A treat for xplodey_di
A treat for: xplodey_di
Cooked up by: A Friendly Chef
Title: Over the River and Through the Woods
Group: Arashi
Rating: General
Warnings: None
Summary: Aiba's ideas often lead to: a. Facepalming, b. Disaster, c. Group love, d. all of the above.
Notes: I… I don't write fic like this very often, so I'm not sure if it came out all right, but I hope you like it, xplodey_di! I certainly had fun writing it!
It was the end of the world.
Aiba could do a social experiment on it, if he had pen and paper. He would write notes after chewing the end of his pencil, noting important things like Matsujun's hair manages to stay curly even when it droops and Leader doesn't even have the energy to talk about fishing and Sho-chan's doe eyes: result of caffeine?, because at the moment all Sho could do was squint like an old man without his glasses.
"Whose fault is it!" Nino demanded, banging his palm on the arm of the couch. His voice was far too shrill for a Wednesday morning, by the look on Sho's face. "Somebody is going to get in trouble for this! How are we supposed to work in these conditions?!"
Matsujun threw his hat at him. "Shut up, I can't hear myself grumble."
Ohno stole the hat and pulled it down over his eyes, hiding from the room's bright light. Aiba suspected he was trying to go back to sleep.
All this for no coffee. Aiba shook his head. He hadn't realized that his band members were so addicted.
There was only one thing to do.
"I have a plan!" Aiba informed them, striking a pose. Striking poses was fun, especially the superhero ones he'd been practicing in front of his mirror.
"Where do you get all your energy," Sho groaned. The couch seemed to be swallowing him. "Does your plan involve sharing that?"
"Some new A no Arashi experiment?" Jun suggested. "Syphoning off your energy for the greater good of the team?"
"I'll get behind that," Nino said, raising his hand. "Less energy for you would make you almost human."
Ohno snuffled under Jun's hat.
"We're going to the store," Aiba informed them earnestly.
The stares he got were to be expected, really.
"Idiot," Nino sighed.
"We sent the staff already," Jun elaborated.
"What are you wearing?" Sho was the first to notice.
Aiba held his arms out, proudly showing off his outfit. "Well, of course we'd be sighted," Aiba said, "it's a public place, after all. And I don't want any poor girls to faint or blow out our eardrums with their shrieks or… or trample each other, or anything like that. So we have to be ninjas, of course!" It made perfect sense, and Aiba always had wanted to try being a ninja.
Jun actually sat up a little straighter, pushing hair out of his eyes. "Did our costume department make that?"
"What I want to know is how he got into it without anyone noticing," Nino said, giving Aiba a suspicious look.
"I told you," Aiba said. "Ninja."
"I'll do it," Ohno said, much to Aiba's delight.
"I can always count on you, Leader," Aiba said, offering up Ohno's costume.
It looked quite dashing once Ohno had it on properly, with the mouth-guard up and nunchucks in hand. He swung them around a few times, doing Bruce Li impressions.
It didn't take long to convince Sho into his own outfit, because Aiba could talk Sho into anything, even skydiving in wet underpants (too bad they hadn't used that footage). And Nino only needed an invitation from Ohno to make the Kazushi-Satonari ninja team.
"Fine," Matsujun sighed.
His group was really easy.
&
They crawled. They creeped. They were as invisible as the night.
"Oh, pardon me," Sho said, bobbing an apology to the lady he'd just bumped into. Her four-year-old wouldn't stop staring. Actually, neither did she.
They were like panthers, all rippling muscle that lurked in the trees for their unsuspecting pray.
"Aiba-chan!" Nino whispered.
"I didn't mean to!" Aiba insisted, trying to catch the rest of the display before it toppled onto Ohno.
Or maybe spiders, black and deadly, narrowing in on the fly trapped in their web. They stepped lightly, skittered around corners, and shunned the light.
And then they pounced.
"No way," Jun said, pulling his mask off his mouth and not even pretending to ninja anymore. Nearby, a flock of schoolgirls swooned.
"This isn't possible," said Sho, clearly fighting with his own understanding of probability and the way of the world.
"Clearly it is," Nino said, waving a loose-wristed arm at the perfectly empty shelves. There wasn't a single coffee crumb to be seen, much less a bag of it. The coffee section was a gaping hole in the middle of a neatly stocked aisle. "Now what, genius?"
Ohno shifted his weight uncomfortably. Aiba saw the droop start to set back in.
Aiba flagged down someone that worked there and determined that no, they really didn't have any coffee, and yes, every other store in the vicinity was that way. In fact, there was a coffee shortage all over Japan, haven't you been watching the news?
All heads swiveled Sho's way.
"It wasn't on my channel!" he said, hands up in pre-emptive surrender.
"If there's no coffee in Japan," Aiba reasoned quite logically, "we'll just have to go to where the coffee is!"
"You scare me when you say these things," Jun said.
"Did the news say where to find coffee?" Aiba asked the store clerk, who was inching towards Jun. Probably for an autograph, but Aiba had seen people go for the hair before, and for other, more inappropriate places. Distraction was the best option. It gave Jun time to hide behind Ohno and his nunchucks.
