Just a Little Sweetness in My Step - JE - PG
Title: Just a Little Sweetness in My Step
Pairing/Group: Nakamaru/Massu
Rating: PG
Warnings: Pure, unadulterated sap.
Notes: Thank you to maya-morning for my last minute beta: you rescued me! Written for je_holiday for the 2009 exchange for speckled_writer, I hope this lives up to your exacting standards for both Massu and Maru.
Summary: Nakamaru doesn’t mind all of his ridiculous sweet tendencies as long as Massu doesn’t either.
Nakamaru knows Massu is on tour with NEWS and won't be home, but surprisingly exactly no one, Nakamaru is a total sap and wants to do something sweet for Massu to come home to. To that end, Nakamaru writes a simple note that just says "I love you," in it, but ends up pitching it cause he's emailed Massu's phone twice already today saying the same thing and doesn't want to get repetitive unless he's going to be around to see the benefits of it himself. The way Massu's smile lights up his face should probably be considered a controlled substance considering what it does to Nakamaru. In the end, Nakamaru settles on "Thinking about you," because he figures whenever Massu actually opens the note, it'll be true.
Nakamaru slips the note (in a plain, sealed envelope-no reason for anyone else to get into it) into Massu's mailbox-or he tries to-but the sharp-eyed little old lady next door eyes him the whole time like he's some sort of foreign spy sent to destroy Japan one pop idol at a time.
"Masuda-san is away for work," she says. Her voice is high and reedy, and puts Nakamaru in mind of creaky stairs. Her glare is no less suspicious than it was before she spoke.
"Ah, yes, I know," Nakamaru starts, but the line of the old lady's mouth thins out and Nakamaru decides it's best to change tacks. "I'm a colleague from Massu's-Masuda-kun's work," he self-corrects to try to make her old stare a little less baleful, which doesn't work at all. Nakamaru turns up his innocent charm. "I'm leaving for work shortly before he gets back. I just wanted to make sure he got this letter safely."
The little old lady's eyes sharpen, but this time it's calculating instead of accusing. Gossip alert. Nakamaru rushed on before she could offer to keep it to give to Massu when he got back. No matter what it was, grocery list or plans for world domination, she'd have it steamed open the moment Nakamaru set foot in the stairwell, and would be gossiping with her old friends about "that nice young man next door," another ten minutes after that. Nakamaru was pretty sure Massu didn't want any romance scandals for Christmas this year. "But it's not very important and I see that I should just keep it until I run into him again. It would probably save time too; I think we'll both be in the same town next week."
Nakamaru smiles, all trustworthy young man, and says, "Good day, ma'am" and hastily beats his retreat.
*
Nakamaru is not supposed to be backstage tonight. He's not even supposed to be in this city, much less sneaking around back stage at the NEWS concert, but Takamori-san with security knew him and let him in. Not like they were discouraged from going to each other's events anyway. It was just that, you know, usually they stayed out front in the audience until they were dragged on stage amid exuberant fangirl delight, not skulking around backstage in Sendai the night before Cartoon KAT-TUN filming in Tokyo without anyone knowing they were there. Nakamaru was pretty sure his manager frowned on that sort of thing.
Clothing wracks, chaos, and by the sound of music echoing down through the wings, Massu's solo was just finishing up. At least Nakamaru didn't miss it. The fifteen minute break Massu had to change and rehydrate that he got after his solo, that is. Massu texts him from that break a lot. Nakamaru might have the timing a little bit memorized, automatic mental calculations based on the start of the concert. Nakamaru doesn't plan on letting Massu know that anytime soon. It's just a little bit too embarrassing.
Nakamaru has a moment when Massu pops into NEWS's dressing room, where he thinks 'fuck, what am I doing here? What if he doesn't want to see me?' Massu's eyes are kind of blank with shock, like he sees Nakamaru sitting on the make-up counter in his dressing room, but it can't actually be Nakamaru sitting on the make-up counter in his dressing room because they're in Sendai and Nakamaru is supposed to be in Tokyo. A smile breaks over Massu's face then, though, and relief flows through Nakamaru like air, even if he does feel a little stupid.
