[One-Shot] Personal Caretaking Robot
Title: Personal Caretaking Robot
Fandom: Mis Snow Man
Pairings/Characters: Iwamoto Hikaru + Sakuma Daisuke, with other snowmen pairs thrown in
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Unbeta-ed, awkwardness, kissing, innocent :3
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. Their asses are owned by JE.
Author's Note: mousapelli said I should write more about Sakumanager. Been writing a lot of what you've been telling me to lately, haven't I? ;) Also, Sakuma turned out more "on top" in this one as I originally intended...it just happened... the title is an allusion to Iwamoto's "Asimo Robot" monomane btw... Also, I kind of want MSM porn fic...but my brain is not cooperating with me. I think Hasshi broke it...
Sakuma walks around the Mis Snow Man changing room at the photo studio. It’s time for the monthly magazine spreads again and the usual chaos and mayhem is going on around him but he doesn’t pay it any attention. He’s been with the guys long enough now to know that Watanabe bouncing around in a school girl uniform he found in the costume storage of DUET is nothing to be worried about and he even tolerates Fukazawa’s attempt to play some weird game involving janken and kissing instead of the ‘achi-mite-hoi’ with Abe in the corner.
Walking around the table, he picks up a couple of things before he moves towards the studio, towards the other changing rooms because as usual, some of his group mates have been whisked away by their senpai - or just Hasshi again.
Iwamoto bumps into him in the hallway. “Ah, Sakkun, have you seen my- oh thanks!” he hands the taller boy the hairpins before the other can even finish asking.
“You should go and line up for make-up…Date is going to be done soon,” Sakuma offers with a smile before continuing his way to the ABC-Z changing room in search of Nozawa and Sanada.
Iwamoto stays behind, looking after the shorter male almost longingly. Fukazawa steps out to join him, apparently tired of playing with Abe for the moment. “Sakumanager is too busy, huh?” he looks at his group mate.
“…just because you’re not taking care of things…you know as the oldest one in the bunch?” Iwamoto supplies. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. “Or because Sanapi and Nokkun are more like our figureheads than real leaders?”
Fukazawa shrugs, “The ‘real’ leaders prefer to pull the strings from the shadows and quietly watch over people…they rarely ever want to be recognized as ‘leaders’…”
Abe joins them, “Though sometimes, we should at least try and make life less hard on him? I mean, there’s only so much he can take at times, too…”
“Are you still feeling guilty about what happened on Valentine’s Day?” Fukazawa asked. “It wasn’t your fault, remember? We weren’t…ourselves…”
“…still…” Abe continues and the two of them get into some sort of argument but Iwamoto tunes them out and looks back down the hall, where he sees Sakuma wandering from ABC-Zs room over to Kis-My-Ft2s room because as usual, nobody in ABC-Z is where they are supposed to be.
Sakuma hands the iPod to the frantically searching Iwamoto when they’re packing up to leave for the day. “You shouldn’t leave your stuff lying around, Gan-chan,” he scolds the other gently. “I cannot guarantee that I pick it up all the time.”
“Sorry, Sakkun…” Iwamoto apologized. “And thank you,” he smiled brightly at the older male, “You’re the best. I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes.” It wasn’t like Iwamoto was really such a scatter brain. The reason why his stuff ended up all over the places was either because Watanabe borrowed it and left it lying around or because Iwamoto knew that Sakuma would pick things up and return them to him.
“…put on a scarf if you have one…it’s cold outside…” Sakuma smiles back and shoulders his own bag before walking out of the door.
Iwamoto sighs and rummages through his bag for a scarf. Somebody bumps into him from behind and he turns around to see Miyadate and Watanabe (in normal clothes again, he had to return the school girl uniform). “You’re almost worse than Sanapi was when he was ‘courting’ Nokkun…” Watanabe comments with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. Somewhere behind him an indignant squeak from Sanada can be heard, a complaint cut off by Nozawa’s lips before it could be voiced.
“Grab him now or other people will notice how nice our Sakumanager is and whisk him away…and then he’ll be claimed and you can’t do a thing about it,” Watanabe continued.
