[Multi-Chapter] The Cut Sleeve: Prologue
Title: The Cut Sleeve (Prologue)
Genre: AU
Rating: PG
Pairings: None for the moment
Characters: Arashi, Kanjani8, NewS
Disclaimer: Done purely for entertainment purposes. I only own my warped imagination.
Summary: Nino and his friends take a moment to escape their lives of poverty in the lower city and an unexpected meeting occurs.
Author's note: Based loosely on Qing Dynasty China, both politically and culturally. Please forgive any mistakes I've made (some purposefully for artistic license's sake, other's completely unintentionally). Dedicated to catacombkid who wanted an Ohno-with-a-harem fic and got me started writing this beast. ♥
It's hard to miss something you’ve never even had, no matter how important it may be. Ninomiya Kazunari thought that these words described his all too short childhood as well as any.
However, if you'd asked him about such things sixteen years earlier he would have just looked at you strangely and maybe made an obscene gesture before walking away.
At this particular moment sixteen years ago he was doing neither. For one, there was no one here to ask him bizarre questions that were completely irrelevant to his 8 year old mind. For another, he was much too busy focusing his attention on the ill-gotten pork bun he had clutched in his tiny, dirty hand. His mother would be angry if she found out he’d stolen part of the dinner she’d prepared for tomorrow… which was exactly why he planned on using every means in his power to keep it from her.
"Nino... hurry up!" A voice called down the alley at him and Nino lifted his head, spotting his two friends huddled together in the near darkness. Sighing, he gave Maru-- who was still calling his name loud enough to wake half the neighborhood-- a dirty look, regretting ever inviting the younger boy along for this. Maru was terrible at being quiet and even worse about keeping secrets-- a fact which usually lead to Maru's friends getting punished for Maru’s big mouth and tendency to spill secrets with only the slightest pressure.
Secretly, Nino wasn’t so sure he totally blamed Maru for this, though. He’d been around Maru’s mother enough to know just how intimidating a simple look from her could be. He wasn’t sure he’d have handled things any better in Maru’s place-not that he’d ever admit to it.
This didn't keep Nino from wondering sometimes if he and Maru were actually almost the same age, though. Sometimes just being around Maru made Nino feel years older.
"Quiet or you can't come!" Nino just barely managed to catch his other friend's words as he stopped in front of the pair, the bun still clutched loosely in his hand.
"Ow! Subaru... that hurt!" Maru was careful to keep his voice low, the other's hand connecting soundly with the back of his head all the warning he needed.
"Then don't be an idiot. You're going to get us caught again."
Nino smiled a little at Subaru, glad that if he'd been stupid enough to ask Maru he'd at least invited Subaru along, too. Subaru was about the only person who could shut Maru up so quickly. "You guys found a spot?"
"Over that way by the wall. There’s a tree that I think we can climb and there aren’t any windows facing it.”
“Good,” Nino answered, his smile brightening, eyes glistening with mischief. “Just remember the plan.”
Subaru nodded then turned to give Maru a firm look. “You remember the plan, right?”
“Yes,” Maru huffed, ducking away as Subaru reached out to ruffle his hair playfully. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Tell us, then,” Subaru continued to prod, all the while smiling sweetly at the younger boy. “Come on, we need to make sure you know it. You have the most important part.”
Maru perked up a little bit at the mention of his importance, his lips relaxing from their current frown. “I wait at the bottom of the tree while you two climb up. If anyone comes I say my cat’s in the tree. After you two get on top of the wall I climb up after you.”
“Good.” Subaru grinned and reached out to ruffle Maru’s hair again, ignoring his friend’s indignant squeak. “What about you, Nino? Ready?”
“Always,” Nino answered, grinning as he waited for his friend to lead the way.
--
“Guys… guys, are you up yet?” Maru’s loud whisper carried through the empty air around them and made Nino frown as he squatted atop the wall and offered Subaru a hand.
Subaru let Nino help him up and sighed, frowning down at Maru moving nervously along the ground, trying to spot them through the tree’s dense foliage. “We should have left him at home.”
“No one else would have spotted for us,” Nino pointed out, although he was inclined to agree. “Think we should tell him he can come up now?”
“I was thinking we could just leave him there.” Subaru grinned, his soft laughter joining Nino’s as they stared down at their friend for a long moment.
“Guys… Guys! Hey, are you guys alright? Come on, this isn’t funny.”