Massu bounds across the room. Nakamaru meets him part way by negotiating around a low, cluttered table, and saving Massu the trouble. Massu's hair is dark and stuck to the sides of his face with sweat. He's drenched in it, naturally, after all the stage lights and dancing, and there are a couple of loose feathers stuck in his hair that must have come off the fuchsia feather boa sewn into the shoulder of his costume.
Nakamaru picks them out absently. Massu is smiling at him, and he's gorgeous.
"What are you doing here?" Massu asks, still clearly pleased, but just as clearly curious.
Nakamaru hadn't thought that far. He's not sure how you can classify driving over three hours as spur of the moment, but it was. He'd just kind of gotten on the road on impulse that afternoon thinking, I can be in Sendai in time for the concert. Once he got there, there was no way he was scalping a ticket off one of the fangirls out front; at the very least, another desperate fan would probably have cut him to get it first, so he snuck in. It just kind of happened.
Nakamaru doesn't have a good answer, or at least, not one that makes any sense if he says it out loud, so he goes with the truth. "I, err, well. I missed you."
Massu beams at him. He doesn't duck his face into Nakamaru's shoulder or even kiss him-nothing to hide his face or how Nakamaru's answer made him happy. Straightforward and unashamed. Nakamaru has always loved that about Massu.
Nakamaru ducks his head a little to press a kiss to Massu's lips, when Ryo and Tegoshi push into the room, stripping as they go, and Nakamaru pulls back a little guiltily. How he's managed, he doesn't know, but Nakamaru had almost forgotten Massu's in the middle of a concert. Massu leans up and pulls him back in for the aborted kiss, but it's short and sweet.
"You've got less than five minutes to change, Massu. Save your saccharine gay love for after the concert," Ryo says, hastily pulling on a costume top.
Massu pulls away and starts pulling layers off his costume only to replace them with a set that matches Ryo's. "Can you?" he asks Nakamaru, who looks blankly back at him for a moment. "Stay until after the show, that is," Massu clarifies.
"Oh, actually, I can't. I'm supposed to be in Tokyo for filming tomorrow morning," Nakamaru replies.
Ryo actually stops in the middle of pulling up his pants to stare at Nakamaru. "You mean you drove three and a half hours up here for a ten minute break...just so you can drive three and a half hours back to Tokyo again?" He looks absolutely incredulous. "This is ridiculous! I can't believe it!'
Ryo yanks his pants up the rest of the way and finishes fastening them at the top, and then storms out of the room like breathing the same air as they are is like someone forcing him to each straight spoonfuls of sugar.
Massu finishes getting dressed quickly and drops another kiss on Nakamaru's lips. "I'll send you a text when we're done. Make sure you let me know you've gotten home safely; don't worry about waking me up." He smiles, and then he's out the dressing room door.
Tegoshi saunters over to touch up his hair in the mirror behind Nakamaru. "Hey, Nakamaru," he says, messing with this bangs, "Don't mind Ryo, ok? He's just jealous." Tegoshi actually winks at him before he leaves for the stage, leaving Nakamaru with that giddy feeling he can't seem to shake and a couple of bedraggled, damp feathers still clutched in his hand.
*
Nakamaru tucks the feathers in his pocket, mostly absentmindedly. A way to clear his hands. Then he gets lost on his way out of Sendai and ends up looping back away from the highway he was trying to get on and wandering through some confusing back streets even more narrow than the ones in Tokyo and forgets all about them. It only takes him twenty minutes and a friendly local woman with a bag of groceries to get him back to the right road home.
He finds them again, no longer damp, but definitely more crushed two days later when he finally gets around to doing laundry. He's standing in front of his washer, going through his pockets for misplaced bills and loose change and comes up with a couple of bright blue costume feathers. Irrationally, the color reminds him a little of the sea when he'd taken Massu to Okinawa. It wasn't really, but Nakamaru always thinks about that trip as the start of their relationship. Important because Massu said he'd go with him, first trip anywhere that wasn't for work.
