Fic: [Arashi] Simple
Title: Simple
Requested by and for: rinalin
Rating: PG-13, ~6000
Prompt: The many ways Aiba loves, and everything that follows along with that.
Notes: A lot of this was based on Aiba's 10,000 word interview. I really like Aiba and think he's a wonderfully positive person (from what we see). And he's not stupid, he's not an idiot - he's just full of enthusiasm for everything. Your prompt was a challenge because I really wanted to portray that right. I hope you enjoy! ♥...because I'm afraid this turned out pretty long for a prompt response.
Aiba does like spring. He finds it harder to dislike things than to like them, and in the end he just calls it his 'least favorite season.' But hay fever hits him hard like it always has, and it's impossible to weather it at home like he used to do.
"Aiba-chan?"
Aiba feels a warm hand drop to his shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Masaki?" Sho's voice is hushed but insistent. For a brief second Aiba entertains the notion of getting up. But then his throat begins itching again; a wave of pure miserableness washes over him and he burrows deeper into the couch.
"Let him sleep," Nino's voice says softly. "Half an hour before he has to go look pretty."
Sho hums a concerned rumble. He gives one last squeeze to Aiba's shoulder before Aiba hears the two of them leaving the dressing room, the quiet hum of Nino's DS fading away. Aiba tries to breathe in but his nose is hopelessly clogged. He sighs into the silence of the room.
He wants to be with them (none of them can manage to see each other much recently), but Aiba knows better than anyone that the best thing to do when one is sick is to get better. Patience is the key to a lot of the things they do; patience in between jobs, patience while rehearsing, patience enough to separate the important things from the unimportant.
The idea of playing games with the other four is interesting, but the opportunity to catch a small nap right now is a far better idea. Aiba tucks his hands against his sides and curls up. It's only now that he's noticed that Sho and Nino had dimmed the lights as they left and he closes his eyes, nose against the cushions. He's thankful.
He waits for his medicine to kick in and it languidly does, like the wake of a receding tide. Just as slowly, Aiba falls into dreams of memories.
***
Aiba's just turned 12 and he's heading home from the basketball courts.
He loves basketball, how fun it is and how he's taller than most of the boys his age and how that makes him cool and how great teamwork can be, if his team manages to win. It's a great feeling. Aiba's always spouting crazy ideas about basketball to everyone, like how he's going to play it forever and ever. His grandpa always laughs and tells him that he'll probably take over the restaurant when he grows up, no question. Aiba thinks that wouldn't be too bad, but still not as cool as playing basketball or even baseball.
The adrenaline of a good game is still coursing in him, and he's wondering whether he has enough allowance to buy a soda from the local convenience store. Summers in Chiba are hot and humid, the color of the sun reddish in the sky as it sets in a still-warm evening.
Aiba's fanning himself with his hands and walking to the store when he catches sight of his watch. He freezes in his tracks because it's late, late and getting later. He exclaims a word he knows he shouldn't really be saying or even knowing and starts running towards home, skinny limbs flailing and sneakers slapping at the pavement.
He has a strict curfew in place and it's even stricter on Wednesdays, which is when the restaurant's closed and they can all go out to dinner. His mom is nice for letting him go to the courts after school but she's also scary, kind of really scary, Aiba thinks, and breaking curfew is a serious offense.
He has to be at home to do all sorts of stuff, like homework and getting ready for dinner. So Aiba runs faster because, when he thinks about it, his dad is just as scary as his mother.
Aiba's getting closer to home when he sees a gaggle of boys in a circle around something by one of the legs of the big bridge. He slows because he recognizes them; they're third years at his school and kind of mean-looking. They're laughing and kicking at a small cardboard box, sending it skittering back and forth between them on the gravel.
He's about to pass by them because he doesn't want anything to do with mean people. But then he hears it. He knows what it is because Aiba's grown up with animals around him from almost the beginning of his life. It's the high yelp of a young puppy, little crying whimpers as the boys keep jeering.
Aiba sees red. He forgets all about homework and all about curfew.
The boys look up as he rushes up to them, yelling, "What are you doing?"
"None of your business," snaps the meanest-looking one. He turns away from Aiba and kicks at the box again. Aiba can see the puppy now; it's a little thing with dirty paws, thin and frightened and curled into a small ball as it cowers.
"I said, what are you doing?!" Aiba shoves the boy away.
They all turn to look at him. The thoughts are running fast through his mind, I'm gonna be in a fight, Mom's going to kill me, but Aiba's just as tall as them and they probably can't tell he's only a first year. He's not afraid. The only thing he can see is the puppy.
"And I told you," the boy says, cracking his knuckles, "it's none of your business."
Aiba curls his fists. It is my business, he thinks. He doesn't have any more words for them, he's so angry. So he gathers himself and slugs the boy in the shoulder; the impact echoes up through his fist and all the way to his arm. The kid stumbles from the force, dust kicking up around his legs. The other boys exclaim and call out, laughing, "Fight, fight, fight!"
He doesn't even have time to blink before a fist crashes into his jaw. He staggers back from the blow and ducks out of the way of another one; Aiba kicks out blindly and then manages to catch the boy's shoulders with his hands, pushing him away. "I'm gonna get the police!" he hollers. "And my dad's a chef, he uses really big knives!"
"This kid's crazy," someone mutters. "Come on, he's not worth it."
Aiba glares at them. The boy he was fighting wipes at his shirt with a sneer and glares back. With some unspoken agreement the boys all turn and jog away, throwing insults back at him as they leave. Aiba sucks in a breath.
That's when the tears start coming out. He hunkers down to a crouch, wiping at his eyes with his dusty hand. His lip is bleeding and his backpack, always left a bit fashionably unzipped, had fallen off his back and spilled his homework all over the ground. He's going to be in so much trouble.
That's when he remembers. "Oh..."
He crawls over and looks into the box. The puppy shies away from his hand when he reaches out to it, still whimpering, and he sighs. "Just a second, puppy," he whispers.
Everything hurts all of a sudden, especially his jaw. Aiba gathers up his mud-streaked sheets of homework and sticks them back in his backpack. Still sniffling, he gently picks up the puppy and cradles it against his chest. He might be in trouble but the warm little mass in his hands tells him that, at least, he did the right thing.
When he comes home an hour late, face bloodied and full of tears, his mother opens her mouth to yell before noticing the small puppy in his arms. He explains as best as he can because he'd be okay with taking any punishment for this, really, it would be okay. But then his mother's eyes soften and she pulls him to her, placing a small kiss on his forehead. She doesn't even yell about his homework being covered in dirt.
Aiba learns that putting love above small consequences is a good thing.
***
Aiba really likes Nino.
Both of them are shy at their first meeting. In any other situation the possibility might've ended there, but the proximity at which the Juniors work together (especially those shuffled into one group) makes them become friends quickly. And it only takes a bit of awkward, fumbling boyish conversation for them to discover that they take the same train home.
After that there's no end to it.
Nino's sister looks pained whenever they show up and finds some excuse to leave the house. With a smirk Nino says that they've actually made her social. At Aiba's family's restaurant in Chiba, they never get free food but they visit anyway (sometimes Aiba's mother feels bad for their innocent starving faces and microwaves them some leftover gyoza). Aiba's grandparents shower them with little trinkets and Nino always ends up going home with three more keychains attached to his backpack, sparkling in the haze of the streetlights.