“We’re up here. Hurry up and climb up and stop being so loud,” Subaru called down, knowing not to let things go too long or Maru would do something stupid like run off the look for “help”, like he had once when they’d been playing hide and seek. He hadn’t managed to find either Subaru or Nino (who were hiding up in a tree, watching him the whole time) and had somehow convinced himself that they’d fallen into the river and drowned. Their parents hadn’t let them live down worrying them like that for weeks afterwards. Needless to say they never played hide and seek anymore.
“You should have said something!” Maru huffed, his face relieved as he started to climb upwards after them.
Subaru ignored him and turned to Nino, following the path of the other’s gaze to the inner city stretched out before them.
“It’s bigger than I thought.” Nino mused, Maru’s cursing as he made his way up the tree the only other thing filling the silence around them.
Subaru nodded, smiling a little as they stared down at the other half of the city together. “It looks even bigger during the day.”
“You’ve been there?” Nino asked, and Subaru couldn’t help but catch the hint of awe in his voice.
“Once, with my dad. Some noble ordered his dumplings for some festival.” Subaru answered with another grin. “Their front room was three times as big as our whole house.”
“Really? Your dad’s dumplings?” Nino asked, unable to hold in a laugh.
“Yeah. Rich people like them for some reason. I’m not sure why.”
“Me either. Your dad’s dumplings are terrible.” Both boys laughed, the sound dying off as Maru emerged from the top of the tree, red faced and with leaves sticking out of his hair at odd angles.
“What’s so funny?” Maru asked, slightly out of breath as he stared at his friends.
“Just talking about how awful my dad’s dumplings are,” Subaru answered, still laughing softly as he offered Maru a hand and pulled him up onto the wall beside them.
“Oh… I love your dad’s dumplings,” Maru answered, grinning as he made himself comfortable and tried to catch his breath. He frowned and looked up as his friends both burst into laughter, his face confused. “What? What’s so funny?”
--
That was the first time that Nino and his friends had been daring enough to sneak over the wall that closed off the lower city-the working class end of the city. It was overpopulated, dirty, crowded with houses and so full of people sometimes that it would have been hard to breathe if they’d ever known anything different, but for Nino, Maru and Subaru this was the only home or life that they’d ever known. They never really thought anything of it if they went to bed hungry, because everyone went to bed hungry sometimes. If their clothes were tattered and worn and they shared a one room apartment with 8 other family members, well, who didn’t?
The boys didn’t cross the wall because they longed to live in the upper city where everyone lived in an elegant house, had house servants and slaves to do all their menial tasks for them and wore a different delicately embroidered silk jacket everyday. No, as proud lower city boys and even prouder Han people, the three boys could only laugh at the inherent laziness of all the rich statesmen and nobles who lived in the upper city. They didn’t cross the wall hoping to find a better life or a better way.
They crossed the wall because everyone told them not to. They crossed the wall because they could, and sometimes breaking a rule here was what you needed to make life seem a little less bleak or your belly a little less empty.
Of course, at the time none of them realized this. They just thought that crossing the wall seemed like a fun way to kill the time. Being forbidden only made it that much more appealing.
Days passed, then months, then years. They went from being little boys to being slightly bigger boys, to being almost teenagers (or, in Subaru’s case, an actual teenager). They made it a habit to sneak over the wall as often as they could, always careful not to be caught. Nino suspected that their parents knew, sometimes, but they never said anything and so he never did either.
The day Nino turned 11 they snuck over the wall together for the last time. It was unusually warm for Autumn and all three boys were wearing their thinnest clothes as they clamboured down the familiar path that led to the other side of the wall, stifling laughter as Maru dropped his meat bun over the edge and stared at it pitifully from above.
“You can have mine, Maru,” Subaru offered, making the younger boy look away from the lost bun, his face lighting up with a grin. “But not until we’re down. I don’t want to listen to you if you drop this one, too.”
“I’m not that clumsy,” Maru argued weakly, his voice sounding mildly offended even as he sighed and followed both boys onto a familiar tree limb and down the other side of the wall.
Nino was still smiling to himself as he dropped to the ground, only listening with half an ear to the familiar sound of his friends arguing above him. He stood and dusted off his pants, his hands stilling against his thighs as it finally registered to his brain that something was wrong. There, on the grass right in front of him, were a pair of smallish, intricately decorated shoes and inside said shoes were their owner’s feet. Eyes wide, Nino straightened suddenly, meeting the stranger’s eyes. He was a boy, probably not much older than Nino himself, petite with delicate features, his head tilted to the side curiously as he eyed Nino. He was dressed in silk from head to toe, every inch of his being perfectly in place.