It seems kind of silly to stick the feathers in his pocket again, even just long enough to finish loading the washer, particularly because he's just taken them out of the pocket of a different pair of pants; they'd probably end up in the same place, getting fished out of a pocket in front of the washing machine next week. He should probably just throw them away-they're junk. Debris. Little things like this come off costumes all the time, and parts like this aren't big or important enough to bother trying to re-attach.
Sighing, Nakamaru drops the pair of jeans he's holding and walks the four steps through the hallway into the kitchen where there's a trash can. He pops the lid of the trash can with his foot. Burnable garbage. The detritus of life in show biz. Except, he sees the sand on the beach and the blue, blue ocean, and the blue, blue sky, neither of which is really the right color for this. And he sees Massu's face, surprised and ecstatic to see him, beaded with sweat and a couple of feathers stuck in his hair. And Nakamaru really can't throw them out after all.
He tucks them back into a pocket, but reminds himself to remember them this time. Nakamaru goes back to his laundry. He finishes loading the washing machine, and takes the wet pile of clean clothes he'd gotten out of the machine out to the balcony to hang them up to dry.
When he finishes with that, he takes the two feathers back out of his pocket, and, for lack of a better place to keep them, tapes them into his journal to keep them safe. Impulsively, he writes 'New Okinawa' underneath, like that makes any sense.
*
NEWS's tour ends. Massu, Tegoshi, Shige and Koyama get their variety show, and it's kind of nice, for Nakamaru, knowing Massu's schedule. Nakamaru spent a lot of time at Massu's place, if they didn't spend the day out, but Massu spent more at Nakamaru's. His neighbours really were far too nosy, and neither of them could use that kind of press. Cute shopping trips were one thing; the 'suspicious noises Massu and his friends make at night' were another entirely.
Nakamaru invites Massu over for dinner, some European soup thing his mother sends him the recipe for and tells him to share. Usually cooking something so complicated is too much trouble, but Massu said he'd stay over for the weekend, even though they're both in Tokyo, even though it's nothing special, no special occasion, and that all by itself makes the weekend just about as special as any of Nakamaru's can get. So Nakamaru goes to the grocery store when he gets out of the Jimusho that day, and is cutting veggies in the kitchen when Massu buzzes him from the lobby.
Nakamaru sets the knife on the edge of the cutting board farthest away from the edge of the counter-no accidents tonight-and wipes his hands off on a dish towel so he can go let Massu know he can come up and then let him in the front door. Mister follows him to the door, and runs excited circles around Massu's ankles as he steps inside.
Massu leaves his shoes by the front door and his coat folded up over the back of the couch and follows Nakamaru back into the kitchen. Nakamaru pauses by the refrigerator as Massu settles into one of the seats by the kitchen table.
"Want anything to drink?" Nakamaru asks, one hand on the fridge door.
"I'm good for now," Massu replies. "Can I help with anything?"
"Just sit tight." Nakamaru waves Massu back down and turns back to the carrots and potatoes on the counter. Massu tells Nakamaru about his day, filming and guests. Massu is halfway through funny stories from when the cameras weren't rolling when Nakamaru realizes he doesn't remember how high the stove top's supposed to be. He's got half his ingredients in the pot already, and is tipping a cutting boardful of sliced vegetables in as it hits him, so he sends Massu into his bedroom to double check the recipe.
"Where is it?" Massu calls back out into the hallway.
"Um," Nakamaru thinks a minute. "I think I tucked it into that book on my desk."
There are actually two books on Nakamaru's desk, and the first one Massu opens isn't the right one. It's got a few papers sticking out of random pages, so Massu flips through it. The first two are concert tickets-one to a band Nakamaru likes, and the other to KAT-TUN's concert from this past year. The next page the journal falls open to has a couple of kind of tattered, bright blue feathers taped to it. "New Okinawa" is written beneath them, and suddenly Massu realizes they're from one of his costumes from his last con, that Nakamaru had kept them, had even taped them into his journal like they were something precious.
