Sho's eyes. "You do it."
"What?" Sho asked. He'd only just watched the more complex procedures up until now. Aiba had deft fingers - he could repair these things in a blink of an eye. Jun was slower, more methodical, but always accurate. "But one, two, three wires need to be replaced. You know I've never done anything this elaborate before."
"No, you haven't," Jun answered him abruptly. "But you need to learn."
Sho swallowed, looking away from Jun's eyes and down to the components before him. "Are you sure? Jun, I..."
"Tick tock," Jun reminded him. "I'm right here in case you fuck up. But you can do this."
"Thanks," Sho muttered. It was hard sometimes to imagine that Jun had been a teacher back on Earth, and Sho wondered if he'd used these same sort of "motivational tactics" to keep his students in line.
Well, if Jun was willing to put this much trust in his abilities, he had to do well. He spoke out loud as he worked, every step of the way, and Jun didn't interrupt once. Slowly but surely, Sho kept his hand steady, removing the destroyed wires and replacing them with new ones as the tank continued to buzz in distress. He double and triple checked what he'd done, his heart beating like crazy knowing that Jun was watching him. A kid's life was at stake here, and he couldn't afford to mess up.
It felt like an eternity had elapsed, but he was finally done, screwing the panel into place. The red light switched back to green. The readout went from "Recalibration Necessary" back to "Operational" and Sho let out an exhausted sigh.
"Thank god," he murmured before hearing some polite clapping beside him. He looked over, seeing Jun grinning at him.
"See, was it that hard?"
It was insanely hard, Sho wanted to snap back at him, holding someone's life in his hands like that. Especially an eight year old boy who'd barely had a chance to live on Earth before being frozen and shipped off to another world.
Instead he just shook his head, shakily getting to his feet. His legs felt like rubber, and he had to steady himself against one of the tanks. Jun looked like he was about to step forward, grab hold of his arm, but he seemed to be forcing himself to stay in place.
"You did well," Jun told him, his voice softer and far less teasing than he'd been before. "Really well, Sho-kun. Honestly."
He wasn't used to this kind of attitude from Jun, and he felt himself flush at the attention. He hoped the dim lighting would cover that up. "Thanks. But I suppose I have a lot more work to do."
"Right," Jun said, backing away. "Of course. I was in the middle of something anyway. I'll..see you later then."
"Yeah."
And then Jun was gone, leaving Sho to his work and his unrelenting attraction. "You can't just do that," he said out loud in irritation as soon as he was alone again.
--
"You stupid, stupid robot," Jun was complaining in the medical lab a week later. Aiba said nothing, merely sitting on the table and allowing Jun to attend to him.
Sho stood idly by, watching as Jun desperately tried to patch over the damaged, broken skin. If it had been anyone else down in the engine room when the conduit had blown, they'd be dead. Sho was sickeningly aware of that as Aiba didn't move a fake muscle, having no pain sensors. If it had been Sho's turn to work in the engine room or Jun's...
Even though the small explosion had not been threatening to the ship and Aiba had managed to contain the fire with little trouble, it had burned straight through much of the skin on his left shoulder, part of his back and down his left arm. There was a terrible stench in the med lab and it turned Sho's stomach - not of burnt human skin, but of burnt whatever the material was that made Aiba Aiba.
"This color isn't going to match," Jun said, adhering the makeshift patches to Aiba's skin. There wasn't much by way of android medical care on board. "You're going to have a bizarre looking mark here."
"It's okay," Aiba said. "No harm done."
"And what would we do without you, huh?" Jun asked, giving him a light smack on the head. "You're supposed to be the brains of the outfit here. Don't put yourself in danger alone. Sho-kun and I have expiration dates. This ship can't afford to lose you."
"I'll be more careful," Aiba vowed.
The thought of losing Aiba was a terrifying one, and he could tell that Jun felt the same way. Aiba was the one thing around the Shirase that wasn't supposed to change.
Jun finished up, and Sho was fairly certain he would have made for a terrible surgeon back on Earth. Aiba's arm and shoulder were now a patchwork of splotchy brown against his usual, lighter tan coloring. The android hopped off the table, flexing his arm, rotating his shoulder. "Good as new. Well, not factory-issue," Aiba admitted, frowning slightly. "Maybe in 50 years we can wake up another female Caretaker, okay? I can brag about my battle scars."
Sho chuckled, but Jun wasn't in a joking mood. "You take care of the tanks. I doubt anything's going to explode in your face down there," Jun ordered, and Aiba laughed, pulling one of Sho's t-shirts back up and over his body.
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."
They watched the android leave, and Jun sat down on the med table himself. "He could have died," Jun grumbled, looking scared as hell.
"But he didn't," Sho reassured him, although 'died' probably wasn't the proper term. Not that Sho could think of a better one. He found himself walking over to the table, sitting down beside Jun. "And he kept the ship safe. He was doing his job."
"This entire ship is a deathtrap," Jun said quietly. "If it's not the threat of one of the tanks failing, it's having to rely on people like you and me to make sure we don't crash into a damn meteor or something. We're not scientists or trained pilots or anything."
"You and I were frozen for three hundred years, Jun. We made it this far, and we'll just have to trust that the person who comes after us keeps it going," Sho said. "It's all about trust, really."
"Well," Jun sighed, "I've never been the most trusting person. I'm sure you've noticed."
Sho found himself smiling despite the dire nature of their conversation. "I have."
"I'm sorry," Jun admitted, and Sho thought he'd misheard him at first. He was pretty sure he'd never heard Jun apologize for anything, ever. "For all that time I spent mad at you for no good reason. I never stopped to think about how lucky I was, getting something none of the other Caretakers had gotten. Another person to help them out. I was just...things were different then..."
"Jun..." Sho knew why Jun had been the way he was. As the months went on, he understood it all the more, the enormity of what Jun had lost. "It's alright..."
"It's not," Jun protested, and the urge to put an arm around him, to simply touch him, grew. Sho had to sit on his hands to keep them still. "What I did...what I tried to do, back then..."
"Jun, you don't have to..."
"I was selfish and I was scared of being alone, and I killed him."
Jun had never said anything about what had happened with Nino, not once in two years. Sho had always suspected that Aiba spoke with him about it from time to time, because if Jun kept it all bottled up, he'd never be able to function as well as he did now. But they never said anything when Sho was around.
"I can never forgive myself for what I did," Jun said, turning to look at him. It was hard to breathe, seeing Jun's eyes focusing on him. They'd never been this close before, not ever, and Sho didn't know what to do. There were spots on Jun's face, above and below his lips, tiny little imperfections that made him seem just perfect in Sho's eyes. He wanted to memorize all of Jun's imperfections.
"I'll never forgive myself, but I can't let it rule my life forever. It's not what he would have wanted for me. I lost him, and I've worked so hard to not be selfish like that again. Maybe that's why I've always been so cold to you. I didn't want to let it happen again. But as I said, I'm still so lucky. We saved you, Sho-kun, and I'm so glad we did."
Jun hesitated then, unsure of what to do next. It had seemed impossible to Sho all of this time, the thought of Jun feeling something for him in return. But it was so obvious in the way Jun looked at him now. How long had he felt this way and kept it to himself? How long had he denied himself this chance out of loyalty to the person he'd lost?
"I just wanted you to know that," Jun admitted. He still wasn't ready, Sho could tell, and he moved back, allowing Jun to slip off of the medical table. "I need to...I'll be on the bridge."
He watched him walk away, wondering if he should have just gone ahead and done something, now that he at least knew Jun had feelings for him. "Jun," he said, making the other man halt in his tracks. "Tell me about him sometime. Tell me about Nino."