“You make things sound so easy…” Iwamoto sighed. “You and Date have been together since forever! You didn’t have to go through all this trouble…”
Sanada flailed and made sounds of agreement but Nozawa intensified his efforts at keeping his boyfriend busy and away from the conversation. He knew nothing good would come out of it if Sanada were to be the one to give any advice on these matters.
“That doesn’t really matter…we just knew early what we wanted,” Watanabe pointed out.
Miyadate commented, “…try going through all the stuff you’re going through now when you’re barely able to think…besides, our relationship as it is now didn’t just start in kindergarten, you know?” There had been awkward and difficult periods, confessions, fights and making up. “Relationships are a lot of work.”
“Besides, you should stop causing Sakumanager more trouble just to see him smiling at you… he’ll either catch on sooner or later, or give you a serious beating…” Nozawa advised then, having effectively convinced Sanada not to give any input for now. “And you know how scary he can be…” Nozawa was speaking from experience.
Looking down, Iwamoto admitted, “I know…I know but it’s just…I kind of need to find the right timing for myself and…for things to happen…I can’t do it if it doesn’t feel right!”
Miyadate petted the other on the back, “We’re not rushing you…just trying to give you some friendly advice. Oh, here’s another piece of that…don’t listen to Hasshi when he tries to give you advice. Not that it’ll be more than ‘just have sex’ but…yeah…”
“I know…or well, we all know not to trust him on stuff like that…” Iwamoto nodded.
“Just making sure. A desperate man tends to look for desperate measures at times…”
Iwamoto’s eyebrow twitched, “I’m not exactly desperate yet!”
Two days pass and the boys come back together for Kabuki rehearsals. It’s been but a year since they have last done this but with the amount of work they have been doing it’s easy to forget. It’s easier to remember as well though, after having learned it once. Their bodies still remember some of the things and having done Kakumei not too long ago helps, too.
This year, there is even more dancing and acrobatics in the show, Takizawa already setting high goals for the performances. He isn’t one to sit back and just watch the show unfold.
Needless to say, the snowmen are pretty tired already half-way through rehearsal. Sakuma puts his all into it but sometimes he overdoes himself slightly, going with 120% instead of just 100% and his body shows him his limits. One step throws him off balance and he stumbles and is on a sure path to crash down from the slightly elevated stage that is, if it weren’t for Iwamoto catching him in the last second but it’s not enough to keep them both from falling over. The fall flat onto their asses is a lot less severe though than it would have been if Sakuma had fallen off the stage.
“Are you okay?” Iwamoto asked.
“I’m sorry!” Sakuma apologizes immediately. “I’m alright…nothing hurts. What about you, Gan-chan? Did I fall onto you in any weird places?”
“Nah, I’m alright. I’ve had worse~” Iwamoto grins. He’s a notorious accident magnet after all.
Sakuma gives him a soft smile and helps Iwamoto up onto his feet again. The dance coach decides to give them a break so that he can get Kisumai’s members caught up on everything, seeing that it’s their first time doing Kabuki and also their first time in a long time to do a stage play like this.
Once they’ve all moved off to the side, Sakuma insists on checking Iwamoto thoroughly, just to make sure. “I’ll mess up even worse if I feel guilty,” Sakuma explains and pulls up Iwamoto’s sweatpants to have a look at the other’s shins.
Iwamoto laughs softly and lets the other do as he pleases. “I’ll catch you when you fall.”
Blinking, Sakuma looks up, “Eh?”
“I’ll catch you, when you fall…I mean it…” Iwamoto smiled. “You always try to catch all of us but who’ll catch you? So I’ve decided I’ll catch you when you fall.”
Sakuma smiled again, “That doesn’t make any sense, Gan-chan.”
“It makes perfect sense to me!” Iwamoto grins happily.
Around them, the other snowmen watch the scene quietly. Watanabe resist the urge to sing ‘Kiss the girl’ from the Little Mermaid out loud only because Miyadate is keeping him busy. “If Sakumanager heard you calling him a girl he’d kick your ass…”
“But you like ‘em girly, don’t you, Date-sama?” Fukazawa chuckles softly.