"What's the temperature?" Nakamaru calls again, and Massu remembers what he's supposed to be looking for. He flips through the rest of the journal quickly, but the recipe doesn't seem to be tucked inside. Massu drops the journal in a rush when he spots the book on the other side of the desk, and flips through that, careful not to knock any of the loose pages out. This one is actually a recipe book, not often used, and the recipe Massu is looking for is last, slid into a clear slip cover designed to keep food spatter off the recipe card.
"Um, um, it says 'Bring to a boil.'" Massu calls back, then, "'Reduce to medium high, simmer for an hour.'" Massu brings the recipe book back into the kitchen with him and sets it on the counter open to the right page for easy reference.
Nakamaru waits until the pot gets to a rolling boil, and then turns the heat down. "Well, looks like we've got an hour, at least. Want to watch a movie?"
Massu cues up the movie, and then settles on the couch next to Nakamaru, Mister curled up in his lap.
*
Nakamaru wakes up once in the night, if you can call it that. Closer to morning, with the sun edging just on the other side of the horizon, sky not pink and gold but a strangely bright grey, lit up from nowhere. Massu rolls over, and the movement must have been what wakes Nakamaru up, just enough to remember later.
Massu drops a kiss between Nakamaru's shoulder blades, then wraps his arms around Nakamaru's waist, pulling Massu closer to Nakamaru rather than dragging Nakamaru to him, knees tucked in close behind his. It's warm and comfortable, long line of heat all down Nakamaru's back, contact on the back of Nakamaru's thighs and down near his ankles. The bed's too small for the both of them, really, but it's perfect, just like that.
*
Massu hauls Nakamaru out of bed well before he really wants to be awake. It's not early, but it's not late, and most of Nakamaru's nebulous plans for the weekend involve a lazy Saturday spent in bed. The bed in Nakamaru's imagination is a little bit wider, but this one works just fine for nearly all of Nakamaru's wants and needs.
Those don't matter though, in the face of Massu's insistence, genial but really quite firm. He's easygoing, most of the time, but he also knows how to stand up for what he wants, and Nakamaru was never good at denying him to begin with. So Nakamaru gets out of bed, and into some clothes that probably mostly match. Massu bundles him into a car and they're on the road and heading for the city limits before Nakamaru really acknowledges the fact that yes, he is conscious and no, he's not in bed with Massu like he's supposed to be.
The drive isn't long, not really. Not like the drive up to Sendai, which had seemed to take hardly any time at all because he was so stupidly excited about getting to see Massu after going so long on emails and phone calls. Not like the same drive back, which had seemed so much longer when he was going the wrong way-away. It is long enough that the purr of the engine and the buzz of the radio turned too low to really listen to lulls Nakamaru into drowsiness and Massu tells him he can sleep for a while. Nakamaru kind of wants to bottle the fond look on Massu's face and keep it for later, but relaxes against the back of the passenger seat knowing that Massu will always have another one for him later.
The sudden absence of motion when the engine stops doesn't wake Nakamaru up, not quite. Maybe it's the sound of Massu's door shutting, or the difference in quality of silence between being in a car with someone else and being in a car by yourself, even if the other person is being quiet. Either way, it has Nakamaru stirring in the front seat, trying to figure out where Massu is and where they are on not enough processing speed.
Massu taps his fingers against the glass of Nakamaru's window before Nakamaru has to spend too much time wondering. He's got a yellow scarf wrapped around his neck and his hair, caught in a stiff breeze, blows around his face, so Nakamaru pulls on his own scarf before he climbs out of the car.
They're at the beach-cold and windy winter beach. It's practically deserted, like the wind scoured it clean of tourists, but the sky is clear and Nakamaru feels like, in this one little slice, he can see out to the edge of the world.
Massu moves out from in front of him, and leans up against his side, hand seeking his and slotting their fingers together. "So, I know it's not Okinawa."
Nakamaru squeezes Massu's hand briefly, smiling at the salty sea air and the bright blue sky. "No, it's better."
