Sakumoto Drabble Batch 4
Title: Sakumoto Drabble Batch 4
Rating: G - R
Characters/Pairings: Sho/Jun
Word count: 3901
Summary: 14 drabbles of various lengths and topics-from ramen to god-awful fluff to existential angst.
Warnings/Notes: Always the ever-reliable drabbles when I want to write but can’t seem to commit. Incorporated some prompts that I got from tumblr, wee! (PS: I'm feeling v. cheesy, apologies in advance. Also a couple of "drabbles" might have gotten out of hand, lol) ♥
RAMEN
Their green room is as silent as a tomb, except for Sho’s temper.
“You’re new, right? I ordered shoyu, not tonkotsu,” Sho says, voice clipped enough to be a little frightening. He sighs. “Well, this will need to do, won’t it?” The delivery boy apologizes profusely, head bent.
Jun watches their manager bow over and over as he slips in a couple of one-thousand yen bills in the delivery boy’s hand. When he exits the room, Sho tears apart the chopsticks and removes the cover of the ramen bowl in a huff. “Seriously,” he grumbles.
The digital clock in the room pierces through the silence and announces that it is midnight.
“Grumpyrella,” Nino says.
When Jun snorts, Sho glares at him and dumps the chopped spring onions meant for sharing on Jun’s tantan-men.
“Hey!” Jun says. Sho ignores him moodily eats his ramen while Jun fumes. He takes a full slurp of his order. “Now the balance of the broth is gone, you jerk.”
Ohno chuffs through a mouthful of noodles.
“There, there,” Aiba says, relieving Jun of some of the spring onions, gleefully transferring them into his own bowl.
“Grumpyrellas?” Nino offers, drinking his cold tea. “Grumpyrellae? A pair of grumpyrella?”
This time Jun doesn’t laugh.
*
STUBBLE
Maybe it was a little filthy, but Sho did it anyway. He’d wanted to do it since seeing Jun that morning. It was a rare sight, and Sho kind of liked it. So he went for it. There was satisfaction, most definitely, but to be honest-it felt like sandpaper on the tip of his tongue.
“I want to say that it was hot,” Jun grinned, “but it’s just kind of weird.”
“Yeah?” Sho said, blushing.
“We can kiss?”
It was still kind of hot-especially when Jun nuzzled him on the neck. He briefly toyed with the idea of having Jun keep it, against all odds (a.k.a. the agency, the fans, and the world) when it struck him.
Maybe he could have this unkempt version of Jun for himself. No shave Tuesdays? In bed?
Sho smirked. He liked schedules.
*
PIANO
It was a tiny bench. There wasn’t much space, and Sho wished Jun didn’t fidget so much. It was distracting, especially when Jun wasn’t saying much. His sighs punctuated the room whenever he messed up a note, and it was driving Sho up the wall.
“You’re bound to make mistakes, you know? Just go over it again, until you stop making them,” he said, flipping the page back to where the piece started. He demonstrated a short part of the song and waited for Jun to follow.
Another sigh reverberated in the room. “Couldn’t they just shoot a body double?”
“As if,” Sho chuckled. “You’d never allow that.”
Jun’s fingers stilled on the ivory keys. He gave Sho a strange look. “Why do you know things like that?”
“Because,” Sho said, and there was something in the way that Jun had smirked that let Sho know that he was pleased. There was merit in recognition, in a simple “I see you.” It doesn’t matter that it was unspoken, as it always was between them, because they just knew.
It was a tiny bench, and Sho had all the time in the world-as long as it was Jun.
*
EQUALS
“If you’re scared, then I’m scared,” Sho says, eyes not meeting Jun’s. It’s quiet, much too quiet. Drops of water bounce to the tiles, making for echoes that sit on the line between tranquil and eerie. Sho hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights--only the lamps from the street gave a distant glow, a faint blue-gray that doesn’t do Sho’s drawn-in features any favors.
Jun tries not to let it show on his face-his distress and wonder at seeing Sho, a bottle of Yamazaki in, still and soaking in the bathtub. This is Sho at his most vulnerable, and Jun had walked right in.
What Jun wasn’t ready for was the fact that Sho let him stay.
“Did you hear me?” Sho asks, his voice chillingly soft.
He crosses his arms for lack of knowledge of what the proper protocol was in this kind of situation. There is no negotiating with Sho on nights like this-not that it happened often, if at all. At least, never in Jun’s presence. He’s only heard vague references to episodes like this from Sho himself, and Jun, believing what he did of Sho, took them as exaggerations, as jokes. Who doesn't drink too much occasionally? They certainly like their whisky. Jun hadn’t even bothered to see Sho off to his own bathroom, where he unceremoniously claimed that he will puke and that was the end of it. The rough fabric of the couch had felt like heaven to his pounding head.
Relief was to be short.
Jun swallows at the sting on his toe where a small shard of glass pierced through his skin. He will see to it later; he’s still half-drunk himself, and it’s just too much. He feels and bears the sharp pain as he sees Sho, naked, in clear focus. Maybe he will never be able to forget the terror he had felt upon hearing Sho curse while glass crashed against marble, a rude awakening if there ever was one.
“It’ll be okay,” Jun says, his pulse, erroneous, his breathing, irregular. He hugs himself, because he doesn’t know what to do.