Jun left the room with a nod. Sho thought he was going to have a heart attack. Jun wanted to move on, Jun was trying his very best to move on. And he wanted to move on with Sho. So Sho would wait. After all, they had the rest of their lives to figure things out.
--
A few days later they were in between shifts on the freezer level. It was the time when he and Jun usually met up in the cargo hold for a run, but instead of showing up at Sho's door in sneakers, he came dressed in his usual ridiculous attire. Sho, of course, had dressed for a run, in shorts and a thin t-shirt, and when Jun casually asked "would you like to come to my room instead?" he was mortified.
But he ignored his own distress, leaping at the chance. Jun was a private person, always had been, and Aiba never even went into his room. Sho skipped the sneakers, following behind Jun like a lonely puppy, watching as he punched in his code to unlock the door down the corridor.
It was a mirror image of Sho's room, furniture-wise, with the single bed, bedside table, and chest of drawers. But unlike Sho, who had his clothes strewn every which way and his floor littered with books and manga that he'd fortunately packed for himself, Jun's room was neater. There were two storage trunks in here, and Sho easily figured out that Jun had brought Nino's trunk in here as well.
"You asked me about him," Jun said quietly, gesturing for Sho to have a seat on the bed (which Jun had taken care to make before inviting Sho inside). "About Nino." Jun knelt down on the floor beside one of the trunks, pulling it open and smiling. "He packed light."
Even from his vantage point, the trunk only contained a few things. A couple of pairs of jeans, some bright and obnoxious underwear, a few shirts. On top of the clothes lay an acoustic guitar and a few decks of cards. That was it, all this Ninomiya Kazunari had thought to bring with him to a new solar system.
Sho couldn't help laughing. "That's it?"
"That's it," Jun said with a definitive nod, setting the lid back down. "I packed four trunks, paid extra. Three of them are still in the cargo hold. Nino thought I was an idiot for doing so."
"Four?" Sho couldn't imagine how much extra that had cost.
"I liked to cook," Jun explained, "so I brought half my kitchen with me. And I like to read, so one of my trunks is just books. Then I liked clothes so..."
"But you wear the clothes that they put in plastic wrap, Jun. If you've been hiding away a trunkful of clothes, at least let me have it if you're going to let it go to waste."
Jun grinned, seeming far more comfortable to sit around and simply talk with Sho than he'd ever been before. Maybe his semi-confession the other day had finally allowed him to relax. Not that Sho could relax very much.
"I'll think about it. Don't need you stretching out any of my favorite shirts." Jun lifted the lid of his own trunk. "Nino and I taught at the same junior high school. I taught math, he taught music. Not a likely combination."
"Not likely," Sho repeated, watching Jun dig around inside his trunk for something. He pulled out something Sho hadn't seen in ages. It was a CD. Back when they'd left Earth, the things had been considered antiques.
"I know what you're thinking," Jun said, a bit presumptuous as usual. "What the hell, right? But this was Nino all over, recording music on these things. This," he said, tapping the thin plastic lid of the CD case, "this was the first CD he made for me. He called a declaration of love, I called it...well, something not very nice."
Sho raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Jun held it up, and despite three hundred years of travel, the writing on the disc had not vanished one bit. In handwriting that was so intentionally small Sho had to get off the bed and wander over to read it, he discovered the apparent "charms" of Ninomiya Kazunari.
"Love Songs..." Sho read, squinting as Jun held the disc up for him to try and decipher, "Love Songs about Jun-pon's...Thick Leg Hair?"
"Fourteen different songs on the topic, in fact," Jun grumbled, and Sho burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I'm still on the Jun-pon aspect of this whole thing," he said, and Jun swatted him away with the CD case, dumping it back in the trunk. Sho was disappointed that he'd never get a chance to meet Nino. He sounded like a crazy guy, and Jun's total opposite.
"And if I ever hear you call me that, you will be airlocked, and that is a promise."
Sho calmed down a bit, heading back to sit down on the bed as Jun rummaged around in the trunk. "I promise, I will not call you...by that moniker. But is your leg hair really that exciting?"
Jun slid his leg out for inspection, lifting his white pant leg up to his knee. "Well?"
Sho grinned. "On the thicker side of normal."
"Oh, he would have liked you, Sho-kun," Jun grumbled, tugging his pant leg back down. "Nino would have liked you a lot."
Jun unearthed another dozen CD cases, with Nino's musical stylings ranging from an entire CD about odd-looking people he had encountered on Tokyo subway trains to another about students at the junior high school he couldn't stand. All the while Jun talked about Nino with such affection, such kindness that Sho realized more than ever what Jun had lost. And yet, Nino was a memory for Jun, a strong one, but a memory nonetheless.
The time seemed to run away from them, and Jun got to his feet, looking embarrassed. "You should probably...I mean, it's your turn to inspect the engine room."
Sho got up too, realizing that he should pay better attention to his responsibilities. It was too easy now to be lulled into Jun's orbit, wanting to spend every second possible with him. But their duty to the Shirase was more important, even if Sho's heart didn't necessarily agree.
"You're right," Sho said, heading straight for the door. He turned back, hovering in the doorway. "But thank you for sharing all this with me. I appreciate it."
Jun stayed where he was beside his trunk, full of memories of the person he'd loved. Still loved, Sho could tell.
"I like you," Jun suddenly blurted out, holding his fists at his side like a kid in grade school making his very first confession. Jun was gorgeous, so Sho imagined that a lot of people had beaten him to the punch on love confessions back on Earth. "I don't know exactly what to do about it, and it is pissing me off like you wouldn't believe."
Sho smiled, shaking his head. "Jun, I don't know what to do either. But I like you too."
"Get to work then," he said, trying to look serious again but utterly failing. "I'm sick of looking at your face."
"I'm sick of yours, too," he teased back, heading out and down the corridor. Idiots, he thought, the both of them were real idiots.
--
Neither of them seemed willing to make the first move, and over the next few weeks it started to become an odd game of who would break down first.
Sho found himself becoming all the more efficient in his work, never losing sight of what was expected of him, but getting the job done quickly with the knowledge that it might allow him an extra five minutes on the bridge with Jun, another few kilometers to jog with Jun down in the cargo hold.
The first act of war was waged over personal space. Sho had learned over the past two years that Matsumoto Jun was very fond of his personal bubble, only reaching out of it most times to swat Aiba over the head. But now that he and Sho were being extra cautious and extra weird around one another, Jun's defensive wall was starting to show a few cracks.
He'd sneak up on Sho when Sho was on the bridge, giving him a light smack on the back of the head. He made time to eat at the same time as Sho, ensuring that their fingers brushed when passing bowls and glasses between them. And Sho fought back, jogging close enough at Jun's side that their sleeves would brush, arms bumping awkwardly. He'd make up excuses for standing right behind Jun when he was at the command console.
The second act of war escalated things to a physical level. Jun always seemed to be just getting out of the shower room down the hall when Sho was off to take his own, sauntering down the corridor with wet hair and a towel around his waist, almost daring Sho to do something about it. Sho retaliated, taking his shirt off when they jogged around the track, and running harder to force Jun to keep pace with him.
It got to the point of being so ridiculous that Aiba finally said something when he and Sho were down in the engine room, examining some power coils.
"Why don't the two of you just have sex already?"
Sho nearly unhooked the wire from one of the units, turning around to glare at the android. "You're being meddlesome."
"There are three of us on this ship, Sho-chan, and it's not like I can power down when you two make faces at each other," Aiba pointed out, "and it's been what, two years of dancing around like that? Aren't you going to explode with all your humanity and feelings? Becky and I..."
"Becky and you what," Sho prodded him, narrowing his eyes. Aiba was always good at clamming up when it came to details, as though the long lost lady Caretaker he'd loved might still be a ghost haunting the ship, ready to fry his circuits if he so much as implied that they'd probably had sex on every deck of the ship, being the only non-frozen bodies on it.