Pairing/Group: Nakamaru/Massu
Rating: PG
Warnings: Pure, unadulterated sap.
Notes: Thank you to maya-morning for my last minute beta: you rescued me! Written for je_holiday for the 2009 exchange for speckled_writer, I hope this lives up to your exacting standards for both Massu and Maru.
Summary: Nakamaru doesn’t mind all of his ridiculous sweet tendencies as long as Massu doesn’t either.
Nakamaru knows Massu is on tour with NEWS and won't be home, but surprisingly exactly no one, Nakamaru is a total sap and wants to do something sweet for Massu to come home to. To that end, Nakamaru writes a simple note that just says "I love you," in it, but ends up pitching it cause he's emailed Massu's phone twice already today saying the same thing and doesn't want to get repetitive unless he's going to be around to see the benefits of it himself. The way Massu's smile lights up his face should probably be considered a controlled substance considering what it does to Nakamaru. In the end, Nakamaru settles on "Thinking about you," because he figures whenever Massu actually opens the note, it'll be true.
Nakamaru slips the note (in a plain, sealed envelope-no reason for anyone else to get into it) into Massu's mailbox-or he tries to-but the sharp-eyed little old lady next door eyes him the whole time like he's some sort of foreign spy sent to destroy Japan one pop idol at a time.
"Masuda-san is away for work," she says. Her voice is high and reedy, and puts Nakamaru in mind of creaky stairs. Her glare is no less suspicious than it was before she spoke.
"Ah, yes, I know," Nakamaru starts, but the line of the old lady's mouth thins out and Nakamaru decides it's best to change tacks. "I'm a colleague from Massu's-Masuda-kun's work," he self-corrects to try to make her old stare a little less baleful, which doesn't work at all. Nakamaru turns up his innocent charm. "I'm leaving for work shortly before he gets back. I just wanted to make sure he got this letter safely."
The little old lady's eyes sharpen, but this time it's calculating instead of accusing. Gossip alert. Nakamaru rushed on before she could offer to keep it to give to Massu when he got back. No matter what it was, grocery list or plans for world domination, she'd have it steamed open the moment Nakamaru set foot in the stairwell, and would be gossiping with her old friends about "that nice young man next door," another ten minutes after that. Nakamaru was pretty sure Massu didn't want any romance scandals for Christmas this year. "But it's not very important and I see that I should just keep it until I run into him again. It would probably save time too; I think we'll both be in the same town next week."
Nakamaru smiles, all trustworthy young man, and says, "Good day, ma'am" and hastily beats his retreat.
*
Nakamaru is not supposed to be backstage tonight. He's not even supposed to be in this city, much less sneaking around back stage at the NEWS concert, but Takamori-san with security knew him and let him in. Not like they were discouraged from going to each other's events anyway. It was just that, you know, usually they stayed out front in the audience until they were dragged on stage amid exuberant fangirl delight, not skulking around backstage in Sendai the night before Cartoon KAT-TUN filming in Tokyo without anyone knowing they were there. Nakamaru was pretty sure his manager frowned on that sort of thing.
Clothing wracks, chaos, and by the sound of music echoing down through the wings, Massu's solo was just finishing up. At least Nakamaru didn't miss it. The fifteen minute break Massu had to change and rehydrate that he got after his solo, that is. Massu texts him from that break a lot. Nakamaru might have the timing a little bit memorized, automatic mental calculations based on the start of the concert. Nakamaru doesn't plan on letting Massu know that anytime soon. It's just a little bit too embarrassing.
Nakamaru has a moment when Massu pops into NEWS's dressing room, where he thinks 'fuck, what am I doing here? What if he doesn't want to see me?' Massu's eyes are kind of blank with shock, like he sees Nakamaru sitting on the make-up counter in his dressing room, but it can't actually be Nakamaru sitting on the make-up counter in his dressing room because they're in Sendai and Nakamaru is supposed to be in Tokyo. A smile breaks over Massu's face then, though, and relief flows through Nakamaru like air, even if he does feel a little stupid.