They had been talking about Arashi, about how they will make do with the fallout-someday people won’t want them and it’ll be okay. They’ll be doing their own thing, and Sho had, in an unusually sentimental mood, confessed that he wanted to see Jun in a project, a film, maybe, that would make him a household name all over the world, that Jun “deserved nothing less”-to which Jun had snorted into his drink, laughing at Sho’s admission, feeling warm and lightheaded. “I don’t know what I’ll be,” Jun said. Alcohol made it easy to be honest. “It scares me sometimes.” Sho dismissed him by pouring more whisky into his glass, his gaiety assuring Jun, as it always has.
“I don’t know who I’ll be without you,” Sho says, sitting there motionlessly, his head in his dripping hands, and it scalds Jun, the implications and the coming sorrow, insecurities revealed in one breath.
Every step makes him wince, but he continues on. He steps inside the tub-never mind that he's still in his jeans and a shirt. The sound that the water makes when it overflows fills the room, fills them. He is being rash, but Sho is too far gone to notice.
Up close, though, Sho's eyes tell a different story. Jun thinks, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that he too holds that same fear in his chest. It’s an overwhelming realization. When he reaches out, Sho doesn’t fight back. Their lips meet softly, quietly. Jun brushes Sho’s wet bangs to his ear.
“It’ll be okay,” Jun repeats. The blood from his wound swirls in the water, and he prays for Sho not to see it just for a few more minutes. Something inside him gives-a redemption that he can’t name out loud in front of anyone. In this chaotic silence, in the eye of the storm, he feels like he could hold on to Sho until he doesn’t want him to.
Jun will be there to help clean the mess, will be there, when no one else is. He chooses to be.
*
MIGRAINE
He waits for him to pick up the phone.
“Matsumoto Pharmacy, please.”
“What’s wrong?” It’s almost like a character, really. “Feeling acidic again?” He wants to laugh but he genuinely thinks it’s adorable, so he shuts up and basks in the worry in his voice. It’s nice, after all.
“Migraine.” He intends for it to sound more pitiful than he feels.
“Wait, let me check what I have here,” Jun says, sounding like he’s ruffling through some bottles. It sounds a little creepy over the phone.
“Excuse me,” he says. “I think you have what I need.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’d like the proprietor of Matsumoto Pharmacy please.”
“DO YOU REALLY HAVE A MIGRAINE?”
*
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
It isn’t his usual travel video-this one is a live feed.
“This is where the skaters practice,” Sho puffs, “the temperature is crazy.” He swivels the phone enough for Jun to think that his head is about to burst.
“Pretty,” Jun says anyway, lounging warmly on his bed, his arm outstretched while holding his phone. “You’re not supposed to wear them like that, by the way.”
Sho touches his anorak self-consciously, driven by many wardrobe mishaps that Jun always seems to notice. “What now?”
“That beanie I gave you. You look like an egg.”
“Mean.” Sho laughs into the cold, his breath billowing from his mouth. "So how should I wear it?"
Jun smiles and feels as warm as ever.
*
FACE DOWN
One day, Sho comes in with his hair drastically shaved on the sides.
“Really?” Jun thinks, as Sho saunters in and sits across him on the couch.
The next week, Sho enters the set in a sinister pair of skin-tight leather pants.
“Really,” Jun mumbles to himself, watching Sho walk by without a care in the world.
After a take, his eyes stray to the monitor: it’s Sho rapping, his profile facing the camera-all fierce words plus that stupid undercut.
“REALLY!” Jun says out loud, unable to stop himself. When Sho gives him a strange look, he shuts up, and saves his thoughts for later.
Later that night, he pushes Sho to the bed, face down.
“Really?” Sho says, his surprised voice muffled by the sheets.
“Really.”
*
RED VELVET CAKE
“I told you,” Sho says, voice rising, “I told you that I was saving it!”
Jun can only brush off the red crumbs on his shirt.
Sho screeches. “You ate the last slice and now you’re making a mess! That’s it, no cuddling tonight!”
He wants to laugh but he knows he shouldn’t. The next day he buys a freshly baked red velvet cake and goes into Sho’s room wearing nothing but his glasses and a fork in his mouth. The cake is on a platter laid out on the bed, ready and waiting for Sho.
As was he.
Sho gets home and sputters at Jun’s unclothed glory. He grins, though, when he reads what the icing spelled out:
CUDDLING IS OVERRATED.
*
TYPHOON GENERATION
Maybe Jun never really got over it, deep inside. Maybe he’ll always be that seventeen-year-old kid, when it comes to Sho.
When Sho enters the room in a black shirt, blue leather jacket, and his hair slicked back, Jun feels breathless. He stops in front of Jun, hands stuffed shyly inside his jacket. Jun tugs him closer via his belt loops.
“You really did it,” he says.
“You asked,” Sho says, neck blooming in red.
Jun reaches out for the earring that he now knew would be there. “Exactly like this,” he whispers, as he goes in for a kiss. He feels the shape of Sho’s grin on his lips and it is overwhelming. It's all about the moment that he understands that Sho has given him something that he can keep for himself, for that seventeen year-old who wanted nothing more than this.
(This, still, and always, him.)
*
2:18 AM
He doesn’t even look at him. He feels like he’s on the edge of reason when he hears the wooden floor creak in that one spot where people take off their shoes. Sure that he can’t be seen, he takes a deep breath and sweeps away his questionable reading materials under the pillows on the couch. No one needs to know what he reads when he doesn’t want to think.
“It’s cold outside,” says a muffled voice behind him. “Really cold. Can’t believe the car broke down, was right in the area, stupid timing, yeah? Thanks for letting me in.”