It was clear that the boy belonged here and, Nino knew it had to be just as clear to the boy that he did not. He swallowed, rustling from the tree above him jarring him out of his stupor. He spoke quickly, not really considering his words. He just wanted to say something before Subaru and Maru dropped out of the tree and this situation got any worse. “What are you doing here?”
“Standing,” the boy answered, surprising Nino with a slight smile.
“But… why here?” Nino asked, unsure what else to say. He could hear Maru and Subaru stilling in the branches above him, their rustling dying off as Nino stared the boy down, half-hoping he’d just get bored and leave-and preferably not tell anyone that he’d seen them here, since he was pretty sure that actually being caught in the upper city where they clearly didn’t belong was probably a crime worthy of all sorts of horrible punishments, and not all of them from their parents.
“Why not here?” The boy shrugged, tilting his head to the side as he ran his eyes over Nino, gaze thoughtful.
Nino made a frustrated sound at the back of his throat, giving the boy a look that said he clearly thought the other was crazy. Were all rich people this weird? It was like this guy didn’t even know how to have a normal conversation and the way he was looking at him-it gave Nino the feeling that this other boy knew something about him that he wasn’t telling, despite the fact they’d never met or even spoken before this. It made him want to turn around and climb back up the tree and never come back here again. “Do you ever answer anyone’s question or do you always talk in circles?”
“I thought I was answering your questions.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That’s not an answer.”
“I’m Ohno.”
Nino blinked, his mouth hanging open in a forgotten retort to a reply that had never come. This boy-Ohno-had to be the strangest person he’d ever met in his life and yet he found himself answering the other’s unspoken question as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Nino.”
Ohno smiled and Nino marveled at the way the simple expression seemed to change the boy’s entire being. Nino had no idea what was so great about his name. He opened his mouth to ask the boy, curiosity getting the better of him, before he remembered just how strange this all was and snapped it shut and pressed his lips into a thin line.
“The guards changed their schedule,” Ohno broke the silence suddenly, glancing over his shoulder quickly before returning his gaze to Nino’s face. Nino couldn’t help but wonder if he was somehow missing part of the conversation. “They’ve started coming here earlier at night.”
Nino nodded mutely, still a little stunned and confused and left wondering if he’d missed some crucial part of the conversation somewhere. So far he really couldn’t make sense of most of it and he couldn’t figure out why the slight sense of frustration the other boy was giving him made him want to talk to Ohno more.
It took a soft rustling in the tree above him to drag him out of his musings and back into the current situation. “Guards…oh, thanks. I, uh, I’d better go.”
Nino turned away from Ohno then, his sense of self-preservation winning out over his curiosity, but not by much.
“Nice to meet you, Nino.”
Nino paused, arms partially outstretched, hands grasping at the empty air beneath the tree’s lowest limb as he shot Ohno a quick glance over his shoulder. “You too… Ohno.”
And with that, Nino jumped and pulled himself up into the tree, ignoring Subaru’s questioning look as he started climbing the familiar path upwards, silently motioning for his friends to follow. He was almost to the top of the tree when he heard a voice below, pausing to glance over his shoulder in spite of himself. He heard a soft protesting huff from Subaru and Maru below him but it barely registered as he strained his ears to make out what was being said. For a brief moment he thought maybe Ohno was speaking to him again before he realized that the voice was too loud and deep to be Ohno’s and that someone else must have joined the other boy.
“-need to get back. They’re going to be coming by to check up on us and if they find out that we’re not studying like we should be and that we’re wandering around the city at night like this we’re dead. You know the rules. What are you doing going for a walk now, anyway… Ohno? Are you listening to me?”
Nino watched as the second figure, barely more than a shadow from this height, grabbed Ohno’s arm and shook him slightly. He could just make out Ohno turning his face away from the tree to look down at the figure behind him, as if he’d just realized someone else was there. “Oh… Sho. It’s really peaceful out here at night, isn’t it?”
Nino could hear the second boy sigh, but missed the rest of the conversation, a light tap on his ankle from Subaru drawing his attention away from the ground and back up into the air around them. He murmured a quick apology as he started to climb again, a little disturbed by how someone he’d just met and who he wasn’t even sure that he liked could distract him like this. The rustling of the leaves around him was quiet as he resumed his climb towards the top of the tree and that much closer to his side of the wall.
As he reached out, his fingertips brushing against the cool stone of the wall, he suddenly realized that he’d probably never even see Ohno again. It surprised him to realize that the thought made him a little sad.
