238.
(working) title: one and only
rating: E for everyone
pairings: ohmiya, sakumoto, aimiya (!?)
notes: part three!! i just want to say, that i am having a really good time writing this, and it's the first time in a long time i've been able to do that ;_; this story has just gotten totally out of hand but i'm LOVING IT. also, quick warning, this part is long (~2100 words)
( first part)
( second part)
Satoshi looks forward to his outing with Jun and Sho all week. Right now, he’s looking forward to it more than ever, as this is perhaps the very last place he wants to be.
Not that it’s unreasonable or unusual for an engaged couple to make a winter visit to a hot spring. And the water is very nice, even with the funny smell. The view, too, is exceptional-this particular pool looks out over the mountainside and down into the snowy hills below, and there is even the dark shine of a frozen lake visible in the distance.
This is all more or less lost on Satoshi, however, because Ninomiya is sitting not five feet away, and they are both completely naked except for the thin towels around their waists. The water feels hotter than it should, even with the cold winter air as counterpoint.
“Really hot,” Satoshi mutters to himself, not meaning to speak aloud. He tips his head back onto the stone lip of the pool-the temperature must be addling his brain.
“Are you alright?” Ninomiya asks, and Satoshi glances over to see that Ninomiya has just the hint of a smirk on his face. Ninomiya, who is naked, whose pale shoulders are damp and coming up in a flush of pink that is starting to spread up his neck. Satoshi looks away again quickly.
“Fine,” he says. “It’s-it’s very nice.” He splashes a hand out of the water and makes a vague gesture at their surroundings.
Ninomiya hums in agreement. After a moment, he lays his own head back and closes his eyes. “Maybe a little embarrassing?”
Satoshi laughs, a surprised huff through his nose. It’s nice to know it’s not just him. “Maybe,” he agrees.
“Can’t be helped,” Ninomiya sighs. He lifts his wet hands and rubs them across his face and over his hair. “We don’t even-we’re still getting to know each other.”
Satoshi notices the pause. Can’t help but notice it, when it seems his every nerve ending is aware of Ninomiya-how close he is, the water droplets hanging from his eyelashes, the ripples he sends out across the water with each minute shift of his body. Satoshi wonders if Ninomiya feels the same way, but it doesn’t seem like it at all: the younger man is staring vacantly out into the trees, and his hands are doing that same skipping, fiddling dance beneath the water.
“Ninomiya-san,” Satoshi says eventually, softly, maybe again without really meaning to. “Don’t you want to get to know me?”
Suddenly, Ninomiya’s eyes refocus, snap back to Satoshi, and he looks almost…afraid.
“Because,” Satoshi continues, sitting up now and making himself meet Ninomiya’s gaze. “Because it just-it seems like, maybe…you’re holding back.”
For a few long moments that feel like an eternity, they just stare at each other. Then, without warning, Ninomiya stands and climbs out of the water. Satoshi hesitates for just a beat-he can see all of Ninomiya now, the whole dripping length of his compact body-but then jumps up to follow him. He catches Ninomiya by the elbow about halfway across the warm flagstones that lead back to the bath house proper.
Ninomiya stops immediately. He doesn’t try to jerk his arm out of Satoshi’s grip or storm off, so Satoshi tries again.
“You don’t have to,” he says, just the tips of his fingers holding Ninomiya’s arm. “I don’t want you to.”
They both stand there, streaming water, leaving matching puddles around their feet. Ninomiya stares straight ahead, brows knit, mouth a tight line. But then it all goes out of him-all the air, all the fight, in a long sigh-and his body relaxes as his eyes close.
“Sorry,” he whispers. He clears his throat and says again: “I’m sorry. You noticed, huh?”
Yes, Satoshi thinks. And realizes, he has been all along-he’s been noticing Ninomiya since they met, since that first time when Satoshi decided to keep staring instead of looking away. He noticed the way Ninomiya’s hands move, and the way his smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, and the way he’s holding back. There’s something about Ninomiya that makes him notice.
But Satoshi doesn’t say any of this, and Ninomiya keeps talking.'
“I didn’t want to get married, either, you know. It’s never something I’ve wanted, and I never-I didn’t pay attention to any of the people I was meeting at the omiai. I didn’t think it would matter, I could just keep ignoring them, but…” And he looks at Satoshi now, without turning his head, just out of the corner of his eye. “But then, it seemed like you didn’t want to, either, and I thought, at least…”
“We had something in common?” Satoshi finishes for him, smiling despite himself.