"Never mind," Aiba complained. "I'm just saying that if you need me to pull your shifts so you can get on with things already, it's not a big deal. I'm a robot, as you're both so fond of reminding me, it's not like I have anything else to do."
Sho blushed in embarrassment."Aiba-kun..."
He laughed, light on his neck glowing cheerfully. "I'm not mad, you know. Even if I was programmed with the ability to feel that way, I'm speaking to you as someone who has to work with you for as long as you're both alive. You have an opportunity here. You both work so hard to protect this ship. I've worked with plenty of Caretakers, and honestly, you two are amazing. So stop worrying so much. Save your worries for the tanks and the occasional asteroid."
"What if it doesn't work out?" Sho mumbled. "What if things change? It's not like I can beam myself to another ship."
Aiba patted Sho on the back. "If you've made it this long without killing each other, I really don't see many larger obstacles to deal with."
Sho turned back to the coils, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from an android."
"You try living for 300 years and see if you don't pick up a few pointers."
--
He was going to do it. He was going to do it, damn it. Had it ever been this difficult on Earth, Sho wondered.
Yes, his brain reminded him. It had been this difficult. Sho had never had many lasting relationships, on account of being attracted to men in the first place. He'd had a kind-of, sort-of girlfriend in college, and that had been the longest relationship he'd ever had. Anything else had been one night stands picked up in bars or a sympathetic ear whenever new developments made the news about the Earth's continued deterioration. That got everyone left on the planet laid most of the time.
So Sho was used to difficulty. His life, he realized, was just one long streak of bad luck. Thirty-two years of it. Misfires on relationships, a job that would really amount to nothing in a new solar system (they needed farmers, not journalists), a broken cryo tank en route to his brand new life, and of course he was embarrassingly in love with the last man in the universe. Not that he liked Jun because he was literally the only available option. His affections for Jun just happened to be a coincidence despite their situation.
He was going to tell Jun all these things in the morning, offer himself completely and finally discover what it would feel like to kiss Jun, wrap his arms around him, to map his body with more thoroughness than Sho exhibited when he pored over the star charts the computer spat at him. He was going to take charge and make the first move, he was sure of it.
But he had still never allowed Jun to show him how to lock the damn door.
Sho was changing into a pair of pajama bottoms for bed, the pants halfway up his legs when his door slid open, revealing Jun looking immediately annoyed with him. Whether Jun was annoyed with Sho for not locking it or because Sho was mostly undressed, he didn't say.
He awkwardly stumbled his way out of the pant legs, the pajamas now a lump on the floor and leaving himself only clad in his boxer shorts. Jun turned, tapping at the console on the wall while Sho stood there, all his careful planning and determination gone to waste. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. There wasn't much that was romantic about orange and green striped boxer shorts and his messy quarters.
"What are you even doing?" he spat at Jun, who was programming Sho's console without his consent. "You better tell me the number you're using."
Jun turned around, eyes drifting almost immediately from Sho's face and looking straight down. "Maybe I'll tell you the number later so you can let yourself out."
"Asshole," Sho complained.
Jun dimmed the lights a bit before stepping over Sho's haphazardly strewn books and clothes. "How many tanks do we monitor?"
A pop quiz? NOW?
"Seven thousand, four hundred and forty-nine."
And then Jun was in his space, all long, graceful limbs and wicked eyes. "Is it terrible of me to be happy yours broke?"
Sho swallowed, crossing his arms. "Yeah, I think that's pretty terrible actually."
"Well," Jun admitted, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around Sho's neck, moving so close their mouths were only inches apart. Daring Sho to do something about it. "If you haven't noticed by now, Sho-kun, I'm really awful at knowing the right things to say."
"I've noticed. So stop talking," Sho said quietly before making the most nervewracking move of his life. He closed the distance between them, tilting his head the slightest bit and bringing his lips against Jun's for the very first time. His mouth was warm, and nothing but an open invitation.
Now that he'd started, he didn't want to stop, pulling Jun flush against him and kissing him harder. All the silly behaviors they'd been exhibiting the past several weeks seemed to slip away as Jun's fingers moved against his neck, up and into his hair. Sho had to touch him, sliding his fingers inside Jun's shirt, feeling Jun jump at the ticklish sensation and then retaliate with a slight nip of teeth against Sho's lips that only urged him on.
He moved away from touching Jun's side to the firm skin of his back, sliding his fingers possessively up to his broad shoulders, wanting him so badly it hurt. He was unable to keep from pushing his hips against Jun's, hearing a groan of satisfaction that proved encouraging. He finally willed himself to break them apart, helping Jun to get his shirt off and onto the floor, letting it mingle among Sho's "lesser" clothes. This was probably not going to take very long, Sho realized as soon as he got his hand inside the waistband of Jun's slacks and then his underwear, hearing the other man's sharp intake of breath as Sho started to tug them down.
Jun's mouth was at Sho's neck, licking and biting at the skin there, marking it as his own, and Sho willingly complied, tilting his head further so Jun could explore, taking the chance to slide his hands down Jun's narrow waist and around to his backside. The Shirase's constant hum, their duties on board seemed to fall away, slipping from their minds as soon as Jun pushed them, knocking Sho onto his back on the mattress.
Jun straddled him, a leg on either side of Sho's thighs and slowly he leaned down, stretching easily like a predatory cat and grinding himself against Sho as he moved forward, pinning Sho's wrists with his hands. Flexible, Sho remembered with a large degree of satisfaction. He groaned as the heat and friction between his legs increased, feeling himself strain against the thin fabric of his boxers, feeling Jun just as hard and needy against him.
He fought back against Jun's tight grip, arching his body up and making Jun lose himself for a moment. Sho managed to turn them onto their sides, fingers desperately trailing down his own body, aching as he unbuttoned the fly of his boxers, taking himself in his hand just as Jun brought their lips together again, slipping his tongue into Sho's mouth.
It wouldn't be long now, Sho realized as Jun slid his own hand between them, gasping as Jun's hand wrapped around him, bringing them both together. He arched instantly into Jun's touch, desperately trying not to come yet and understanding it was a pretty useless hope. But they'd have years and years to get used to each other, to take it slow. Now that he finally had Jun, felt and smelled Jun all around him, it didn't really matter if it all ended as soon as it started.
He pulled himself away from Jun's mouth. "Open your eyes," he muttered as Jun's hand feverishly worked between them. "Look at me."
Jun obeyed, and as soon as their eyes met, as soon as he saw how badly Jun needed him, wanted him, Sho couldn't take any more. He came first and Jun followed a few frenzied heartbeats later, no better than a pair of horny teenagers, and Sho decided to deal with his bedsheets later. He untucked them with an irritated sigh, nudging Jun out of the way and tossing them on the floor. Jun chuckled, curling back up at Sho's side on the bare mattress, taking up more than his fair share of what limited room was available.
"Sho-kun," Jun murmured, sweat glistening on his skin as Sho felt the warmth and comfort of his body beside him.
"Yeah?"
Jun yanked Sho's pillow out from under his head, stealing it for himself and snickering under his breath. "Good night."
--
Aiba seemed overly interested in details over the next few months. For an android who clearly knew what sex was, he was always prodding Sho for information. Sho wasn't one to kiss and tell, not that Aiba had anyone to whisper Sho's secrets to. Unless he spoke to the people in the tanks telepathically. Sho had felt bad at first, worrying that Aiba was feeling like a third wheel on board the Shirase...and then Sho remembered that jealousy wasn't part of Aiba's programming. Sheer curiosity, however, was.
"Have you done it in the lift yet?" Aiba would ask as easily as he'd ask to check Sho's vitals in the med lab. "Do I need to disinfect it?"