“No, I just like Shota,” Miyadate deadpans and rests his head against Watanabe’s shoulder again. “…and I feel like whenever Tackey isn’t out to get us, he’s out to kill us…all these stunts crammed into this rehearsal…and then the acting!”
Watanabe pets his boyfriend gently, “What won’t kill us will make us stronger.”
“…where have I heard that before?”
They all leave rehearsal later that night, tired to the bone and it takes all their willpower to make it to their trains at the station. Most of the snowmen get onto the same train first and then one by one, they transfer to other lines to take them home. In the end, Iwamoto is left only with Sakuma, who has fallen asleep against him. He’s lucky enough to be able to stay on the train until almost the last stop, so once he has nobody else left to talk to, Iwamoto nods off. He wakes up shortly before the train pulls into his station and notices that there’s still a light weight against his shoulder. Sakuma clearly missed his stop.
“Sakkun…hey…wake up…!” he shakes the other gently.
“Nngh…” Sakuma opens his eyes slowly. “What is it?”
“You missed your stop…” Iwamoto tells the other. “And I’m going to get off soon…”
“Eh? Oh shit…” Sakuma looks up at the announcement board in the train. “…I missed my connection…ugh…” he groans softly and runs a hand through his hair.
Iwamoto worries his lip and then asks, “Want to stay over at my place then?”
Sakuma blinks at him, “You sure? I mean your family…”
“They’re going on a trip with my younger siblings before school starts again tomorrow, so they’ll all be in bed by now and they’ll be up before we are. Nobody will mind,” Iwamoto insisted. “And I cannot just let our manager stay at a manga café or something when we have rehearsal again tomorrow.”
Laughing a little at Iwamoto’s reasoning, Sakuma nodded, “Alright…I’ll be in your care then.” He sent a message to his family that he’d missed the train and he would be staying with one of his group mates for the night.
Half an hour later found them sneaking into the Iwamoto Family residence quietly so as not to wake anyone up. Iwamoto showed Sakuma the bathroom and while the other took a bath and got ready, went to prepare the guest futon for the older male. He then pulled out some of his t-shirts for the other to wear for the night. Size wouldn’t matter then, right?
When he comes back up to his room after taking a shower himself, he finds Sakuma stretching on the futon. The movement exposes a darkening bruise on the other’s arm and Iwamoto kneels down to grab it immediately.
“You checked me to make sure I was okay, while you’re actually the one who needs the checking! Did you get that when we fell over?” he asks, frowning unhappily.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt…plus, it was my fault to begin with,” Sakuma makes a move to pull his arm away again but finds that he can’t, Iwamoto’s grip firm. “Let go…?”
Iwamoto’s grip stays firm and his eyes are dead serious. “I meant it…what I said earlier, Daisuke,” he’s not using any nicknames. “I still mean it. That I’ll catch you when you fall. That I’ll take care of you while you’re busy taking care of everyone else. I know I tease you just as much as everyone else…but that’s to show how much I appreciate what you’re doing. Like the others. It’s like saying thank you the ‘Snowmen Style’…”
Sakuma laughs a bit at that. “Snowmen Style, huh?”
“Well, yeah…but back to what I was saying…” Iwamoto looks into Sakuma’s eyes. “I really appreciate what you’re doing…and I do…I do care for you.”
Smiling, Sakuma used his free hand to ruffle Iwamoto’s hair. “You’re acting like a puppy, Gan-chan…it’s cute. And I appreciate it, too…that you care for me. And well, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t care about you guys, too, right? Teasing or not.”
Looking a little hurt, Iwamoto looked down. “I’m not just a puppy…” he muttered. “I don’t want to be just a puppy to you…” Iwamoto looked up again and then, in a spur of the moment he decided to go for it and pulled on the cord to turn off the lights in his room. It had the desired effect of making Sakuma gasp a little in surprise and Iwamoto used that opening, to lean in and kiss the older male softly.