They help each other out with homework too. Aiba's okay at science, but not so good at Japanese. Nino doesn't give a crap about science (and it shows in his grades), but he's sharp as a whip with language. Unfortunately, while Aiba is more than okay at math, there's nothing he can do to make Nino enthusiastic about it.
After homework Nino usually perches on the edge of Aiba's bed and watches Aiba and Yusuke roll around on the floor, scuffling. Yusuke fights his way out of Aiba's chokehold and always yells out, "I like Nino-niichan better!" To this Aiba retorts, "Why, you," and pulls his ears until he screams uncle. Nino finds this the best entertainment.
Their friendship and stays at each other's homes consist of four parts: homework, playing sports, playing games, and harassing family members. But in the confines of Johnny's their friendship becomes subdued.
It's not like they stop being friends when they show up at work. The only problem is that Johnny's itself paints a veil of confusion over everything, shrouding Aiba's thoughts in a white fog. They show up and they do what they're told. They see themselves in TV shows and magazines and on stage; that's all a distance from Aiba and Nino, who are typical boys.
At the same time as they're typical, they're also not. They get paychecks. They have responsibilities. They have managers who refer to every new task they get as 'work,' and the only way to deal with it to gain the recognition that it is work, that it's something they have to do. Aiba still has friends at school but they don't understand; when he gets to high school and his popularity grows even more, the friends disappear. But Nino is there.
Matsujun is too ambitious and Toma is too complacent. Nino is there, and he's like Aiba.
It's all Aiba needs.
One day, when they're finally both fourteen, they emerge out from the sheltering roof of the train station by Aiba's family's restaurant to see the rain coming down in glimmering sheets, plinking off the metal of cars and bursting against the sidewalk. There is a general air of chaos about as businessmen are caught off guard without their umbrellas, running headlong with their briefcases held aloft and crashing into equally frantic, shrieking high school girls. Aiba grins. He likes this kind of thing, when unforeseen circumstances cause completely random and mindless actions.
"I have all my game cartridges in my bag," says Nino despairingly. "This sucks."
He turns, and for no reason at all, kicks out at Aiba's ankle. Aiba absentmindedly kicks him back.
"Okay," Nino says suddenly, "we're making a run for it."
Aiba blinks. "What?" But all of a sudden his face is wet and so are his bare forearms and the front of his legs, everything is wet except where Nino's hooked an impudent hand around Aiba's elbow and pulled him into the rain.
"Nino, you ass!"
"Run, moron!" Nino yelps.
They run and run, trying to outpace each other as they reach the halfway point of the bridge. The rain is hitting the ocean in a shimmery haze and Aiba's eye is caught by it, tracking the movements of the waves, and that's why he trips and lands in a puddle that soaks his butt and makes him look like he's peed himself even more.
Nino stops mid-stride and starts laughing, that little snotface, and doesn't help Aiba up. "You," Aiba growls, and thinks it's fair to make himself into a shark. He reaches up and catches the hem of Nino's ratty, years-old t-shirt and pulls him to a spectacular splash in the puddle, Nino's small hands trying to catching at his hair.
"My games," Nino shrieks like a girl; he throws his bag aside and leaps in an awkward, flailing sort of tackle. They laugh and laugh, and even when they're scolded by Aiba's mother after getting home (the final boss, Nino mutters to Aiba sideways from the corner of his mouth), Aiba can't stop laughing.
It's a moment Aiba remembers for years afterwards, out of everything else. His chest had filled with the most boyish kind of love for Nino, ridiculously pure and something that could never be said out loud because they were boys, dumb and self-contained. And at that time Aiba hadn't understood it at all.
***
Aiba is sixteen years old and there are CDs with his name on them in stores all over the country. He's shaken hands with thousands of people; he's looked into a girl's shining, expectant face, and only been able to wonder for maybe one second or two what is she like? before the line had shuffled them all forward.
He's baffled and more terrified than he wants to say, but there's nothing propelling him forward besides the idea that he has to work as hard as he can. Aiba clings to that. He thinks he's the most hopeless one out of the five of them, except maybe Nino, because Nino's dream has just been shattered and he's sullen and quiet. But really, Aiba thinks, the biggest problem is that the five of them can't talk to each other the way it's suddenly demanded of them.
Jun is ecstatic about debuting, and while that makes Aiba somewhat uneasy, at least they can speak to each other. Sakurai is easy to talk to, because Sakurai ends up doing most of the talking.
It's Ohno that's the problem.
Aiba wonders if Ohno hates him. Ohno is all moon-like round sullen faces, chin hanging down low enough that his long bangs cover his eyes until he's not looking at anybody. Nino emerges from his sulks long enough to tell Aiba that Ohno's just like that, it's not like he doesn't like you, but that's easy enough for Nino to say with the way he and Ohno have some kind of completely weird mental connection that the managers don't even hesitate to exaggerate with enough skinship to make Aiba's eyes cross.
Aiba likes being liked. The fact that he can't even hold a conversation with Ohno makes him want to cry.
One day he's sitting at a table in some random dressing room, reading through a script. Both his and Nino's barely picked-at bentou are in front of him, side by side. Aiba runs out of steam before he can finish all the rice in Nino's bentou, which he feels sort of bad about. He comforts himself by making little lopsided riceballs and then trying to form the image of a monkey, but it doesn't come out anything like he's imagined and before long Aiba's script is on the floor somewhere and he's angrily scrunching at the rice with his fingers.
"What are you doing?"
Aiba jumps. Ohno's long curtain of hair falls smoothly across the corner of his vision as the other boy leans into his shoulder, blinking at Aiba's fingers entrapped in the rice.
"I," Aiba starts lamely, and then makes himself catch a short wind of courage because even if Ohno doesn't want to be friends with him it doesn't mean Aiba should stop trying, "was trying to make a monkey. With the rice," he adds unnecessarily.
"Oh."
Ohno stares at it so long that Aiba's butt and the leg he was sitting on fall asleep. He's finally dared to fidget when Ohno says again, calmly, "Oh, I see. Can I?" It only takes a moment before cool, taciturn Ohno-sempai is sitting next to him, fingers covered with rice. "I like monkeys."
After ten minutes there's a tiny, perfect rice monkey sitting on the table, shaped carefully by Ohno's gently nudging fingertips. Aiba can feel his mouth hanging open but it was like watching magic, like watching something really amazing. The force of that concentration had been the sun peeking out from behind clouds.
"This is so cool," Aiba says, before he can watch himself, and it's only because he's looking that he sees how Ohno's face goes in a flash from startled to an honest, shy smile that draws up his cheeks and makes his eyes squinch up above his nose.
Aiba loves that smile from the first time he sees it. Afterwards he devotes himself as much as possible towards making it appear again and again until Ohno is laughing with the rest of them.
It's the smile of a leader.
***
Aiba is 19 years old and he loves the saxophone. It sings in his hands and he feels like he's got something he can do, something only he can do, even surrounded like he is by his talented bandmates.
