Flowers, Tides, Memories [1/2]
Ohmiya & Matsumiya. PG. Fluff. Betaed by inaudible_d. Originally written for 2016's Kitto Slut Party.
When the world is already too polluted and dangerous to walk on in daily basis, people connect through their minds. They walk into each other's head; into each other's dreams and the universes that their minds create. Having been in Nino's head for countless times, Ohno knows one thing for sure: Nino still thinks about Jun every now and then.
Camellias. There are always a lot of camellias in the universe inside Nino’s head when Nino thinks about Jun, Ohno realizes. They don’t appear very often, but when they do, Ohno always notices; since they show up everywhere, decorating the entire place with a soft shade of pink and a hint of purple. Nino doesn’t seem to be aware of this happening and its implication, but Ohno does, and he is more curious about it rather than appalled.
“Oh-chan,” Nino calls, being aware that Ohno is distracted. “What are you thinking?”
Ohno looks away from the camellias and focuses on Nino’s pout. He giggles and answers truthfully, “You.”
Nino rolls his eyes. He walks ahead of Ohno and mutters, “I’m here.”
“Doesn’t mean that I can take you out of my head,” Ohno shrugs. He follows Nino to a bridge over a small stream and sits there, their feet dangling in the air. They savor the scenery-it’s probably Nino’s projection of somewhere real, Ohno notes-but Ohno’s mind is still on the camellias. It’s been awhile since the last time Ohno saw them and, somehow, today they are more vivid than before. “Hey, Nino,” Ohno says while looking at the camellias floating on the water, finally succumbing to his curiosity, “What kind of a person is Jun?”
Nino frowns and some more camellias appear out of nothingness. The new camellias are red, striking and bold. He is now aware that he is thinking about Jun and he is irritated. Pink is Nino’s color of longing, while red is Nino’s color of anger.
“He’s dead,” Nino mutters. “He better be.”
“Still,” Ohno insists. He grabs Nino’s hand and tugs him until Nino’s head falls to his shoulder. “What kind of a person is he?”
More camellias appear. They are red. They are purple. They are rosy pink. Some camellias have mixed colors. Some camellias are withered. Some of them are floating and some others are falling from the sky.
Nino doesn’t budge to answer Ohno, but Ohno couldn’t bring himself to let this slip. “I can not put a face to his name. I can’t even put it if he’s a kind guy or a scary guy,” he says.
Nino sighs, closing his eyes to calm his anger down. He doesn’t like to have an argument with Ohno, so he gives in. He revisits the memories he’s dying to forget and starts describing Matsumoto Jun that he knows, “He’s tall. Taller than me, for sure. He has strong features. He looks like someone who is hard to approach but his smile is-”
Ohno waits but Nino never completes his sentences. He turns to look at Nino and finds that Nino is closing his eyes tightly and massaging his temple, as if he’s fighting a cruel headache. Ohno gets worried and squeezes Nino’s shoulder. “Nino?” he whispers carefully.
Nino opens his eyes and sighs audibly. He raises a finger to the sky but looks at the other direction. “Just look at that,” he says.
A frame appears in front of them out of the sudden. Inside of it, a sketch is forming. The sketch is black over white paper and it looks like it's going to be a sketch of someone's face. By the way Nino is refusing to look at the frame despite being the one who is making it, Ohno knows that it is Jun.
The sketch forms wavy hair and a set of defined jaws. It forms the ears with vague details but the lips are drawn line per line with precision. There are dots, multiple of them, near the lips. The man in question is skinny, Ohno judges by the way his cheeks look, but his eyes show that he is a strong person with determination and will. His eyebrows are thick and his eyelashes are-
Suddenly the frame breaks into pieces and falls into the water. The stream is roaring and the sketch disappears within seconds. Nino is mad.
“Hey,” Ohno whispers, startled that his surroundings have turned iridescent and Nino has rendered uncharacteristically still. “Hey, Nino, are you okay?”
Nino takes a deep breath and pushes himself away from Ohno. He stands up, abruptly and with force, then takes brisk steps across the bridge. The trees and the flowers are wilting. The sky is turning grey. A house forms right ahead of Nino and Nino opens its door.
Ohno briefly thinks that Nino would enter the house and close the door behind him, shutting Ohno out and turning the connection between them off. He thinks that he will be kicked out from Nino’s connection soon, sweaty and restless in real life because Nino is mad at him. He thinks that he will have to wait for days until Nino would let him in again. He thinks that he has finally stepped over the boundaries.
However, Nino stops right before he gets inside the house. He turns to look at Ohno and says while avoiding Ohno’s eyes, “Let’s go inside. Please?”
Ohno knows that the house is Nino’s manifestation of protection and comfort. He knows that when Nino makes the house appear, it means that Nino is feeling attacked and vulnerable. This tells that Nino is still pretty much affected by Jun and his disappearance, as much as he acts like he’s over it.
Something gnaws inside Ohno as he stands up and walks towards the house. Something crawls in him, bugging his mind with uneasiness that he knows for sure is not jealousy.
As Ohno gathers Nino in his arms, engulfing him with warmth and making him forget about Jun for the time being, his mind goes to the unfinished sketch of a man that has been destroyed to pieces.
When the morning comes, the camellias are nowhere to be seen. Ohno and Nino are still inside the house, cuddling in one of the countless bedrooms. Nino has calmed down and he’s back to his usual self that Ohno loves deeply. No one has brought Jun up again and there’s a silent agreement between them to just forget about what happened without talking about it.
“I need to connect to work,” Nino breathes to Ohno’s chest, disappointment is thick in his voice.
The whole place is starting to get blurry, indicating that Nino’s designated time to connect to his work connection is nearing. Ohno pulls Nino’s head closer to his chest and plants a kiss on top of Nino’s head, “I’ll miss you today too.”
Nino nods. “Should I connect to you tonight?”
“No,” Ohno shakes his head. “Let’s disconnect tonight. You need to get a real sleep, Nino. Connecting doesn’t let your brain and body rest properly.”
“I’m okay,” Nino counters.
“Neglecting real sleep will exhaust you,” Ohno combs Nino’s hair with his fingers. “It will exhaust us. I will sleep too, I promise,” he revises, knowing that this might be more effective to be used against Nino.
Nino sulks. His hand grips on Ohno’s shirt tightly. “Tomorrow, then?” he tries.
“Okay,” Ohno smiles and lands a kiss on Nino’s forehead.
“Yours?” Nino asks, looking at Ohno with hopeful eyes.
Nino likes to be in Ohno’s head and Ohno is happy because of it. He smiles and nods. “I will try to finish my work early so I’ll be ready when you are, okay?”
“Okay,” Nino answers, beaming happily at Ohno.
The countdown appears and they snuggle closer to each other, closing their eyes so they can feel each other’s presence more before they have to separate. Ohno decides that he will disconnect after this, waking up in his bed, cold and alone, hundreds of kilometers away from Nino.