“It’s no problem,” he says. Is it? “Tea?”
“How about some hot chocolate?”
He couldn’t control his frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”
“-no, I’m sorry, I was kidding. Tea would be great.”
He suddenly feels nervous in his flannel pajamas, when, just an unimaginable ten minutes earlier, he was perfectly comfortable. Should he have changed? No, that’s ridiculous, it wasn’t like he’s entertaining the Prime Minister, or anyone of significance that warranted a wardrobe change, really-they’ve seen each other in less, and worse. Much worse. Perhaps the difference tonight is that it’s been a year. A practical eternity.
“It smells like a cabin in here,” Sho says, finding his way into a stool. He rubs his hands together and blows into them. “Like logs.”
Jun fidgets and wonders if he should nip out the candle he’s left burning in his room. Back in the fall, the salesperson had said it would be the perfect accompaniment to winter nights spent indoors, and Jun was glad that he took her up on it. When Sho sneezes, he feels annoyed.
“Excuse me,” Sho says, wiping his nose with a dripping handkerchief. Jun instinctively looks out of the window and only sees downcast grey.
“I’m sorry,” he says, suddenly realizing how uncomfortable Sho must be. There is a simple, graphic misery in the wet, dark spots on his jeans, his red nose, and the hair plastered on his forehead-miserable enough for Jun not to suspect him. “I’ll run you a warm bath, before anything else.”
Sho’s face is in the middle of protesting when he scurries away, his hands turning cold even though he’s been perfectly warm since he got home. The cherry blossoms may have bloomed way up north, but the sleet that they’ve been experiencing on the tail-end of this Tokyo winter is unremarkably horrible. No snow, just grey, wet slush. Jun thinks that Sho is exactly the kind of buffoon, at thirty-two, who would neglect to bring an umbrella in this kind of weather as a kind of rebellion, an act of immature willfulness that he doesn’t know he never outgrew, and just happened to have the dumb luck of having his car break down right in front of a member’s house.
At least, he hopes.
He’s about to dial the number of Sho’s manager when a hand clasps around his own. “I don’t think there’s a need for that,” he says, eyes searching Jun’s. They stand there, under the doorway, silent, wondering whose move it is. Jun thinks, not for the first time, that they have erected boundaries between the two of them only for the sheer pleasure of finding out the upper limit of what those boundaries can withstand.
“If you’re sure,” and Sho lets go of his hand, and it’s all a little bit messed up, a little choreographed. He hates, has always hated, the intrusion of being approached from behind, is discomfited that Sho could just call like that and ask to come up, and he had said yes, hadn’t slapped his hand away. He doesn’t know now who’s more stubborn for doing what.
“I am,” he says, eyes wide and hopeful in a way that hurts.
“I don’t know what you’re assuming,” Jun says. He wills his voice not to crack. “But this can’t happen again.”
“I’m sorry,” Sho says, voice small, and Jun is amazed at how many apologies they manage to throw at each other, apologies instead of things that might not end up being said well, or taken well. It has taken years of deft maneuvering, of learning, and maybe they’re just the right kind of old to not say anything more than they have the energy for. “I’ll take that bath, please.”
Sometimes, he likes seeing him suffer-it is an ugly truth. “You could have brought an umbrella, you know.”
His car had broken down, and their myriad of past excuses, fill the space between them with imperatives long unheeded, to the point of immunity. Almost. He watches Sho rub the exposed skin on top of his collar, warming his nape.
“I was only waiting for you to turn off the lights,” Sho said. “There was supposed to be no need to get out of the car.”
Jun wants to say so many things, but instead he allows invisible boots to stomp all over his heart and make another ruckus. Familiar. Hope and insanity, coiled in cruel thoughts he hasn’t allowed himself to think for a while.
“Can we talk?”
But it’s been years, Jun wants to say, but doesn’t. But you said no.
Instead, he enters his bedroom and looks for towel and an extra set of clothes. He hands it to Sho, signaling to the bath. His head is swirling hotly. “You’ll catch a cold. Go drown in there.”
Sho clutches his wrist. “Please.”
It’s the contact of skin-the casual way Sho goes for it-that sets Jun off. “I don’t know what you fucking want. You probably don’t either,” Jun says, shaking him off. When he storms off his own room, he imagines Sho, standing there, wet, with a limp towel in hand. Is he frowning? Is the knot in between his eyebrows there?
He waits just outside, listening for the bathroom door. When he hears it close, he takes a big breath. Jun is disgusted at himself for being confused. Then, and now.
When Sho steps out to the living room looking warm but lost, Jun looks away. “My car didn’t really break down tonight, but-,”
“Fuck you,” he breathes, his resolve melting into nothing, as he storms toward him. “Fuck you,” and it’s a litany again, Sho’s leg walking backward in between his own legs, hands fisting in folds of gray cotton, back thudding against the wall.
“I just wanted to talk,” Sho says, breathless.
“Then talk.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sho says. “I’ve changed, Jun. I just-I was stupid, okay? I've been trying, but it's impossible after all.”
“No, it’s not obvious,” Jun says, letting go of Sho. He feels tired. "Feel free to spell things out."
“I like you,” Sho says, defeated. When Sho sighs, it’s a handprint on his ventricles. Opening, closing. “I can’t-I can’t think. I'm not myself. Not without you.”
The room suddenly feels cloying. “Why do you feel like you can say those kinds of things to me? We’re not-we’re not twenty-four anymore. It just can’t, doesn’t, work this way. We’re done. You said it yourself,” and to Jun, it’s more painful saying it out loud than carrying it inside him all these months.