To Chapter 1
Genre: AU
Rating: PG
Pairings: None for the moment
Characters: Arashi, Kanjani8, NewS
Disclaimer: Done purely for entertainment purposes. I only own my warped imagination.
Summary: Nino and his friends take a moment to escape their lives of poverty in the lower city and an unexpected meeting occurs.
Author's note: Based loosely on Qing Dynasty China, both politically and culturally. Please forgive any mistakes I've made (some purposefully for artistic license's sake, other's completely unintentionally). Dedicated to catacombkid who wanted an Ohno-with-a-harem fic and got me started writing this beast. ♥
It's hard to miss something you’ve never even had, no matter how important it may be. Ninomiya Kazunari thought that these words described his all too short childhood as well as any.
However, if you'd asked him about such things sixteen years earlier he would have just looked at you strangely and maybe made an obscene gesture before walking away.
At this particular moment sixteen years ago he was doing neither. For one, there was no one here to ask him bizarre questions that were completely irrelevant to his 8 year old mind. For another, he was much too busy focusing his attention on the ill-gotten pork bun he had clutched in his tiny, dirty hand. His mother would be angry if she found out he’d stolen part of the dinner she’d prepared for tomorrow… which was exactly why he planned on using every means in his power to keep it from her.
"Nino... hurry up!" A voice called down the alley at him and Nino lifted his head, spotting his two friends huddled together in the near darkness. Sighing, he gave Maru-- who was still calling his name loud enough to wake half the neighborhood-- a dirty look, regretting ever inviting the younger boy along for this. Maru was terrible at being quiet and even worse about keeping secrets-- a fact which usually lead to Maru's friends getting punished for Maru’s big mouth and tendency to spill secrets with only the slightest pressure.
Secretly, Nino wasn’t so sure he totally blamed Maru for this, though. He’d been around Maru’s mother enough to know just how intimidating a simple look from her could be. He wasn’t sure he’d have handled things any better in Maru’s place-not that he’d ever admit to it.
This didn't keep Nino from wondering sometimes if he and Maru were actually almost the same age, though. Sometimes just being around Maru made Nino feel years older.
"Quiet or you can't come!" Nino just barely managed to catch his other friend's words as he stopped in front of the pair, the bun still clutched loosely in his hand.
"Ow! Subaru... that hurt!" Maru was careful to keep his voice low, the other's hand connecting soundly with the back of his head all the warning he needed.
"Then don't be an idiot. You're going to get us caught again."
Nino smiled a little at Subaru, glad that if he'd been stupid enough to ask Maru he'd at least invited Subaru along, too. Subaru was about the only person who could shut Maru up so quickly. "You guys found a spot?"
"Over that way by the wall. There’s a tree that I think we can climb and there aren’t any windows facing it.”
“Good,” Nino answered, his smile brightening, eyes glistening with mischief. “Just remember the plan.”
Subaru nodded then turned to give Maru a firm look. “You remember the plan, right?”
“Yes,” Maru huffed, ducking away as Subaru reached out to ruffle his hair playfully. “I’m not an idiot.”
“Tell us, then,” Subaru continued to prod, all the while smiling sweetly at the younger boy. “Come on, we need to make sure you know it. You have the most important part.”
Maru perked up a little bit at the mention of his importance, his lips relaxing from their current frown. “I wait at the bottom of the tree while you two climb up. If anyone comes I say my cat’s in the tree. After you two get on top of the wall I climb up after you.”
“Good.” Subaru grinned and reached out to ruffle Maru’s hair again, ignoring his friend’s indignant squeak. “What about you, Nino? Ready?”
“Always,” Nino answered, grinning as he waited for his friend to lead the way.
--
“Guys… guys, are you up yet?” Maru’s loud whisper carried through the empty air around them and made Nino frown as he squatted atop the wall and offered Subaru a hand.
Subaru let Nino help him up and sighed, frowning down at Maru moving nervously along the ground, trying to spot them through the tree’s dense foliage. “We should have left him at home.”
“No one else would have spotted for us,” Nino pointed out, although he was inclined to agree. “Think we should tell him he can come up now?”
“I was thinking we could just leave him there.” Subaru grinned, his soft laughter joining Nino’s as they stared down at their friend for a long moment.
“Guys… Guys! Hey, are you guys alright? Come on, this isn’t funny.”