The moment Ohno is awake, he takes a pencil and a paper from his drawer and draws what he remembers of the sketch of Jun’s face.
===
Nino disconnects right after work. He plans to sleep early, chasing up on his sleeping hours because, just like Ohno said, connecting is exhausting. He lies on his bed after moving around to loosen his muscles and taking a quick shower, then wills his brain to relax and succumb to a deep sleep. He has turned his connecting device off, plugging the cables off and setting the device away from his bed.
The sleep doesn’t come that easily, though. Every time he closes his eyes, a fragment of his last connection with Ohno resurfaces before his eyes. He sees the frame that he made himself. He sees the sketch, fully completed and formed. He sees Jun, vividly and in details, as if he were seeing the man himself.
Nino groans and sits up, supporting his head on the palm of his hands. He hates this. He hates that he still remembers every line and every curve of Jun’s being. He is irritated, mostly because he doesn’t only remember, but he is also affected by it. He feels angry, he feels sad. He is frustrated and the urge to turn the device on and roam in the lobby to search for Jun is resurfacing.
“He’s dead,” Nino mutters to himself, determined in killing any doubt that is forming in him once again. “He’s dead and gone for good,” he repeats.
In reality, no one really knows what happened to Matsumoto Jun. If he’s really dead, no one has ever seen his body. If he’s not, no one has ever heard anything from him. He disappeared one day without any hint preceding his disappearance. Nino remembers very well that they had promised to meet in Nino’s dream that day. Jun had said that he wanted to fly with Nino, jumping over the clouds in the rhythm of Nino’s newly composed song. Jun had warned Nino not to be late because he missed Nino so much, and Nino was not late that day. He was early and he waited for Jun on top of a cloud, his legs dangling to the rhythm of yet another new song that he’s composing for Jun. He waited and waited, but Jun never came.
The very next day, Nino found that Jun’s ID was no longer exist.
Nino runs his hands on his hair and stands up. He’s too worked up to sit still, so he paces around in his room. Finally, he takes his device with him and plugs it in. He lies in his bed and sticks the transmitter on his temple, and in a few seconds, he’s standing in the connection’s menu.
Nino slowly moves past the ‘Lobby’ door and the ‘Community Connection’ door. He stands in front of the ‘Private Connection’ door and slowly walks through it, his heart is pounding in familiar nerve. Inside it, there’s a wide panel to input the ID a user wishes to connect to. Nino inputs Jun’s ID, which he still remembers very well, and taps enter while shutting his eyes tight.
There are blinks of light. Nino is supposed to be transmitted to Jun’s dream any second now. However, the light washes and there is none. Nino doesn’t feel like he’s afloat. He doesn’t feel a cold, sharp breeze piercing his skin. He doesn’t land in anything. There’s none. None at all.
Slowly, Nino opens his eyes. A massive notification of ‘User Not Found’ is displayed in front of him in green lettering, blinking and mocking him for the fleeting second of hope that he had. Nino’s body relaxes from his head down to his toes. He scoffs at himself, laughing that he was nervous for nothing.
For a few minutes, Nino just stands there, his palms planted on the panel for him to lean on. He’s feeling better, somehow. He had scenes of breakdowns after doing this in the past, but now it calms him down. It anchors him to the reality, reminding him how fruitless it was to rage on Jun’s disappearance. Knowing only Jun’s ID and the city where Jun lived didn’t help him much in finding Jun. He could only wait until Jun contacts him, since he has never changed his ID, but it has never happened, so Nino selfishly hopes that Jun is dead.
Because if Jun is not, then the only explanation is that Jun purposefully doesn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore. And it’s absurd, because they were completely fine, so Nino’s sanity refuses to take that possibility.
“He’s dead,” Nino says again. It has become some sort of spell for him, even though his heart is screaming in agony every time he says that out loud.
Nino gathers himself and stands up straight again. He looks at the blinking notification ahead of him and forces a smile to trick himself into feeling better. He then reaches for the panel again, inputting Ohno’s ID even though he knows Ohno is not supposed to be connected. He has been in a steady relationship with Ohno for a while now, it makes him feel guilty to still reach out for Jun like this.
Nino looks down and closes his eyes a couple of times, trying to cast away the remaining headache that he got out of some intense turmoil inside his head. The blinking light is there again and then nothing, just like what happened some moment ago. Nino smiles, feeling that what he’s doing now is a bit silly, and looks up, knowing that a notification of ‘User is Not Connected’ will greet him.
What appears in front of him, though, is not what he is expecting to see. The green lettering is there, blinking and flashing the same. It conveys a different message than the one it showed before, but it is also different from what Nino has in mind. What it shows is ‘User is Connected to a Private Connection Belongs to Another User’.
Nino blinks, not trusting his eyes. He remembers clearly that Ohno promised him that Ohno will be sleeping tonight. What is shown in front of him proves otherwise. This means that Ohno is connected, and with someone else. He’s not in the lobby to probably check on who’s around. He’s not in a community connection to take care of business or something. He’s in a private connection, which means that Ohno is inside someone else’s dream.
And Ohno is not saying anything about it.
===
Ohno regulates his breathing as he stares at the panel in front of him. He has put up a missing person announcement with the sketch he drew right after disconnecting with Nino this morning and, to his surprise, someone replied. This has never happened before. Nino has put up thousands of announcements after Jun’s disappearance and no one has ever replied.
When Ohno first met Nino, he has helped putting up some of the announcements too. He then finally fell for Nino himself and resorted in consoling Nino to overcome his lost, because Nino was a mess right then. They started dating months after that and Nino’s effort in finding Jun gradually lessened. It has been almost half a year without Nino doing anything about Jun now, and he has made it clear that the conclusion he comes up with is that Jun is dead.
Jun has been an abstract entity for Ohno up until now. Jun is someone that is missing; some sort of cause that brought Ohno and Nino together. It has all been curiosity for Ohno, harmless and benign even though the thought of Jun is constantly there. The only thing that Ohno thinks about Jun is to find him, because that’s all that he has been doing about Jun even before he fell in love with Nino.
Now, though, when Ohno is faced by a real proof that Jun is exist, alive, and most probably well, his concept of Jun is compromised greatly. Jun is no longer an abstract entity, he realizes. Jun is something real.
The one who replied to Ohno’s announcement was Aiba, a bartender working in the lobby to sell injected liquor for those who, even in their sleep, needs alcohol in their system. Ohno has met him before, prior his meeting with Nino and after. Aiba is the witness of Nino’s devastation, and he is also the witness of the beginning of Ohno and Nino’s relationship. He is some kind of a friend, and Ohno is more than surprised that out of everyone, Aiba is the one to answer his announcement.
“I’ve never had your ID,” Aiba has said when Ohno connected to him, “So I couldn’t let you know when he reappeared a couple of weeks ago.”
Ohno has felt a rush of ice cold feeling down his spines when he heard that.