Tonight, though, his chest hurts. He can't stop trying to rub the ache away, and it catches his manager's attention as he's being dropped off after practicing for his live performance. "You okay?"
Aiba drags a smile to his face. "I'm fine!"
He refuses dinner and sits down on his bed, hands to his chest. His phone beeps; it's from Nino and it says hey, do you want me to bring the game tomorrow? Aiba can't really bring himself to answer him. His chest throbs with every beat of his heart, thump-thump-thump, and he's not so much thinking as acting on instinct when he moves to stand.
The pain makes him stagger and he gasps for breath. "Mom," he calls out weakly, leaning against the doorframe. "Dad?"
Yusuke pops his head out from his own room, looking irritated. The look of irritation snaps into a look of fear and then he's screeching for their mom and after that Aiba, who's sagged to the floor, can't remember much of anything for a while.
He wakes up confused.
The only warning he gets to himself is his own gasp, almost unrecognizable, high and shocked. And then his body contorts and he's throwing up over the side of the bed. The nurse makes a shocked noise and then he can't hear anything over the roaring in his ears, can't see anything but explosions before his eyes because his muscles are contracting and his chest is on fire--
The fog slightly clears and there are panicked voices. They're close but far, far away.
Mom, Aiba thinks, Dad. He thinks his manager is there, too.
Someone is telling them that it's a normal enough reaction to the anesthesia, especially for him, while his mom is telling the nurse that she feels like throwing things out of windows and that's pretty normal, isn't it? Finally his mom appears above him, looking odd with her hair mussed and her eyes red. Aiba does his best to smile for her.
"I must've made everyone worry," he rasps. That hurts. "Tell them I'm sorry?"
She swallows a sob of a laugh and her fingers brush cool over his forehead, sweeping his bangs away. "Masa, you're such a good kid."
Aiba wakes up again in the middle of the night. It's dark outside and the air smells of hospital and all the monitors in his room blink in an array of colors and his chest burns. He can't move. He stares at the ceiling. I got surgery, he thinks. The thought, the image of it, is almost enough to make him laugh. Surgery, he thinks. Surgery means many more nights of him here laying just like this, not working, not doing the promotion for their new song, just being here.
They'll kick me out. He knows he's panicking; his heart monitor is beeping faster. They'll kick me out because I'm useless.
He can't imagine not being in Arashi. Aiba's gotten used to looking behind him or to his left or right and seeing their smiles. He's gotten used to late night pillow fights in hotel rooms and immature giggles over nudie mags and how Jun cuts the centerfolds carefully but Sho rips them and then Nino sends a disdainful glare over the top of whatever game he's playing (probably Dragon Quest, Nino isn't very original) because the noise is loud and Ohno hums from where he's looking at the pattern on the girl's dress instead of at her boobs because he's crazy and Aiba's mind is running in circles, just like he runs around on their stages--
He can't lose it. He can't, he can't, he can't. He'd rather die.
It's the first time since this all started that Aiba lets himself cry. The hot tears leak out of the corner of his eyes and run down towards his ears. They don't stop even as Aiba traces the kanji for their name in his head, Arashi, over and over, until he feels like the strokes will never go away.
He never thinks about the saxophone.
The next day his family comes back, his mom carrying a bag of his favorite things and his music player. The doctor comes and tells them that he'll have to stay in the hospital for a month. Aiba says he'll stay for five days. When his manager comes, he tells him five days, and even though he can hear his parents and his manager murmuring outside his room where they think he can't really hear, he thinks fiercely, Five days.
Nino comes in the evening. He looks the same; his backpack straps are beginning to fray and his shoelaces are dirty. He stares at Aiba with wide eyes before he starts to laugh, sitting in the chair heavily. "You look ridiculous," he gasps out, mid-guffaw. There's something really desperate about it, and Aiba knows it's because it's always been easier for Nino to laugh about things rather than showing he's upset. "How long are you going to be stuck in here?"
He scowls at Nino. "Five days," he says.
Nino doesn't believe him. Before he leaves Aiba maybe breaks down a little, and Nino pats his hand frantically and says, no one's mad at you, stupid, and come back soon, and leaves Aiba with Nino's favorite game.
Aiba can't play it - he's still not allowed to lift his arms - but that means a lot, coming from Nino.
The Blue Hearts are the only thing he listens to. He tells his body, get better, get better, you dumb thing, and it does, enough to make the doctor look incredulous. On the third day his manager breaks down and Aiba smiles enough at the doctor that they allow him to attend a filming. Moving hurts, but he doesn't feel useless, and even though he can't dance he's there. He's with them.
Going back to the hospital bed is the hardest thing of all, but he thinks, five days, and that means there's only two left.
He gets discharged. (The doctor finally smiles back at him; Aiba could've told him himself that he's always been a child of miracles.)
But they don't let him play the live performance, no matter how he pleads, and so he gives up.
The thing is, Aiba loves the saxophone enough to let it go, but he's figured out that he loves Arashi so fiercely that he could never love anything more.
***
Aiba has just turned 20 when Jun's anger at the world peaks and overflows and then begins cooling slowly again in wait, always a dormant volcano on the edge. Aiba doesn't really get it; he's never felt any urge to fight against anything like Jun does, but that probably doesn't matter.
He likes Jun and so do the others, even when they're frustrated. There has always been a kindness underneath Jun's prickly exterior. Even on Jun's worst days, Aiba knows it's still there, and that redeems him.
They're at a studio for a photoshoot and interviews that they do individually, one after another. He's bored and sitting in the dressing room when he spots the clipboard with the report one of their staff had been working on the whole morning. The girl had been writing and erasing in frustration and Aiba can see why; it's a tax report thing, he thinks, he's not exactly sure - but the math begins to slot itself easily in his mind, so he grabs a pencil and begins the calculations.
Math is straightforward, just like him, and so he's always been good at it. Not amazing, probably, but better than a lot of his peers.
Aiba's been at it for a while before he realizes Jun is seated next to him, lounging casually and casting a doubtful eye at Aiba's page of numbers. "I hate math," he says wryly. "How do you even do that?"
"Because I'm really smart," Aiba quips brightly, and laughs when Jun pulls a face.
The voice of a staff member calling Jun to the interview echoes through the door, and Jun gets to his feet, somehow simultaneously both the most graceful and the most awkward person Aiba knows all in one. "Hey," Aiba yells when Jun's at the door, "don't tell anyone!" He waves the clipboard, grinning.
Jun grins back, rolling his eyes. "I'll tell them that you're a grade-A idiot."
Aiba loves how Jun can hide his affection in insults. He sometimes imagines Jun as a little hedgehog that one could hold in their palm, adorable but also lethal. He gets smacked the first and last time he tells Jun about this.
He can also imagine the day Jun's anger will run out, and how the only thing left will be brusque words, short and sincere, because Jun is awkward and shy and one of the best people Aiba knows.
***
Aiba is 21 and one of the main representatives for a large national charity program, and although he's baffled at that (he doesn't think he's stopped being confused at how he's an idol since their debut, and he counts on himself to never get used to it) that isn't really the main problem right now.
