Human Error - 04, 05, 06. (Arashi)
Title: Human Error
Pairing: Ohno x Nino
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Parts 4-6 of an AU series. Ohno's life has reached a peak in monotony, but a chance meeting has the potential to change it all. (More parts to come later).
04.
Fall arrived. Ohno only noticed when he was putting his shoes on for work, squatting near the front door and tugging uselessly at his socks.
"Ah," He murmured, slicking hair from his eyes. "It looks windy today."
As Ohno reached for his dark embroidered scarf, his thoughts went not to the tasks of the day but to Ninomiya, sitting outside. Would he have a scarf to use? Did he own a heavier jacket? Would it rain, with giant puddles to engulf his tattered white sneakers and drown his old brown guitar case?
"You've forgotten your lunch again," Ohno's mother said, coming up behind him with a rueful smile. She adjusted the folds of his jacket.
"Thank you, mother," He said, the scarf already tossed and weighted around his neck. "I'll be late again tonight."
"Okay," She replied, her hands rung in the edges of her apron as Ohno stepped out the door. "Be careful."
Sitting on the table near the front door, where piles of old magazines, framed photographs, and enveloped mail sat, was a bundle of sheet music stacked within a solid black binder. The price tag, a little yellow sticker, was still stuck to the cover.
It caught a curious gaze.
05.
"What's that, Nino?"
The wind felt nice against his skin. The open air tasted salty, like a splash of ocean water, cold and smooth against his lips. It made him smile, and Ninomiya laughed.
"Don't you have better things to do?" He inquired, brushing strands of brown hair out of the light of his eyes. Ohno shook his head with a giddy sort of smile, and instantly straightened his back riding up against the cement of the station wall. Ninomiya shook his head.
For three weeks, Ohno had visited him every day after work. He didn't complain about sitting for hours, and he didn't always speak. Sometimes, it was enough for Ohno to close his eyes and listen to the weave of notes in Ninomiya's voice, imagining floating frames of pictures in full pastel colour and faded chalked paint. He especially liked the song Ninomiya would sing just as the sunlight faded away--it was quiet, and composed almost entirely in a range that made Ohno think of swans and flowered lily pads, a bird couple enamored with each other, their beaks just barely touching in affection with shadows of feathers dancing primly in the water below.
He wondered if maybe he could draw that. Drawing had always intrigued him.
"No, Nino, what is that?" Ohno had produced the nickname four days ago, and despite complaints, used it regularly. "A disc?"
"It's a CD," Ninomiya finally replied, after giving Ohno's shoulder a rather friendly push. "I've got a friend who's going to pass it along to a recording place. See if they like it."
Brimming with excitement, Ohno snatched the jeweled case up in both hands. "Really? You recorded this then, really? When? Where? Did you do it while I was at work? How--"
Another pair of hands tugged incessantly at the case. "You worry too much about the past and don't concentrate enough on the now. Aren't you going to ask me what's on it?"
Ohno turned those words over in his head, solemn and quiet for a moment. "Well, does it really matter what's on it? I don't know any of your songs by the titles."
His heart rabbited in his throat as Ninomiya's face softened, a deep, sensitive smile.
"You're right," Ninomiya murmured, and plucked at the lowest string absently. Ohno found his eyes drawn to that hand, because it curbed the excitement bubbling in his stomach, the hot feeling that raced through his veins at the flash of Ninomiya's smile in his memory. His fingers itched. He felt like he needed to trace the outline in thin air, as if then, it would appear before him in full frame, inked and traced over and over again with smudges of black, brown, and gray.
The back of his hands settled against the fabric of his pant legs. He took a breath.
But there was something peculiar then, something that struck in his mind, and Ohno gestured slightly to the disc still being overturned in his own hands.
"Why doesn't it have a cover?" Ohno asked.
"A cover?" Ninomiya repeated, sweeping bangs from his face again as he turned to look at him.
"Yeah, you know...." Fidgeting, Ohno set the case down in his palm, feeling the warmth of it soak into his fingers. "When you buy a CD, it has a cover, right? Singles do, anyway, and then sometimes they...have a back, right? With...pictures, and titles, and...You know?"
Sucking on his lip, he finally looked to Ninomiya, expecting the worse. Instead, his eyes met with another pair, blinking rapidly in consideration.