“We’re up here. Hurry up and climb up and stop being so loud,” Subaru called down, knowing not to let things go too long or Maru would do something stupid like run off the look for “help”, like he had once when they’d been playing hide and seek. He hadn’t managed to find either Subaru or Nino (who were hiding up in a tree, watching him the whole time) and had somehow convinced himself that they’d fallen into the river and drowned. Their parents hadn’t let them live down worrying them like that for weeks afterwards. Needless to say they never played hide and seek anymore.
“You should have said something!” Maru huffed, his face relieved as he started to climb upwards after them.
Subaru ignored him and turned to Nino, following the path of the other’s gaze to the inner city stretched out before them.
“It’s bigger than I thought.” Nino mused, Maru’s cursing as he made his way up the tree the only other thing filling the silence around them.
Subaru nodded, smiling a little as they stared down at the other half of the city together. “It looks even bigger during the day.”
“You’ve been there?” Nino asked, and Subaru couldn’t help but catch the hint of awe in his voice.
“Once, with my dad. Some noble ordered his dumplings for some festival.” Subaru answered with another grin. “Their front room was three times as big as our whole house.”
“Really? Your dad’s dumplings?” Nino asked, unable to hold in a laugh.
“Yeah. Rich people like them for some reason. I’m not sure why.”
“Me either. Your dad’s dumplings are terrible.” Both boys laughed, the sound dying off as Maru emerged from the top of the tree, red faced and with leaves sticking out of his hair at odd angles.
“What’s so funny?” Maru asked, slightly out of breath as he stared at his friends.
“Just talking about how awful my dad’s dumplings are,” Subaru answered, still laughing softly as he offered Maru a hand and pulled him up onto the wall beside them.
“Oh… I love your dad’s dumplings,” Maru answered, grinning as he made himself comfortable and tried to catch his breath. He frowned and looked up as his friends both burst into laughter, his face confused. “What? What’s so funny?”
--
That was the first time that Nino and his friends had been daring enough to sneak over the wall that closed off the lower city-the working class end of the city. It was overpopulated, dirty, crowded with houses and so full of people sometimes that it would have been hard to breathe if they’d ever known anything different, but for Nino, Maru and Subaru this was the only home or life that they’d ever known. They never really thought anything of it if they went to bed hungry, because everyone went to bed hungry sometimes. If their clothes were tattered and worn and they shared a one room apartment with 8 other family members, well, who didn’t?
The boys didn’t cross the wall because they longed to live in the upper city where everyone lived in an elegant house, had house servants and slaves to do all their menial tasks for them and wore a different delicately embroidered silk jacket everyday. No, as proud lower city boys and even prouder Han people, the three boys could only laugh at the inherent laziness of all the rich statesmen and nobles who lived in the upper city. They didn’t cross the wall hoping to find a better life or a better way.
They crossed the wall because everyone told them not to. They crossed the wall because they could, and sometimes breaking a rule here was what you needed to make life seem a little less bleak or your belly a little less empty.
Of course, at the time none of them realized this. They just thought that crossing the wall seemed like a fun way to kill the time. Being forbidden only made it that much more appealing.
Days passed, then months, then years. They went from being little boys to being slightly bigger boys, to being almost teenagers (or, in Subaru’s case, an actual teenager). They made it a habit to sneak over the wall as often as they could, always careful not to be caught. Nino suspected that their parents knew, sometimes, but they never said anything and so he never did either.
The day Nino turned 11 they snuck over the wall together for the last time. It was unusually warm for Autumn and all three boys were wearing their thinnest clothes as they clamboured down the familiar path that led to the other side of the wall, stifling laughter as Maru dropped his meat bun over the edge and stared at it pitifully from above.
“You can have mine, Maru,” Subaru offered, making the younger boy look away from the lost bun, his face lighting up with a grin. “But not until we’re down. I don’t want to listen to you if you drop this one, too.”
“I’m not that clumsy,” Maru argued weakly, his voice sounding mildly offended even as he sighed and followed both boys onto a familiar tree limb and down the other side of the wall.
Nino was still smiling to himself as he dropped to the ground, only listening with half an ear to the familiar sound of his friends arguing above him. He stood and dusted off his pants, his hands stilling against his thighs as it finally registered to his brain that something was wrong. There, on the grass right in front of him, were a pair of smallish, intricately decorated shoes and inside said shoes were their owner’s feet. Eyes wide, Nino straightened suddenly, meeting the stranger’s eyes. He was a boy, probably not much older than Nino himself, petite with delicate features, his head tilted to the side curiously as he eyed Nino. He was dressed in silk from head to toe, every inch of his being perfectly in place.