The main problem is that he somehow has to put his gratitude towards Arashi into words, and he's never been good with words. He sits with empty notebooks (tons of empty sheets of paper) before him and is completely at a loss.
It's raining outside. Aiba puts on The Blue Hearts and starts writing; he doesn't know what to write, so he starts with listing things from the beginning. He writes down, Nino and I played in the puddles, Leader made me a rice monkey out of rice and smiled, and then he writes, Sho-chan never got mad at me for giving him dumb souvenirs, MatsuJun got mad at me but he still gave me his aspirin and let me sleep on his part of the couch, and I think he might have petted my hair. He's three-fourths through the notebook before he knows it and when he touches his face, wonderingly, it's wet. He's not sure whether it's from the music (memories of the hospital) or from this, all the things he might have lost.
Aiba fills up the notebook. But he can't use this, so he tries writing an essay like the type they made him write in school. It's full of things that he'll never, ever say, and he has to turn off the music halfway through it because his stupid tears are starting to blot the paper. It's too embarassing, but he's not ashamed.
He can't use this, either.
So instead he breaks the words down into variables, just like with math, sentence by sentence. And then he addresses each one of them in turn. After everything it's only one page with his words on it. The words I love you after his simple gratitudes to them, he thinks, are okay to leave unsaid.
Aiba cries on national television. In the end he thinks it was worth it.
***
Aiba is 25, and Sho has always been his hero.
There's just something about Sho, he thinks, that makes him everyone's hero. Sho has never failed them. Sho is reliable and full of life, whether he's doing the news or showing his nipples like the rest of them, and Aiba loves him because even though he has different personas, he's just Sho.
The bright colored stage lights are even hotter when he's on the moving stage, and Aiba drags the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe off the sweat. This rehearsal feels too long, he thinks. He wants time to fast-forward to the concert. Aiba wonders, absentmindedly (and not for the first time), how one would build a time machine.
He's picking up his bottle of water when Nino's cry rings out and echoes through the empty spaces of Nagoya Dome. "Sho!" he's yelling, and it's not Sho-chan or Sho-san, it's just Sho.
By the time Aiba gets down there with Ohno on his heels, Sho is already stretched out on the floor, his face white, his thumb at an impossible angle. Nino is clutching Sho's other hand in both his own, hissing shit, shit, shit under his breath, and Jun is speaking with the staff, his shoulders stiff with the memory of fear. Ohno reaches out and hugs Aiba close and Aiba jerks at the contact but presses into his side.
Sho and Nino go to the hospital. Jun, Aiba and Ohno keep rehearsing, three out of five.
They hear Sho coming back before they see him. He's saying, "I'm fine, I can still do the concert!" and when he comes into view he has such a typical Sho-like mule-ish expression that Aiba can't help but burst out laughing.
They have to change things, quickly, and Aiba stays to help Sho out while the others work out the logistics and new choreography. Sho still hurts, Aiba can tell. He's favoring his right side and his arm shakes a little, all the way down to the cast. But he moves easily to help Aiba dress him and they laugh together at how totally weird it is that, for them, this isn't really that weird.
Aiba does Sho's make-up and then pats him on the shoulder, professing him perfect.
"Is this how you felt?" Sho asks, when they're about to go join the others.
Aiba grins at him. He knows exactly what Sho is talking about; the feeling of being useless, of weighing everyone else down. But he also knows that for them, none of that matters. Even with a broken thumb, Sho is still his hero.
"What?" he says brightly, and pushes Sho out the door with appropriate choo-choo train noises. He loves Sho's surprised laugh.
***
The train is packed full in the early morning and Aiba sways with the rest of the commuters, crushed into one corner by a gaggle of office ladies and businessmen. Although he's not fond of getting up early, he's always loved riding the train. He's 26, heading to a broadcasting station (which should be exciting), and the only thing that keeps his eyelids open behind his sunglasses is the fun of watching the people around him.
Sometimes he can see outside the windows through the gaps in travelers; it's a grey blur of the concrete jungle of Tokyo, occasionally interrupted by the equally blurry spots of color from the electronic billboards. When he was a child traveling back from Tokyo to Chiba, the grey blur would eventually turn into green. He loves Chiba; the spaces between buildings, the nice people, the ocean.
Tokyo isn't as beautiful as that, but the people are beautiful in their own, hurried ways. People are in such a hurry that they brush past him without knowing who he is, even though there's a large advertisement with his face plastered to it right above them. It's only in trains that people finally slow down, relax a bit, maybe start observing others. But as long as Aiba wears a hat and sunglasses and keeps his head down, he's okay.
He's yawning and thinking that the businessman standing across from him has a funny nose, thin on top but rounded out at the end and twitching as the man sleeps on his feet. That's when he feels a small tug on his jacket. Aiba looks down and a little girl looks up at him, eyes round and shy. He glances around and crouches down.
"What's up?" He grins. Kids are adorable.
She presses her two small hands under her chin. "Um... Mister, are you Aiba Masaki-san?"
Aiba's eyes widen. If he gets mobbed in this train, he'll never get out and he'll definitely be late. He makes frantic hushing noises, hands flapping in distress. She giggles and places a finger against her lips, nodding. "Secret?" she whispers.
"Big secret!" Aiba nods. She can't be more than ten, probably on her way to school.
The girl giggles again, dimples creasing in her cheeks. Cute, Aiba thinks, and does his level best to dimple back. "Um," she says with sudden shyness, "I wanted to tell you..."
"Yep?"
A deep breath. "That I really, really like you guys, all of you, and so does my mommy and my older sister, even though she likes Matsumoto-san the best, and your shows are really funny, and I've drawn a picture and I'd give it to you but it's at home on the dumb refrigerator and I really want to go to one of your concerts but..."
Aiba laughs and takes her hands. "Thank you! I'm really happy!"
She has to get off at the next station, and Aiba can't give her any autographs but he blows three kisses. He's still smiling like a loon when he throws himself beside Nino in the dressing room. Nino kicks Aiba's ankle without looking for absolutely no reason, and Aiba absentmindedly kicks him back.
He's 26 and an internationally famous idol. He's in a dressing room like a famous person and he'll be on TV, and he has too much money and so many fans, and yet nothing makes him happier than someone telling him they love Arashi just as much as he does.
Nino kicks him again for good measure, and even though they're too old to be doing this, probably, they start scuffling and laughing and rolling everywhere like giant pandas.
***
Aiba wakes up blearily, the last of the cold medicine still working its way feebly through his system.
When he shifts and pulls his nose out of the cushions, he realizes there's something draped over him. It's Jun's jacket, his personal one, and that's when the faint scent of aroma candles makes its way through his stuffed up nose.
Jun is perched on the arm of the couch and paging through a book, his dark hair falling into his eyes and his other hand resting warmly on the back of Aiba's neck; Aiba can feel it now. He looks down with faint surprise when he realizes Aiba is awake, a slight flush rising on his fair skin.
"We changed some things around, so you're going last for the photoshoot, okay? Get some more sleep," he says quietly.
Aiba pulls Jun's jacket tighter around his shoulders and sniffles wetly. "Thanks, Matsujun," he coughs. "I love you."
"Shut up," Jun says.
Aiba is happy.