"They said something about a giant bean in Brazil," the clerk said, getting herself together and smoothing her hair nervously.
"Aiba, no," Jun said, desperate.
"The word 'no' has never applied to Aiba," Nino sighed.
"And I didn't bring my fishing poles," Ohno whined.
&
Ohno's smile was beatific. The boat was everything he could ask for. Not that Aiba really knew what he would ask for, or what made one boat better than another, but it had fishing supplies for rent, which seemed to do the trick.
But it was a nice boat--ship, as the captain insisted--and Aiba had plenty of leg room when he lay down on his bunk. The bo-- ahem, ship-- made fun honking sounds as it headed out to sea, and passage was so smooth that Nino managed to remain among the living.
Ohno was tan within the first day, and got progressively darker the more fish he hauled in. Jun somehow had five pairs of sunglasses, which he shared with everyone, and Sho spent all his time listening to the news on the radio, vowing he wouldn't be caught unawares ever again.
"You should enjoy yourself," Aiba told him after three days at sea. "Take pictures. This is an Arashi vacation! Have you seen the dolphins?"
Sho hadn't noticed the dolphins, but after watching them frolic through the breakwater, he stopped worrying quite so much and started fishing with Ohno. Aiba helped them keep a log of the kinds of fish they caught (the octopus had a special section, and an illustration of how it had suckered onto Sho).
Everything was going nicely until halfway through the first week.
"You're looking pale," Ohno said, and when Aiba looked up, he saw that Leader meant Nino. It was doubly impressive that Ohno had noticed, since Nino was pale anyway, and Ohno had hardly looked up from his reel enough to eat. But then Ohno had always had special sensors when it came to Nino.
"This ship," Nino started, gripping the rail. Aiba saw his throat working.
"WHOA SHIT." That was Jun, from all the way on the other side of the ship. The deck lurched, the boat carried on a surprise wave, and Nino made an extremely unhappy noise as he wilted over the rail.
Aiba ran as the ship lurched back, aiming for where he'd last heard Jun's voice. Water splashed up, misting in his face, and he felt drunk with the wobbles of the ship. He finally found Sho cowering under a table, clinging to the leg, Jun right next to him gawking and pointing at--
At--
Whoa.
"Excuse me," said the sea monster. It was glittering white and looked like a dragon, complete with snake tongue and scales. The ship was bouncing like a buoy in the ripples caused by its surfacing, which just kept coming. The monster peered down at them short-sightedly. "You're not from around here, are you?"
Jun shook his head, and the monster blinked uncertainly. "I say. You are a mite tiny. Would you be so kind as to speak up?"
It was probably Aiba's disaster training. Compared to lions and tigers and alligators, a talking sea monster seemed almost tame. Even if it was as tall as a skyscraper. "We're from Tokyo!" Aiba shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth.
"Oh, excellent," the sea monster said. "I was just on my way there to wreak some havoc. I don't suppose you could tell me the way?"
Sho shook his head frantically at Aiba. Like he needed telling.
"Can I interest you in any other places to wreak havoc?" Aiba called back.
Jun smacked his forehead.
"No, no," the monster said, sounding prim. "Must be Tokyo. Runs in the family. My older brother has quite the reputation there, and it's up to me to follow in the footsteps, don't you know."
"Tokyo is dirty," Jun shouted before Aiba could open his mouth again.
"…Dirty?" The monster's tail poked out of the water, swishing. The ship swayed, tilting more, and Aiba grabbed onto a length of rope before a wave crashed up over the side.
"Very dirty," Sho shouted, catching on. "Lots of pollution and factories, the greatest output of waste in Japan. It would get under your claws and between your scales."
"We have been making economical advances lately," Aiba said quietly to himself, thinking about the hybrid cars, air conditioners, and televisions. It made him feel a little better.
The monster made a harumphing sound, and bubbles surged up from below. "That doesn't sound very pleasant." It considered. "I don't suppose there's a nicer place to wreak havoc?"
"All human habitats are filthy," Jun shouted, sounding apologetic, which Aiba knew he wasn't at all. "You're better off hiding under the ocean."
The monster didn't need much more convincing. It sank most of the way under the sea until only its head was left, sending out a wave that knocked so hard into the boat that Aiba's stomach dropped into his feet. They were tilting too far. The sky was turning into ocean over his head. Aiba clung to his rope for dear life. He was going to die, and they hadn't even gotten their coffee!
With a clank and a jolt, it stopped.
"Oops," said the sea monster, sounding contrite. With delicate claws, he replaced the ship right-side-up. "Terribly sorry."
And then it was gone.
&
Ohno believed them immediately. He claimed that sea monsters were nothing new, though he'd never stumbled over any, but any fisherman had heard enough stories that his dubiousness had well worn away. Nino was another matter.
"It was at least six stories tall," Aiba insisted, holding hands over his head in ineffectual demonstration.
Nino's expression was bland, and his arms were crossed over his chest. "All I know is that I feel less like I want to puke and more like I've walked into the Twilight Zone. Sho?"
Sho shook himself. He was still recovering almost being tossed off the boat. "Eight stories, or I'm not a newscaster."