“Yeah,” Ninomiya says, almost a laugh.
Satoshi lets his hand drop away from Ninomiya’s arm, and Ninomiya watches the motion curiously. But Satoshi still waits. He waits until Ninomiya finally turns and meets his gaze.
“I-” Ninomiya starts, stops. He crosses his arms over his bare chest, and shivers in the cold air. “You can call me Nino. That’s-you should just call me Nino.”
Satoshi feels a shiver tremble across his own skin-the wind is so cold after the heat of the springs. That must be why. He feels a grin quirk one side of his mouth.
“You can call me Satoshi,” he says.
A sudden, surprising blush colors Ninomiya’s face, and he laughs nervously.
“Ah, oh. I-how about Oh-chan?”
Satoshi wrinkles his nose, but chuckles. “Gross.” It sounds like a nickname for a little kid, not for a thirty-year-old man.
“Oh-chan,” Ninomiya-Nino-repeats. And this time when he smiles, it takes up his whole face.
*
The suit Jun gave Satoshi for his birthday is, naturally, a perfect fit. Jun saw to it that everything was cut exactly to Satoshi’s measurements, but even so, it’s a strange feeling. The slacks that are snug to his legs, the shirt and jacket that hug his arms from shoulder to wrist, and a vest under that, and suspenders for his pants, garters for his socks, and the tie around his neck. It all just feels so much more constricting than a kimono, or the samue jacket and loose pants he usually wears at the workshop.
And, since it’s a special occasion, he put some pomade in his hair. It almost feels like he’s in disguise.
“That color suits you,” Jun says, not for the first time, looking Satoshi over with a self-satisfied grin.
Satoshi just smiles as he finishes shrugging out of his long trench coat and hanging it over the back of his chair. The suit is a pale ash-grey, the tie a dark plum color. Satoshi likes it, too, but he likes it because it came from Jun, and it makes Jun happy to see him wear it.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Sho asks, glancing around the club Jun has brought them to. It’s very small, smaller than Satoshi-and Sho, too, apparently-was expecting, only about a dozen tables scattered around a narrow dance floor, with a bar along one wall and a stage in the back. A haze of cigarette smoke fills the air. “Where’s the music?”
“The musicians must be on a break,” Jun says, then turns aside to hail a waitress and order them all drinks and some small dishes.
Satoshi looks back towards the stage-it’s small, like the rest of the club, with just enough room for a baby grand, a drum kit, and a double bass propped against the back wall. Before he can turn back to their drinks, which have just arrived, the lighting rig snaps to life in the rafters to cast a soft glow over the stage.
Jun leans across the table as the musicians re-enter from a rear door to scattered applause. “It might not be much to look at, but this club has the best jazz in town. I know the sax player, that’s how I found out about this place.”
Satoshi sees him-the sax player, tall and lanky, with hair that is long enough that he has to shake it out of his eyes as he brings the saxophone to his lips. He blows out a few quick scales, warming up. Satoshi’s gaze slides past the bass player and the drummer, hard to make out in the low light, and then over to the pianist.
And the man sitting down at the piano is Nino.
Satoshi has just enough time for this realization before the drummer gives a quick count-“Two, three, four”-and the music starts. They begin with a piece that is upbeat and energetic, and couples rush the dance floor, more people than Satoshi had realized were in the club. Through the swaying bodies, Satoshi gets glimpses of the stage.
Nino smiles while he plays, that big whole-face smile that Satoshi has so rarely seen. Nino is in just a shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, no tie, and his hair is soft except for where it sticks to his temples with sweat from the heat of the lights. And now, of course, the way Nino is always moving his hands makes so much sense-it’s the way he’s moving them now, dancing across the keys in that familiar motion.
“What do you think?”
Satoshi blinks and turns to Jun, who’s watching him with just a hint of anxiousness in his eyes. Satoshi wonders for a moment if he should say something-but if Jun knows the sax player, maybe Jun knows the piano player, too, but if he doesn’t know that Nino is the piano player is also Ninomiya Kazunari, son of an accountant, maybe that’s not something Satoshi should reveal.
Instead, he smiles and says: “It’s wonderful.”
A few songs into the set, after their food has come and they’ve all time to eat and drink a bit and listen to the music, Sho pulls Jun out to the dance floor. (Sho is a terrible dancer, but he knows Jun loves it, so he always asks Jun to dance.) Satoshi gets a few hopeful invitations, but turns them all down, perfectly content to sit and sip his drink and watch Nino.