Requested by and for: rinalin
Rating: PG-13, ~6000
Prompt: The many ways Aiba loves, and everything that follows along with that.
Notes: A lot of this was based on Aiba's 10,000 word interview. I really like Aiba and think he's a wonderfully positive person (from what we see). And he's not stupid, he's not an idiot - he's just full of enthusiasm for everything. Your prompt was a challenge because I really wanted to portray that right. I hope you enjoy! ♥...because I'm afraid this turned out pretty long for a prompt response.
Aiba does like spring. He finds it harder to dislike things than to like them, and in the end he just calls it his 'least favorite season.' But hay fever hits him hard like it always has, and it's impossible to weather it at home like he used to do.
"Aiba-chan?"
Aiba feels a warm hand drop to his shoulder, shaking him lightly. "Masaki?" Sho's voice is hushed but insistent. For a brief second Aiba entertains the notion of getting up. But then his throat begins itching again; a wave of pure miserableness washes over him and he burrows deeper into the couch.
"Let him sleep," Nino's voice says softly. "Half an hour before he has to go look pretty."
Sho hums a concerned rumble. He gives one last squeeze to Aiba's shoulder before Aiba hears the two of them leaving the dressing room, the quiet hum of Nino's DS fading away. Aiba tries to breathe in but his nose is hopelessly clogged. He sighs into the silence of the room.
He wants to be with them (none of them can manage to see each other much recently), but Aiba knows better than anyone that the best thing to do when one is sick is to get better. Patience is the key to a lot of the things they do; patience in between jobs, patience while rehearsing, patience enough to separate the important things from the unimportant.
The idea of playing games with the other four is interesting, but the opportunity to catch a small nap right now is a far better idea. Aiba tucks his hands against his sides and curls up. It's only now that he's noticed that Sho and Nino had dimmed the lights as they left and he closes his eyes, nose against the cushions. He's thankful.
He waits for his medicine to kick in and it languidly does, like the wake of a receding tide. Just as slowly, Aiba falls into dreams of memories.
***
Aiba's just turned 12 and he's heading home from the basketball courts.
He loves basketball, how fun it is and how he's taller than most of the boys his age and how that makes him cool and how great teamwork can be, if his team manages to win. It's a great feeling. Aiba's always spouting crazy ideas about basketball to everyone, like how he's going to play it forever and ever. His grandpa always laughs and tells him that he'll probably take over the restaurant when he grows up, no question. Aiba thinks that wouldn't be too bad, but still not as cool as playing basketball or even baseball.
The adrenaline of a good game is still coursing in him, and he's wondering whether he has enough allowance to buy a soda from the local convenience store. Summers in Chiba are hot and humid, the color of the sun reddish in the sky as it sets in a still-warm evening.
Aiba's fanning himself with his hands and walking to the store when he catches sight of his watch. He freezes in his tracks because it's late, late and getting later. He exclaims a word he knows he shouldn't really be saying or even knowing and starts running towards home, skinny limbs flailing and sneakers slapping at the pavement.
He has a strict curfew in place and it's even stricter on Wednesdays, which is when the restaurant's closed and they can all go out to dinner. His mom is nice for letting him go to the courts after school but she's also scary, kind of really scary, Aiba thinks, and breaking curfew is a serious offense.
He has to be at home to do all sorts of stuff, like homework and getting ready for dinner. So Aiba runs faster because, when he thinks about it, his dad is just as scary as his mother.
Aiba's getting closer to home when he sees a gaggle of boys in a circle around something by one of the legs of the big bridge. He slows because he recognizes them; they're third years at his school and kind of mean-looking. They're laughing and kicking at a small cardboard box, sending it skittering back and forth between them on the gravel.
He's about to pass by them because he doesn't want anything to do with mean people. But then he hears it. He knows what it is because Aiba's grown up with animals around him from almost the beginning of his life. It's the high yelp of a young puppy, little crying whimpers as the boys keep jeering.
Aiba sees red. He forgets all about homework and all about curfew.
The boys look up as he rushes up to them, yelling, "What are you doing?"
"None of your business," snaps the meanest-looking one. He turns away from Aiba and kicks at the box again. Aiba can see the puppy now; it's a little thing with dirty paws, thin and frightened and curled into a small ball as it cowers.
"I said, what are you doing?!" Aiba shoves the boy away.
They all turn to look at him. The thoughts are running fast through his mind, I'm gonna be in a fight, Mom's going to kill me, but Aiba's just as tall as them and they probably can't tell he's only a first year. He's not afraid. The only thing he can see is the puppy.
"And I told you," the boy says, cracking his knuckles, "it's none of your business."
Aiba curls his fists. It is my business, he thinks. He doesn't have any more words for them, he's so angry. So he gathers himself and slugs the boy in the shoulder; the impact echoes up through his fist and all the way to his arm. The kid stumbles from the force, dust kicking up around his legs. The other boys exclaim and call out, laughing, "Fight, fight, fight!"
He doesn't even have time to blink before a fist crashes into his jaw. He staggers back from the blow and ducks out of the way of another one; Aiba kicks out blindly and then manages to catch the boy's shoulders with his hands, pushing him away. "I'm gonna get the police!" he hollers. "And my dad's a chef, he uses really big knives!"
"This kid's crazy," someone mutters. "Come on, he's not worth it."
Aiba glares at them. The boy he was fighting wipes at his shirt with a sneer and glares back. With some unspoken agreement the boys all turn and jog away, throwing insults back at him as they leave. Aiba sucks in a breath.
That's when the tears start coming out. He hunkers down to a crouch, wiping at his eyes with his dusty hand. His lip is bleeding and his backpack, always left a bit fashionably unzipped, had fallen off his back and spilled his homework all over the ground. He's going to be in so much trouble.
That's when he remembers. "Oh..."
He crawls over and looks into the box. The puppy shies away from his hand when he reaches out to it, still whimpering, and he sighs. "Just a second, puppy," he whispers.
Everything hurts all of a sudden, especially his jaw. Aiba gathers up his mud-streaked sheets of homework and sticks them back in his backpack. Still sniffling, he gently picks up the puppy and cradles it against his chest. He might be in trouble but the warm little mass in his hands tells him that, at least, he did the right thing.
When he comes home an hour late, face bloodied and full of tears, his mother opens her mouth to yell before noticing the small puppy in his arms. He explains as best as he can because he'd be okay with taking any punishment for this, really, it would be okay. But then his mother's eyes soften and she pulls him to her, placing a small kiss on his forehead. She doesn't even yell about his homework being covered in dirt.
Aiba learns that putting love above small consequences is a good thing.
***
Aiba really likes Nino.
Both of them are shy at their first meeting. In any other situation the possibility might've ended there, but the proximity at which the Juniors work together (especially those shuffled into one group) makes them become friends quickly. And it only takes a bit of awkward, fumbling boyish conversation for them to discover that they take the same train home.
After that there's no end to it.
Nino's sister looks pained whenever they show up and finds some excuse to leave the house. With a smirk Nino says that they've actually made her social. At Aiba's family's restaurant in Chiba, they never get free food but they visit anyway (sometimes Aiba's mother feels bad for their innocent starving faces and microwaves them some leftover gyoza). Aiba's grandparents shower them with little trinkets and Nino always ends up going home with three more keychains attached to his backpack, sparkling in the haze of the streetlights.
