Fanfiction - Ono-kun's Birthday Present~
It's my present for Ono-kun! It's starnge to think that he's only a little bit older than me... about 9 months! Uwa~ Anyways, it's a fanfiction! It's the first I'v ever posted here on LJ, so please treat it kindly. >_< Happy birthday, Ono-kun~!!!
Title: Ono-kun’s Issues, #1
Author: ishougen
Characters/Pairings: Ono Kento, Baba Tooru, Masataka Nakagauchi, mentions of other Tenimyu actors (no pairings)
Length/Rating: 1598 words/G
Disclaimer: The boys are pretty and belong to their respective managements. Any events in this story, unless otherwise noted, are false.
Summary: Ono worries about getting older and remaining immature.
Author Note: Ano, this is my very first attempt at RPS/real person slash! Only, there’s no actual slash involved. >_<;;; Gomen nasai. Anyways, I went a little crazy with the notes, but I enjoyed writing this and sticking little references into it. Sorry if it gets in the way, but I felt it was necessary. Anyways, please comment! Constructive criticism is more than welcome. Enjoy! …oh, forgot to mention this, but this is a one-shot. The #1 in the title means that it may become a series of loosely related stories, but they won’t be sequels or prequels unless labeled as such. :3
~~~~~~~~~~
Having one’s birthday close to another person’s had both its positive and negative aspects. While it was fun to have a big party together, one always wanted to be the sole target of the spotlight for the day. While having everyone stare at you was nice, sometimes it was more comforting to have someone next to you for everyone to stare at instead. That was why, as Ono Kento made his way to the performance hall one morning in early August, he couldn’t decide if he was happy about having a birthday close to Masa’s or not.
It’s not as if the dates are that close, he reasoned to himself as he began to warm up for the day’s show. His isn’t until the twenty-third, and mine is on the ninth…
The ninth. Two days away. Two days until his castmembers were going to pull some kind of prank on him - he was sure they would; they had done it to everyone else, most notably Seto Koji, whose surprise had been permanently documented on the Dream Live 4 Backstage footage.
I’m even starting to think like Yanagi, he thought, smirking a little in amusement. “Documented”? Since when did I start using words like that?
Since he had begun playing this role, he realized. Since he had met all of the other actors, some becoming close friends and others remaining mutual acquaintances - although those were few and far between. He thought about his first day, how he had been nervous introducing himself, but then how he had relaxed after meeting everyone else - especially Baba Tooru and Masataka Nakagauchi, who, by the end of the day, were being referred to as Ba-chon and Masa.
“Your name is too long!” Baba had yelled, pointing a finger at Masa accusingly.
“Yeah? Well…” Masa had struggled for a minute to formulate a decent comeback, and had then shouted triumphantly, “Your name isn’t cute enough!”
Ono and the others on the Rikkai team had laughed and laughed, and that was how the nicknames had been created[1]. Ono was still Ono-kun[2], but he didn’t mind; he wasn’t as outgoing as either Baba or Masa, nor most of the other boys in Tenimyu, and he was content with having a regular name.
A voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he looked up from where he had been stretching to see Kiriyama Renn standing over him.
“Oi, Ono-kun, Masa wants to talk to you.”
Wondering why, but somehow knowing that it would be related to their birthdays, Ono thanked “Renn-chan” and went off to find the slightly shorter man. After a few minutes, during which he attempted to ask Kanesaki but was once again rejected[3] as Kane began to sing “Onnanoko to Chuu”, he finally caught up to Masa, who was laughing with Baba about a comment that someone had left on his blog.
“Ah, Ono-kun, there you are.” Masa flashed one of his brilliant smiles which, despite his height, still managed to make Ono feel small under its brightness, and launched into an explanation of what he had planned.
“Let’s go have dinner and sleep over at Ba-chon’s again![4]”
Masa’s explanations were never very long.
After some conferencing between the three of them, they decided to go out the next night to a new Chinese place near the performance hall and then go to Baba’s place afterwards.
“You’ll wake up in my house on your birthday!” said Baba, who went on to joke about the fact that Ono would probably feel his age faster if he was around them all day.
~~~~~~~~
“Uwa, that was really good!” grinned Baba, who had just changed into his sleeping clothes. The boys were now all at Baba’s apartment and ready for bed - but they could agree on the fact that they wouldn’t be falling asleep anytime soon. They stayed up late into the night, chatting about everyday things - rehearsal, gifts from fans, how their families were doing - and laughing at stupid things that had occurred at practice and elsewhere. It was during one of Masa’s expositions on the merit of kneepads when one tried to break-dance that Ono found himself lost in his thoughts.
Even though Masa joked around a lot, Ono could see that he was really a very mature person. He had the ability to make anyone laugh, no matter what the situation was, and that wasn’t something that someone could do properly unless they had the wisdom to understand the situation and see the laughable aspects of it.
Now Baba was saying something about a recent episode of Amest Gakuen[5], and how he had almost died drinking that horrid Sachi juice, but Ono was still thinking, physically close to the other two but mentally very far away.
Baba could pass for a kindergartner at times, but beyond his childish nature was a kind heart. There was something about Baba that made one want to tell him everything, ask him questions, request some solution for a problem that one was having in life. Ono realized that this was the mark of someone who was much more mature than they looked.