Because this is what he’s been looking for, he thinks, this is what Nino’s been holding back: this smile, this way of closing his eyes and leaning in, and these hands that can make music that jumps and slides and fills the room, music that gets into Satoshi’s skin and hums along his bones. He’s not worried about Nino seeing him-Nino never looks out at the audience, only at the piano, and sometimes at Aiba (which is what Jun calls the sax player during one of his brief returns to the table). Satoshi wonders if he should do something-move closer to the stage, make Nino see him. What would Nino do, then?
In the end, Satoshi doesn’t do anything. The set ends, the musicians take some bows and head for the door in the back. When Jun and Sho reappear at the table and tell him it’s time to go, Satoshi has had enough drinks to be too dizzy and happy to refuse, and anyway he can’t think of a good excuse to go looking for Nino. Maybe it can be a surprise for the next time they go out. He grins at the thought, and Jun, who is steadying Satoshi with an arm around his shoulder, grins back through the flush in his cheeks.
The chilly air outside sobers him a little, and once they clamber into Sho’s car, parked nearby, Satoshi leans his forehead against the cool window pane in the back seat. There are other cars in front of them, moving at a crawl because of all the people in the streets. They pass the club again, as they move back up the street. There are even more people here, milling around outside while they wait for the next set to start. Satoshi wishes he could stay for the next set, or maybe just stay all night, to watch Nino play.
Then, as they’re pulling away, Satoshi sees a pair of silhouettes in the alley next to the club. Something about them makes him sit up, take notice.
One of them is Nino, he realizes, leaning back against the wall of the club and looking up at someone taller who’s leaning over him with one arm on the wall-Aiba, the sax player, with his hair in his eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Satoshi watches as Nino steals the cigarette and takes a drag, blowing the smoke back in Aiba’s face and laughing. Just as the car turns the corner, Ohno is sure he sees Aiba lean in and steal a kiss in return.
And Nino doesn’t look like he minds at all.
This entry was originally posted at http://harinezumi-kun.dreamwidth.org/61165.html with
comments. Reply at original post.
rating: E for everyone
pairings: ohmiya, sakumoto, aimiya (!?)
notes: part three!! i just want to say, that i am having a really good time writing this, and it's the first time in a long time i've been able to do that ;_; this story has just gotten totally out of hand but i'm LOVING IT. also, quick warning, this part is long (~2100 words)
( first part)
( second part)
Satoshi looks forward to his outing with Jun and Sho all week. Right now, he’s looking forward to it more than ever, as this is perhaps the very last place he wants to be.
Not that it’s unreasonable or unusual for an engaged couple to make a winter visit to a hot spring. And the water is very nice, even with the funny smell. The view, too, is exceptional-this particular pool looks out over the mountainside and down into the snowy hills below, and there is even the dark shine of a frozen lake visible in the distance.
This is all more or less lost on Satoshi, however, because Ninomiya is sitting not five feet away, and they are both completely naked except for the thin towels around their waists. The water feels hotter than it should, even with the cold winter air as counterpoint.
“Really hot,” Satoshi mutters to himself, not meaning to speak aloud. He tips his head back onto the stone lip of the pool-the temperature must be addling his brain.
“Are you alright?” Ninomiya asks, and Satoshi glances over to see that Ninomiya has just the hint of a smirk on his face. Ninomiya, who is naked, whose pale shoulders are damp and coming up in a flush of pink that is starting to spread up his neck. Satoshi looks away again quickly.
“Fine,” he says. “It’s-it’s very nice.” He splashes a hand out of the water and makes a vague gesture at their surroundings.
Ninomiya hums in agreement. After a moment, he lays his own head back and closes his eyes. “Maybe a little embarrassing?”
Satoshi laughs, a surprised huff through his nose. It’s nice to know it’s not just him. “Maybe,” he agrees.
“Can’t be helped,” Ninomiya sighs. He lifts his wet hands and rubs them across his face and over his hair. “We don’t even-we’re still getting to know each other.”
Satoshi notices the pause. Can’t help but notice it, when it seems his every nerve ending is aware of Ninomiya-how close he is, the water droplets hanging from his eyelashes, the ripples he sends out across the water with each minute shift of his body. Satoshi wonders if Ninomiya feels the same way, but it doesn’t seem like it at all: the younger man is staring vacantly out into the trees, and his hands are doing that same skipping, fiddling dance beneath the water.