“He was searching for Ninomiya-san,” Aiba told Ohno, “And I... I told him about you and Ninomiya-san. He’s... angry, I think? I’m not quite sure. He has never appeared in the lobby again after that, but I got his ID.”
After that, Aiba gave Ohno the ID with a plea to never mention his name to Jun. Aiba has grown fond to Jun, Ohno realized, so he probably felt like betraying Jun for giving his ID to Ohno.
Now that Ohno has the ID, it’s up to Ohno to do something with it. The right thing would be telling Nino about this, of course, but he decides against it. He could not afford seeing Nino turn into a heartbroken mess again. If Jun is about to make a reappearance in Nino’s life, Ohno has to make sure that it will not be another tragedy. He needs to know what it is that prevented Jun from contacting Nino before this, if he’s not dead. And if he simply just didn’t bother to contact Nino before, why would he do it now, when Nino is already with Ohno?
Ohno grips the edges of the panel tighter. Aside from his concern about Nino, there’s also this distasteful feeling that resembles an ending on his side. It has always been Jun and Nino before there is him and Nino, and there’s a nagging feeling of how he doesn’t like where this might be going. He might have to let go of Nino, and he doesn’t know if he’s capable of doing that. He loves Nino, and he knows that Nino loves him back. He feels that this would be a very unfair ending if he has to walk out of Nino’s life after this.
Thinking about Jun while assuming that he’s dead is one thing, but knowing that he’s still alive churns a whole new kind of chaos inside of Ohno.
Putting everything aside, Ohno inputs Jun’s new ID in, determined in finding out the fact before thinking further than that. He takes a breath as the light blinks in front of him, hoping that he could be calm enough to face Jun for the first time.
The notification of ‘Waiting for Host’s Approval’ blinks for about three minutes. In that time span, Ohno thinks that Jun would decline his connection, but then the light appears and he floats in the air, getting through the tunnel of light.
“So you’re Ohno-san,” a voice welcomes Ohno upon his transmission to Jun’s dream.
Ohno lands in a place that is eerily quiet for a dream. There’s nothing in it, only endless view of white and a lump of a human that sits on the floor, leaning his back to a white wall behind him. This must be Jun, Ohno concludes.
Jun smiles, and the smile is so off-putting that it gives uneasy feeling to Ohno.
“So you’re Matsumoto Jun,” Ohno finally replies in the same manner. There’s no bows exchanged between them, only gazes that assess each other. “What’s your excuse?” Ohno asks to the point.
“Does it matter now?” Jun asks back, the smile still hanging on his face. Slowly, his eyes meet Ohno’s and he continues, “Whatever excuse that I have, it’s the reason why you and him is possible. Shouldn’t you be thankful about that?”
Ohno can’t answer to that, for it is true. He just stands there, waiting for Jun’s next words.
“I’m surprised that you bother to come here, though,” Jun says from where he is slumped on the floor. “If you want to make sure that I won’t be coming your way, then don’t worry, I won’t.”
“Where have you been?” Ohno tries to focus on his objective, which is knowing the truth of what caused Jun’s disappearance. He wants an explanation. A good one, that is. From there, he thinks, he will decide if he needs to let Nino know about this.
“What are you trying to do?” Jun asks, burying his face inside his palms and forcing out a laugh. “Just forget about this and go back to... him.”
Ohno is baffled by this reaction. He has expected Jun to attack him; to at least ask him to fuck off and leave Nino alone. But this, Ohno finds, is more irritating than that. That, Ohno could comprehend, but this? Ohno can’t understand this and it agitates him.
“I don’t understand you,” Ohno says slowly, maintaining his patience even though his emotion is starting to get in the way. “He was a mess. You left him without a word and he was devastated because of that. Where were you? Why didn’t you contact him?”
Jun lifts his face and smiles at Ohno. “It’s not relevant anymore, Ohno-san. It’s in the past already. If he was a mess, he no longer is now. I can’t see the problem in this.”
Ohno balls his fists, irritated by Jun’s lack of will to fight for Nino. Jun talks as if Nino doesn’t mean a thing for him and it angers Ohno more than anything. If he were Jun, Ohno thinks, he’d fight harder for Nino. If he were Jun, he’d beat the hell out of Nino’s new boyfriend and take Nino back with him. Nino is worth to be fought for. Looking at Jun practically handing Nino over to him like this is making him angry in the weirdest way.
“I thought you loved him,” Ohno says, his eyes are piercing Jun with rage.
Jun smiles and Ohno has grown hateful towards the smile. “He’s happy now, isn’t he?” Jun points out.
“Suit yourself,” Ohno spits finally, having enough of Jun and his undecipherable smile. He calls for an exit with his mind and a door appears a few meters ahead of him. The moment he steps through it, he will be disconnected from Jun and out of Jun’s head.
“You thought that I loved him,” Jun says, right when Ohno’s hand lands on the handle.
Ohno looks over his shoulder, wanting to know what it is that Jun wants to say.
Jun smiles and it looks painful. Suddenly, the whole place shatters into pieces-the floor, the wall, everything. Ohno and Jun are floating in nothingness, with Ohno’s hand still connected to the door and the shattered pieces around them. The white disappears. The fragments of what once was the wall and the floor are showing pictures. Moving pictures. Memories.
Ohno is surrounded by Jun’s memories being replayed in front of his eyes. There are a lot of Nino. Actually, in every piece of it, there is Nino. Smiling, laughing, crying, sleeping; the whole place is turning into a dome full of Nino.
Jun looks up. His eyes are red and glassy. The painful smile is still there, adorning his face. With a shaky voice, he whispers, “I still do.”
The next second, Ohno is sucked into the door, the connection is cut forcefully by Jun. Ohno doesn’t return to the panel room or to the menu, he wakes up instead, sweaty and out of breath. His heartbeats are drumming in his chest.
He could feel Jun’s pain.
===
There’s something wrong with Ohno, Nino notices as soon as he is connected to Ohno. The sea in Ohno’s dream today is oddly surging, and it is past sunset, not somewhere around sunrise. Nino had to search for Ohno because he didn’t appear right in front of Ohno like he usually does, and when he found the man, Ohno is in his boat, a few meters away from the harbor.
Nino has planned to confront Ohno about his connection the night before but, seeing all this, he deems that it’s better to set it aside for now. Something that resembles worry is creeping up his neck. He frowns as he says to Ohno, “You know I don’t like being in the boat.”
Ohno, who was looking at the horizon, looks back at Nino and smiles. “You don’t have to be in the boat.”
“Hm?” Nino raises his eyebrow, questioning. He walks to the edge of the pier and sits on a pillar there, facing Ohno. “What happened?” he asks, because something has definitely happened.
Ohno stares at Nino with a serene gaze and then sits on the edge of his boat, facing Nino but turning away to look at the water. “I saw a kid today,” he says. His lips curling on its edges.
