Connected / 出会い - The Meet Up (Chap. 1)
Title: Connected
Pairing: Sakurai Sho & Aiba Masaki (slightly Ohno & Ninomiya)
Rating: PG13 to NC17
Length: multichapter
Genre: romance, fluff, drama
Disclaimer: I don’t and won't ever own Sakuraiba - I only own the plot.
Summary: Everyone has a certain someone or something that keeps you alive. That cheers you up and comforts you when you are down. Except for Sho. He was left behind when he was a child; alone for almost his entire life. But someday he meets the one person that can bring sunshine in his life for the first time ever..____________________________________________________________
出会い - The Meet Up
Chapter 1
There were people everywhere. They were laughing, drinking, having fun with their friends; some of them were going into nightclubs, others in suspicious host clubs that promised more than just having a good time by drinking alcohol and eating expensive exotic fruits. But whatever places the people went to - they seemed to be satisfied, constantly wearing a bright smile on their faces. Only one person was just wandering through the streets without any kind of orientation and without any emotion on his face. He passed by several hostesses that wanted to lure him into their clubs, but he didn’t even notice them. In one hand he was holding a cigarette; from time to time he was putting the cigarette into his mouth and felt how the nicotine glided down into his lungs. Of course he knew that smoking was just a way to accelerate the process of getting sick and die eventually, but he didn’t really care about that. What was there living for anyway? He couldn’t answer that question - he didn’t even think about answering it anymore.
Mindlessly the man walked down the road, threw the almost gone cigarette on the floor and stared at it until the burning ash disappeared. At the same time he heard how a bunch of young men were coming closer and closer to him, laughing and smoking. He just stared at them - still standing at the same spot where he threw his cigarette away. As he didn’t get out of the way the group looked at him - the biggest one of them lifted his head a bit more than he already did. “Get out of my way” he ordered and threw his cigarette in front of the man's shoes. But his answer was just an annoyed snort and he formed a light smile for the first time this evening. But one light smile was one too much for the leader of the gang and he dragged him into a narrow alley where it was almost pitch-dark, only a single street light was flickering in the corner. After the bigger man saw how his victim was forming even a brighter smile, he punched him in the stomach, before the rest of the gang followed their leader and beat him until he was unconscious.
***
“Aiba-chan, can you bring the trash outside?” Nino was cleaning the kitchen as he saw the three packed bags of garbage in the corner of the room.
“Sure” Aiba smiled and took the three bags in his hands before heading to a small alley nearby where they usually placed their garbage bags. A few years ago he started a small business with his friends Nino and Ohno. They opened a mangakissa - a small cafe for people who wanted to relax, read manga and just escape their daily working life. The three friends met during school - Ohno was in his third year of high school whereas Nino and Aiba were still in first class. They didn’t want to end up as salary men or normal office workers; they wanted to do something that they liked. Aiba loved to read manga, Nino was the gaming freak of their group and Ohno just enjoyed spending his time with drawing pictures or sleeping. Their mangakissa wasn’t the most popular cafe, but definitely one of the most comfortable ones - and that’s exactly what they wanted to achieve.
Aiba carefully placed the garbage bags to the other ones that were already standing there and looked at the flickering light in the corner of the alley. They should fix that… it’s way too scary in this alley with only one light that is damaged, he thought and shivered a bit. He had to admit that he wasn’t really the bravest man out there. While he was thinking about the light, he looked a bit closer at the garbage bags that were in one of the darker corners and saw how something was lying on them. Aiba went towards the strange figure and saw a man covered in blood lying unconsciously on the garbage bags.
“Oi” Aiba said and got closer to the man, shaking his arm, but he didn’t get any reaction. “OI!” he yelled even louder and looked closer at the stranger's face covered in bruises and cuts. Aiba saw an ID card resting on the wounded man's upper body; it was crumpled up and a big burn mark was covering the card. Without any further hesitation Aiba took the ID and pulled the man up so that he could piggyback him to the mangakissa. While he was going upstairs to the cafe, he heard the stranger mumble something and was a bit relieved. “He seems to snap of out the unconsciousness… that’s good” he mumbled and opened the door to the mangakissa.
***
“He is probably just drunk, why did you even bring him up here?”
“But look at his face Nino, I am sure someone punched him until he was unconscious. I couldn’t just leave him there.”
Slowly the stranger opened his eyes after hearing unfamiliar voices. He slowly turned his head and saw someone in front of him, looking with big eyes at his face and putting something on his bruises. It burned and he moved his face in pain. “Sorry” he heard the man say “I know it hurts, but it will help healing your wounds, I promise.” Aiba smiled at the unknown man brightly and slowly patted the medicine on his cuts and bruises. While Aiba was disinfecting his wounds, he looked closer at the man and saw the sad empty look in his brown eyes. “Is everything okay? What happened, Sakurai-san?” Aiba asked curiously. The stranger's eyes widened as the unfamiliar man called his name. It has been a while since he heard someone saying it.
“Sakurai Sho, right? I found your ID card! Unfortunately it seems like someone tried to get rid of your card, so the only thing I could read was your name. The rest was burnt. Oh, and by the way my name is Aiba Masaki!” he explained and introduced himself while pulling some plasters out of his first aid kit. Sho didn’t react - he was just looking at Aiba's eyes and saw the loving, caring feeling in it. Why did he even care? He didn’t know him, so why was this Aiba guy putting one of the plasters gently on his face? For a few minutes he watched Aiba, letting him disinfect his wounds - he wanted to say something but instead he just sat up and shoved Aiba's hand away from his face. Silently he took his jacket that apparently his rescuer removed from his body when he was still in his blackout and stood up from the sofa.
“What… wait… what are you doing??” Aiba stumbled and held on the mans wrist, but Sho just pushed Aiba away.
“Just… leave me alone. Believe me it’s better this way” he said quietly and left the cafe.
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Comment: I did it! I uploaded the first chapter of my FIRST fanfiction series! I am nervous as hell. I never wrote a whole series in my life, so it's a new experience.. I hope you guys will like it :) I plan to upload a chapter every week - and every chapter will have it's own Sakuraiba Fanart.. I just love photoshopping ^__^// as always tell me what you think about it :)