“Ninomiya-san,” Satoshi says eventually, softly, maybe again without really meaning to. “Don’t you want to get to know me?”
Suddenly, Ninomiya’s eyes refocus, snap back to Satoshi, and he looks almost…afraid.
“Because,” Satoshi continues, sitting up now and making himself meet Ninomiya’s gaze. “Because it just-it seems like, maybe…you’re holding back.”
For a few long moments that feel like an eternity, they just stare at each other. Then, without warning, Ninomiya stands and climbs out of the water. Satoshi hesitates for just a beat-he can see all of Ninomiya now, the whole dripping length of his compact body-but then jumps up to follow him. He catches Ninomiya by the elbow about halfway across the warm flagstones that lead back to the bath house proper.
Ninomiya stops immediately. He doesn’t try to jerk his arm out of Satoshi’s grip or storm off, so Satoshi tries again.
“You don’t have to,” he says, just the tips of his fingers holding Ninomiya’s arm. “I don’t want you to.”
They both stand there, streaming water, leaving matching puddles around their feet. Ninomiya stares straight ahead, brows knit, mouth a tight line. But then it all goes out of him-all the air, all the fight, in a long sigh-and his body relaxes as his eyes close.
“Sorry,” he whispers. He clears his throat and says again: “I’m sorry. You noticed, huh?”
Yes, Satoshi thinks. And realizes, he has been all along-he’s been noticing Ninomiya since they met, since that first time when Satoshi decided to keep staring instead of looking away. He noticed the way Ninomiya’s hands move, and the way his smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, and the way he’s holding back. There’s something about Ninomiya that makes him notice.
But Satoshi doesn’t say any of this, and Ninomiya keeps talking.'
“I didn’t want to get married, either, you know. It’s never something I’ve wanted, and I never-I didn’t pay attention to any of the people I was meeting at the omiai. I didn’t think it would matter, I could just keep ignoring them, but…” And he looks at Satoshi now, without turning his head, just out of the corner of his eye. “But then, it seemed like you didn’t want to, either, and I thought, at least…”
“We had something in common?” Satoshi finishes for him, smiling despite himself.
“Yeah,” Ninomiya says, almost a laugh.
Satoshi lets his hand drop away from Ninomiya’s arm, and Ninomiya watches the motion curiously. But Satoshi still waits. He waits until Ninomiya finally turns and meets his gaze.
“I-” Ninomiya starts, stops. He crosses his arms over his bare chest, and shivers in the cold air. “You can call me Nino. That’s-you should just call me Nino.”
Satoshi feels a shiver tremble across his own skin-the wind is so cold after the heat of the springs. That must be why. He feels a grin quirk one side of his mouth.
“You can call me Satoshi,” he says.
A sudden, surprising blush colors Ninomiya’s face, and he laughs nervously.
“Ah, oh. I-how about Oh-chan?”
Satoshi wrinkles his nose, but chuckles. “Gross.” It sounds like a nickname for a little kid, not for a thirty-year-old man.
“Oh-chan,” Ninomiya-Nino-repeats. And this time when he smiles, it takes up his whole face.
*
The suit Jun gave Satoshi for his birthday is, naturally, a perfect fit. Jun saw to it that everything was cut exactly to Satoshi’s measurements, but even so, it’s a strange feeling. The slacks that are snug to his legs, the shirt and jacket that hug his arms from shoulder to wrist, and a vest under that, and suspenders for his pants, garters for his socks, and the tie around his neck. It all just feels so much more constricting than a kimono, or the samue jacket and loose pants he usually wears at the workshop.
And, since it’s a special occasion, he put some pomade in his hair. It almost feels like he’s in disguise.
“That color suits you,” Jun says, not for the first time, looking Satoshi over with a self-satisfied grin.
Satoshi just smiles as he finishes shrugging out of his long trench coat and hanging it over the back of his chair. The suit is a pale ash-grey, the tie a dark plum color. Satoshi likes it, too, but he likes it because it came from Jun, and it makes Jun happy to see him wear it.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Sho asks, glancing around the club Jun has brought them to. It’s very small, smaller than Satoshi-and Sho, too, apparently-was expecting, only about a dozen tables scattered around a narrow dance floor, with a bar along one wall and a stage in the back. A haze of cigarette smoke fills the air. “Where’s the music?”