“You were always following me around, weren’t you? All those years, all those nights. Waking up with you in the morning, those. Nothing about that was not real-I’ve always been following you around too, in my head. Always thinking about you. I'm so sorry that I've been watching your apartment from outside-I just wanted to be near you. I just can't do without you, can't you see? I miss you. I can’t defend it to myself anymore,” Sho says, voice shaking.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Jun says, a last defense, because the four walls of this room knows that he has tried so hard.
“I’m the most fucking stupid person on the planet, will that do?”
Sho reaches out a hand to his face. Jun would rather that the ground swallow him now, but his lips quake, and he’s still there, bare and fighting. “You can’t-it can’t.”
His thumb caresses Jun’s wet cheek. “Please be that someone who could like back someone as stupid and proud as me." He wraps his arms around Jun, his voice suddenly nearer. “Please,” Sho whispers.
It’s been so long, but nothing about it feels like a mistake-the ease of his own decision guts Jun. “It was never just ‘like’, you asshole,” he says. His arms find a way to snake around Sho, holding on, again. He will not let go so easily again, he vows.
“I know,” Sho says, and Jun falls silent as he feels the salty warmth on his shoulder and hears the fear and gratitude in Sho's voice. He gives in.
*
TIGHT FIT
“I swear, I just bought it, and it rolled under there and I just, I can’t,” Sho said, blustering around the room with his dress shirt still open. “I won’t fit!”
Jun sighs and wonders if Sho lets him stay over just in case occasions like this arise. He gets on his knees and squirms under Sho’s bed, feeling around for the errant cuff link. When he gets hold of it and hands it back, Sho looks at him strangely.
“You fit in there,” he says.
“-yes?” Jun says, wondering where the conversation is heading. “You could too, if you weren’t being so panicky about not being able to breathe.”
Sho shakes his head as if that was beside the point. “You fit in there.”
“Stop saying that,” Jun says, irritable thanks to having been woken up and asked to crawl on his knees. “I’m going to brush my teeth.”
“If you fit in there, maybe you could fit in-”
Jun shuts the door because honestly, it’s just too damn early for Sho and his thing. Maybe Jun shouldn’t have made that broom closet that special of a memory.
*
SHADOW LEADERS
"Yes, let's go for it," Jun says with finality.
"We could tie up with JAL," Sho suggests, and Jun beams.
The other three watch the details come together beautifully.
*
CONCERT: 5x15
Jun had known that this day would be too much, even for him. Or perhaps, more accurately, especially for him. The reality of fifteen years seeps into his pores and goes straight into his heart, an emotional osmosis he couldn’t have possibly prepared for.
There is no dress rehearsal for this part. It’s a surge, a deluge-a lifetime of dreaming that has led him, them, on this stage tonight. He doesn’t know how else to contort his face-he didn’t really want to give in: not during a random old song, not tonight, not here. When the crowd cheers, he knows that his ugly I-definitely-won’t-cry face was being flashed on the big screens.
He won’t look.
Everything is gonna be all right
I'm gonna blend colors together to paint the "near future"
What Jun couldn’t have known was how he would burst into tears when sees Sho running towards him. It was stupid, it was cliché-everything he’d wince at on a normal day.
But it isn’t a normal day. It's Hawaii. It's Sho.
The crowd goes wild, and he’s sure that somewhere out there, the other three are smiling. Or laughing. It’s embarrassing and kind of touching and he will allow it.
On their fifteenth anniversary, Sho runs into him and finally, fiercely, hugs him in public.
They hold on to each other, sweat and warmth mingling together, heartbeats running on the realization of more than half of their lives-awe.
“You’re ugly when you cry,” Sho whispers, and Jun bursts out laughing. This night was theirs.
*
DON’T ACT LIKE IT’S A BAD THING
When Sho gets into the van, he knows that what he’s encountering isn’t the usual Jun. He's humming, his foot dangling happily across his lap. Jun doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.
The van moves, and Jun is still humming. Sho tries to subtly lean in to take a peek at what he’s listening to. Just when he’s about to make out who the artist was, Jun jumps.
“Hey,” Jun says, surprised at Sho’s intrusion. “Sorry, you said something?”
Sho reddens and shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”
Jun scrunches his eyebrows together, looking at Sho like he's considering something. It’s when he offers one earbud for him that Sho actually laughs.
“What’s with you today, seriously,” Sho says, taking it.
Jun doesn’t say anything and fixes the other earbud on his own ear, looking as contented as ever. When Sho does the same thing, he wishes he could be as nonchalant as he was just a second go.
New York. Blips of time that will never be spoken about. Songs that stick-this time, among a crowd of people instead of gazing at a crowd screaming their names. He can’t sing the words, but it was exactly like that, the feeling, them: foreign but warm. Strangers to everyone, distances shortened, belief suspended, beats racing. Maybe.
The same ringed hand curling around his, just like it is now, across the van’s aisle. Their hands, the white cord, this song: conduits.
The small smile on Jun’s face is undaunted, a satisfaction Sho wants to name but dares not to think too hard about-it has always been their downfall. Sho won’t say anything more today, he decides, and interlocks their fingers as the Tokyo Bay stretches out to the side, a gray morning of pure light. It’s enough. They’ll never talk about this; he’ll never be able to explain more than the memory of the look in Jun’s eyes. For now, this is a part of Jun, on a platter, easy and simple and rare.
Don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me.