“A kid?” Nino frowns even deeper. If it’s a kid, then it must be from the outer world, because kids’ brain couldn’t afford being connected continuously yet. Even then, it’s uncommon to have kids walking around nowadays. The pollution and the low level of oxygen make it highly dangerous for kids to be out in the open.
Ohno nods. “A boy and a dog,” Ohno continues while smiling, “A puppy. They were playing around happily.”
Nino hums, showing that he’s listening. He doesn’t know where Ohno is going with this story, but he wants to know. It’s not every day that Ohno tells him something from the outer world. Hell, it’s not even every day that Ohno goes outside. He works via connection and prefers to stay inside when he has nothing to do. It takes too much just to be prepared to walk outside, Ohno said once.
“They looked... happy together. Really happy. But then”-Ohno steals a glance to Nino-“another boy came, wanting to take the puppy away.”
Nino cocks his head and kicks the air. “I don’t like this boy already.”
Ohno smiles and chuckles. A few seconds later, though, his chuckle falters and his smile turns bitter. “This boy wanted to take the puppy... back.” Ohno runs his fingers on his hair and looks up at the sky that is suddenly so dark and cloudy. “Apparently, the second boy is the puppy’s owner, but he abandoned the puppy there for a reason that he refused to tell. The first boy was already feeling attached to the puppy, so he looked very sad and I thought it would be very mean to part him from the puppy.” Ohno looks at Nino. “But the other boy looked so sad too. He was... ruined to see that his puppy was playing with someone else. Who”-Ohno clears his throat and looks away again-“do you think should get to keep the puppy?”
Nino thinks about it. He thinks about the two boys and the puppy. He thinks about them, and what could be the reason of why Ohno looks so emotionally involved in this. Carefully, he answers, “Well, the second boy is the owner.”
Ohno’s body stills. He swallows and asks again, “Isn’t it unfair?”
“It’s also unfair to take the puppy away from its owner just because the first boy spared a little of his time with the puppy,” Nino says. “Actually, why don’t they let the puppy choose? I mean, it’s a puppy, not a rock. He should have a say-or a bark-about this.”
Ohno turns to Nino and stands up. There’s a smile that Nino couldn’t really decipher. Slowly, the water around them turns into something else. It turns into flowers, Nino sees from a closer look. It turns into a sea of blue tiny flowers with yellow centers; forget-me-nots. The pier under Nino’s feet are turning into flowers too and it’s falling, blending into the sea of flowers itself.
“Oh-chan?” Nino asks in panic as he gets to his feet, backing away from the flowers. Something is really, really wrong; flowers have always been something in Nino’s dream, not in Ohno’s. When Nino looks up at Ohno again, Ohno is already right in front of him, gazing at him intently like he’s trying to look into Nino’s soul.
“Come here,” Ohno whispers and takes Nino into his embrace. Then, they fall.
They are falling into the flowers. They are falling, and keep on falling without knowing what is waiting under them. Nino can’t see anything except for the flood of blue and the blotches of yellow. He can’t even see Ohno, who is holding him tight inside his arms. Nino furls his fingers on Ohno’s chest, holding on like his life depends on it. He finally closes his eyes and presses his face on Ohno’s chest, and braces himself for anything that might come afterwards.
When they finally land on something, the world has turned ninety degrees. They are suddenly lying on a bed inside a glass dome that displays a garden of forget-me-nots and raining sky on the outside. Nino is still holding tight to Ohno and Ohno is still hugging him close, almost suffocating him.
“Oh-chan,” Nino tries. He couldn’t see Ohno’s face even if he tries to, because Ohno is trapping him so closely.
“Ssssh,” Ohno shushes him, “Let me hold you, okay?”
“What happened?” Nino asks. This is worrisome.
Instead of answering, Ohno ducks down and kisses Nino’s eyelid. He shifts so that he is on top of Nino and continues kissing Nino’s face until Nino reaches for his cheeks and pushes him far enough to look at his eyes.
“What happened, Ohno Satoshi?” Nino asks sternly. “What is happening?”
“I love you,” Ohno says but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He falls on Nino and presses his face to the pillow, right next to Nino’s ear. “Please?” he begs, sounding tired and desperate.
Nino gives in. He nods and lets Ohno pepper kisses all over his skin, his face, his body. He gives in to Ohno, letting Ohno do as he pleases, letting Ohno please him. He lets Ohno touch him, caress him, love him. They make love like they never have before. There is no laughter, no chuckles, no giggles. There are only needy sighs, moaned names, and whispers of love.
When they’re done, Ohno stays on top of Nino, hugging him close and inhaling his scent. It seems like he’s refusing to part from Nino, like this will be their last.
Nino doesn’t like this feeling.
“Oh-chan,” Nino calls while shifting his fingers through Ohno’s hair, “You know you have to talk to me, right?”
Ohno sighs, caressing Nino’s neck with his breath. “As I thought, I really can’t let the first boy to lose the puppy.”
“What?” Nino asks, not getting what Ohno said because it was muffled.
“Nothing,” Ohno answers. Before Nino could scold him, he calls out, “Hey, Nino”-he moves so he could look at Nino’s face-“what do you think about... a third in a relationship?”
Nino remembers that Ohno was seeing someone else without telling him the day before and a chill runs down his spine. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think... it will work?” Ohno pushes through. He tidies Nino’s hair with his fingers.
“What do you mean, Oh-chan?” Nino asks again. Fear is seeping in his voice.
“Do you think you can welcome a third person in your relationship?” Ohno asks again, clearer this time.
Nino freezes. He dreads this. He dreads the time that Ohno would leave him. He has never expected this, though. He has never expected that Ohno would want him to share. Slowly, he answers, “I... don’t know. I’m not sure. I mean- I don’t even know how it would work and-”
“Would you try?” Ohno cuts, holding Nino’s hand in his. “For me? Would you try it for me?”
“I-” Nino starts and pulls his hand away from Ohno. He scoots to his side, creating a distance between him and Ohno. “I don’t think I can, Oh-chan.”
Ohno smiles and laughs sadly. “As I thought,” he says. He sits up on the edge of the bed, looking at the outside of the dome and giving Nino his back. “You see, Nino, I met someone yesterday.”
Nino knows this. He is already hating this even before Ohno elaborates. He dares to ask anyway, “The third person?”
“No,” Ohno answers and chuckles. “I want you to meet him. Tomorrow. Let’s meet in Aiba-san’s bar and connect to him together?”
Nino’s eyes widen. If this person is not the third person Ohno has been talking about, then who is he?
Before Nino could come up with anything, his eyes catch movements outside. Everything is turning into flowers again. It’s raining flower. It’s raining forget-me-nots. Soon enough, the dome is covered with blue petals and yellow centers.
“Oh-chan?” Nino asks, panicking once again.
Suddenly, they both are standing close to the dome’s edge, facing to each other. Ohno leans in and kisses Nino on the lips, chaste and longing. Then, he pulls away and whispers, “The third person would be me, Nino.”
Then, the glass right next to them starts to break, making way for the flowers to flood in and pull Nino out of Ohno’s dream.