He could feel Sakuma’s gasp of surprise more than he heard it. The kiss was one sided at first but after a few moments, Iwamoto felt the other melting into it as well, into him. Heat rushed up into his head and after another moment he turned away.
Turning off the lights had served two purposes really. One, to create an opening and two, to hide the blush covering his cheeks now.
“Hikaru…” Sakuma’s voice is soft, gentle and really close to his ear.
“I…I’m…” Iwamoto fumbles for words.
“…I’m not letting you try and find your way to your bed like this…you’ll bang into all of your furniture. Stay here on the futon with me tonight,” Sakuma chuckles and pulls him down.
Iwamoto’s ears burn but his heart is jumping around with happiness. “O-Okay!”
Abe frowned when he stepped into the Snowmen changing room the next day with Fukazawa. “Ne, Fukka, don’t you think something is backwards here?”
Inside the room, Miyadate was making cute eyes at Watanabe, who in turn fed him chocolate. Sanada and Nozawa were spread out on the tatami floor, Sanada kissing his boyfriend silly - sitting on top of Nozawa. And finally, Sakuma was sitting in the corner with Iwamoto fussing about him, holding an ice-pack against his arm.
“Yo, Sakumanager…what happened to you?” Fukazawa sat down next to the pair. “Did Gan-chan trip over you because he didn’t see you down there?”
Sakuma stuck out his tongue. “No. Hikaru just turned into my personal caretaking robot it seems…” he looked back at Iwamoto. “You can let go, Hikaru…I can hold it myself!”
“Then I’ll go and tell Tackey to take it easy on you today! You shouldn’t do any acrobatics with that arm…” Iwamoto was about to get up but Sakuma pulled him back down.
“I appreciate your concern but it’s not that bad. We’ve all had bruises like this before. It’s fine. I won’t hold up the practice,” Sakuma insisted
Iwamoto pouted, “Daisuke!”
By now all other activity in the snowmen changing room had stopped and the other boys had grouped around them. Sanada, using a bottle of hairspray as a microphone asked, “Interesting use of first names here. Did your group miss something important? Do tell us, Sakumanager-san!” He offered the ‘microphone’ to Sakuma.
Watanabe pulled on Iwamoto, “Gan-chan! You said in your mail you’d tell me! You liar!”
Sakuma blinked, “Erm…guys, did I miss something?”
Nozawa chuckled. “Nothing much?”
Miyadate snorted, “Only that Gan-chan’s been having a crush on you for a while. But I guess you know now because he obviously confessed to you in the past like…12 hours since we last saw each other? Because you two clearly weren’t using your first names before…”
Abe shook Sakuma’s hand. “Leader! Manager! You’ve taken another step forward in life towards adulthood…you’re such a good role model! I admire you!”
Staring for a moment, Sakuma distributed a round of slaps to the head - Murakami Shingo would’ve been proud of him - and then proceeded to pull Iwamoto outside and down the hallway with him. Once they were alone, he looked up at the younger male.
“I thought you were just fooling around last night…! And…the first names…I…it just kind of slipped out…” Sakuma looked flustered.
Iwamoto bit his lip. “I…really do like you though, Daisuke. I’m not fooling around…I didn’t eat anything funny given to me by ABC-Z or anyone either…”
Sakuma’s eyebrow twitched a little at the memory but then he smiled. “I…well…” he looked up at Iwamoto. “I guess I don’t mind having my personal caretaking robot then.” Reaching up, he caressed Iwamoto’s cheek. “And don’t worry. I do see you as more than just a robot.”
Laughing, Iwamoto put a hand over Sakuma’s. “…you know…I always thought confessions would be less…awkward and everything…since…we’ve known each other for a while now and all that. But I think that on the contrary, that only made it worse. And I should apologize to NabeSho and Date-sama for telling them they had it easy.”
“As your manager…I would appreciate you doing so…” Sakuma joked.
“As your personal caretaking robot, I demand kisses as compensation for my hard work then…” Iwamoto went along with the joke and then leaned down for one, while Sakuma had to stand up onto his tip toes.