Rating: G - R
Characters/Pairings: Sho/Jun
Word count: 3901
Summary: 14 drabbles of various lengths and topics-from ramen to god-awful fluff to existential angst.
Warnings/Notes: Always the ever-reliable drabbles when I want to write but can’t seem to commit. Incorporated some prompts that I got from tumblr, wee! (PS: I'm feeling v. cheesy, apologies in advance. Also a couple of "drabbles" might have gotten out of hand, lol) ♥
RAMEN
Their green room is as silent as a tomb, except for Sho’s temper.
“You’re new, right? I ordered shoyu, not tonkotsu,” Sho says, voice clipped enough to be a little frightening. He sighs. “Well, this will need to do, won’t it?” The delivery boy apologizes profusely, head bent.
Jun watches their manager bow over and over as he slips in a couple of one-thousand yen bills in the delivery boy’s hand. When he exits the room, Sho tears apart the chopsticks and removes the cover of the ramen bowl in a huff. “Seriously,” he grumbles.
The digital clock in the room pierces through the silence and announces that it is midnight.
“Grumpyrella,” Nino says.
When Jun snorts, Sho glares at him and dumps the chopped spring onions meant for sharing on Jun’s tantan-men.
“Hey!” Jun says. Sho ignores him moodily eats his ramen while Jun fumes. He takes a full slurp of his order. “Now the balance of the broth is gone, you jerk.”
Ohno chuffs through a mouthful of noodles.
“There, there,” Aiba says, relieving Jun of some of the spring onions, gleefully transferring them into his own bowl.
“Grumpyrellas?” Nino offers, drinking his cold tea. “Grumpyrellae? A pair of grumpyrella?”
This time Jun doesn’t laugh.
*
STUBBLE
Maybe it was a little filthy, but Sho did it anyway. He’d wanted to do it since seeing Jun that morning. It was a rare sight, and Sho kind of liked it. So he went for it. There was satisfaction, most definitely, but to be honest-it felt like sandpaper on the tip of his tongue.
“I want to say that it was hot,” Jun grinned, “but it’s just kind of weird.”
“Yeah?” Sho said, blushing.
“We can kiss?”
It was still kind of hot-especially when Jun nuzzled him on the neck. He briefly toyed with the idea of having Jun keep it, against all odds (a.k.a. the agency, the fans, and the world) when it struck him.
Maybe he could have this unkempt version of Jun for himself. No shave Tuesdays? In bed?
Sho smirked. He liked schedules.
*
PIANO
It was a tiny bench. There wasn’t much space, and Sho wished Jun didn’t fidget so much. It was distracting, especially when Jun wasn’t saying much. His sighs punctuated the room whenever he messed up a note, and it was driving Sho up the wall.
“You’re bound to make mistakes, you know? Just go over it again, until you stop making them,” he said, flipping the page back to where the piece started. He demonstrated a short part of the song and waited for Jun to follow.
Another sigh reverberated in the room. “Couldn’t they just shoot a body double?”
“As if,” Sho chuckled. “You’d never allow that.”
Jun’s fingers stilled on the ivory keys. He gave Sho a strange look. “Why do you know things like that?”
“Because,” Sho said, and there was something in the way that Jun had smirked that let Sho know that he was pleased. There was merit in recognition, in a simple “I see you.” It doesn’t matter that it was unspoken, as it always was between them, because they just knew.
It was a tiny bench, and Sho had all the time in the world-as long as it was Jun.
*
EQUALS
“If you’re scared, then I’m scared,” Sho says, eyes not meeting Jun’s. It’s quiet, much too quiet. Drops of water bounce to the tiles, making for echoes that sit on the line between tranquil and eerie. Sho hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights--only the lamps from the street gave a distant glow, a faint blue-gray that doesn’t do Sho’s drawn-in features any favors.
Jun tries not to let it show on his face-his distress and wonder at seeing Sho, a bottle of Yamazaki in, still and soaking in the bathtub. This is Sho at his most vulnerable, and Jun had walked right in.
What Jun wasn’t ready for was the fact that Sho let him stay.
“Did you hear me?” Sho asks, his voice chillingly soft.
He crosses his arms for lack of knowledge of what the proper protocol was in this kind of situation. There is no negotiating with Sho on nights like this-not that it happened often, if at all. At least, never in Jun’s presence. He’s only heard vague references to episodes like this from Sho himself, and Jun, believing what he did of Sho, took them as exaggerations, as jokes. Who doesn't drink too much occasionally? They certainly like their whisky. Jun hadn’t even bothered to see Sho off to his own bathroom, where he unceremoniously claimed that he will puke and that was the end of it. The rough fabric of the couch had felt like heaven to his pounding head.
Relief was to be short.
Jun swallows at the sting on his toe where a small shard of glass pierced through his skin. He will see to it later; he’s still half-drunk himself, and it’s just too much. He feels and bears the sharp pain as he sees Sho, naked, in clear focus. Maybe he will never be able to forget the terror he had felt upon hearing Sho curse while glass crashed against marble, a rude awakening if there ever was one.
“It’ll be okay,” Jun says, his pulse, erroneous, his breathing, irregular. He hugs himself, because he doesn’t know what to do.