Part 2 >>
When the world is already too polluted and dangerous to walk on in daily basis, people connect through their minds. They walk into each other's head; into each other's dreams and the universes that their minds create. Having been in Nino's head for countless times, Ohno knows one thing for sure: Nino still thinks about Jun every now and then.
Camellias. There are always a lot of camellias in the universe inside Nino’s head when Nino thinks about Jun, Ohno realizes. They don’t appear very often, but when they do, Ohno always notices; since they show up everywhere, decorating the entire place with a soft shade of pink and a hint of purple. Nino doesn’t seem to be aware of this happening and its implication, but Ohno does, and he is more curious about it rather than appalled.
“Oh-chan,” Nino calls, being aware that Ohno is distracted. “What are you thinking?”
Ohno looks away from the camellias and focuses on Nino’s pout. He giggles and answers truthfully, “You.”
Nino rolls his eyes. He walks ahead of Ohno and mutters, “I’m here.”
“Doesn’t mean that I can take you out of my head,” Ohno shrugs. He follows Nino to a bridge over a small stream and sits there, their feet dangling in the air. They savor the scenery-it’s probably Nino’s projection of somewhere real, Ohno notes-but Ohno’s mind is still on the camellias. It’s been awhile since the last time Ohno saw them and, somehow, today they are more vivid than before. “Hey, Nino,” Ohno says while looking at the camellias floating on the water, finally succumbing to his curiosity, “What kind of a person is Jun?”
Nino frowns and some more camellias appear out of nothingness. The new camellias are red, striking and bold. He is now aware that he is thinking about Jun and he is irritated. Pink is Nino’s color of longing, while red is Nino’s color of anger.
“He’s dead,” Nino mutters. “He better be.”
“Still,” Ohno insists. He grabs Nino’s hand and tugs him until Nino’s head falls to his shoulder. “What kind of a person is he?”
More camellias appear. They are red. They are purple. They are rosy pink. Some camellias have mixed colors. Some camellias are withered. Some of them are floating and some others are falling from the sky.
Nino doesn’t budge to answer Ohno, but Ohno couldn’t bring himself to let this slip. “I can not put a face to his name. I can’t even put it if he’s a kind guy or a scary guy,” he says.
Nino sighs, closing his eyes to calm his anger down. He doesn’t like to have an argument with Ohno, so he gives in. He revisits the memories he’s dying to forget and starts describing Matsumoto Jun that he knows, “He’s tall. Taller than me, for sure. He has strong features. He looks like someone who is hard to approach but his smile is-”
Ohno waits but Nino never completes his sentences. He turns to look at Nino and finds that Nino is closing his eyes tightly and massaging his temple, as if he’s fighting a cruel headache. Ohno gets worried and squeezes Nino’s shoulder. “Nino?” he whispers carefully.
Nino opens his eyes and sighs audibly. He raises a finger to the sky but looks at the other direction. “Just look at that,” he says.
A frame appears in front of them out of the sudden. Inside of it, a sketch is forming. The sketch is black over white paper and it looks like it's going to be a sketch of someone's face. By the way Nino is refusing to look at the frame despite being the one who is making it, Ohno knows that it is Jun.
The sketch forms wavy hair and a set of defined jaws. It forms the ears with vague details but the lips are drawn line per line with precision. There are dots, multiple of them, near the lips. The man in question is skinny, Ohno judges by the way his cheeks look, but his eyes show that he is a strong person with determination and will. His eyebrows are thick and his eyelashes are-
Suddenly the frame breaks into pieces and falls into the water. The stream is roaring and the sketch disappears within seconds. Nino is mad.
“Hey,” Ohno whispers, startled that his surroundings have turned iridescent and Nino has rendered uncharacteristically still. “Hey, Nino, are you okay?”
Nino takes a deep breath and pushes himself away from Ohno. He stands up, abruptly and with force, then takes brisk steps across the bridge. The trees and the flowers are wilting. The sky is turning grey. A house forms right ahead of Nino and Nino opens its door.
Ohno briefly thinks that Nino would enter the house and close the door behind him, shutting Ohno out and turning the connection between them off. He thinks that he will be kicked out from Nino’s connection soon, sweaty and restless in real life because Nino is mad at him. He thinks that he will have to wait for days until Nino would let him in again. He thinks that he has finally stepped over the boundaries.
However, Nino stops right before he gets inside the house. He turns to look at Ohno and says while avoiding Ohno’s eyes, “Let’s go inside. Please?”
Ohno knows that the house is Nino’s manifestation of protection and comfort. He knows that when Nino makes the house appear, it means that Nino is feeling attacked and vulnerable. This tells that Nino is still pretty much affected by Jun and his disappearance, as much as he acts like he’s over it.
Something gnaws inside Ohno as he stands up and walks towards the house. Something crawls in him, bugging his mind with uneasiness that he knows for sure is not jealousy.
As Ohno gathers Nino in his arms, engulfing him with warmth and making him forget about Jun for the time being, his mind goes to the unfinished sketch of a man that has been destroyed to pieces.
When the morning comes, the camellias are nowhere to be seen. Ohno and Nino are still inside the house, cuddling in one of the countless bedrooms. Nino has calmed down and he’s back to his usual self that Ohno loves deeply. No one has brought Jun up again and there’s a silent agreement between them to just forget about what happened without talking about it.
“I need to connect to work,” Nino breathes to Ohno’s chest, disappointment is thick in his voice.
The whole place is starting to get blurry, indicating that Nino’s designated time to connect to his work connection is nearing. Ohno pulls Nino’s head closer to his chest and plants a kiss on top of Nino’s head, “I’ll miss you today too.”
Nino nods. “Should I connect to you tonight?”
“No,” Ohno shakes his head. “Let’s disconnect tonight. You need to get a real sleep, Nino. Connecting doesn’t let your brain and body rest properly.”
“I’m okay,” Nino counters.
“Neglecting real sleep will exhaust you,” Ohno combs Nino’s hair with his fingers. “It will exhaust us. I will sleep too, I promise,” he revises, knowing that this might be more effective to be used against Nino.
Nino sulks. His hand grips on Ohno’s shirt tightly. “Tomorrow, then?” he tries.
“Okay,” Ohno smiles and lands a kiss on Nino’s forehead.
“Yours?” Nino asks, looking at Ohno with hopeful eyes.
Nino likes to be in Ohno’s head and Ohno is happy because of it. He smiles and nods. “I will try to finish my work early so I’ll be ready when you are, okay?”
“Okay,” Nino answers, beaming happily at Ohno.
The countdown appears and they snuggle closer to each other, closing their eyes so they can feel each other’s presence more before they have to separate. Ohno decides that he will disconnect after this, waking up in his bed, cold and alone, hundreds of kilometers away from Nino.
The moment Ohno is awake, he takes a pencil and a paper from his drawer and draws what he remembers of the sketch of Jun’s face.