Fandom: Mis Snow Man
Pairings/Characters: Iwamoto Hikaru + Sakuma Daisuke, with other snowmen pairs thrown in
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Unbeta-ed, awkwardness, kissing, innocent :3
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine. Their asses are owned by JE.
Author's Note: mousapelli said I should write more about Sakumanager. Been writing a lot of what you've been telling me to lately, haven't I? ;) Also, Sakuma turned out more "on top" in this one as I originally intended...it just happened... the title is an allusion to Iwamoto's "Asimo Robot" monomane btw... Also, I kind of want MSM porn fic...but my brain is not cooperating with me. I think Hasshi broke it...
Sakuma walks around the Mis Snow Man changing room at the photo studio. It’s time for the monthly magazine spreads again and the usual chaos and mayhem is going on around him but he doesn’t pay it any attention. He’s been with the guys long enough now to know that Watanabe bouncing around in a school girl uniform he found in the costume storage of DUET is nothing to be worried about and he even tolerates Fukazawa’s attempt to play some weird game involving janken and kissing instead of the ‘achi-mite-hoi’ with Abe in the corner.
Walking around the table, he picks up a couple of things before he moves towards the studio, towards the other changing rooms because as usual, some of his group mates have been whisked away by their senpai - or just Hasshi again.
Iwamoto bumps into him in the hallway. “Ah, Sakkun, have you seen my- oh thanks!” he hands the taller boy the hairpins before the other can even finish asking.
“You should go and line up for make-up…Date is going to be done soon,” Sakuma offers with a smile before continuing his way to the ABC-Z changing room in search of Nozawa and Sanada.
Iwamoto stays behind, looking after the shorter male almost longingly. Fukazawa steps out to join him, apparently tired of playing with Abe for the moment. “Sakumanager is too busy, huh?” he looks at his group mate.
“…just because you’re not taking care of things…you know as the oldest one in the bunch?” Iwamoto supplies. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way. “Or because Sanapi and Nokkun are more like our figureheads than real leaders?”
Fukazawa shrugs, “The ‘real’ leaders prefer to pull the strings from the shadows and quietly watch over people…they rarely ever want to be recognized as ‘leaders’…”
Abe joins them, “Though sometimes, we should at least try and make life less hard on him? I mean, there’s only so much he can take at times, too…”
“Are you still feeling guilty about what happened on Valentine’s Day?” Fukazawa asked. “It wasn’t your fault, remember? We weren’t…ourselves…”
“…still…” Abe continues and the two of them get into some sort of argument but Iwamoto tunes them out and looks back down the hall, where he sees Sakuma wandering from ABC-Zs room over to Kis-My-Ft2s room because as usual, nobody in ABC-Z is where they are supposed to be.
Sakuma hands the iPod to the frantically searching Iwamoto when they’re packing up to leave for the day. “You shouldn’t leave your stuff lying around, Gan-chan,” he scolds the other gently. “I cannot guarantee that I pick it up all the time.”
“Sorry, Sakkun…” Iwamoto apologized. “And thank you,” he smiled brightly at the older male, “You’re the best. I don’t know what I’d do without you sometimes.” It wasn’t like Iwamoto was really such a scatter brain. The reason why his stuff ended up all over the places was either because Watanabe borrowed it and left it lying around or because Iwamoto knew that Sakuma would pick things up and return them to him.
“…put on a scarf if you have one…it’s cold outside…” Sakuma smiles back and shoulders his own bag before walking out of the door.
Iwamoto sighs and rummages through his bag for a scarf. Somebody bumps into him from behind and he turns around to see Miyadate and Watanabe (in normal clothes again, he had to return the school girl uniform). “You’re almost worse than Sanapi was when he was ‘courting’ Nokkun…” Watanabe comments with a sigh and a roll of his eyes. Somewhere behind him an indignant squeak from Sanada can be heard, a complaint cut off by Nozawa’s lips before it could be voiced.
“Grab him now or other people will notice how nice our Sakumanager is and whisk him away…and then he’ll be claimed and you can’t do a thing about it,” Watanabe continued.