Massu bounds across the room. Nakamaru meets him part way by negotiating around a low, cluttered table, and saving Massu the trouble. Massu's hair is dark and stuck to the sides of his face with sweat. He's drenched in it, naturally, after all the stage lights and dancing, and there are a couple of loose feathers stuck in his hair that must have come off the fuchsia feather boa sewn into the shoulder of his costume.
Nakamaru picks them out absently. Massu is smiling at him, and he's gorgeous.
"What are you doing here?" Massu asks, still clearly pleased, but just as clearly curious.
Nakamaru hadn't thought that far. He's not sure how you can classify driving over three hours as spur of the moment, but it was. He'd just kind of gotten on the road on impulse that afternoon thinking, I can be in Sendai in time for the concert. Once he got there, there was no way he was scalping a ticket off one of the fangirls out front; at the very least, another desperate fan would probably have cut him to get it first, so he snuck in. It just kind of happened.
Nakamaru doesn't have a good answer, or at least, not one that makes any sense if he says it out loud, so he goes with the truth. "I, err, well. I missed you."
Massu beams at him. He doesn't duck his face into Nakamaru's shoulder or even kiss him-nothing to hide his face or how Nakamaru's answer made him happy. Straightforward and unashamed. Nakamaru has always loved that about Massu.
Nakamaru ducks his head a little to press a kiss to Massu's lips, when Ryo and Tegoshi push into the room, stripping as they go, and Nakamaru pulls back a little guiltily. How he's managed, he doesn't know, but Nakamaru had almost forgotten Massu's in the middle of a concert. Massu leans up and pulls him back in for the aborted kiss, but it's short and sweet.
"You've got less than five minutes to change, Massu. Save your saccharine gay love for after the concert," Ryo says, hastily pulling on a costume top.
Massu pulls away and starts pulling layers off his costume only to replace them with a set that matches Ryo's. "Can you?" he asks Nakamaru, who looks blankly back at him for a moment. "Stay until after the show, that is," Massu clarifies.
"Oh, actually, I can't. I'm supposed to be in Tokyo for filming tomorrow morning," Nakamaru replies.
Ryo actually stops in the middle of pulling up his pants to stare at Nakamaru. "You mean you drove three and a half hours up here for a ten minute break...just so you can drive three and a half hours back to Tokyo again?" He looks absolutely incredulous. "This is ridiculous! I can't believe it!'
Ryo yanks his pants up the rest of the way and finishes fastening them at the top, and then storms out of the room like breathing the same air as they are is like someone forcing him to each straight spoonfuls of sugar.
Massu finishes getting dressed quickly and drops another kiss on Nakamaru's lips. "I'll send you a text when we're done. Make sure you let me know you've gotten home safely; don't worry about waking me up." He smiles, and then he's out the dressing room door.
Tegoshi saunters over to touch up his hair in the mirror behind Nakamaru. "Hey, Nakamaru," he says, messing with this bangs, "Don't mind Ryo, ok? He's just jealous." Tegoshi actually winks at him before he leaves for the stage, leaving Nakamaru with that giddy feeling he can't seem to shake and a couple of bedraggled, damp feathers still clutched in his hand.
*
Nakamaru tucks the feathers in his pocket, mostly absentmindedly. A way to clear his hands. Then he gets lost on his way out of Sendai and ends up looping back away from the highway he was trying to get on and wandering through some confusing back streets even more narrow than the ones in Tokyo and forgets all about them. It only takes him twenty minutes and a friendly local woman with a bag of groceries to get him back to the right road home.
He finds them again, no longer damp, but definitely more crushed two days later when he finally gets around to doing laundry. He's standing in front of his washer, going through his pockets for misplaced bills and loose change and comes up with a couple of bright blue costume feathers. Irrationally, the color reminds him a little of the sea when he'd taken Massu to Okinawa. It wasn't really, but Nakamaru always thinks about that trip as the start of their relationship. Important because Massu said he'd go with him, first trip anywhere that wasn't for work.