===
Nino disconnects right after work. He plans to sleep early, chasing up on his sleeping hours because, just like Ohno said, connecting is exhausting. He lies on his bed after moving around to loosen his muscles and taking a quick shower, then wills his brain to relax and succumb to a deep sleep. He has turned his connecting device off, plugging the cables off and setting the device away from his bed.
The sleep doesn’t come that easily, though. Every time he closes his eyes, a fragment of his last connection with Ohno resurfaces before his eyes. He sees the frame that he made himself. He sees the sketch, fully completed and formed. He sees Jun, vividly and in details, as if he were seeing the man himself.
Nino groans and sits up, supporting his head on the palm of his hands. He hates this. He hates that he still remembers every line and every curve of Jun’s being. He is irritated, mostly because he doesn’t only remember, but he is also affected by it. He feels angry, he feels sad. He is frustrated and the urge to turn the device on and roam in the lobby to search for Jun is resurfacing.
“He’s dead,” Nino mutters to himself, determined in killing any doubt that is forming in him once again. “He’s dead and gone for good,” he repeats.
In reality, no one really knows what happened to Matsumoto Jun. If he’s really dead, no one has ever seen his body. If he’s not, no one has ever heard anything from him. He disappeared one day without any hint preceding his disappearance. Nino remembers very well that they had promised to meet in Nino’s dream that day. Jun had said that he wanted to fly with Nino, jumping over the clouds in the rhythm of Nino’s newly composed song. Jun had warned Nino not to be late because he missed Nino so much, and Nino was not late that day. He was early and he waited for Jun on top of a cloud, his legs dangling to the rhythm of yet another new song that he’s composing for Jun. He waited and waited, but Jun never came.
The very next day, Nino found that Jun’s ID was no longer exist.
Nino runs his hands on his hair and stands up. He’s too worked up to sit still, so he paces around in his room. Finally, he takes his device with him and plugs it in. He lies in his bed and sticks the transmitter on his temple, and in a few seconds, he’s standing in the connection’s menu.
Nino slowly moves past the ‘Lobby’ door and the ‘Community Connection’ door. He stands in front of the ‘Private Connection’ door and slowly walks through it, his heart is pounding in familiar nerve. Inside it, there’s a wide panel to input the ID a user wishes to connect to. Nino inputs Jun’s ID, which he still remembers very well, and taps enter while shutting his eyes tight.
There are blinks of light. Nino is supposed to be transmitted to Jun’s dream any second now. However, the light washes and there is none. Nino doesn’t feel like he’s afloat. He doesn’t feel a cold, sharp breeze piercing his skin. He doesn’t land in anything. There’s none. None at all.
Slowly, Nino opens his eyes. A massive notification of ‘User Not Found’ is displayed in front of him in green lettering, blinking and mocking him for the fleeting second of hope that he had. Nino’s body relaxes from his head down to his toes. He scoffs at himself, laughing that he was nervous for nothing.
For a few minutes, Nino just stands there, his palms planted on the panel for him to lean on. He’s feeling better, somehow. He had scenes of breakdowns after doing this in the past, but now it calms him down. It anchors him to the reality, reminding him how fruitless it was to rage on Jun’s disappearance. Knowing only Jun’s ID and the city where Jun lived didn’t help him much in finding Jun. He could only wait until Jun contacts him, since he has never changed his ID, but it has never happened, so Nino selfishly hopes that Jun is dead.
Because if Jun is not, then the only explanation is that Jun purposefully doesn’t want to have anything to do with him anymore. And it’s absurd, because they were completely fine, so Nino’s sanity refuses to take that possibility.
“He’s dead,” Nino says again. It has become some sort of spell for him, even though his heart is screaming in agony every time he says that out loud.
Nino gathers himself and stands up straight again. He looks at the blinking notification ahead of him and forces a smile to trick himself into feeling better. He then reaches for the panel again, inputting Ohno’s ID even though he knows Ohno is not supposed to be connected. He has been in a steady relationship with Ohno for a while now, it makes him feel guilty to still reach out for Jun like this.
Nino looks down and closes his eyes a couple of times, trying to cast away the remaining headache that he got out of some intense turmoil inside his head. The blinking light is there again and then nothing, just like what happened some moment ago. Nino smiles, feeling that what he’s doing now is a bit silly, and looks up, knowing that a notification of ‘User is Not Connected’ will greet him.
What appears in front of him, though, is not what he is expecting to see. The green lettering is there, blinking and flashing the same. It conveys a different message than the one it showed before, but it is also different from what Nino has in mind. What it shows is ‘User is Connected to a Private Connection Belongs to Another User’.
Nino blinks, not trusting his eyes. He remembers clearly that Ohno promised him that Ohno will be sleeping tonight. What is shown in front of him proves otherwise. This means that Ohno is connected, and with someone else. He’s not in the lobby to probably check on who’s around. He’s not in a community connection to take care of business or something. He’s in a private connection, which means that Ohno is inside someone else’s dream.
And Ohno is not saying anything about it.
===
Ohno regulates his breathing as he stares at the panel in front of him. He has put up a missing person announcement with the sketch he drew right after disconnecting with Nino this morning and, to his surprise, someone replied. This has never happened before. Nino has put up thousands of announcements after Jun’s disappearance and no one has ever replied.
When Ohno first met Nino, he has helped putting up some of the announcements too. He then finally fell for Nino himself and resorted in consoling Nino to overcome his lost, because Nino was a mess right then. They started dating months after that and Nino’s effort in finding Jun gradually lessened. It has been almost half a year without Nino doing anything about Jun now, and he has made it clear that the conclusion he comes up with is that Jun is dead.
Jun has been an abstract entity for Ohno up until now. Jun is someone that is missing; some sort of cause that brought Ohno and Nino together. It has all been curiosity for Ohno, harmless and benign even though the thought of Jun is constantly there. The only thing that Ohno thinks about Jun is to find him, because that’s all that he has been doing about Jun even before he fell in love with Nino.
Now, though, when Ohno is faced by a real proof that Jun is exist, alive, and most probably well, his concept of Jun is compromised greatly. Jun is no longer an abstract entity, he realizes. Jun is something real.
The one who replied to Ohno’s announcement was Aiba, a bartender working in the lobby to sell injected liquor for those who, even in their sleep, needs alcohol in their system. Ohno has met him before, prior his meeting with Nino and after. Aiba is the witness of Nino’s devastation, and he is also the witness of the beginning of Ohno and Nino’s relationship. He is some kind of a friend, and Ohno is more than surprised that out of everyone, Aiba is the one to answer his announcement.
“I’ve never had your ID,” Aiba has said when Ohno connected to him, “So I couldn’t let you know when he reappeared a couple of weeks ago.”
Ohno has felt a rush of ice cold feeling down his spines when he heard that.
“He was searching for Ninomiya-san,” Aiba told Ohno, “And I... I told him about you and Ninomiya-san. He’s... angry, I think? I’m not quite sure. He has never appeared in the lobby again after that, but I got his ID.”