"Where'd that bruise on your arm come from? Rough night?"
"Hey, I could try and figure out how to switch off the gravity controls in your room. You could do it upside down!"
Sho loved the android, he really did, but at the same time he was rather grateful that Aiba couldn't drag himself away from the bridge or the freezer level when he and Jun were together to find these answers out for himself. The thought of a robot catching them in the act wasn't Sho's idea of a good time.
Being with Jun was still a work in progress. Their duties obviously came first, and Jun remained as diligent as ever, logging long hours every day and expecting the very best from Sho. And when it came to free time, Jun still liked to think he was in charge, Mr. Big Shot Caretaker, giving orders over the comms for Sho to join him in the cargo hold one day, the engine room the next. Not that Sho had much reason to complain, but Aiba used the comms too, and he didn't want to hear Aiba's giggly voice echoing through the cargo hold when Jun had him bent over one of the bins.
While he was fairly certain it would be an eternity before he tired of Jun physically, he was also sure that Jun was a good match for him in other ways. Jun continued to open his heart, and Sho did the same. They spent hours talking, learning what one another's lives had been like before they'd been frozen, the dreams they'd hoped to accomplish on their new world. They spoke of the people they'd loved and lost. Their families, their friends, Ohno from the convenience store, and Nino the music teacher.
It wasn't always a somber time - talking about what they'd lost only reassured them of their duty to those who were still frozen, those whose safety was up to them to guarantee. Over seven thousand souls counting on them to guide them forward. They couldn't change what had happened to them, and they wouldn't experience the same future as their family or friends, but they could live now, enjoy the present.
They had Aiba and his stories and his constant meddling, they had the videos and wisdom of the Caretakers who'd come before them. They had laughter and memories and a bottomless supply of freeze-dried rations. They had trinkets from Earth and constant work to keep their hands from going idle. They could sit on the bridge and say hello to the stars that no one else from Earth would see in such a configuration ever again. They had the comfort of one another, fingers twining in the darkness, the sounds of each other's steady breathing despite the silence of space that enveloped the ship. He and Jun had a bond that was impossible to put into words.
Sakurai Sho was grateful for these things. He was grateful to be alive.
--
These things proved to be a comfort to Sho as the years passed, and the Shirase moved ever onward. There would always be tanks in need of repair, engines in need of a tune-up, and their mission to carry out. And in the years that Sho lived, there was always a warm body beside him in the night.
Maybe someday that warm body would no longer be there, or his would be the one to vanish first. But unlike on Earth his body wouldn't be burned away to ash. Instead he had the comfort of knowing that he'd join the stars, become a glimmer in the sky that might be visible to someone in the Epsilon Eridani system in two hundred years. Or maybe two thousand.
Just one among those who had given all of themselves to see their people home.
--
--
--
Notes:
-This is loosely inspired by Across the Universe, a book by Beth Revis. Well, mostly just the 'person on a spaceship in suspended animation is woken early' plotline. I think I diverted from her book quite a bit afterwards, seeing as how I'm still reading it and don't know how it ends LOL. And I owe a bit to the movie Prometheus as well for the idea of an ageless android watching over the ship while everyone else is asleep - but I wasn't in the mood for evil AI, so it's mostly just goofy Aiba who never grows old.
-My cousin got married recently, and he and his wife used Across the Universe as the song they walked down the aisle to. Right in the kokoro, you guys, it's like I was destined to write this story.
-The Shirase was named for Japanese explorer Shirase Nobu.
2558
--
"Ow!" Jun grumbled, trying to elbow the android away from him. "You idiot!"
Aiba laughed, keeping his hands firmly over Jun's eyes as he shoved the man forward into the small dining room. "Almost there!"
"Let go of me already!" Jun demanded, but of course, Aiba was stronger than ten of him.
Sho smiled, putting the finishing touches on the enormous bowl of rice. Some broccoli here, some carrots there. It was rather colorful, now that the food had been rehydrated. It was still going to taste boring, but at least it looked fancy. They didn't have any candles to light, but he supposed it was enough that they were still using an Earth chronometer to determine what date and time it was.
"Something smells burnt," Jun complained.
And then Aiba let him go.
"Happy birthday!" Sho and Aiba cheered. They'd even used some of the spare paper from Ohno's trunk to make a sign, which they'd set down in front of the rice bowl. Happy birthday, Caretaker Jun! 30 Years Old!
Jun scowled. "The hell is this?"
"Well, it's not like we can give you a cake," Aiba teased him, shoving Jun into the chair. "This is the next best thing."
"Who made this?" Jun grumbled.
"Chef Sakurai, at your service," Sho said, bowing as Jun picked up his chopsticks.
"No wonder it smells so bad," Jun complained, digging in anyway and taking a big bite.
Sho met Aiba's eyes, and the android smiled before they both sat down and helped themselves to their own meals. Jun was happy they'd thought of him, though he'd never admit it.
It had been almost two years now, living like this on board the Shirase. Much had remained the same. Jun still wore white clothes and white slippers, if only to be all the more defiant when Sho wandered the ship in his t-shirt, jeans, and a pair of obnoxiously colored socks. He'd even gotten Aiba to take his side, and now the android regularly wandered around in a pair of bright yellow pajama pants and a pink t-shirt. Who needed to match in space anyway? The ship itself kept all three of them busy, and they'd all gotten into a steady routine. The Shirase was run efficiently, and even Aiba admitted that it was helpful to have a third person around to help the Caretaker.
But where some things hadn't changed, others had. He and Jun had come to some degree of understanding. And if Sho had to say so, he considered them genuine friends more than just unavoidable shipmates now. Jun's trust in him had developed and grown as each month passed by. Sho was allowed to check the freezer level without supervision, could plot minor ship reroutes without needing to run his calculations past Aiba for approval. He was 32 years old, and Jun was finally treating him like a fellow adult, Sho thought with a grin.
As for how Sho felt about Jun himself, that was a little more complicated. Sure, they got along, and on most days Jun would even initiate conversation, talking about this or that system on board the ship or about hobbies they shared. Jun was apparently an avid soccer fan, and he kept promising Sho that they'd scan the ship's manifest someday, find one of the passenger bins that had a soccer ball they could borrow.
Sho liked Jun. He liked Jun a lot, and though it didn't interfere with the work they had to do (since they usually had to be in different places for much of the day), Sho didn't know what he was supposed to do about his feelings. Because it was ridiculous, of course, being in love. Even after two years, Sho hadn't said a word about it, to Jun or even to Aiba. Things were finally in balance now. Jun respected and trusted him, and the last thing Sho needed to do was force Jun back into the shell he'd been in when they'd first met or to make things between them awkward.
Because Jun was spoken for, wasn't he? He'd been in love with Nino, and Nino was gone, and Jun had spent nearly three years blaming himself, hating himself for it. Sho couldn't interfere with that, with any residual feelings Jun had for the person he'd lost. How could Sho even compare? Jun had let his family depart for Epsilon Eridani without him, had let all his friends go on ahead because he waited for Nino. How could Sho ever mean that much to him? There was no comparison.
So it was pointless, Sho figured, to try and pursue anything. He was content enough to run through the cargo hold with Jun, to eat meals with Jun, listen to Jun's endless complaints about the way Sho dared to dress. He and Jun were stuck with each other, and hopefully in time Sho would come around to the idea that maybe that was enough.
But it was so difficult sometimes. When Jun would crack a smile at one of Sho's terrible jokes or when he'd find Jun sleeping like a baby at the console on the bridge, exhausted from overworking himself. Or the way Jun looked when he worked, utterly focused and his large eyes nothing but brown pools of pure concentration. How could Sho ever stop feeling this way about him? He sometimes wished that Ohno was still around, that maybe he'd have some words of wisdom to get Sho out of his teenage hormonal funk. It was lonely as hell on a ship like this, with only your hand and an android for company. How had Ohno gotten through it?
