Or We Could Blossom (3/3)
Title: Or We Could Blossom
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ohno/Nino, Sho/Jun
Word count: 26,634
Summary: Nino is a talented young surgeon who is at a crossroads in his medical career. Ohno is the fearless Captain of Japan’s elite Special Forces Group. Their paths cross in Japan, but things do not work out. Months later, they are surprised to find each other in the same UN outpost at Cyprus, both on missions of their own.
Part 2
*
Sakurai, the one who’s always eating his meals with Ohno, leads the cadence call, with Ohno effortlessly jogging on the rear, making sure that everyone’s up to speed. Not that it was needed-everyone looked hearty and fit. The troops all jog shirtless, enthusiastically calling back Sakurai’s lines to him.
Everyday! Everybody!
The world isn’t over yet
It’s not too late to start trying
Let’s get on
Let’s get on yeah!
You are my soul! Soul!
We won’t give up!
No one can get in our way
Gather the wind in your body
And make a storm happen!
Nino wonders who came up with the rhyme that doesn’t even rhyme and if everyone in the Japanese army are required to have six-pack abs. Not that he’s bitter-it's just that, if there’s one thing that he hates in camp, it’s this energetic, monstrous routine every morning. No one can remain asleep with their noisy chanting. He’s heard from Aiba that all the girls from his team gather in front of Medicube early with their cups of coffee, waiting for the show everyday. Today is his lucky day-he sighs as he sees all of them leaning against the short gate in a line.
“You girls have no pride,” Nino says, settling between Asami and an uncharacteristically grumpy Aiba.
Asami sighs. “You don’t understand, this is heaven. Who knew all the cute boys were in the army? I didn’t even know we still had an army.”
Nino scoffs. “How can you say that? You’ve been working with me all these years. Aiba-shi here’s not that bad as well, if you can look past his glaring idiocy.”
“’Not that bad’ is an understatement, Asami-chan,” Aiba quips. He tries to get into her line of vision, but she promptly shoves him aside.
“Please. I’ve decided-I’m just going to reinlist every year in this camp and spend my mornings watching this parade for the rest of my life. It’s like conveyor belt sushi, only instead of uni, there’s abs.”
“They don’t make a lot of money you know, these military guys,” Aiba says.
“For your information, we’re not that shallow.” Asami huffs, as she points out a soldier with an extra puffed-out chest to an equally excited Shihori, another doctor on the team.
“No, not that one! He’s coming, he’s coming!”
“But here you are objectifying shirtless men,” Nino replies, to an elbow immediately digging at him. “Ow!”
“Him!” Shihori exclaims. “I hate to be selfish, women, but dibs on First Lieutenant Okada. Look at those strong arms! They look like they’re itching to hug someone who has my exact body proportions,” she announces.
“Shi-chan!” Asami roars in laughter.
“What! Look at how dreamy he is. I’ll take Sakurai-san in a pinch, though. Pride of Japan, those two!”
“Ikuta-san is the real pride of Japan! He looks like a movie star,” Mayu, a young nurse says, to which Asako-sensei replies fervently-“Nope, it has to be Yamashita, ladies. That chest.”
“Well, no need to choose,” Asami says. “I mean, Matsumoto-san looks like he’s in a commercial 24/7. What kind of person sweats but looks like he doesn’t? Do you get it?”
The girls all nod in agreement, even Asako-sensei who is undoubtedly married and older than everyone there. "But Captain Ohno is more my type. He's so nimble, and my god, those abs," she adds, with the girls sighing as the the tail-end of the group round the corner.
“Show-offs. They don’t need to be shirtless for that, do they? I bet Matsujun is just lapping all of this up,” Aiba grumbles, sipping his coffee beside Nino. All Nino could think that he really hates this morning routine as a sweaty, shirtless Ohno jogs past him, looking not the least winded. His only consolation is that Aiba’s too busy pouting about Asami to tease Nino about his “Captain Oh-chan-san”, which he hasn’t stopped doing since that damn unit arrived. After the meal Aiba had inadvertently cooked for him and Ohno, Nino had told Aiba that whatever he and Ohno had was over, that it would be nice if he could stop doing unnecessary things.
“You know, Matsujun and I have been catching up. I didn’t spill any details, don’t worry. But he says you’re the type to run if you’re given the space to,” Aiba said. “And I think he’s right.”