They had been talking about Arashi, about how they will make do with the fallout-someday people won’t want them and it’ll be okay. They’ll be doing their own thing, and Sho had, in an unusually sentimental mood, confessed that he wanted to see Jun in a project, a film, maybe, that would make him a household name all over the world, that Jun “deserved nothing less”-to which Jun had snorted into his drink, laughing at Sho’s admission, feeling warm and lightheaded. “I don’t know what I’ll be,” Jun said. Alcohol made it easy to be honest. “It scares me sometimes.” Sho dismissed him by pouring more whisky into his glass, his gaiety assuring Jun, as it always has.
“I don’t know who I’ll be without you,” Sho says, sitting there motionlessly, his head in his dripping hands, and it scalds Jun, the implications and the coming sorrow, insecurities revealed in one breath.
Every step makes him wince, but he continues on. He steps inside the tub-never mind that he's still in his jeans and a shirt. The sound that the water makes when it overflows fills the room, fills them. He is being rash, but Sho is too far gone to notice.
Up close, though, Sho's eyes tell a different story. Jun thinks, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that he too holds that same fear in his chest. It’s an overwhelming realization. When he reaches out, Sho doesn’t fight back. Their lips meet softly, quietly. Jun brushes Sho’s wet bangs to his ear.
“It’ll be okay,” Jun repeats. The blood from his wound swirls in the water, and he prays for Sho not to see it just for a few more minutes. Something inside him gives-a redemption that he can’t name out loud in front of anyone. In this chaotic silence, in the eye of the storm, he feels like he could hold on to Sho until he doesn’t want him to.
Jun will be there to help clean the mess, will be there, when no one else is. He chooses to be.
*
MIGRAINE
He waits for him to pick up the phone.
“Matsumoto Pharmacy, please.”
“What’s wrong?” It’s almost like a character, really. “Feeling acidic again?” He wants to laugh but he genuinely thinks it’s adorable, so he shuts up and basks in the worry in his voice. It’s nice, after all.
“Migraine.” He intends for it to sound more pitiful than he feels.
“Wait, let me check what I have here,” Jun says, sounding like he’s ruffling through some bottles. It sounds a little creepy over the phone.
“Excuse me,” he says. “I think you have what I need.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’d like the proprietor of Matsumoto Pharmacy please.”
“DO YOU REALLY HAVE A MIGRAINE?”
*
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
It isn’t his usual travel video-this one is a live feed.
“This is where the skaters practice,” Sho puffs, “the temperature is crazy.” He swivels the phone enough for Jun to think that his head is about to burst.
“Pretty,” Jun says anyway, lounging warmly on his bed, his arm outstretched while holding his phone. “You’re not supposed to wear them like that, by the way.”
Sho touches his anorak self-consciously, driven by many wardrobe mishaps that Jun always seems to notice. “What now?”
“That beanie I gave you. You look like an egg.”
“Mean.” Sho laughs into the cold, his breath billowing from his mouth. "So how should I wear it?"
Jun smiles and feels as warm as ever.
*
FACE DOWN
One day, Sho comes in with his hair drastically shaved on the sides.
“Really?” Jun thinks, as Sho saunters in and sits across him on the couch.
The next week, Sho enters the set in a sinister pair of skin-tight leather pants.
“Really,” Jun mumbles to himself, watching Sho walk by without a care in the world.
After a take, his eyes stray to the monitor: it’s Sho rapping, his profile facing the camera-all fierce words plus that stupid undercut.
“REALLY!” Jun says out loud, unable to stop himself. When Sho gives him a strange look, he shuts up, and saves his thoughts for later.
Later that night, he pushes Sho to the bed, face down.
“Really?” Sho says, his surprised voice muffled by the sheets.
“Really.”
*
RED VELVET CAKE
“I told you,” Sho says, voice rising, “I told you that I was saving it!”
Jun can only brush off the red crumbs on his shirt.
Sho screeches. “You ate the last slice and now you’re making a mess! That’s it, no cuddling tonight!”
He wants to laugh but he knows he shouldn’t. The next day he buys a freshly baked red velvet cake and goes into Sho’s room wearing nothing but his glasses and a fork in his mouth. The cake is on a platter laid out on the bed, ready and waiting for Sho.
As was he.
Sho gets home and sputters at Jun’s unclothed glory. He grins, though, when he reads what the icing spelled out:
CUDDLING IS OVERRATED.
*
TYPHOON GENERATION
Maybe Jun never really got over it, deep inside. Maybe he’ll always be that seventeen-year-old kid, when it comes to Sho.
When Sho enters the room in a black shirt, blue leather jacket, and his hair slicked back, Jun feels breathless. He stops in front of Jun, hands stuffed shyly inside his jacket. Jun tugs him closer via his belt loops.
“You really did it,” he says.
“You asked,” Sho says, neck blooming in red.
Jun reaches out for the earring that he now knew would be there. “Exactly like this,” he whispers, as he goes in for a kiss. He feels the shape of Sho’s grin on his lips and it is overwhelming. It's all about the moment that he understands that Sho has given him something that he can keep for himself, for that seventeen year-old who wanted nothing more than this.
(This, still, and always, him.)
*
2:18 AM
He doesn’t even look at him. He feels like he’s on the edge of reason when he hears the wooden floor creak in that one spot where people take off their shoes. Sure that he can’t be seen, he takes a deep breath and sweeps away his questionable reading materials under the pillows on the couch. No one needs to know what he reads when he doesn’t want to think.
“It’s cold outside,” says a muffled voice behind him. “Really cold. Can’t believe the car broke down, was right in the area, stupid timing, yeah? Thanks for letting me in.”
“It’s no problem,” he says. Is it? “Tea?”
“How about some hot chocolate?”