Aiba had finally opened up a bit, taking over a year to drop the slightest hint that his android programming made him human enough where it counted. Sho knew that Caretaker Becky had lived to the ripe old age of 95, and so it was kind of gross to imagine her and Aiba...together somehow. But Becky hadn't always been 95, and Aiba had clearly loved her in his way, and maybe she'd loved him in return.
So if an android and a human could figure this whole damn thing out, how come Sho couldn't?
--
Sho made his way down the aisle, halfway through his shift. "Mizusawa-san, good morning," he said, passing by one tank. "Harada-san, Kuriyama-san." Green lights, green lights, green lights.
It was Jun who'd started Sho on the names. "If you learn their names, if you think about them as individuals," he'd explained back when he was still training Sho, "then you'll be better at protecting them. It won't be tank 101 failing, it would be Suzuki-san, and you'd want to save him all the more."
And it was true. It had taken Sho the better part of these two years trying to find a way to memorize names, or at least most of the people in each row. He was getting much better, spending his off time reading through profiles in the computer. Three Doujimas in a row, a family. Most families were placed together, and it helped immensely with remembering them. Ten Terajimas, three generations. And their neighbor, Wada-san. He filled in blanks that the computer left out or made things up if only to serve as a mnemonic device. He imagined that Takahashi three rows down had known Suzumiya in college, that Ogata and Ariyoshi had had an affair.
They became people, all of them in need of safe passage to the new star system, and Sho understood how Jun felt, wanted to protect them just as strongly.
He made it to the next row, pausing in front of a tank with a blinking red light and letting out a quiet buzzing alarm. Recalibration necessary. There hadn't been one in a few weeks, and Sho tried not to panic. "Ah, it's okay, Yaguchi-kun." A child, eight years old. A little boy nestled in between his parents. "It's going to be okay."
The green light beneath the red one proved that the child wasn't in the danger zone yet, his vitals remaining steady. Sho crouched down and popped open the panel underneath Yaguchi-kun's tank. Recalibration could be a simple short circuit, easily repaired, or a completely frayed wire, requiring Jun or Aiba's help. After hundreds of years, Sho was amazed that more of the tanks didn't experience failures like this. The wiring on Sho's own tank had seemingly melted from the inside out, and that was why it had been impossible to fix his.
Sho's heart started to race when he was greeted with the sight of not one but three snapped wires. They'd been nudged inside the unit rather haphazardly by whoever had been responsible for freezing the boy. It was startling that a problem had waited this long to present itself. "I'll be right back," Sho told the tank's oblivious occupant, scrambling to his feet and racing for the comm link panel near the lift.
"Sho to the bridge, Sho to the bridge," he said hurriedly. The longer it took to get Yaguchi-kun recalibrated, the longer it would take him to finish the remainder of his shift and ensure that the rest of the passengers were safe.
"Aiba here!"
"Aiba, got a complex recalibration down here. I need immediate assistance."
"Ah, Sho-chan..." Aiba said in his calm manner. A few frayed wires never seemed to worry him too much, but that was Aiba for you. "We are coming up on a bit of tricky flying here, remember the solar storm we tried to avoid yesterday? Well, it's bigger than we thought, but yours truly will get us through it and..."
Sho was losing patience. "Aiba, can you just send Jun down please?"
"Roger that."
Sho shook his head, heading for the supply crates gathered near the lift, retrieving the tools he and Jun would need to get Yaguchi-kun back on the power grid safely. He had everything laid out and set up, the panel yanked fully out of the unit so Jun could work.
He heard Jun's voice moments later. "Sho? Sho, call out a number!"
"6179! 6-1-7-9!"
Jun came running at the sound of Sho's voice, his slippers clapping against the floor in a way that usually amused Sho, but not at a time like this.
"I've got everything set up here," Sho said, holding out a handful of wires for Jun to use. "Let me know what you need."
Jun took a look at the tank, crouching down to examine everything Sho had pulled together, and then he met Sho's eyes. "You do it."
"What?" Sho asked. He'd only just watched the more complex procedures up until now. Aiba had deft fingers - he could repair these things in a blink of an eye. Jun was slower, more methodical, but always accurate. "But one, two, three wires need to be replaced. You know I've never done anything this elaborate before."
"No, you haven't," Jun answered him abruptly. "But you need to learn."
Sho swallowed, looking away from Jun's eyes and down to the components before him. "Are you sure? Jun, I..."
"Tick tock," Jun reminded him. "I'm right here in case you fuck up. But you can do this."
"Thanks," Sho muttered. It was hard sometimes to imagine that Jun had been a teacher back on Earth, and Sho wondered if he'd used these same sort of "motivational tactics" to keep his students in line.
Well, if Jun was willing to put this much trust in his abilities, he had to do well. He spoke out loud as he worked, every step of the way, and Jun didn't interrupt once. Slowly but surely, Sho kept his hand steady, removing the destroyed wires and replacing them with new ones as the tank continued to buzz in distress. He double and triple checked what he'd done, his heart beating like crazy knowing that Jun was watching him. A kid's life was at stake here, and he couldn't afford to mess up.
It felt like an eternity had elapsed, but he was finally done, screwing the panel into place. The red light switched back to green. The readout went from "Recalibration Necessary" back to "Operational" and Sho let out an exhausted sigh.
"Thank god," he murmured before hearing some polite clapping beside him. He looked over, seeing Jun grinning at him.
"See, was it that hard?"
It was insanely hard, Sho wanted to snap back at him, holding someone's life in his hands like that. Especially an eight year old boy who'd barely had a chance to live on Earth before being frozen and shipped off to another world.
Instead he just shook his head, shakily getting to his feet. His legs felt like rubber, and he had to steady himself against one of the tanks. Jun looked like he was about to step forward, grab hold of his arm, but he seemed to be forcing himself to stay in place.
"You did well," Jun told him, his voice softer and far less teasing than he'd been before. "Really well, Sho-kun. Honestly."
He wasn't used to this kind of attitude from Jun, and he felt himself flush at the attention. He hoped the dim lighting would cover that up. "Thanks. But I suppose I have a lot more work to do."
"Right," Jun said, backing away. "Of course. I was in the middle of something anyway. I'll..see you later then."
"Yeah."
And then Jun was gone, leaving Sho to his work and his unrelenting attraction. "You can't just do that," he said out loud in irritation as soon as he was alone again.
--
"You stupid, stupid robot," Jun was complaining in the medical lab a week later. Aiba said nothing, merely sitting on the table and allowing Jun to attend to him.
Sho stood idly by, watching as Jun desperately tried to patch over the damaged, broken skin. If it had been anyone else down in the engine room when the conduit had blown, they'd be dead. Sho was sickeningly aware of that as Aiba didn't move a fake muscle, having no pain sensors. If it had been Sho's turn to work in the engine room or Jun's...
Even though the small explosion had not been threatening to the ship and Aiba had managed to contain the fire with little trouble, it had burned straight through much of the skin on his left shoulder, part of his back and down his left arm. There was a terrible stench in the med lab and it turned Sho's stomach - not of burnt human skin, but of burnt whatever the material was that made Aiba Aiba.
"This color isn't going to match," Jun said, adhering the makeshift patches to Aiba's skin. There wasn't much by way of android medical care on board. "You're going to have a bizarre looking mark here."
"It's okay," Aiba said. "No harm done."
"And what would we do without you, huh?" Jun asked, giving him a light smack on the head. "You're supposed to be the brains of the outfit here. Don't put yourself in danger alone. Sho-kun and I have expiration dates. This ship can't afford to lose you."