"After the coffee incident I'm dubious," Nino said, but he looked a little less sure of himself.
"This trip is ridiculous," Jun grumped. He busied himself wringing out his shirt and refused to talk to anyone else. Aiba was pretty sure he was mad because he'd lost his favorite sunglasses over the side.
"Don't worry, Aiba-chan," Ohno said, petting a hand down Aiba's back. Aiba leaned into it with a sigh. This wasn't going according to plan at all, but then his plans did usually ended up defaulting in unpredictable ways. "He'll feel better once we get him his coffee."
&
They didn't run into any more monsters, and Nino only got sick twice when they went through storms. It took so long to get to Brazil that Aiba had almost forgotten what they were searching for when the ship finally pulled into the harbor and they all stumbled off on their sea-legs, tanned to a crisp.
"This is like being in a video game," Nino said. "We have to get information at the nearest pub. Or tavern. Or whatever they have, here." And he wobbled off awkwardly, leaving the rest to follow.
"He means a bar, doesn't he?" Sho whispered to Jun.
"Don't talk to him when he's in otaku mode," was Jun's answer.
But Nino had been on the right track. The barkeep gave them a wealth of information, and somehow had all the supplies they needed, including safari hats, a map, and a compass that Nino confiscated immediately.
The map pointed south, and marked their destination with a classic black X. Aiba was pleased to note there were no skull marks. They probably would have been a nice touch, but he had no intention of being Indiana Jones.
Nino was still in game mode, and made an excellent leader as they tromped through the rainforest. Ohno brought up the rear because he was the only one that wasn't jumpy enough to be dangerous with the machete.
"You know what we forgot? Bug repellant," Jun remarked dryly, and then smacked the back of Aiba's head.
"Hey!"
"Mosquito," Jun said, unrepentant.
Aiba took refuge with Sho, who was still pathetic without his coffee, but at least it didn't make him grouchy.
"There aren't any save points," Aiba could hear Nino mutter, and Sho looked like he was about to say something when Ohno interrupted.
"There's one." He was pointing at a yawning cave mouth that looked just perfect for sleeping in. Too perfect, in Aiba's opinion. All he could think of was bears and the fact that in all his time on Shimura Doubutsuen, his lullabies had never put any animal to sleep. Ever.
But Sho seemed to be having the same thoughts, and he chucked one rock, then two, into the darkness. Nothing happened, except for the sound of stone ricocheting against stone. Sho looked at Aiba and shrugged. "Did anyone bring a flashlight?"
Their bag was a magic bag, Aiba thought. It had everything in it, except for bug repellant. There were flashlights, and later foodstuffs in the form of beef jerky and bread (Nino was the only one displeased: "No potions?").
They went to bed with full stomachs, and Aiba smiling contentedly to himself in the privacy of his sleeping bag. They didn't need coffee, did they? They had each other, through thick and thin, sea monsters and rainforest and world adventures. Snark though they might, they loved each other, and nothing could come between them. Together, they were stronger than the sum of their parts.
Then Jun rolled over and kicked him.
&
The trek lasted days, and gradually took them up the side of the mountain. Aiba partnered with Ohno most of the time, because even though Ohno was in just as much withdrawal as the the others, he didn't take it out on Aiba. (Nor did Sho, but Sho wouldn't let him hold the machete, either.)
Ohno played association games with Aiba as they went.
"Fish," was always what Ohno started with.
Aiba tried to come up with something different every time, just to throw him off. Thankfully he had no lack of imagination to work with. "Ocean."
"Blue."
"Arashi."
"…Curry?" Ohno suggested.
"Don't talk about curry," Sho said over his shoulder. "You're making me hungry."
"Stick-in-the-mud," Aiba said to Ohno.
"I don't think that works after curry," Ohno said after a moment of thought.
"Hey, guys!" Nino called out.
They'd reached the top of the mountain. The trees opened up to let them through. Aiba could see the sky, full of birds and blueness. And there before them, ripe and glorious, was the largest coffee bean that Aiba had ever seen. There was no way he'd be able to put his arms around it, and even the five of them together, he was sure, wouldn't be able to.
"What on earth..?"
Aiba looked where Jun was pointing. At the base of the coffee bean was a table. On the table were five perfect steaming cups of coffee.
Aiba looked at Jun. Jun looked at Sho. Sho looked at Ohno, who looked at Nino, who shrugged. "What are you guys so surprised about? This whole thing has been a lesson in ridiculousness from the start." Then he sat down, ignoring them in favor of drinking down his coffee.
"Well, you can't argue with that," Sho said, and joined him.
&
The trip back to Japan was not so epic. The giant coffee bean rolled around in the cargo hold of the ship, Nino was only sick once, there were no sea monsters, and Ohno only caught two new types of fish and no octopi. Still, Aiba was happy. Matsujun didn't smack him once.
In fact, with his coffee back, Matsujun was a transformed man. Aiba caught him singing Kitto Daijoubu on two separate occasions, and he made lattes and cappuccinos for everyone.
Aiba really thought he ought to do a human study on it.
Maybe the next time he hid all the coffee, he would take notes.