"Make me a cover then," Ninomiya finally said. "Just a cover."
Ohno's protests were covered by the sound of a girl's voice shyly requesting a song on the guitar.
06.
It needed to be unique. Studying the cases in rows upon rows of used singles and albums, he finally realized this. The product was not something that could always be sampled in the store--rather, purchases had to depend on the quality presented on the outside, and competition was fierce.
As Ohno produced the square of paper from his briefcase, cased in a sheet of plastic, his face swelled with pride.
It was watercolor. Watercolor, because he had a set left over from high school and it was the only thing he could smuggle into his room without being questioned and berated. Up in the attic, searching for his school supplies, he had become familiar with box after box of paints, brushes, pastels and ink pens. They were from his sister--she ran a small flower shop outside of Tokyo, and as a child, she had sketched image after image of the kind of arrangements she'd create and sell.
But that wasn't the kind of thing he'd been looking for.
The cover was spliced in with the soft, twisting lines of a musical introduction, with tiny notes painstakingly copied from a sheet he had asked Ninomiya to lend to him. Ashamed, and with his mind centered on the image threatening to pour out the tendons of his hands, Ohno hadn't been able to find the pile of sheet music that he had treasured night after night on the way home from work.
A soft, pink sunset grew over the image of a young, shadowed boy, standing at the edge of a lake. The lake was blue and green and tinted with the arches of dying sunlight, yellows and oranges and a pale, suspending purple. The water gave way to the boy's reflection.
That was white.
Along the waves of the background, the green of small bushes and the stretch of cat tails and flowers, dying weeds and fresh, barely cut grass, and past the flow of music that tied in through the entire image, barely a memory as it soared into the shadow of the boy--in a tilted, calligraphic style, Ohno had printed the words--to feel.
“We have arrived in Harajuku.”
His train pass clicked against the waiting digital pad on the exit gates. They closed in front of him.
"Ah," Ohno grumbled, and went back a step. "It's out of money already?"
Reasoning with the man behind the counter took only a moment, and Ohno burst into the cool air of the fall evening, his palms sweating as they handled the plastic of the watercolor cover.
Ninomiya was nowhere to be seen.
Pairing: Ohno x Nino
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Parts 4-6 of an AU series. Ohno's life has reached a peak in monotony, but a chance meeting has the potential to change it all. (More parts to come later).
04.
Fall arrived. Ohno only noticed when he was putting his shoes on for work, squatting near the front door and tugging uselessly at his socks.
"Ah," He murmured, slicking hair from his eyes. "It looks windy today."
As Ohno reached for his dark embroidered scarf, his thoughts went not to the tasks of the day but to Ninomiya, sitting outside. Would he have a scarf to use? Did he own a heavier jacket? Would it rain, with giant puddles to engulf his tattered white sneakers and drown his old brown guitar case?
"You've forgotten your lunch again," Ohno's mother said, coming up behind him with a rueful smile. She adjusted the folds of his jacket.
"Thank you, mother," He said, the scarf already tossed and weighted around his neck. "I'll be late again tonight."
"Okay," She replied, her hands rung in the edges of her apron as Ohno stepped out the door. "Be careful."
Sitting on the table near the front door, where piles of old magazines, framed photographs, and enveloped mail sat, was a bundle of sheet music stacked within a solid black binder. The price tag, a little yellow sticker, was still stuck to the cover.
It caught a curious gaze.
05.
"What's that, Nino?"
The wind felt nice against his skin. The open air tasted salty, like a splash of ocean water, cold and smooth against his lips. It made him smile, and Ninomiya laughed.
"Don't you have better things to do?" He inquired, brushing strands of brown hair out of the light of his eyes. Ohno shook his head with a giddy sort of smile, and instantly straightened his back riding up against the cement of the station wall. Ninomiya shook his head.
For three weeks, Ohno had visited him every day after work. He didn't complain about sitting for hours, and he didn't always speak. Sometimes, it was enough for Ohno to close his eyes and listen to the weave of notes in Ninomiya's voice, imagining floating frames of pictures in full pastel colour and faded chalked paint. He especially liked the song Ninomiya would sing just as the sunlight faded away--it was quiet, and composed almost entirely in a range that made Ohno think of swans and flowered lily pads, a bird couple enamored with each other, their beaks just barely touching in affection with shadows of feathers dancing primly in the water below.