“You make things sound so easy…” Iwamoto sighed. “You and Date have been together since forever! You didn’t have to go through all this trouble…”
Sanada flailed and made sounds of agreement but Nozawa intensified his efforts at keeping his boyfriend busy and away from the conversation. He knew nothing good would come out of it if Sanada were to be the one to give any advice on these matters.
“That doesn’t really matter…we just knew early what we wanted,” Watanabe pointed out.
Miyadate commented, “…try going through all the stuff you’re going through now when you’re barely able to think…besides, our relationship as it is now didn’t just start in kindergarten, you know?” There had been awkward and difficult periods, confessions, fights and making up. “Relationships are a lot of work.”
“Besides, you should stop causing Sakumanager more trouble just to see him smiling at you… he’ll either catch on sooner or later, or give you a serious beating…” Nozawa advised then, having effectively convinced Sanada not to give any input for now. “And you know how scary he can be…” Nozawa was speaking from experience.
Looking down, Iwamoto admitted, “I know…I know but it’s just…I kind of need to find the right timing for myself and…for things to happen…I can’t do it if it doesn’t feel right!”
Miyadate petted the other on the back, “We’re not rushing you…just trying to give you some friendly advice. Oh, here’s another piece of that…don’t listen to Hasshi when he tries to give you advice. Not that it’ll be more than ‘just have sex’ but…yeah…”
“I know…or well, we all know not to trust him on stuff like that…” Iwamoto nodded.
“Just making sure. A desperate man tends to look for desperate measures at times…”
Iwamoto’s eyebrow twitched, “I’m not exactly desperate yet!”
Two days pass and the boys come back together for Kabuki rehearsals. It’s been but a year since they have last done this but with the amount of work they have been doing it’s easy to forget. It’s easier to remember as well though, after having learned it once. Their bodies still remember some of the things and having done Kakumei not too long ago helps, too.
This year, there is even more dancing and acrobatics in the show, Takizawa already setting high goals for the performances. He isn’t one to sit back and just watch the show unfold.
Needless to say, the snowmen are pretty tired already half-way through rehearsal. Sakuma puts his all into it but sometimes he overdoes himself slightly, going with 120% instead of just 100% and his body shows him his limits. One step throws him off balance and he stumbles and is on a sure path to crash down from the slightly elevated stage that is, if it weren’t for Iwamoto catching him in the last second but it’s not enough to keep them both from falling over. The fall flat onto their asses is a lot less severe though than it would have been if Sakuma had fallen off the stage.
“Are you okay?” Iwamoto asked.
“I’m sorry!” Sakuma apologizes immediately. “I’m alright…nothing hurts. What about you, Gan-chan? Did I fall onto you in any weird places?”
“Nah, I’m alright. I’ve had worse~” Iwamoto grins. He’s a notorious accident magnet after all.
Sakuma gives him a soft smile and helps Iwamoto up onto his feet again. The dance coach decides to give them a break so that he can get Kisumai’s members caught up on everything, seeing that it’s their first time doing Kabuki and also their first time in a long time to do a stage play like this.
Once they’ve all moved off to the side, Sakuma insists on checking Iwamoto thoroughly, just to make sure. “I’ll mess up even worse if I feel guilty,” Sakuma explains and pulls up Iwamoto’s sweatpants to have a look at the other’s shins.
Iwamoto laughs softly and lets the other do as he pleases. “I’ll catch you when you fall.”
Blinking, Sakuma looks up, “Eh?”
“I’ll catch you, when you fall…I mean it…” Iwamoto smiled. “You always try to catch all of us but who’ll catch you? So I’ve decided I’ll catch you when you fall.”
Sakuma smiled again, “That doesn’t make any sense, Gan-chan.”
“It makes perfect sense to me!” Iwamoto grins happily.
Around them, the other snowmen watch the scene quietly. Watanabe resist the urge to sing ‘Kiss the girl’ from the Little Mermaid out loud only because Miyadate is keeping him busy. “If Sakumanager heard you calling him a girl he’d kick your ass…”
“But you like ‘em girly, don’t you, Date-sama?” Fukazawa chuckles softly.