They help each other out with homework too. Aiba's okay at science, but not so good at Japanese. Nino doesn't give a crap about science (and it shows in his grades), but he's sharp as a whip with language. Unfortunately, while Aiba is more than okay at math, there's nothing he can do to make Nino enthusiastic about it.
After homework Nino usually perches on the edge of Aiba's bed and watches Aiba and Yusuke roll around on the floor, scuffling. Yusuke fights his way out of Aiba's chokehold and always yells out, "I like Nino-niichan better!" To this Aiba retorts, "Why, you," and pulls his ears until he screams uncle. Nino finds this the best entertainment.
Their friendship and stays at each other's homes consist of four parts: homework, playing sports, playing games, and harassing family members. But in the confines of Johnny's their friendship becomes subdued.
It's not like they stop being friends when they show up at work. The only problem is that Johnny's itself paints a veil of confusion over everything, shrouding Aiba's thoughts in a white fog. They show up and they do what they're told. They see themselves in TV shows and magazines and on stage; that's all a distance from Aiba and Nino, who are typical boys.
At the same time as they're typical, they're also not. They get paychecks. They have responsibilities. They have managers who refer to every new task they get as 'work,' and the only way to deal with it to gain the recognition that it is work, that it's something they have to do. Aiba still has friends at school but they don't understand; when he gets to high school and his popularity grows even more, the friends disappear. But Nino is there.
Matsujun is too ambitious and Toma is too complacent. Nino is there, and he's like Aiba.
It's all Aiba needs.
One day, when they're finally both fourteen, they emerge out from the sheltering roof of the train station by Aiba's family's restaurant to see the rain coming down in glimmering sheets, plinking off the metal of cars and bursting against the sidewalk. There is a general air of chaos about as businessmen are caught off guard without their umbrellas, running headlong with their briefcases held aloft and crashing into equally frantic, shrieking high school girls. Aiba grins. He likes this kind of thing, when unforeseen circumstances cause completely random and mindless actions.
"I have all my game cartridges in my bag," says Nino despairingly. "This sucks."
He turns, and for no reason at all, kicks out at Aiba's ankle. Aiba absentmindedly kicks him back.
"Okay," Nino says suddenly, "we're making a run for it."
Aiba blinks. "What?" But all of a sudden his face is wet and so are his bare forearms and the front of his legs, everything is wet except where Nino's hooked an impudent hand around Aiba's elbow and pulled him into the rain.
"Nino, you ass!"
"Run, moron!" Nino yelps.
They run and run, trying to outpace each other as they reach the halfway point of the bridge. The rain is hitting the ocean in a shimmery haze and Aiba's eye is caught by it, tracking the movements of the waves, and that's why he trips and lands in a puddle that soaks his butt and makes him look like he's peed himself even more.
Nino stops mid-stride and starts laughing, that little snotface, and doesn't help Aiba up. "You," Aiba growls, and thinks it's fair to make himself into a shark. He reaches up and catches the hem of Nino's ratty, years-old t-shirt and pulls him to a spectacular splash in the puddle, Nino's small hands trying to catching at his hair.
"My games," Nino shrieks like a girl; he throws his bag aside and leaps in an awkward, flailing sort of tackle. They laugh and laugh, and even when they're scolded by Aiba's mother after getting home (the final boss, Nino mutters to Aiba sideways from the corner of his mouth), Aiba can't stop laughing.
It's a moment Aiba remembers for years afterwards, out of everything else. His chest had filled with the most boyish kind of love for Nino, ridiculously pure and something that could never be said out loud because they were boys, dumb and self-contained. And at that time Aiba hadn't understood it at all.
***
Aiba is sixteen years old and there are CDs with his name on them in stores all over the country. He's shaken hands with thousands of people; he's looked into a girl's shining, expectant face, and only been able to wonder for maybe one second or two what is she like? before the line had shuffled them all forward.
He's baffled and more terrified than he wants to say, but there's nothing propelling him forward besides the idea that he has to work as hard as he can. Aiba clings to that. He thinks he's the most hopeless one out of the five of them, except maybe Nino, because Nino's dream has just been shattered and he's sullen and quiet. But really, Aiba thinks, the biggest problem is that the five of them can't talk to each other the way it's suddenly demanded of them.
Jun is ecstatic about debuting, and while that makes Aiba somewhat uneasy, at least they can speak to each other. Sakurai is easy to talk to, because Sakurai ends up doing most of the talking.
It's Ohno that's the problem.
Aiba wonders if Ohno hates him. Ohno is all moon-like round sullen faces, chin hanging down low enough that his long bangs cover his eyes until he's not looking at anybody. Nino emerges from his sulks long enough to tell Aiba that Ohno's just like that, it's not like he doesn't like you, but that's easy enough for Nino to say with the way he and Ohno have some kind of completely weird mental connection that the managers don't even hesitate to exaggerate with enough skinship to make Aiba's eyes cross.
Aiba likes being liked. The fact that he can't even hold a conversation with Ohno makes him want to cry.
One day he's sitting at a table in some random dressing room, reading through a script. Both his and Nino's barely picked-at bentou are in front of him, side by side. Aiba runs out of steam before he can finish all the rice in Nino's bentou, which he feels sort of bad about. He comforts himself by making little lopsided riceballs and then trying to form the image of a monkey, but it doesn't come out anything like he's imagined and before long Aiba's script is on the floor somewhere and he's angrily scrunching at the rice with his fingers.
"What are you doing?"
Aiba jumps. Ohno's long curtain of hair falls smoothly across the corner of his vision as the other boy leans into his shoulder, blinking at Aiba's fingers entrapped in the rice.
"I," Aiba starts lamely, and then makes himself catch a short wind of courage because even if Ohno doesn't want to be friends with him it doesn't mean Aiba should stop trying, "was trying to make a monkey. With the rice," he adds unnecessarily.
"Oh."
Ohno stares at it so long that Aiba's butt and the leg he was sitting on fall asleep. He's finally dared to fidget when Ohno says again, calmly, "Oh, I see. Can I?" It only takes a moment before cool, taciturn Ohno-sempai is sitting next to him, fingers covered with rice. "I like monkeys."
After ten minutes there's a tiny, perfect rice monkey sitting on the table, shaped carefully by Ohno's gently nudging fingertips. Aiba can feel his mouth hanging open but it was like watching magic, like watching something really amazing. The force of that concentration had been the sun peeking out from behind clouds.
"This is so cool," Aiba says, before he can watch himself, and it's only because he's looking that he sees how Ohno's face goes in a flash from startled to an honest, shy smile that draws up his cheeks and makes his eyes squinch up above his nose.
Aiba loves that smile from the first time he sees it. Afterwards he devotes himself as much as possible towards making it appear again and again until Ohno is laughing with the rest of them.
It's the smile of a leader.
***
Aiba is 19 years old and he loves the saxophone. It sings in his hands and he feels like he's got something he can do, something only he can do, even surrounded like he is by his talented bandmates.