“The musicians must be on a break,” Jun says, then turns aside to hail a waitress and order them all drinks and some small dishes.
Satoshi looks back towards the stage-it’s small, like the rest of the club, with just enough room for a baby grand, a drum kit, and a double bass propped against the back wall. Before he can turn back to their drinks, which have just arrived, the lighting rig snaps to life in the rafters to cast a soft glow over the stage.
Jun leans across the table as the musicians re-enter from a rear door to scattered applause. “It might not be much to look at, but this club has the best jazz in town. I know the sax player, that’s how I found out about this place.”
Satoshi sees him-the sax player, tall and lanky, with hair that is long enough that he has to shake it out of his eyes as he brings the saxophone to his lips. He blows out a few quick scales, warming up. Satoshi’s gaze slides past the bass player and the drummer, hard to make out in the low light, and then over to the pianist.
And the man sitting down at the piano is Nino.
Satoshi has just enough time for this realization before the drummer gives a quick count-“Two, three, four”-and the music starts. They begin with a piece that is upbeat and energetic, and couples rush the dance floor, more people than Satoshi had realized were in the club. Through the swaying bodies, Satoshi gets glimpses of the stage.
Nino smiles while he plays, that big whole-face smile that Satoshi has so rarely seen. Nino is in just a shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, no tie, and his hair is soft except for where it sticks to his temples with sweat from the heat of the lights. And now, of course, the way Nino is always moving his hands makes so much sense-it’s the way he’s moving them now, dancing across the keys in that familiar motion.
“What do you think?”
Satoshi blinks and turns to Jun, who’s watching him with just a hint of anxiousness in his eyes. Satoshi wonders for a moment if he should say something-but if Jun knows the sax player, maybe Jun knows the piano player, too, but if he doesn’t know that Nino is the piano player is also Ninomiya Kazunari, son of an accountant, maybe that’s not something Satoshi should reveal.
Instead, he smiles and says: “It’s wonderful.”
A few songs into the set, after their food has come and they’ve all time to eat and drink a bit and listen to the music, Sho pulls Jun out to the dance floor. (Sho is a terrible dancer, but he knows Jun loves it, so he always asks Jun to dance.) Satoshi gets a few hopeful invitations, but turns them all down, perfectly content to sit and sip his drink and watch Nino.
Because this is what he’s been looking for, he thinks, this is what Nino’s been holding back: this smile, this way of closing his eyes and leaning in, and these hands that can make music that jumps and slides and fills the room, music that gets into Satoshi’s skin and hums along his bones. He’s not worried about Nino seeing him-Nino never looks out at the audience, only at the piano, and sometimes at Aiba (which is what Jun calls the sax player during one of his brief returns to the table). Satoshi wonders if he should do something-move closer to the stage, make Nino see him. What would Nino do, then?
In the end, Satoshi doesn’t do anything. The set ends, the musicians take some bows and head for the door in the back. When Jun and Sho reappear at the table and tell him it’s time to go, Satoshi has had enough drinks to be too dizzy and happy to refuse, and anyway he can’t think of a good excuse to go looking for Nino. Maybe it can be a surprise for the next time they go out. He grins at the thought, and Jun, who is steadying Satoshi with an arm around his shoulder, grins back through the flush in his cheeks.
The chilly air outside sobers him a little, and once they clamber into Sho’s car, parked nearby, Satoshi leans his forehead against the cool window pane in the back seat. There are other cars in front of them, moving at a crawl because of all the people in the streets. They pass the club again, as they move back up the street. There are even more people here, milling around outside while they wait for the next set to start. Satoshi wishes he could stay for the next set, or maybe just stay all night, to watch Nino play.
Then, as they’re pulling away, Satoshi sees a pair of silhouettes in the alley next to the club. Something about them makes him sit up, take notice.
One of them is Nino, he realizes, leaning back against the wall of the club and looking up at someone taller who’s leaning over him with one arm on the wall-Aiba, the sax player, with his hair in his eyes and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Satoshi watches as Nino steals the cigarette and takes a drag, blowing the smoke back in Aiba’s face and laughing. Just as the car turns the corner, Ohno is sure he sees Aiba lean in and steal a kiss in return.
And Nino doesn’t look like he minds at all.
This entry was originally posted at http://harinezumi-kun.dreamwidth.org/61165.html with
comments. Reply at original post.