He couldn’t control his frown. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”
“-no, I’m sorry, I was kidding. Tea would be great.”
He suddenly feels nervous in his flannel pajamas, when, just an unimaginable ten minutes earlier, he was perfectly comfortable. Should he have changed? No, that’s ridiculous, it wasn’t like he’s entertaining the Prime Minister, or anyone of significance that warranted a wardrobe change, really-they’ve seen each other in less, and worse. Much worse. Perhaps the difference tonight is that it’s been a year. A practical eternity.
“It smells like a cabin in here,” Sho says, finding his way into a stool. He rubs his hands together and blows into them. “Like logs.”
Jun fidgets and wonders if he should nip out the candle he’s left burning in his room. Back in the fall, the salesperson had said it would be the perfect accompaniment to winter nights spent indoors, and Jun was glad that he took her up on it. When Sho sneezes, he feels annoyed.
“Excuse me,” Sho says, wiping his nose with a dripping handkerchief. Jun instinctively looks out of the window and only sees downcast grey.
“I’m sorry,” he says, suddenly realizing how uncomfortable Sho must be. There is a simple, graphic misery in the wet, dark spots on his jeans, his red nose, and the hair plastered on his forehead-miserable enough for Jun not to suspect him. “I’ll run you a warm bath, before anything else.”
Sho’s face is in the middle of protesting when he scurries away, his hands turning cold even though he’s been perfectly warm since he got home. The cherry blossoms may have bloomed way up north, but the sleet that they’ve been experiencing on the tail-end of this Tokyo winter is unremarkably horrible. No snow, just grey, wet slush. Jun thinks that Sho is exactly the kind of buffoon, at thirty-two, who would neglect to bring an umbrella in this kind of weather as a kind of rebellion, an act of immature willfulness that he doesn’t know he never outgrew, and just happened to have the dumb luck of having his car break down right in front of a member’s house.
At least, he hopes.
He’s about to dial the number of Sho’s manager when a hand clasps around his own. “I don’t think there’s a need for that,” he says, eyes searching Jun’s. They stand there, under the doorway, silent, wondering whose move it is. Jun thinks, not for the first time, that they have erected boundaries between the two of them only for the sheer pleasure of finding out the upper limit of what those boundaries can withstand.
“If you’re sure,” and Sho lets go of his hand, and it’s all a little bit messed up, a little choreographed. He hates, has always hated, the intrusion of being approached from behind, is discomfited that Sho could just call like that and ask to come up, and he had said yes, hadn’t slapped his hand away. He doesn’t know now who’s more stubborn for doing what.
“I am,” he says, eyes wide and hopeful in a way that hurts.
“I don’t know what you’re assuming,” Jun says. He wills his voice not to crack. “But this can’t happen again.”
“I’m sorry,” Sho says, voice small, and Jun is amazed at how many apologies they manage to throw at each other, apologies instead of things that might not end up being said well, or taken well. It has taken years of deft maneuvering, of learning, and maybe they’re just the right kind of old to not say anything more than they have the energy for. “I’ll take that bath, please.”
Sometimes, he likes seeing him suffer-it is an ugly truth. “You could have brought an umbrella, you know.”
His car had broken down, and their myriad of past excuses, fill the space between them with imperatives long unheeded, to the point of immunity. Almost. He watches Sho rub the exposed skin on top of his collar, warming his nape.
“I was only waiting for you to turn off the lights,” Sho said. “There was supposed to be no need to get out of the car.”
Jun wants to say so many things, but instead he allows invisible boots to stomp all over his heart and make another ruckus. Familiar. Hope and insanity, coiled in cruel thoughts he hasn’t allowed himself to think for a while.
“Can we talk?”
But it’s been years, Jun wants to say, but doesn’t. But you said no.
Instead, he enters his bedroom and looks for towel and an extra set of clothes. He hands it to Sho, signaling to the bath. His head is swirling hotly. “You’ll catch a cold. Go drown in there.”
Sho clutches his wrist. “Please.”
It’s the contact of skin-the casual way Sho goes for it-that sets Jun off. “I don’t know what you fucking want. You probably don’t either,” Jun says, shaking him off. When he storms off his own room, he imagines Sho, standing there, wet, with a limp towel in hand. Is he frowning? Is the knot in between his eyebrows there?
He waits just outside, listening for the bathroom door. When he hears it close, he takes a big breath. Jun is disgusted at himself for being confused. Then, and now.
When Sho steps out to the living room looking warm but lost, Jun looks away. “My car didn’t really break down tonight, but-,”
“Fuck you,” he breathes, his resolve melting into nothing, as he storms toward him. “Fuck you,” and it’s a litany again, Sho’s leg walking backward in between his own legs, hands fisting in folds of gray cotton, back thudding against the wall.
“I just wanted to talk,” Sho says, breathless.
“Then talk.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Sho says. “I’ve changed, Jun. I just-I was stupid, okay? I've been trying, but it's impossible after all.”
“No, it’s not obvious,” Jun says, letting go of Sho. He feels tired. "Feel free to spell things out."
“I like you,” Sho says, defeated. When Sho sighs, it’s a handprint on his ventricles. Opening, closing. “I can’t-I can’t think. I'm not myself. Not without you.”
The room suddenly feels cloying. “Why do you feel like you can say those kinds of things to me? We’re not-we’re not twenty-four anymore. It just can’t, doesn’t, work this way. We’re done. You said it yourself,” and to Jun, it’s more painful saying it out loud than carrying it inside him all these months.