It was clear that the boy belonged here and, Nino knew it had to be just as clear to the boy that he did not. He swallowed, rustling from the tree above him jarring him out of his stupor. He spoke quickly, not really considering his words. He just wanted to say something before Subaru and Maru dropped out of the tree and this situation got any worse. “What are you doing here?”
“Standing,” the boy answered, surprising Nino with a slight smile.
“But… why here?” Nino asked, unsure what else to say. He could hear Maru and Subaru stilling in the branches above him, their rustling dying off as Nino stared the boy down, half-hoping he’d just get bored and leave-and preferably not tell anyone that he’d seen them here, since he was pretty sure that actually being caught in the upper city where they clearly didn’t belong was probably a crime worthy of all sorts of horrible punishments, and not all of them from their parents.
“Why not here?” The boy shrugged, tilting his head to the side as he ran his eyes over Nino, gaze thoughtful.
Nino made a frustrated sound at the back of his throat, giving the boy a look that said he clearly thought the other was crazy. Were all rich people this weird? It was like this guy didn’t even know how to have a normal conversation and the way he was looking at him-it gave Nino the feeling that this other boy knew something about him that he wasn’t telling, despite the fact they’d never met or even spoken before this. It made him want to turn around and climb back up the tree and never come back here again. “Do you ever answer anyone’s question or do you always talk in circles?”
“I thought I was answering your questions.”
“That’s exactly what I mean. That’s not an answer.”
“I’m Ohno.”
Nino blinked, his mouth hanging open in a forgotten retort to a reply that had never come. This boy-Ohno-had to be the strangest person he’d ever met in his life and yet he found himself answering the other’s unspoken question as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Nino.”
Ohno smiled and Nino marveled at the way the simple expression seemed to change the boy’s entire being. Nino had no idea what was so great about his name. He opened his mouth to ask the boy, curiosity getting the better of him, before he remembered just how strange this all was and snapped it shut and pressed his lips into a thin line.
“The guards changed their schedule,” Ohno broke the silence suddenly, glancing over his shoulder quickly before returning his gaze to Nino’s face. Nino couldn’t help but wonder if he was somehow missing part of the conversation. “They’ve started coming here earlier at night.”
Nino nodded mutely, still a little stunned and confused and left wondering if he’d missed some crucial part of the conversation somewhere. So far he really couldn’t make sense of most of it and he couldn’t figure out why the slight sense of frustration the other boy was giving him made him want to talk to Ohno more.
It took a soft rustling in the tree above him to drag him out of his musings and back into the current situation. “Guards…oh, thanks. I, uh, I’d better go.”
Nino turned away from Ohno then, his sense of self-preservation winning out over his curiosity, but not by much.
“Nice to meet you, Nino.”
Nino paused, arms partially outstretched, hands grasping at the empty air beneath the tree’s lowest limb as he shot Ohno a quick glance over his shoulder. “You too… Ohno.”
And with that, Nino jumped and pulled himself up into the tree, ignoring Subaru’s questioning look as he started climbing the familiar path upwards, silently motioning for his friends to follow. He was almost to the top of the tree when he heard a voice below, pausing to glance over his shoulder in spite of himself. He heard a soft protesting huff from Subaru and Maru below him but it barely registered as he strained his ears to make out what was being said. For a brief moment he thought maybe Ohno was speaking to him again before he realized that the voice was too loud and deep to be Ohno’s and that someone else must have joined the other boy.
“-need to get back. They’re going to be coming by to check up on us and if they find out that we’re not studying like we should be and that we’re wandering around the city at night like this we’re dead. You know the rules. What are you doing going for a walk now, anyway… Ohno? Are you listening to me?”
Nino watched as the second figure, barely more than a shadow from this height, grabbed Ohno’s arm and shook him slightly. He could just make out Ohno turning his face away from the tree to look down at the figure behind him, as if he’d just realized someone else was there. “Oh… Sho. It’s really peaceful out here at night, isn’t it?”
Nino could hear the second boy sigh, but missed the rest of the conversation, a light tap on his ankle from Subaru drawing his attention away from the ground and back up into the air around them. He murmured a quick apology as he started to climb again, a little disturbed by how someone he’d just met and who he wasn’t even sure that he liked could distract him like this. The rustling of the leaves around him was quiet as he resumed his climb towards the top of the tree and that much closer to his side of the wall.
As he reached out, his fingertips brushing against the cool stone of the wall, he suddenly realized that he’d probably never even see Ohno again. It surprised him to realize that the thought made him a little sad.
To Chapter 1