It seems kind of silly to stick the feathers in his pocket again, even just long enough to finish loading the washer, particularly because he's just taken them out of the pocket of a different pair of pants; they'd probably end up in the same place, getting fished out of a pocket in front of the washing machine next week. He should probably just throw them away-they're junk. Debris. Little things like this come off costumes all the time, and parts like this aren't big or important enough to bother trying to re-attach.
Sighing, Nakamaru drops the pair of jeans he's holding and walks the four steps through the hallway into the kitchen where there's a trash can. He pops the lid of the trash can with his foot. Burnable garbage. The detritus of life in show biz. Except, he sees the sand on the beach and the blue, blue ocean, and the blue, blue sky, neither of which is really the right color for this. And he sees Massu's face, surprised and ecstatic to see him, beaded with sweat and a couple of feathers stuck in his hair. And Nakamaru really can't throw them out after all.
He tucks them back into a pocket, but reminds himself to remember them this time. Nakamaru goes back to his laundry. He finishes loading the washing machine, and takes the wet pile of clean clothes he'd gotten out of the machine out to the balcony to hang them up to dry.
When he finishes with that, he takes the two feathers back out of his pocket, and, for lack of a better place to keep them, tapes them into his journal to keep them safe. Impulsively, he writes 'New Okinawa' underneath, like that makes any sense.
*
NEWS's tour ends. Massu, Tegoshi, Shige and Koyama get their variety show, and it's kind of nice, for Nakamaru, knowing Massu's schedule. Nakamaru spent a lot of time at Massu's place, if they didn't spend the day out, but Massu spent more at Nakamaru's. His neighbours really were far too nosy, and neither of them could use that kind of press. Cute shopping trips were one thing; the 'suspicious noises Massu and his friends make at night' were another entirely.
Nakamaru invites Massu over for dinner, some European soup thing his mother sends him the recipe for and tells him to share. Usually cooking something so complicated is too much trouble, but Massu said he'd stay over for the weekend, even though they're both in Tokyo, even though it's nothing special, no special occasion, and that all by itself makes the weekend just about as special as any of Nakamaru's can get. So Nakamaru goes to the grocery store when he gets out of the Jimusho that day, and is cutting veggies in the kitchen when Massu buzzes him from the lobby.
Nakamaru sets the knife on the edge of the cutting board farthest away from the edge of the counter-no accidents tonight-and wipes his hands off on a dish towel so he can go let Massu know he can come up and then let him in the front door. Mister follows him to the door, and runs excited circles around Massu's ankles as he steps inside.
Massu leaves his shoes by the front door and his coat folded up over the back of the couch and follows Nakamaru back into the kitchen. Nakamaru pauses by the refrigerator as Massu settles into one of the seats by the kitchen table.
"Want anything to drink?" Nakamaru asks, one hand on the fridge door.
"I'm good for now," Massu replies. "Can I help with anything?"
"Just sit tight." Nakamaru waves Massu back down and turns back to the carrots and potatoes on the counter. Massu tells Nakamaru about his day, filming and guests. Massu is halfway through funny stories from when the cameras weren't rolling when Nakamaru realizes he doesn't remember how high the stove top's supposed to be. He's got half his ingredients in the pot already, and is tipping a cutting boardful of sliced vegetables in as it hits him, so he sends Massu into his bedroom to double check the recipe.
"Where is it?" Massu calls back out into the hallway.
"Um," Nakamaru thinks a minute. "I think I tucked it into that book on my desk."
There are actually two books on Nakamaru's desk, and the first one Massu opens isn't the right one. It's got a few papers sticking out of random pages, so Massu flips through it. The first two are concert tickets-one to a band Nakamaru likes, and the other to KAT-TUN's concert from this past year. The next page the journal falls open to has a couple of kind of tattered, bright blue feathers taped to it. "New Okinawa" is written beneath them, and suddenly Massu realizes they're from one of his costumes from his last con, that Nakamaru had kept them, had even taped them into his journal like they were something precious.