The two were laughing about something, but Ono was too far removed from reality to hear what was so funny.
They were really very much adults, despite being goofy and juvenile most of the time. Ono wondered about himself. Was he like that? He was pretty quiet, but he was still able to appreciate the others’ jokes. He didn’t feel as if had had that kind of inner maturity, though. Despite being the tallest of all the castmembers[6], he still felt as if he was one of the smallest. He was younger than most of them, and still in school; he couldn’t chat about this club or that new clothing store, because he was too young to drink and he didn’t have time to go shopping very often, especially with exams and homework to worry about. He always felt a little separated from his castmates because of this; he was so close to being an adult, and yet he felt very far away from the maturity that was promised to arrive with age.
“Naa? Ono-kun, hello? Are you in there?”
Ono blinked in surprise as he was pulled from his reverie, Masa’s hand waving in front of his face. “Ahh… sorry, I kind of zoned out for a minute…”
Baba shot him a quizzical look. “What were you think about?”
Shifting uncomfortably, the taller boy replied, “Nothing much…”
“Come on!” Masa’s eyes took on that mischievous glint they did whenever he was planning some kind of prank. Ono, and most of the cast, swore that it was that and his Hiroshima-ben[7] that landed him the role of Niou. “Tell us, or else…” Suddenly, he jumped on Ono, tickling him mercilessly.
“M-Masa!! Haha-! Stoppit!” Ono laughed, swatting at the older boy. However, instead of stopping, Masa yelled out for Baba to join in.
“Guys!! Haha - c-come on-!!” He felt like his lungs were going to burst from laughing so hard. After a minute or two, Masa and Baba sat back, laughing and trying to catch their breath, while Ono, doing the same, attempted to glare at them but failed miserably.
“Okay, time to fess up,” said Baba firmly, smiling in an oddly Niou-like fashion.
Wow, he really is good at that Switch thing... “I told you, it’s nothing.” After being glared at, however - albeit good-naturedly - Ono had to relent. “Fine, it’s… well, I was thinking about how both of you were so much more mature than I am.”
The other two stared at him, wide-eyed. “What?” said Masa after a moment, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “What do you mean?”
Ono blinked a couple of times, feeling nervous for some reason. “Err… well, it’s just that you seem to be able to react so well to different situations, and you’re both able to do things only adults can do…”
Baba laughed, and Ono frowned at him. That wasn’t very polite, especially since he had been speaking from the heart.
“Gomen, Ono-kun. But I’m only a year older than you are, remember? I can’t even drink yet[8]. Masa’s the only one here who can.” He stared pointedly at the older man.
“Yeah,” said Masa, taking his cue and running with it. “Besides, Ono-kun, you’re probably more mature than me and Ba-chon put together.”
“Ba-chon and I,” the Yanagi actor replied quietly.
“Argh! See what I mean?” said Masa, mock-angry, while Baba laughed in the background. “Besides, if you can see how we’re mature, you’re a psychic or something.” This only caused Baba to laugh harder, and Ono grinned.
After he had calmed down enough to talk, Baba smiled and said warmly, “Ono-kun, we all think that you’re pretty grown-up for your age.”
“Especially compared to us,” threw in Masa.
“Yeah. So don’t worry about it. Just live your own way and be who you are.” Baba nodded sagely, which caused Masa to burst out laughing, which caused Ono to laugh, which caused Baba to laugh as well.
They’re like dominoes, Ono thought, then corrected himself. No. We’re like dominoes.
As the boys laughed themselves into the wee hours of the morning and finally fell asleep, Ono found himself realizing that he was more mature than he gave himself credit for. Even though he felt like he still had a long way to go before he was ready to be an adult, he knew that he would be able to involve himself in the conversations of his older castmates, and maybe even add a certain young charm to them.
~End~
[1] - That’s not how it happened at all. I actually don’t know why or how the nicknames came about, but this sounds kinda cute, right? …Right…? =3=;
[2]My guess as to what everyone calls Ono. It sounds cute. >3<
[3]In DL4 Backstage, there’s a bit where Kanesaki is lip-syncing to this song while Ono attempts to talk to him. He only acknowledges poor Ono for a second and then goes back to his “singing”. =3=;
[4]They actually did have a sleepover! Back in July. :3
[5]Amest Gakuen is a weekly TV show that Baba hosts, along with other Tenimyu boys Yagami Ren, Minami Keisuke, Takki, and Masei, as well as Takeda Kouhei and someone else. ^^; It’s on Fridays at 7pm Japan time, and you can watch live streaming video here. (I know that, in the Eastern Time zone, it’s on at 6am, but I don’t know about other time zones.)
[6]Ono’s 185cm tall. @_@ I don’t know if any of the cast is as tall or taller, but judging by the DL4 backstage, it sure doesn’t look like it.
[7]Masa’s from Hiroshima, and apparently so is Niou. Thus, they speak in Hiroshima-ben, which is a type of dialect, such as Kansai-ben/Osaka-ben.
[8]The legal drinking age in Japan is 20. Ba-chon’s still only 19~ :3