He wondered if maybe he could draw that. Drawing had always intrigued him.
"No, Nino, what is that?" Ohno had produced the nickname four days ago, and despite complaints, used it regularly. "A disc?"
"It's a CD," Ninomiya finally replied, after giving Ohno's shoulder a rather friendly push. "I've got a friend who's going to pass it along to a recording place. See if they like it."
Brimming with excitement, Ohno snatched the jeweled case up in both hands. "Really? You recorded this then, really? When? Where? Did you do it while I was at work? How--"
Another pair of hands tugged incessantly at the case. "You worry too much about the past and don't concentrate enough on the now. Aren't you going to ask me what's on it?"
Ohno turned those words over in his head, solemn and quiet for a moment. "Well, does it really matter what's on it? I don't know any of your songs by the titles."
His heart rabbited in his throat as Ninomiya's face softened, a deep, sensitive smile.
"You're right," Ninomiya murmured, and plucked at the lowest string absently. Ohno found his eyes drawn to that hand, because it curbed the excitement bubbling in his stomach, the hot feeling that raced through his veins at the flash of Ninomiya's smile in his memory. His fingers itched. He felt like he needed to trace the outline in thin air, as if then, it would appear before him in full frame, inked and traced over and over again with smudges of black, brown, and gray.
The back of his hands settled against the fabric of his pant legs. He took a breath.
But there was something peculiar then, something that struck in his mind, and Ohno gestured slightly to the disc still being overturned in his own hands.
"Why doesn't it have a cover?" Ohno asked.
"A cover?" Ninomiya repeated, sweeping bangs from his face again as he turned to look at him.
"Yeah, you know...." Fidgeting, Ohno set the case down in his palm, feeling the warmth of it soak into his fingers. "When you buy a CD, it has a cover, right? Singles do, anyway, and then sometimes they...have a back, right? With...pictures, and titles, and...You know?"
Sucking on his lip, he finally looked to Ninomiya, expecting the worse. Instead, his eyes met with another pair, blinking rapidly in consideration.
"Make me a cover then," Ninomiya finally said. "Just a cover."
Ohno's protests were covered by the sound of a girl's voice shyly requesting a song on the guitar.
06.
It needed to be unique. Studying the cases in rows upon rows of used singles and albums, he finally realized this. The product was not something that could always be sampled in the store--rather, purchases had to depend on the quality presented on the outside, and competition was fierce.
As Ohno produced the square of paper from his briefcase, cased in a sheet of plastic, his face swelled with pride.
It was watercolor. Watercolor, because he had a set left over from high school and it was the only thing he could smuggle into his room without being questioned and berated. Up in the attic, searching for his school supplies, he had become familiar with box after box of paints, brushes, pastels and ink pens. They were from his sister--she ran a small flower shop outside of Tokyo, and as a child, she had sketched image after image of the kind of arrangements she'd create and sell.
But that wasn't the kind of thing he'd been looking for.
The cover was spliced in with the soft, twisting lines of a musical introduction, with tiny notes painstakingly copied from a sheet he had asked Ninomiya to lend to him. Ashamed, and with his mind centered on the image threatening to pour out the tendons of his hands, Ohno hadn't been able to find the pile of sheet music that he had treasured night after night on the way home from work.
A soft, pink sunset grew over the image of a young, shadowed boy, standing at the edge of a lake. The lake was blue and green and tinted with the arches of dying sunlight, yellows and oranges and a pale, suspending purple. The water gave way to the boy's reflection.
That was white.
Along the waves of the background, the green of small bushes and the stretch of cat tails and flowers, dying weeds and fresh, barely cut grass, and past the flow of music that tied in through the entire image, barely a memory as it soared into the shadow of the boy--in a tilted, calligraphic style, Ohno had printed the words--to feel.
“We have arrived in Harajuku.”
His train pass clicked against the waiting digital pad on the exit gates. They closed in front of him.
"Ah," Ohno grumbled, and went back a step. "It's out of money already?"
Reasoning with the man behind the counter took only a moment, and Ohno burst into the cool air of the fall evening, his palms sweating as they handled the plastic of the watercolor cover.
Ninomiya was nowhere to be seen.