"I'll be more careful," Aiba vowed.
The thought of losing Aiba was a terrifying one, and he could tell that Jun felt the same way. Aiba was the one thing around the Shirase that wasn't supposed to change.
Jun finished up, and Sho was fairly certain he would have made for a terrible surgeon back on Earth. Aiba's arm and shoulder were now a patchwork of splotchy brown against his usual, lighter tan coloring. The android hopped off the table, flexing his arm, rotating his shoulder. "Good as new. Well, not factory-issue," Aiba admitted, frowning slightly. "Maybe in 50 years we can wake up another female Caretaker, okay? I can brag about my battle scars."
Sho chuckled, but Jun wasn't in a joking mood. "You take care of the tanks. I doubt anything's going to explode in your face down there," Jun ordered, and Aiba laughed, pulling one of Sho's t-shirts back up and over his body.
"Yes, sir. Right away, sir."
They watched the android leave, and Jun sat down on the med table himself. "He could have died," Jun grumbled, looking scared as hell.
"But he didn't," Sho reassured him, although 'died' probably wasn't the proper term. Not that Sho could think of a better one. He found himself walking over to the table, sitting down beside Jun. "And he kept the ship safe. He was doing his job."
"This entire ship is a deathtrap," Jun said quietly. "If it's not the threat of one of the tanks failing, it's having to rely on people like you and me to make sure we don't crash into a damn meteor or something. We're not scientists or trained pilots or anything."
"You and I were frozen for three hundred years, Jun. We made it this far, and we'll just have to trust that the person who comes after us keeps it going," Sho said. "It's all about trust, really."
"Well," Jun sighed, "I've never been the most trusting person. I'm sure you've noticed."
Sho found himself smiling despite the dire nature of their conversation. "I have."
"I'm sorry," Jun admitted, and Sho thought he'd misheard him at first. He was pretty sure he'd never heard Jun apologize for anything, ever. "For all that time I spent mad at you for no good reason. I never stopped to think about how lucky I was, getting something none of the other Caretakers had gotten. Another person to help them out. I was just...things were different then..."
"Jun..." Sho knew why Jun had been the way he was. As the months went on, he understood it all the more, the enormity of what Jun had lost. "It's alright..."
"It's not," Jun protested, and the urge to put an arm around him, to simply touch him, grew. Sho had to sit on his hands to keep them still. "What I did...what I tried to do, back then..."
"Jun, you don't have to..."
"I was selfish and I was scared of being alone, and I killed him."
Jun had never said anything about what had happened with Nino, not once in two years. Sho had always suspected that Aiba spoke with him about it from time to time, because if Jun kept it all bottled up, he'd never be able to function as well as he did now. But they never said anything when Sho was around.
"I can never forgive myself for what I did," Jun said, turning to look at him. It was hard to breathe, seeing Jun's eyes focusing on him. They'd never been this close before, not ever, and Sho didn't know what to do. There were spots on Jun's face, above and below his lips, tiny little imperfections that made him seem just perfect in Sho's eyes. He wanted to memorize all of Jun's imperfections.
"I'll never forgive myself, but I can't let it rule my life forever. It's not what he would have wanted for me. I lost him, and I've worked so hard to not be selfish like that again. Maybe that's why I've always been so cold to you. I didn't want to let it happen again. But as I said, I'm still so lucky. We saved you, Sho-kun, and I'm so glad we did."
Jun hesitated then, unsure of what to do next. It had seemed impossible to Sho all of this time, the thought of Jun feeling something for him in return. But it was so obvious in the way Jun looked at him now. How long had he felt this way and kept it to himself? How long had he denied himself this chance out of loyalty to the person he'd lost?
"I just wanted you to know that," Jun admitted. He still wasn't ready, Sho could tell, and he moved back, allowing Jun to slip off of the medical table. "I need to...I'll be on the bridge."
He watched him walk away, wondering if he should have just gone ahead and done something, now that he at least knew Jun had feelings for him. "Jun," he said, making the other man halt in his tracks. "Tell me about him sometime. Tell me about Nino."
Jun left the room with a nod. Sho thought he was going to have a heart attack. Jun wanted to move on, Jun was trying his very best to move on. And he wanted to move on with Sho. So Sho would wait. After all, they had the rest of their lives to figure things out.
--
A few days later they were in between shifts on the freezer level. It was the time when he and Jun usually met up in the cargo hold for a run, but instead of showing up at Sho's door in sneakers, he came dressed in his usual ridiculous attire. Sho, of course, had dressed for a run, in shorts and a thin t-shirt, and when Jun casually asked "would you like to come to my room instead?" he was mortified.
But he ignored his own distress, leaping at the chance. Jun was a private person, always had been, and Aiba never even went into his room. Sho skipped the sneakers, following behind Jun like a lonely puppy, watching as he punched in his code to unlock the door down the corridor.
It was a mirror image of Sho's room, furniture-wise, with the single bed, bedside table, and chest of drawers. But unlike Sho, who had his clothes strewn every which way and his floor littered with books and manga that he'd fortunately packed for himself, Jun's room was neater. There were two storage trunks in here, and Sho easily figured out that Jun had brought Nino's trunk in here as well.
"You asked me about him," Jun said quietly, gesturing for Sho to have a seat on the bed (which Jun had taken care to make before inviting Sho inside). "About Nino." Jun knelt down on the floor beside one of the trunks, pulling it open and smiling. "He packed light."
Even from his vantage point, the trunk only contained a few things. A couple of pairs of jeans, some bright and obnoxious underwear, a few shirts. On top of the clothes lay an acoustic guitar and a few decks of cards. That was it, all this Ninomiya Kazunari had thought to bring with him to a new solar system.
Sho couldn't help laughing. "That's it?"
"That's it," Jun said with a definitive nod, setting the lid back down. "I packed four trunks, paid extra. Three of them are still in the cargo hold. Nino thought I was an idiot for doing so."
"Four?" Sho couldn't imagine how much extra that had cost.
"I liked to cook," Jun explained, "so I brought half my kitchen with me. And I like to read, so one of my trunks is just books. Then I liked clothes so..."
"But you wear the clothes that they put in plastic wrap, Jun. If you've been hiding away a trunkful of clothes, at least let me have it if you're going to let it go to waste."
Jun grinned, seeming far more comfortable to sit around and simply talk with Sho than he'd ever been before. Maybe his semi-confession the other day had finally allowed him to relax. Not that Sho could relax very much.
"I'll think about it. Don't need you stretching out any of my favorite shirts." Jun lifted the lid of his own trunk. "Nino and I taught at the same junior high school. I taught math, he taught music. Not a likely combination."
"Not likely," Sho repeated, watching Jun dig around inside his trunk for something. He pulled out something Sho hadn't seen in ages. It was a CD. Back when they'd left Earth, the things had been considered antiques.
"I know what you're thinking," Jun said, a bit presumptuous as usual. "What the hell, right? But this was Nino all over, recording music on these things. This," he said, tapping the thin plastic lid of the CD case, "this was the first CD he made for me. He called a declaration of love, I called it...well, something not very nice."
Sho raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Jun held it up, and despite three hundred years of travel, the writing on the disc had not vanished one bit. In handwriting that was so intentionally small Sho had to get off the bed and wander over to read it, he discovered the apparent "charms" of Ninomiya Kazunari.
"Love Songs..." Sho read, squinting as Jun held the disc up for him to try and decipher, "Love Songs about Jun-pon's...Thick Leg Hair?"
"Fourteen different songs on the topic, in fact," Jun grumbled, and Sho burst out laughing.