“No, I just like Shota,” Miyadate deadpans and rests his head against Watanabe’s shoulder again. “…and I feel like whenever Tackey isn’t out to get us, he’s out to kill us…all these stunts crammed into this rehearsal…and then the acting!”
Watanabe pets his boyfriend gently, “What won’t kill us will make us stronger.”
“…where have I heard that before?”
They all leave rehearsal later that night, tired to the bone and it takes all their willpower to make it to their trains at the station. Most of the snowmen get onto the same train first and then one by one, they transfer to other lines to take them home. In the end, Iwamoto is left only with Sakuma, who has fallen asleep against him. He’s lucky enough to be able to stay on the train until almost the last stop, so once he has nobody else left to talk to, Iwamoto nods off. He wakes up shortly before the train pulls into his station and notices that there’s still a light weight against his shoulder. Sakuma clearly missed his stop.
“Sakkun…hey…wake up…!” he shakes the other gently.
“Nngh…” Sakuma opens his eyes slowly. “What is it?”
“You missed your stop…” Iwamoto tells the other. “And I’m going to get off soon…”
“Eh? Oh shit…” Sakuma looks up at the announcement board in the train. “…I missed my connection…ugh…” he groans softly and runs a hand through his hair.
Iwamoto worries his lip and then asks, “Want to stay over at my place then?”
Sakuma blinks at him, “You sure? I mean your family…”
“They’re going on a trip with my younger siblings before school starts again tomorrow, so they’ll all be in bed by now and they’ll be up before we are. Nobody will mind,” Iwamoto insisted. “And I cannot just let our manager stay at a manga café or something when we have rehearsal again tomorrow.”
Laughing a little at Iwamoto’s reasoning, Sakuma nodded, “Alright…I’ll be in your care then.” He sent a message to his family that he’d missed the train and he would be staying with one of his group mates for the night.
Half an hour later found them sneaking into the Iwamoto Family residence quietly so as not to wake anyone up. Iwamoto showed Sakuma the bathroom and while the other took a bath and got ready, went to prepare the guest futon for the older male. He then pulled out some of his t-shirts for the other to wear for the night. Size wouldn’t matter then, right?
When he comes back up to his room after taking a shower himself, he finds Sakuma stretching on the futon. The movement exposes a darkening bruise on the other’s arm and Iwamoto kneels down to grab it immediately.
“You checked me to make sure I was okay, while you’re actually the one who needs the checking! Did you get that when we fell over?” he asks, frowning unhappily.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt…plus, it was my fault to begin with,” Sakuma makes a move to pull his arm away again but finds that he can’t, Iwamoto’s grip firm. “Let go…?”
Iwamoto’s grip stays firm and his eyes are dead serious. “I meant it…what I said earlier, Daisuke,” he’s not using any nicknames. “I still mean it. That I’ll catch you when you fall. That I’ll take care of you while you’re busy taking care of everyone else. I know I tease you just as much as everyone else…but that’s to show how much I appreciate what you’re doing. Like the others. It’s like saying thank you the ‘Snowmen Style’…”
Sakuma laughs a bit at that. “Snowmen Style, huh?”
“Well, yeah…but back to what I was saying…” Iwamoto looks into Sakuma’s eyes. “I really appreciate what you’re doing…and I do…I do care for you.”
Smiling, Sakuma used his free hand to ruffle Iwamoto’s hair. “You’re acting like a puppy, Gan-chan…it’s cute. And I appreciate it, too…that you care for me. And well, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if I didn’t care about you guys, too, right? Teasing or not.”
Looking a little hurt, Iwamoto looked down. “I’m not just a puppy…” he muttered. “I don’t want to be just a puppy to you…” Iwamoto looked up again and then, in a spur of the moment he decided to go for it and pulled on the cord to turn off the lights in his room. It had the desired effect of making Sakuma gasp a little in surprise and Iwamoto used that opening, to lean in and kiss the older male softly.