Nino had sat there, quiet. It’s still on his mind, of course. It was true that Jun was the one who had left, the one whose dreams changed. Nino couldn’t control any of that, and had been the one to break things off with Jun. He hadn’t wanted the pain of growing apart while trying to maintain a long-distance relationship. In his mind, the moment Jun made his decision, he had already left him. But with a chill, Nino realizes that it might be true-that he was the one who ran away first.
He mourns about the fact that his ex-boyfriend and bestfriend are gossiping and dissecting his feelings, as if they were all still undergraduates in Todai, bickering and making fun of each other during study breaks. Just for spite, he starts calling Jun “Jun-pon” in front of everyone, hoping that it catches on. As for Aiba, he just gives him a harder time than usual-at work or otherwise. The two assholes look unfazed, to Nino’s consternation.
A week later, they wake up to a morning jog with less members, with no Sho leading the cadence call in sight. It’s a slightly less boisterous affair without his original chanting. The girls are all abuzz, wondering if Captain Ohno’s troop left at night, and if it was a permanent departure. Nino watches the dust in the wake of their jogging, keenly missing the one who usually jogged behind the troops, as if preferring to make sure that everyone makes it instead of being the one to spur them on. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach, now that he has an idea of how dangerous Ohno’s job really is. From his injuries and the deference that Jun, who Nino knows to not be easily impressed, gives him, he now knows that Ohno is leading a kind of operation that has massive ramifications. It’s a chilling thought.
During their weekly Monday meeting later that day, Jun looks out of sorts and takes up all of the room with his bad mood. He’s still efficient as he runs down the week’s agenda, but Nino could tell that there would be no sweet, simpering smiles for the lunch ladies today. The meeting is brief. Jun storms out of the room immediately after.
“I saw them last night,” Aiba tells him as they walk back to Medicube.
“Who?”
“Him and Sakurai-kun. They were arguing, I couldn’t hear what they were saying though. But Matsujun stormed off,” Aiba says. Nino is surprised at the image, but the more he lets it absorb, it comes to him so simply that he can’t believe he didn’t see it before.
After his morning rounds, Nino drops by Jun’s office, which is nothing but a small, tidy room with austere furnishings and a ridiculously tiny bonsai plant. Jun’s eyes flash up at him.
“I know what you’re going to ask, and I’m telling you now that I don’t know the answer either,” he says.
Nino sits down, not too surprised that Jun can read him well after all these years. They sit there in silence as Jun types furiously on his laptop. Nino sees the worry lines on his forehead, the dark bags under his eyes. It’s not that Jun has aged-he has, but he’s still stunning, if even more so-it’s that Jun looks worried. Granted, he’s always been a big worrywart, but Nino knows that this is a different level. It's as if the very air around him is charged with a tense energy.
His flurry of productivity soon tapers off. Jun sighs, rubbing his eyes, leaning back on his chair. “He wouldn’t tell me where they were going. And I understand that, I do,” he says, as if convincing himself.
“That’s good?” Nino doesn’t know what to answer.
“Kazu, we’ve been seeing each other since New York, did you know that? Sakurai-san and I.”
Nino’s only pieced the details together this morning, with a lot of things making more sense now. “That’s why he had looked familiar in the hospital,” he says. “Because even before that, I’ve already seen Sho-kun, although I couldn’t place him.”
“‘Sho-kun’? Seen him where?”
“Well, that’s what Ohno-san calls him. And I saw him often on your Facebook back then-the two of you together looked straight as fuck, doing beer bongs with a bunch of sorority girls between all those drills. How would I know that he was your rebound?”
Jun smiles wanly at that. “You broke up with me, may I remind you. And he’s no rebound.”
“Duh,” Nino says, smiling back at him. Eventually, he squeezes out the story from Jun over the simple lunch that Fuma brings for them. Jun’s thought process is so Jun that it hurts Nino to hear about it-but it also makes him want to smack some sense into him, because it’s so irrational.
“He won’t forgive himself,” he says, even though he knows that Jun probably grapples with that fact everyday. “And what will you do after, anyway? You love this job, anyone with eyes can see that.”
“I can study medicine again,” he says, to Nino raising his brows. “Don’t look at me like that.” He sets his chopsticks down, apparently losing his appetite.
Nino watches him, silent, knowing that Jun needs him to listen now. It has always taken him longer than others to warm up and articulate what he means-that much, Nino remembers.