Tonight, though, his chest hurts. He can't stop trying to rub the ache away, and it catches his manager's attention as he's being dropped off after practicing for his live performance. "You okay?"
Aiba drags a smile to his face. "I'm fine!"
He refuses dinner and sits down on his bed, hands to his chest. His phone beeps; it's from Nino and it says hey, do you want me to bring the game tomorrow? Aiba can't really bring himself to answer him. His chest throbs with every beat of his heart, thump-thump-thump, and he's not so much thinking as acting on instinct when he moves to stand.
The pain makes him stagger and he gasps for breath. "Mom," he calls out weakly, leaning against the doorframe. "Dad?"
Yusuke pops his head out from his own room, looking irritated. The look of irritation snaps into a look of fear and then he's screeching for their mom and after that Aiba, who's sagged to the floor, can't remember much of anything for a while.
He wakes up confused.
The only warning he gets to himself is his own gasp, almost unrecognizable, high and shocked. And then his body contorts and he's throwing up over the side of the bed. The nurse makes a shocked noise and then he can't hear anything over the roaring in his ears, can't see anything but explosions before his eyes because his muscles are contracting and his chest is on fire--
The fog slightly clears and there are panicked voices. They're close but far, far away.
Mom, Aiba thinks, Dad. He thinks his manager is there, too.
Someone is telling them that it's a normal enough reaction to the anesthesia, especially for him, while his mom is telling the nurse that she feels like throwing things out of windows and that's pretty normal, isn't it? Finally his mom appears above him, looking odd with her hair mussed and her eyes red. Aiba does his best to smile for her.
"I must've made everyone worry," he rasps. That hurts. "Tell them I'm sorry?"
She swallows a sob of a laugh and her fingers brush cool over his forehead, sweeping his bangs away. "Masa, you're such a good kid."
Aiba wakes up again in the middle of the night. It's dark outside and the air smells of hospital and all the monitors in his room blink in an array of colors and his chest burns. He can't move. He stares at the ceiling. I got surgery, he thinks. The thought, the image of it, is almost enough to make him laugh. Surgery, he thinks. Surgery means many more nights of him here laying just like this, not working, not doing the promotion for their new song, just being here.
They'll kick me out. He knows he's panicking; his heart monitor is beeping faster. They'll kick me out because I'm useless.
He can't imagine not being in Arashi. Aiba's gotten used to looking behind him or to his left or right and seeing their smiles. He's gotten used to late night pillow fights in hotel rooms and immature giggles over nudie mags and how Jun cuts the centerfolds carefully but Sho rips them and then Nino sends a disdainful glare over the top of whatever game he's playing (probably Dragon Quest, Nino isn't very original) because the noise is loud and Ohno hums from where he's looking at the pattern on the girl's dress instead of at her boobs because he's crazy and Aiba's mind is running in circles, just like he runs around on their stages--
He can't lose it. He can't, he can't, he can't. He'd rather die.
It's the first time since this all started that Aiba lets himself cry. The hot tears leak out of the corner of his eyes and run down towards his ears. They don't stop even as Aiba traces the kanji for their name in his head, Arashi, over and over, until he feels like the strokes will never go away.
He never thinks about the saxophone.
The next day his family comes back, his mom carrying a bag of his favorite things and his music player. The doctor comes and tells them that he'll have to stay in the hospital for a month. Aiba says he'll stay for five days. When his manager comes, he tells him five days, and even though he can hear his parents and his manager murmuring outside his room where they think he can't really hear, he thinks fiercely, Five days.
Nino comes in the evening. He looks the same; his backpack straps are beginning to fray and his shoelaces are dirty. He stares at Aiba with wide eyes before he starts to laugh, sitting in the chair heavily. "You look ridiculous," he gasps out, mid-guffaw. There's something really desperate about it, and Aiba knows it's because it's always been easier for Nino to laugh about things rather than showing he's upset. "How long are you going to be stuck in here?"
He scowls at Nino. "Five days," he says.
Nino doesn't believe him. Before he leaves Aiba maybe breaks down a little, and Nino pats his hand frantically and says, no one's mad at you, stupid, and come back soon, and leaves Aiba with Nino's favorite game.
Aiba can't play it - he's still not allowed to lift his arms - but that means a lot, coming from Nino.
The Blue Hearts are the only thing he listens to. He tells his body, get better, get better, you dumb thing, and it does, enough to make the doctor look incredulous. On the third day his manager breaks down and Aiba smiles enough at the doctor that they allow him to attend a filming. Moving hurts, but he doesn't feel useless, and even though he can't dance he's there. He's with them.
Going back to the hospital bed is the hardest thing of all, but he thinks, five days, and that means there's only two left.
He gets discharged. (The doctor finally smiles back at him; Aiba could've told him himself that he's always been a child of miracles.)
But they don't let him play the live performance, no matter how he pleads, and so he gives up.
The thing is, Aiba loves the saxophone enough to let it go, but he's figured out that he loves Arashi so fiercely that he could never love anything more.
***
Aiba has just turned 20 when Jun's anger at the world peaks and overflows and then begins cooling slowly again in wait, always a dormant volcano on the edge. Aiba doesn't really get it; he's never felt any urge to fight against anything like Jun does, but that probably doesn't matter.
He likes Jun and so do the others, even when they're frustrated. There has always been a kindness underneath Jun's prickly exterior. Even on Jun's worst days, Aiba knows it's still there, and that redeems him.
They're at a studio for a photoshoot and interviews that they do individually, one after another. He's bored and sitting in the dressing room when he spots the clipboard with the report one of their staff had been working on the whole morning. The girl had been writing and erasing in frustration and Aiba can see why; it's a tax report thing, he thinks, he's not exactly sure - but the math begins to slot itself easily in his mind, so he grabs a pencil and begins the calculations.
Math is straightforward, just like him, and so he's always been good at it. Not amazing, probably, but better than a lot of his peers.
Aiba's been at it for a while before he realizes Jun is seated next to him, lounging casually and casting a doubtful eye at Aiba's page of numbers. "I hate math," he says wryly. "How do you even do that?"
"Because I'm really smart," Aiba quips brightly, and laughs when Jun pulls a face.
The voice of a staff member calling Jun to the interview echoes through the door, and Jun gets to his feet, somehow simultaneously both the most graceful and the most awkward person Aiba knows all in one. "Hey," Aiba yells when Jun's at the door, "don't tell anyone!" He waves the clipboard, grinning.
Jun grins back, rolling his eyes. "I'll tell them that you're a grade-A idiot."
Aiba loves how Jun can hide his affection in insults. He sometimes imagines Jun as a little hedgehog that one could hold in their palm, adorable but also lethal. He gets smacked the first and last time he tells Jun about this.
He can also imagine the day Jun's anger will run out, and how the only thing left will be brusque words, short and sincere, because Jun is awkward and shy and one of the best people Aiba knows.
***
Aiba is 21 and one of the main representatives for a large national charity program, and although he's baffled at that (he doesn't think he's stopped being confused at how he's an idol since their debut, and he counts on himself to never get used to it) that isn't really the main problem right now.