After that, Aiba gave Ohno the ID with a plea to never mention his name to Jun. Aiba has grown fond to Jun, Ohno realized, so he probably felt like betraying Jun for giving his ID to Ohno.
Now that Ohno has the ID, it’s up to Ohno to do something with it. The right thing would be telling Nino about this, of course, but he decides against it. He could not afford seeing Nino turn into a heartbroken mess again. If Jun is about to make a reappearance in Nino’s life, Ohno has to make sure that it will not be another tragedy. He needs to know what it is that prevented Jun from contacting Nino before this, if he’s not dead. And if he simply just didn’t bother to contact Nino before, why would he do it now, when Nino is already with Ohno?
Ohno grips the edges of the panel tighter. Aside from his concern about Nino, there’s also this distasteful feeling that resembles an ending on his side. It has always been Jun and Nino before there is him and Nino, and there’s a nagging feeling of how he doesn’t like where this might be going. He might have to let go of Nino, and he doesn’t know if he’s capable of doing that. He loves Nino, and he knows that Nino loves him back. He feels that this would be a very unfair ending if he has to walk out of Nino’s life after this.
Thinking about Jun while assuming that he’s dead is one thing, but knowing that he’s still alive churns a whole new kind of chaos inside of Ohno.
Putting everything aside, Ohno inputs Jun’s new ID in, determined in finding out the fact before thinking further than that. He takes a breath as the light blinks in front of him, hoping that he could be calm enough to face Jun for the first time.
The notification of ‘Waiting for Host’s Approval’ blinks for about three minutes. In that time span, Ohno thinks that Jun would decline his connection, but then the light appears and he floats in the air, getting through the tunnel of light.
“So you’re Ohno-san,” a voice welcomes Ohno upon his transmission to Jun’s dream.
Ohno lands in a place that is eerily quiet for a dream. There’s nothing in it, only endless view of white and a lump of a human that sits on the floor, leaning his back to a white wall behind him. This must be Jun, Ohno concludes.
Jun smiles, and the smile is so off-putting that it gives uneasy feeling to Ohno.
“So you’re Matsumoto Jun,” Ohno finally replies in the same manner. There’s no bows exchanged between them, only gazes that assess each other. “What’s your excuse?” Ohno asks to the point.
“Does it matter now?” Jun asks back, the smile still hanging on his face. Slowly, his eyes meet Ohno’s and he continues, “Whatever excuse that I have, it’s the reason why you and him is possible. Shouldn’t you be thankful about that?”
Ohno can’t answer to that, for it is true. He just stands there, waiting for Jun’s next words.
“I’m surprised that you bother to come here, though,” Jun says from where he is slumped on the floor. “If you want to make sure that I won’t be coming your way, then don’t worry, I won’t.”
“Where have you been?” Ohno tries to focus on his objective, which is knowing the truth of what caused Jun’s disappearance. He wants an explanation. A good one, that is. From there, he thinks, he will decide if he needs to let Nino know about this.
“What are you trying to do?” Jun asks, burying his face inside his palms and forcing out a laugh. “Just forget about this and go back to... him.”
Ohno is baffled by this reaction. He has expected Jun to attack him; to at least ask him to fuck off and leave Nino alone. But this, Ohno finds, is more irritating than that. That, Ohno could comprehend, but this? Ohno can’t understand this and it agitates him.
“I don’t understand you,” Ohno says slowly, maintaining his patience even though his emotion is starting to get in the way. “He was a mess. You left him without a word and he was devastated because of that. Where were you? Why didn’t you contact him?”
Jun lifts his face and smiles at Ohno. “It’s not relevant anymore, Ohno-san. It’s in the past already. If he was a mess, he no longer is now. I can’t see the problem in this.”
Ohno balls his fists, irritated by Jun’s lack of will to fight for Nino. Jun talks as if Nino doesn’t mean a thing for him and it angers Ohno more than anything. If he were Jun, Ohno thinks, he’d fight harder for Nino. If he were Jun, he’d beat the hell out of Nino’s new boyfriend and take Nino back with him. Nino is worth to be fought for. Looking at Jun practically handing Nino over to him like this is making him angry in the weirdest way.
“I thought you loved him,” Ohno says, his eyes are piercing Jun with rage.
Jun smiles and Ohno has grown hateful towards the smile. “He’s happy now, isn’t he?” Jun points out.
“Suit yourself,” Ohno spits finally, having enough of Jun and his undecipherable smile. He calls for an exit with his mind and a door appears a few meters ahead of him. The moment he steps through it, he will be disconnected from Jun and out of Jun’s head.
“You thought that I loved him,” Jun says, right when Ohno’s hand lands on the handle.
Ohno looks over his shoulder, wanting to know what it is that Jun wants to say.
Jun smiles and it looks painful. Suddenly, the whole place shatters into pieces-the floor, the wall, everything. Ohno and Jun are floating in nothingness, with Ohno’s hand still connected to the door and the shattered pieces around them. The white disappears. The fragments of what once was the wall and the floor are showing pictures. Moving pictures. Memories.
Ohno is surrounded by Jun’s memories being replayed in front of his eyes. There are a lot of Nino. Actually, in every piece of it, there is Nino. Smiling, laughing, crying, sleeping; the whole place is turning into a dome full of Nino.
Jun looks up. His eyes are red and glassy. The painful smile is still there, adorning his face. With a shaky voice, he whispers, “I still do.”
The next second, Ohno is sucked into the door, the connection is cut forcefully by Jun. Ohno doesn’t return to the panel room or to the menu, he wakes up instead, sweaty and out of breath. His heartbeats are drumming in his chest.
He could feel Jun’s pain.
===
There’s something wrong with Ohno, Nino notices as soon as he is connected to Ohno. The sea in Ohno’s dream today is oddly surging, and it is past sunset, not somewhere around sunrise. Nino had to search for Ohno because he didn’t appear right in front of Ohno like he usually does, and when he found the man, Ohno is in his boat, a few meters away from the harbor.
Nino has planned to confront Ohno about his connection the night before but, seeing all this, he deems that it’s better to set it aside for now. Something that resembles worry is creeping up his neck. He frowns as he says to Ohno, “You know I don’t like being in the boat.”
Ohno, who was looking at the horizon, looks back at Nino and smiles. “You don’t have to be in the boat.”
“Hm?” Nino raises his eyebrow, questioning. He walks to the edge of the pier and sits on a pillar there, facing Ohno. “What happened?” he asks, because something has definitely happened.
Ohno stares at Nino with a serene gaze and then sits on the edge of his boat, facing Nino but turning away to look at the water. “I saw a kid today,” he says. His lips curling on its edges.
“A kid?” Nino frowns even deeper. If it’s a kid, then it must be from the outer world, because kids’ brain couldn’t afford being connected continuously yet. Even then, it’s uncommon to have kids walking around nowadays. The pollution and the low level of oxygen make it highly dangerous for kids to be out in the open.