“You were always following me around, weren’t you? All those years, all those nights. Waking up with you in the morning, those. Nothing about that was not real-I’ve always been following you around too, in my head. Always thinking about you. I'm so sorry that I've been watching your apartment from outside-I just wanted to be near you. I just can't do without you, can't you see? I miss you. I can’t defend it to myself anymore,” Sho says, voice shaking.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Jun says, a last defense, because the four walls of this room knows that he has tried so hard.
“I’m the most fucking stupid person on the planet, will that do?”
Sho reaches out a hand to his face. Jun would rather that the ground swallow him now, but his lips quake, and he’s still there, bare and fighting. “You can’t-it can’t.”
His thumb caresses Jun’s wet cheek. “Please be that someone who could like back someone as stupid and proud as me." He wraps his arms around Jun, his voice suddenly nearer. “Please,” Sho whispers.
It’s been so long, but nothing about it feels like a mistake-the ease of his own decision guts Jun. “It was never just ‘like’, you asshole,” he says. His arms find a way to snake around Sho, holding on, again. He will not let go so easily again, he vows.
“I know,” Sho says, and Jun falls silent as he feels the salty warmth on his shoulder and hears the fear and gratitude in Sho's voice. He gives in.
*
TIGHT FIT
“I swear, I just bought it, and it rolled under there and I just, I can’t,” Sho said, blustering around the room with his dress shirt still open. “I won’t fit!”
Jun sighs and wonders if Sho lets him stay over just in case occasions like this arise. He gets on his knees and squirms under Sho’s bed, feeling around for the errant cuff link. When he gets hold of it and hands it back, Sho looks at him strangely.
“You fit in there,” he says.
“-yes?” Jun says, wondering where the conversation is heading. “You could too, if you weren’t being so panicky about not being able to breathe.”
Sho shakes his head as if that was beside the point. “You fit in there.”
“Stop saying that,” Jun says, irritable thanks to having been woken up and asked to crawl on his knees. “I’m going to brush my teeth.”
“If you fit in there, maybe you could fit in-”
Jun shuts the door because honestly, it’s just too damn early for Sho and his thing. Maybe Jun shouldn’t have made that broom closet that special of a memory.
*
SHADOW LEADERS
"Yes, let's go for it," Jun says with finality.
"We could tie up with JAL," Sho suggests, and Jun beams.
The other three watch the details come together beautifully.
*
CONCERT: 5x15
Jun had known that this day would be too much, even for him. Or perhaps, more accurately, especially for him. The reality of fifteen years seeps into his pores and goes straight into his heart, an emotional osmosis he couldn’t have possibly prepared for.
There is no dress rehearsal for this part. It’s a surge, a deluge-a lifetime of dreaming that has led him, them, on this stage tonight. He doesn’t know how else to contort his face-he didn’t really want to give in: not during a random old song, not tonight, not here. When the crowd cheers, he knows that his ugly I-definitely-won’t-cry face was being flashed on the big screens.
He won’t look.
Everything is gonna be all right
I'm gonna blend colors together to paint the "near future"
What Jun couldn’t have known was how he would burst into tears when sees Sho running towards him. It was stupid, it was cliché-everything he’d wince at on a normal day.
But it isn’t a normal day. It's Hawaii. It's Sho.
The crowd goes wild, and he’s sure that somewhere out there, the other three are smiling. Or laughing. It’s embarrassing and kind of touching and he will allow it.
On their fifteenth anniversary, Sho runs into him and finally, fiercely, hugs him in public.
They hold on to each other, sweat and warmth mingling together, heartbeats running on the realization of more than half of their lives-awe.
“You’re ugly when you cry,” Sho whispers, and Jun bursts out laughing. This night was theirs.
*
DON’T ACT LIKE IT’S A BAD THING
When Sho gets into the van, he knows that what he’s encountering isn’t the usual Jun. He's humming, his foot dangling happily across his lap. Jun doesn’t even acknowledge his presence.
The van moves, and Jun is still humming. Sho tries to subtly lean in to take a peek at what he’s listening to. Just when he’s about to make out who the artist was, Jun jumps.
“Hey,” Jun says, surprised at Sho’s intrusion. “Sorry, you said something?”
Sho reddens and shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”
Jun scrunches his eyebrows together, looking at Sho like he's considering something. It’s when he offers one earbud for him that Sho actually laughs.
“What’s with you today, seriously,” Sho says, taking it.
Jun doesn’t say anything and fixes the other earbud on his own ear, looking as contented as ever. When Sho does the same thing, he wishes he could be as nonchalant as he was just a second go.
New York. Blips of time that will never be spoken about. Songs that stick-this time, among a crowd of people instead of gazing at a crowd screaming their names. He can’t sing the words, but it was exactly like that, the feeling, them: foreign but warm. Strangers to everyone, distances shortened, belief suspended, beats racing. Maybe.
The same ringed hand curling around his, just like it is now, across the van’s aisle. Their hands, the white cord, this song: conduits.
The small smile on Jun’s face is undaunted, a satisfaction Sho wants to name but dares not to think too hard about-it has always been their downfall. Sho won’t say anything more today, he decides, and interlocks their fingers as the Tokyo Bay stretches out to the side, a gray morning of pure light. It’s enough. They’ll never talk about this; he’ll never be able to explain more than the memory of the look in Jun’s eyes. For now, this is a part of Jun, on a platter, easy and simple and rare.
Don’t act like it’s a bad thing to fall in love with me.