The main problem is that he somehow has to put his gratitude towards Arashi into words, and he's never been good with words. He sits with empty notebooks (tons of empty sheets of paper) before him and is completely at a loss.
It's raining outside. Aiba puts on The Blue Hearts and starts writing; he doesn't know what to write, so he starts with listing things from the beginning. He writes down, Nino and I played in the puddles, Leader made me a rice monkey out of rice and smiled, and then he writes, Sho-chan never got mad at me for giving him dumb souvenirs, MatsuJun got mad at me but he still gave me his aspirin and let me sleep on his part of the couch, and I think he might have petted my hair. He's three-fourths through the notebook before he knows it and when he touches his face, wonderingly, it's wet. He's not sure whether it's from the music (memories of the hospital) or from this, all the things he might have lost.
Aiba fills up the notebook. But he can't use this, so he tries writing an essay like the type they made him write in school. It's full of things that he'll never, ever say, and he has to turn off the music halfway through it because his stupid tears are starting to blot the paper. It's too embarassing, but he's not ashamed.
He can't use this, either.
So instead he breaks the words down into variables, just like with math, sentence by sentence. And then he addresses each one of them in turn. After everything it's only one page with his words on it. The words I love you after his simple gratitudes to them, he thinks, are okay to leave unsaid.
Aiba cries on national television. In the end he thinks it was worth it.
***
Aiba is 25, and Sho has always been his hero.
There's just something about Sho, he thinks, that makes him everyone's hero. Sho has never failed them. Sho is reliable and full of life, whether he's doing the news or showing his nipples like the rest of them, and Aiba loves him because even though he has different personas, he's just Sho.
The bright colored stage lights are even hotter when he's on the moving stage, and Aiba drags the back of his hand across his forehead to wipe off the sweat. This rehearsal feels too long, he thinks. He wants time to fast-forward to the concert. Aiba wonders, absentmindedly (and not for the first time), how one would build a time machine.
He's picking up his bottle of water when Nino's cry rings out and echoes through the empty spaces of Nagoya Dome. "Sho!" he's yelling, and it's not Sho-chan or Sho-san, it's just Sho.
By the time Aiba gets down there with Ohno on his heels, Sho is already stretched out on the floor, his face white, his thumb at an impossible angle. Nino is clutching Sho's other hand in both his own, hissing shit, shit, shit under his breath, and Jun is speaking with the staff, his shoulders stiff with the memory of fear. Ohno reaches out and hugs Aiba close and Aiba jerks at the contact but presses into his side.
Sho and Nino go to the hospital. Jun, Aiba and Ohno keep rehearsing, three out of five.
They hear Sho coming back before they see him. He's saying, "I'm fine, I can still do the concert!" and when he comes into view he has such a typical Sho-like mule-ish expression that Aiba can't help but burst out laughing.
They have to change things, quickly, and Aiba stays to help Sho out while the others work out the logistics and new choreography. Sho still hurts, Aiba can tell. He's favoring his right side and his arm shakes a little, all the way down to the cast. But he moves easily to help Aiba dress him and they laugh together at how totally weird it is that, for them, this isn't really that weird.
Aiba does Sho's make-up and then pats him on the shoulder, professing him perfect.
"Is this how you felt?" Sho asks, when they're about to go join the others.
Aiba grins at him. He knows exactly what Sho is talking about; the feeling of being useless, of weighing everyone else down. But he also knows that for them, none of that matters. Even with a broken thumb, Sho is still his hero.
"What?" he says brightly, and pushes Sho out the door with appropriate choo-choo train noises. He loves Sho's surprised laugh.
***
The train is packed full in the early morning and Aiba sways with the rest of the commuters, crushed into one corner by a gaggle of office ladies and businessmen. Although he's not fond of getting up early, he's always loved riding the train. He's 26, heading to a broadcasting station (which should be exciting), and the only thing that keeps his eyelids open behind his sunglasses is the fun of watching the people around him.
Sometimes he can see outside the windows through the gaps in travelers; it's a grey blur of the concrete jungle of Tokyo, occasionally interrupted by the equally blurry spots of color from the electronic billboards. When he was a child traveling back from Tokyo to Chiba, the grey blur would eventually turn into green. He loves Chiba; the spaces between buildings, the nice people, the ocean.
Tokyo isn't as beautiful as that, but the people are beautiful in their own, hurried ways. People are in such a hurry that they brush past him without knowing who he is, even though there's a large advertisement with his face plastered to it right above them. It's only in trains that people finally slow down, relax a bit, maybe start observing others. But as long as Aiba wears a hat and sunglasses and keeps his head down, he's okay.
He's yawning and thinking that the businessman standing across from him has a funny nose, thin on top but rounded out at the end and twitching as the man sleeps on his feet. That's when he feels a small tug on his jacket. Aiba looks down and a little girl looks up at him, eyes round and shy. He glances around and crouches down.
"What's up?" He grins. Kids are adorable.
She presses her two small hands under her chin. "Um... Mister, are you Aiba Masaki-san?"
Aiba's eyes widen. If he gets mobbed in this train, he'll never get out and he'll definitely be late. He makes frantic hushing noises, hands flapping in distress. She giggles and places a finger against her lips, nodding. "Secret?" she whispers.
"Big secret!" Aiba nods. She can't be more than ten, probably on her way to school.
The girl giggles again, dimples creasing in her cheeks. Cute, Aiba thinks, and does his level best to dimple back. "Um," she says with sudden shyness, "I wanted to tell you..."
"Yep?"
A deep breath. "That I really, really like you guys, all of you, and so does my mommy and my older sister, even though she likes Matsumoto-san the best, and your shows are really funny, and I've drawn a picture and I'd give it to you but it's at home on the dumb refrigerator and I really want to go to one of your concerts but..."
Aiba laughs and takes her hands. "Thank you! I'm really happy!"
She has to get off at the next station, and Aiba can't give her any autographs but he blows three kisses. He's still smiling like a loon when he throws himself beside Nino in the dressing room. Nino kicks Aiba's ankle without looking for absolutely no reason, and Aiba absentmindedly kicks him back.
He's 26 and an internationally famous idol. He's in a dressing room like a famous person and he'll be on TV, and he has too much money and so many fans, and yet nothing makes him happier than someone telling him they love Arashi just as much as he does.
Nino kicks him again for good measure, and even though they're too old to be doing this, probably, they start scuffling and laughing and rolling everywhere like giant pandas.
***
Aiba wakes up blearily, the last of the cold medicine still working its way feebly through his system.
When he shifts and pulls his nose out of the cushions, he realizes there's something draped over him. It's Jun's jacket, his personal one, and that's when the faint scent of aroma candles makes its way through his stuffed up nose.
Jun is perched on the arm of the couch and paging through a book, his dark hair falling into his eyes and his other hand resting warmly on the back of Aiba's neck; Aiba can feel it now. He looks down with faint surprise when he realizes Aiba is awake, a slight flush rising on his fair skin.
"We changed some things around, so you're going last for the photoshoot, okay? Get some more sleep," he says quietly.
Aiba pulls Jun's jacket tighter around his shoulders and sniffles wetly. "Thanks, Matsujun," he coughs. "I love you."
"Shut up," Jun says.
Aiba is happy.