"What's the temperature?" Nakamaru calls again, and Massu remembers what he's supposed to be looking for. He flips through the rest of the journal quickly, but the recipe doesn't seem to be tucked inside. Massu drops the journal in a rush when he spots the book on the other side of the desk, and flips through that, careful not to knock any of the loose pages out. This one is actually a recipe book, not often used, and the recipe Massu is looking for is last, slid into a clear slip cover designed to keep food spatter off the recipe card.
"Um, um, it says 'Bring to a boil.'" Massu calls back, then, "'Reduce to medium high, simmer for an hour.'" Massu brings the recipe book back into the kitchen with him and sets it on the counter open to the right page for easy reference.
Nakamaru waits until the pot gets to a rolling boil, and then turns the heat down. "Well, looks like we've got an hour, at least. Want to watch a movie?"
Massu cues up the movie, and then settles on the couch next to Nakamaru, Mister curled up in his lap.
*
Nakamaru wakes up once in the night, if you can call it that. Closer to morning, with the sun edging just on the other side of the horizon, sky not pink and gold but a strangely bright grey, lit up from nowhere. Massu rolls over, and the movement must have been what wakes Nakamaru up, just enough to remember later.
Massu drops a kiss between Nakamaru's shoulder blades, then wraps his arms around Nakamaru's waist, pulling Massu closer to Nakamaru rather than dragging Nakamaru to him, knees tucked in close behind his. It's warm and comfortable, long line of heat all down Nakamaru's back, contact on the back of Nakamaru's thighs and down near his ankles. The bed's too small for the both of them, really, but it's perfect, just like that.
*
Massu hauls Nakamaru out of bed well before he really wants to be awake. It's not early, but it's not late, and most of Nakamaru's nebulous plans for the weekend involve a lazy Saturday spent in bed. The bed in Nakamaru's imagination is a little bit wider, but this one works just fine for nearly all of Nakamaru's wants and needs.
Those don't matter though, in the face of Massu's insistence, genial but really quite firm. He's easygoing, most of the time, but he also knows how to stand up for what he wants, and Nakamaru was never good at denying him to begin with. So Nakamaru gets out of bed, and into some clothes that probably mostly match. Massu bundles him into a car and they're on the road and heading for the city limits before Nakamaru really acknowledges the fact that yes, he is conscious and no, he's not in bed with Massu like he's supposed to be.
The drive isn't long, not really. Not like the drive up to Sendai, which had seemed to take hardly any time at all because he was so stupidly excited about getting to see Massu after going so long on emails and phone calls. Not like the same drive back, which had seemed so much longer when he was going the wrong way-away. It is long enough that the purr of the engine and the buzz of the radio turned too low to really listen to lulls Nakamaru into drowsiness and Massu tells him he can sleep for a while. Nakamaru kind of wants to bottle the fond look on Massu's face and keep it for later, but relaxes against the back of the passenger seat knowing that Massu will always have another one for him later.
The sudden absence of motion when the engine stops doesn't wake Nakamaru up, not quite. Maybe it's the sound of Massu's door shutting, or the difference in quality of silence between being in a car with someone else and being in a car by yourself, even if the other person is being quiet. Either way, it has Nakamaru stirring in the front seat, trying to figure out where Massu is and where they are on not enough processing speed.
Massu taps his fingers against the glass of Nakamaru's window before Nakamaru has to spend too much time wondering. He's got a yellow scarf wrapped around his neck and his hair, caught in a stiff breeze, blows around his face, so Nakamaru pulls on his own scarf before he climbs out of the car.
They're at the beach-cold and windy winter beach. It's practically deserted, like the wind scoured it clean of tourists, but the sky is clear and Nakamaru feels like, in this one little slice, he can see out to the edge of the world.
Massu moves out from in front of him, and leans up against his side, hand seeking his and slotting their fingers together. "So, I know it's not Okinawa."
Nakamaru squeezes Massu's hand briefly, smiling at the salty sea air and the bright blue sky. "No, it's better."