Ohno nods. “A boy and a dog,” Ohno continues while smiling, “A puppy. They were playing around happily.”
Nino hums, showing that he’s listening. He doesn’t know where Ohno is going with this story, but he wants to know. It’s not every day that Ohno tells him something from the outer world. Hell, it’s not even every day that Ohno goes outside. He works via connection and prefers to stay inside when he has nothing to do. It takes too much just to be prepared to walk outside, Ohno said once.
“They looked... happy together. Really happy. But then”-Ohno steals a glance to Nino-“another boy came, wanting to take the puppy away.”
Nino cocks his head and kicks the air. “I don’t like this boy already.”
Ohno smiles and chuckles. A few seconds later, though, his chuckle falters and his smile turns bitter. “This boy wanted to take the puppy... back.” Ohno runs his fingers on his hair and looks up at the sky that is suddenly so dark and cloudy. “Apparently, the second boy is the puppy’s owner, but he abandoned the puppy there for a reason that he refused to tell. The first boy was already feeling attached to the puppy, so he looked very sad and I thought it would be very mean to part him from the puppy.” Ohno looks at Nino. “But the other boy looked so sad too. He was... ruined to see that his puppy was playing with someone else. Who”-Ohno clears his throat and looks away again-“do you think should get to keep the puppy?”
Nino thinks about it. He thinks about the two boys and the puppy. He thinks about them, and what could be the reason of why Ohno looks so emotionally involved in this. Carefully, he answers, “Well, the second boy is the owner.”
Ohno’s body stills. He swallows and asks again, “Isn’t it unfair?”
“It’s also unfair to take the puppy away from its owner just because the first boy spared a little of his time with the puppy,” Nino says. “Actually, why don’t they let the puppy choose? I mean, it’s a puppy, not a rock. He should have a say-or a bark-about this.”
Ohno turns to Nino and stands up. There’s a smile that Nino couldn’t really decipher. Slowly, the water around them turns into something else. It turns into flowers, Nino sees from a closer look. It turns into a sea of blue tiny flowers with yellow centers; forget-me-nots. The pier under Nino’s feet are turning into flowers too and it’s falling, blending into the sea of flowers itself.
“Oh-chan?” Nino asks in panic as he gets to his feet, backing away from the flowers. Something is really, really wrong; flowers have always been something in Nino’s dream, not in Ohno’s. When Nino looks up at Ohno again, Ohno is already right in front of him, gazing at him intently like he’s trying to look into Nino’s soul.
“Come here,” Ohno whispers and takes Nino into his embrace. Then, they fall.
They are falling into the flowers. They are falling, and keep on falling without knowing what is waiting under them. Nino can’t see anything except for the flood of blue and the blotches of yellow. He can’t even see Ohno, who is holding him tight inside his arms. Nino furls his fingers on Ohno’s chest, holding on like his life depends on it. He finally closes his eyes and presses his face on Ohno’s chest, and braces himself for anything that might come afterwards.
When they finally land on something, the world has turned ninety degrees. They are suddenly lying on a bed inside a glass dome that displays a garden of forget-me-nots and raining sky on the outside. Nino is still holding tight to Ohno and Ohno is still hugging him close, almost suffocating him.
“Oh-chan,” Nino tries. He couldn’t see Ohno’s face even if he tries to, because Ohno is trapping him so closely.
“Ssssh,” Ohno shushes him, “Let me hold you, okay?”
“What happened?” Nino asks. This is worrisome.
Instead of answering, Ohno ducks down and kisses Nino’s eyelid. He shifts so that he is on top of Nino and continues kissing Nino’s face until Nino reaches for his cheeks and pushes him far enough to look at his eyes.
“What happened, Ohno Satoshi?” Nino asks sternly. “What is happening?”
“I love you,” Ohno says but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He falls on Nino and presses his face to the pillow, right next to Nino’s ear. “Please?” he begs, sounding tired and desperate.
Nino gives in. He nods and lets Ohno pepper kisses all over his skin, his face, his body. He gives in to Ohno, letting Ohno do as he pleases, letting Ohno please him. He lets Ohno touch him, caress him, love him. They make love like they never have before. There is no laughter, no chuckles, no giggles. There are only needy sighs, moaned names, and whispers of love.
When they’re done, Ohno stays on top of Nino, hugging him close and inhaling his scent. It seems like he’s refusing to part from Nino, like this will be their last.
Nino doesn’t like this feeling.
“Oh-chan,” Nino calls while shifting his fingers through Ohno’s hair, “You know you have to talk to me, right?”
Ohno sighs, caressing Nino’s neck with his breath. “As I thought, I really can’t let the first boy to lose the puppy.”
“What?” Nino asks, not getting what Ohno said because it was muffled.
“Nothing,” Ohno answers. Before Nino could scold him, he calls out, “Hey, Nino”-he moves so he could look at Nino’s face-“what do you think about... a third in a relationship?”
Nino remembers that Ohno was seeing someone else without telling him the day before and a chill runs down his spine. “What do you mean?”
“Do you think... it will work?” Ohno pushes through. He tidies Nino’s hair with his fingers.
“What do you mean, Oh-chan?” Nino asks again. Fear is seeping in his voice.
“Do you think you can welcome a third person in your relationship?” Ohno asks again, clearer this time.
Nino freezes. He dreads this. He dreads the time that Ohno would leave him. He has never expected this, though. He has never expected that Ohno would want him to share. Slowly, he answers, “I... don’t know. I’m not sure. I mean- I don’t even know how it would work and-”
“Would you try?” Ohno cuts, holding Nino’s hand in his. “For me? Would you try it for me?”
“I-” Nino starts and pulls his hand away from Ohno. He scoots to his side, creating a distance between him and Ohno. “I don’t think I can, Oh-chan.”
Ohno smiles and laughs sadly. “As I thought,” he says. He sits up on the edge of the bed, looking at the outside of the dome and giving Nino his back. “You see, Nino, I met someone yesterday.”
Nino knows this. He is already hating this even before Ohno elaborates. He dares to ask anyway, “The third person?”
“No,” Ohno answers and chuckles. “I want you to meet him. Tomorrow. Let’s meet in Aiba-san’s bar and connect to him together?”
Nino’s eyes widen. If this person is not the third person Ohno has been talking about, then who is he?
Before Nino could come up with anything, his eyes catch movements outside. Everything is turning into flowers again. It’s raining flower. It’s raining forget-me-nots. Soon enough, the dome is covered with blue petals and yellow centers.
“Oh-chan?” Nino asks, panicking once again.
Suddenly, they both are standing close to the dome’s edge, facing to each other. Ohno leans in and kisses Nino on the lips, chaste and longing. Then, he pulls away and whispers, “The third person would be me, Nino.”
Then, the glass right next to them starts to break, making way for the flowers to flood in and pull Nino out of Ohno’s dream.
Part 2 >>