"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, I'm still on the Jun-pon aspect of this whole thing," he said, and Jun swatted him away with the CD case, dumping it back in the trunk. Sho was disappointed that he'd never get a chance to meet Nino. He sounded like a crazy guy, and Jun's total opposite.
"And if I ever hear you call me that, you will be airlocked, and that is a promise."
Sho calmed down a bit, heading back to sit down on the bed as Jun rummaged around in the trunk. "I promise, I will not call you...by that moniker. But is your leg hair really that exciting?"
Jun slid his leg out for inspection, lifting his white pant leg up to his knee. "Well?"
Sho grinned. "On the thicker side of normal."
"Oh, he would have liked you, Sho-kun," Jun grumbled, tugging his pant leg back down. "Nino would have liked you a lot."
Jun unearthed another dozen CD cases, with Nino's musical stylings ranging from an entire CD about odd-looking people he had encountered on Tokyo subway trains to another about students at the junior high school he couldn't stand. All the while Jun talked about Nino with such affection, such kindness that Sho realized more than ever what Jun had lost. And yet, Nino was a memory for Jun, a strong one, but a memory nonetheless.
The time seemed to run away from them, and Jun got to his feet, looking embarrassed. "You should probably...I mean, it's your turn to inspect the engine room."
Sho got up too, realizing that he should pay better attention to his responsibilities. It was too easy now to be lulled into Jun's orbit, wanting to spend every second possible with him. But their duty to the Shirase was more important, even if Sho's heart didn't necessarily agree.
"You're right," Sho said, heading straight for the door. He turned back, hovering in the doorway. "But thank you for sharing all this with me. I appreciate it."
Jun stayed where he was beside his trunk, full of memories of the person he'd loved. Still loved, Sho could tell.
"I like you," Jun suddenly blurted out, holding his fists at his side like a kid in grade school making his very first confession. Jun was gorgeous, so Sho imagined that a lot of people had beaten him to the punch on love confessions back on Earth. "I don't know exactly what to do about it, and it is pissing me off like you wouldn't believe."
Sho smiled, shaking his head. "Jun, I don't know what to do either. But I like you too."
"Get to work then," he said, trying to look serious again but utterly failing. "I'm sick of looking at your face."
"I'm sick of yours, too," he teased back, heading out and down the corridor. Idiots, he thought, the both of them were real idiots.
--
Neither of them seemed willing to make the first move, and over the next few weeks it started to become an odd game of who would break down first.
Sho found himself becoming all the more efficient in his work, never losing sight of what was expected of him, but getting the job done quickly with the knowledge that it might allow him an extra five minutes on the bridge with Jun, another few kilometers to jog with Jun down in the cargo hold.
The first act of war was waged over personal space. Sho had learned over the past two years that Matsumoto Jun was very fond of his personal bubble, only reaching out of it most times to swat Aiba over the head. But now that he and Sho were being extra cautious and extra weird around one another, Jun's defensive wall was starting to show a few cracks.
He'd sneak up on Sho when Sho was on the bridge, giving him a light smack on the back of the head. He made time to eat at the same time as Sho, ensuring that their fingers brushed when passing bowls and glasses between them. And Sho fought back, jogging close enough at Jun's side that their sleeves would brush, arms bumping awkwardly. He'd make up excuses for standing right behind Jun when he was at the command console.
The second act of war escalated things to a physical level. Jun always seemed to be just getting out of the shower room down the hall when Sho was off to take his own, sauntering down the corridor with wet hair and a towel around his waist, almost daring Sho to do something about it. Sho retaliated, taking his shirt off when they jogged around the track, and running harder to force Jun to keep pace with him.
It got to the point of being so ridiculous that Aiba finally said something when he and Sho were down in the engine room, examining some power coils.
"Why don't the two of you just have sex already?"
Sho nearly unhooked the wire from one of the units, turning around to glare at the android. "You're being meddlesome."
"There are three of us on this ship, Sho-chan, and it's not like I can power down when you two make faces at each other," Aiba pointed out, "and it's been what, two years of dancing around like that? Aren't you going to explode with all your humanity and feelings? Becky and I..."
"Becky and you what," Sho prodded him, narrowing his eyes. Aiba was always good at clamming up when it came to details, as though the long lost lady Caretaker he'd loved might still be a ghost haunting the ship, ready to fry his circuits if he so much as implied that they'd probably had sex on every deck of the ship, being the only non-frozen bodies on it.
"Never mind," Aiba complained. "I'm just saying that if you need me to pull your shifts so you can get on with things already, it's not a big deal. I'm a robot, as you're both so fond of reminding me, it's not like I have anything else to do."
Sho blushed in embarrassment."Aiba-kun..."
He laughed, light on his neck glowing cheerfully. "I'm not mad, you know. Even if I was programmed with the ability to feel that way, I'm speaking to you as someone who has to work with you for as long as you're both alive. You have an opportunity here. You both work so hard to protect this ship. I've worked with plenty of Caretakers, and honestly, you two are amazing. So stop worrying so much. Save your worries for the tanks and the occasional asteroid."
"What if it doesn't work out?" Sho mumbled. "What if things change? It's not like I can beam myself to another ship."
Aiba patted Sho on the back. "If you've made it this long without killing each other, I really don't see many larger obstacles to deal with."
Sho turned back to the coils, shaking his head in disbelief. "I can't believe I'm taking relationship advice from an android."
"You try living for 300 years and see if you don't pick up a few pointers."
--
He was going to do it. He was going to do it, damn it. Had it ever been this difficult on Earth, Sho wondered.
Yes, his brain reminded him. It had been this difficult. Sho had never had many lasting relationships, on account of being attracted to men in the first place. He'd had a kind-of, sort-of girlfriend in college, and that had been the longest relationship he'd ever had. Anything else had been one night stands picked up in bars or a sympathetic ear whenever new developments made the news about the Earth's continued deterioration. That got everyone left on the planet laid most of the time.
So Sho was used to difficulty. His life, he realized, was just one long streak of bad luck. Thirty-two years of it. Misfires on relationships, a job that would really amount to nothing in a new solar system (they needed farmers, not journalists), a broken cryo tank en route to his brand new life, and of course he was embarrassingly in love with the last man in the universe. Not that he liked Jun because he was literally the only available option. His affections for Jun just happened to be a coincidence despite their situation.
He was going to tell Jun all these things in the morning, offer himself completely and finally discover what it would feel like to kiss Jun, wrap his arms around him, to map his body with more thoroughness than Sho exhibited when he pored over the star charts the computer spat at him. He was going to take charge and make the first move, he was sure of it.
But he had still never allowed Jun to show him how to lock the damn door.
Sho was changing into a pair of pajama bottoms for bed, the pants halfway up his legs when his door slid open, revealing Jun looking immediately annoyed with him. Whether Jun was annoyed with Sho for not locking it or because Sho was mostly undressed, he didn't say.
He awkwardly stumbled his way out of the pant legs, the pajamas now a lump on the floor and leaving himself only clad in his boxer shorts. Jun turned, tapping at the console on the wall while Sho stood there, all his careful planning and determination gone to waste. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. There wasn't much that was romantic about orange and green striped boxer shorts and his messy quarters.
"What are you even doing?" he spat at Jun, who was programming Sho's console without his consent. "You better tell me the number you're using."
Jun turned around, eyes drifting almost immediately from Sho's face and looking straight down. "Maybe I'll tell you the number later so you can let yourself out."
"Asshole," Sho complained.
Jun dimmed the lights a bit before stepping over Sho's haphazardly strewn books and clothes. "How many tanks do we monitor?"
A pop quiz? NOW?
"Seven thousand, four hundred and forty-nine."
And then Jun was in his space, all long, graceful limbs and wicked eyes. "Is it terrible of me to be happy yours broke?"
Sho swallowed, crossing his arms. "Yeah, I think that's pretty terrible actually."