He could feel Sakuma’s gasp of surprise more than he heard it. The kiss was one sided at first but after a few moments, Iwamoto felt the other melting into it as well, into him. Heat rushed up into his head and after another moment he turned away.
Turning off the lights had served two purposes really. One, to create an opening and two, to hide the blush covering his cheeks now.
“Hikaru…” Sakuma’s voice is soft, gentle and really close to his ear.
“I…I’m…” Iwamoto fumbles for words.
“…I’m not letting you try and find your way to your bed like this…you’ll bang into all of your furniture. Stay here on the futon with me tonight,” Sakuma chuckles and pulls him down.
Iwamoto’s ears burn but his heart is jumping around with happiness. “O-Okay!”
Abe frowned when he stepped into the Snowmen changing room the next day with Fukazawa. “Ne, Fukka, don’t you think something is backwards here?”
Inside the room, Miyadate was making cute eyes at Watanabe, who in turn fed him chocolate. Sanada and Nozawa were spread out on the tatami floor, Sanada kissing his boyfriend silly - sitting on top of Nozawa. And finally, Sakuma was sitting in the corner with Iwamoto fussing about him, holding an ice-pack against his arm.
“Yo, Sakumanager…what happened to you?” Fukazawa sat down next to the pair. “Did Gan-chan trip over you because he didn’t see you down there?”
Sakuma stuck out his tongue. “No. Hikaru just turned into my personal caretaking robot it seems…” he looked back at Iwamoto. “You can let go, Hikaru…I can hold it myself!”
“Then I’ll go and tell Tackey to take it easy on you today! You shouldn’t do any acrobatics with that arm…” Iwamoto was about to get up but Sakuma pulled him back down.
“I appreciate your concern but it’s not that bad. We’ve all had bruises like this before. It’s fine. I won’t hold up the practice,” Sakuma insisted
Iwamoto pouted, “Daisuke!”
By now all other activity in the snowmen changing room had stopped and the other boys had grouped around them. Sanada, using a bottle of hairspray as a microphone asked, “Interesting use of first names here. Did your group miss something important? Do tell us, Sakumanager-san!” He offered the ‘microphone’ to Sakuma.
Watanabe pulled on Iwamoto, “Gan-chan! You said in your mail you’d tell me! You liar!”
Sakuma blinked, “Erm…guys, did I miss something?”
Nozawa chuckled. “Nothing much?”
Miyadate snorted, “Only that Gan-chan’s been having a crush on you for a while. But I guess you know now because he obviously confessed to you in the past like…12 hours since we last saw each other? Because you two clearly weren’t using your first names before…”
Abe shook Sakuma’s hand. “Leader! Manager! You’ve taken another step forward in life towards adulthood…you’re such a good role model! I admire you!”
Staring for a moment, Sakuma distributed a round of slaps to the head - Murakami Shingo would’ve been proud of him - and then proceeded to pull Iwamoto outside and down the hallway with him. Once they were alone, he looked up at the younger male.
“I thought you were just fooling around last night…! And…the first names…I…it just kind of slipped out…” Sakuma looked flustered.
Iwamoto bit his lip. “I…really do like you though, Daisuke. I’m not fooling around…I didn’t eat anything funny given to me by ABC-Z or anyone either…”
Sakuma’s eyebrow twitched a little at the memory but then he smiled. “I…well…” he looked up at Iwamoto. “I guess I don’t mind having my personal caretaking robot then.” Reaching up, he caressed Iwamoto’s cheek. “And don’t worry. I do see you as more than just a robot.”
Laughing, Iwamoto put a hand over Sakuma’s. “…you know…I always thought confessions would be less…awkward and everything…since…we’ve known each other for a while now and all that. But I think that on the contrary, that only made it worse. And I should apologize to NabeSho and Date-sama for telling them they had it easy.”
“As your manager…I would appreciate you doing so…” Sakuma joked.
“As your personal caretaking robot, I demand kisses as compensation for my hard work then…” Iwamoto went along with the joke and then leaned down for one, while Sakuma had to stand up onto his tip toes.