"Well," Jun admitted, stepping closer and wrapping his arms around Sho's neck, moving so close their mouths were only inches apart. Daring Sho to do something about it. "If you haven't noticed by now, Sho-kun, I'm really awful at knowing the right things to say."
"I've noticed. So stop talking," Sho said quietly before making the most nervewracking move of his life. He closed the distance between them, tilting his head the slightest bit and bringing his lips against Jun's for the very first time. His mouth was warm, and nothing but an open invitation.
Now that he'd started, he didn't want to stop, pulling Jun flush against him and kissing him harder. All the silly behaviors they'd been exhibiting the past several weeks seemed to slip away as Jun's fingers moved against his neck, up and into his hair. Sho had to touch him, sliding his fingers inside Jun's shirt, feeling Jun jump at the ticklish sensation and then retaliate with a slight nip of teeth against Sho's lips that only urged him on.
He moved away from touching Jun's side to the firm skin of his back, sliding his fingers possessively up to his broad shoulders, wanting him so badly it hurt. He was unable to keep from pushing his hips against Jun's, hearing a groan of satisfaction that proved encouraging. He finally willed himself to break them apart, helping Jun to get his shirt off and onto the floor, letting it mingle among Sho's "lesser" clothes. This was probably not going to take very long, Sho realized as soon as he got his hand inside the waistband of Jun's slacks and then his underwear, hearing the other man's sharp intake of breath as Sho started to tug them down.
Jun's mouth was at Sho's neck, licking and biting at the skin there, marking it as his own, and Sho willingly complied, tilting his head further so Jun could explore, taking the chance to slide his hands down Jun's narrow waist and around to his backside. The Shirase's constant hum, their duties on board seemed to fall away, slipping from their minds as soon as Jun pushed them, knocking Sho onto his back on the mattress.
Jun straddled him, a leg on either side of Sho's thighs and slowly he leaned down, stretching easily like a predatory cat and grinding himself against Sho as he moved forward, pinning Sho's wrists with his hands. Flexible, Sho remembered with a large degree of satisfaction. He groaned as the heat and friction between his legs increased, feeling himself strain against the thin fabric of his boxers, feeling Jun just as hard and needy against him.
He fought back against Jun's tight grip, arching his body up and making Jun lose himself for a moment. Sho managed to turn them onto their sides, fingers desperately trailing down his own body, aching as he unbuttoned the fly of his boxers, taking himself in his hand just as Jun brought their lips together again, slipping his tongue into Sho's mouth.
It wouldn't be long now, Sho realized as Jun slid his own hand between them, gasping as Jun's hand wrapped around him, bringing them both together. He arched instantly into Jun's touch, desperately trying not to come yet and understanding it was a pretty useless hope. But they'd have years and years to get used to each other, to take it slow. Now that he finally had Jun, felt and smelled Jun all around him, it didn't really matter if it all ended as soon as it started.
He pulled himself away from Jun's mouth. "Open your eyes," he muttered as Jun's hand feverishly worked between them. "Look at me."
Jun obeyed, and as soon as their eyes met, as soon as he saw how badly Jun needed him, wanted him, Sho couldn't take any more. He came first and Jun followed a few frenzied heartbeats later, no better than a pair of horny teenagers, and Sho decided to deal with his bedsheets later. He untucked them with an irritated sigh, nudging Jun out of the way and tossing them on the floor. Jun chuckled, curling back up at Sho's side on the bare mattress, taking up more than his fair share of what limited room was available.
"Sho-kun," Jun murmured, sweat glistening on his skin as Sho felt the warmth and comfort of his body beside him.
"Yeah?"
Jun yanked Sho's pillow out from under his head, stealing it for himself and snickering under his breath. "Good night."
--
Aiba seemed overly interested in details over the next few months. For an android who clearly knew what sex was, he was always prodding Sho for information. Sho wasn't one to kiss and tell, not that Aiba had anyone to whisper Sho's secrets to. Unless he spoke to the people in the tanks telepathically. Sho had felt bad at first, worrying that Aiba was feeling like a third wheel on board the Shirase...and then Sho remembered that jealousy wasn't part of Aiba's programming. Sheer curiosity, however, was.
"Have you done it in the lift yet?" Aiba would ask as easily as he'd ask to check Sho's vitals in the med lab. "Do I need to disinfect it?"
"Where'd that bruise on your arm come from? Rough night?"
"Hey, I could try and figure out how to switch off the gravity controls in your room. You could do it upside down!"
Sho loved the android, he really did, but at the same time he was rather grateful that Aiba couldn't drag himself away from the bridge or the freezer level when he and Jun were together to find these answers out for himself. The thought of a robot catching them in the act wasn't Sho's idea of a good time.
Being with Jun was still a work in progress. Their duties obviously came first, and Jun remained as diligent as ever, logging long hours every day and expecting the very best from Sho. And when it came to free time, Jun still liked to think he was in charge, Mr. Big Shot Caretaker, giving orders over the comms for Sho to join him in the cargo hold one day, the engine room the next. Not that Sho had much reason to complain, but Aiba used the comms too, and he didn't want to hear Aiba's giggly voice echoing through the cargo hold when Jun had him bent over one of the bins.
While he was fairly certain it would be an eternity before he tired of Jun physically, he was also sure that Jun was a good match for him in other ways. Jun continued to open his heart, and Sho did the same. They spent hours talking, learning what one another's lives had been like before they'd been frozen, the dreams they'd hoped to accomplish on their new world. They spoke of the people they'd loved and lost. Their families, their friends, Ohno from the convenience store, and Nino the music teacher.
It wasn't always a somber time - talking about what they'd lost only reassured them of their duty to those who were still frozen, those whose safety was up to them to guarantee. Over seven thousand souls counting on them to guide them forward. They couldn't change what had happened to them, and they wouldn't experience the same future as their family or friends, but they could live now, enjoy the present.
They had Aiba and his stories and his constant meddling, they had the videos and wisdom of the Caretakers who'd come before them. They had laughter and memories and a bottomless supply of freeze-dried rations. They had trinkets from Earth and constant work to keep their hands from going idle. They could sit on the bridge and say hello to the stars that no one else from Earth would see in such a configuration ever again. They had the comfort of one another, fingers twining in the darkness, the sounds of each other's steady breathing despite the silence of space that enveloped the ship. He and Jun had a bond that was impossible to put into words.
Sakurai Sho was grateful for these things. He was grateful to be alive.
--
These things proved to be a comfort to Sho as the years passed, and the Shirase moved ever onward. There would always be tanks in need of repair, engines in need of a tune-up, and their mission to carry out. And in the years that Sho lived, there was always a warm body beside him in the night.
Maybe someday that warm body would no longer be there, or his would be the one to vanish first. But unlike on Earth his body wouldn't be burned away to ash. Instead he had the comfort of knowing that he'd join the stars, become a glimmer in the sky that might be visible to someone in the Epsilon Eridani system in two hundred years. Or maybe two thousand.
Just one among those who had given all of themselves to see their people home.
--
--
--
Notes:
-This is loosely inspired by Across the Universe, a book by Beth Revis. Well, mostly just the 'person on a spaceship in suspended animation is woken early' plotline. I think I diverted from her book quite a bit afterwards, seeing as how I'm still reading it and don't know how it ends LOL. And I owe a bit to the movie Prometheus as well for the idea of an ageless android watching over the ship while everyone else is asleep - but I wasn't in the mood for evil AI, so it's mostly just goofy Aiba who never grows old.
-My cousin got married recently, and he and his wife used Across the Universe as the song they walked down the aisle to. Right in the kokoro, you guys, it's like I was destined to write this story.
-The Shirase was named for Japanese explorer Shirase Nobu.