“I was brutal to him last night. I let him leave thinking I didn’t love him anymore, Kazu,” he says, words running into each other, the vowels and consonants crashing together violently. “I did it. I said it.”
Jun buries his head in his hands. “Stupid.” his voice almost too soft for Nino to hear. He laughs bitterly. “Compared to us, you and I were a cakewalk.”
“Jun,” he says, grabbing one of his hands.
He takes some time to compose himself. When he resurfaces, his face is painfully resolute again, but Nino knows better. “He better return home safe. Captain Ohno too,” Jun says, standing up and leaving the room to call for Fuma to clear the dishes before Nino could get a word in.
Jun, apparently, sees his heart clearly as well. Still.
Five days later, they catch a chilling news report on CNN about a bloody drug cartel in Mali finally dismantled by a “lean international operations unit rumored to be backed by the United Nations”-a dreadfully unspecific bit of information just to distinguish them from the French troops who were there for ground operations against Islamic militant groups. There aren’t many details about it, except for the newscaster explaining how it was an impossible operation that could have ended in civilian warfare.
21 killed, 4 injured. The report didn’t discriminate between the good guys and the bad. The blood that drains from Jun’s face beside him probably mirrors Nino’s own.
The one-day limbo between waiting for more news casts an uneasy atmosphere in the camp. At this point, everyone in the JSDF camp suspects with a reverent kind of awe that Ohno’s troop had to be behind that operation, that the lessons they have been so adept at teaching and training them in are actually things that they do in real life-they weren’t just normal military teachers sent from Tokyo. Right in front of them, all along, was proof that Japan had an active troop that partook in less than diplomatic missions. The talk about “secret elite unit” simmers down whenever Jun is around, but it doesn’t stop the whispers. The timing-and the other clues-are too coincidental.
Nino is on an offsite health inspection with Jun when Jun recieves a call from a “Colonel Matsuoka”. Nino could see Jun’s body, tense and poised for action as he listens to his superior.
“They’re back,” Jun says simply. The drive back to camp is unnervingly silent. When they arrive, Jun turns to him, eyes serious. “We are expecting one injured person, Ninomiya-sensei. Recovering from ballistic trauma to his torso from close-range armed conflict, injury was incurred two days ago. Please equip the Medicube accordingly.” Jun runs off without saying another word once they arrive. Everyone hears the huge EC225 helicopter arriving at the field. Nino comes with his team, ready to receive them.
Was it Ohno? He steadies his heart. Was this also what happened? With that healed gunshot wound on his stomach?
Toma and Okada are first to go down, bracing a stretcher carefully down the helicopter, with Yamashita and Jun at the other end. Nino breathes out. So it’s Sho who got shot. Not that it makes things better. Aiba runs up to meet them and directs them to the backdoor of Medicube. Nino runs with them, only looking back once to confirm that it’s really Ohno on the rear, alive and whole, talking to a tall, scary-looking officer beside him. He feels ashamed as relief floods all over him.
At Medicube, Nino immediately checks Sho’s vital signs and listens to Toma’s detailed report. He is extremely pale, but Nino rules out exsanguination and hypoxia. He looks to be stabilizing, thanks to the emergency operation done on him before they flew out of Mali. He will need constant monitoring, in case there are further complications, of which there's a big chance of. His clavicles don't look good. Jun doesn’t budge from where he’s standing, right at Sho's feet.
It takes awhile for everything to settle down again, but it does. Ohno and his troop do not explain what happened-instead, Colonel Matsuoka, the tall officer who came back with them, rally the troops to focus on their training, impressing upon them the need for readiness at all times. He is both imposing and charismatic, and his presence seems to have its intended effect of deflecting the attention away from Sho’s injury, what had caused it, and where they all went. A week later, they are back doing their drills and lessons, with the exception of Sho who is recuperating from his surgeries. Nino’s team had to do operate on his shattered clavicle a day after they returned. When not doing his duties, Jun was a permanent fixture in Medicube, sitting by Sho’s side.
After the troop’s first morning jog back, Nino waits at the empty mess hall, where he knows Ohno will make an iced coffee for himself in the small kitchen, always choosing to shower later after everyone is done. Today is especially hot, and Nino can see it in the way that sweat trickles down Ohno’s temples, down his neck, his collarbones, his soaked shirt. He stops in his place at the door, not expecting anyone, least of all Nino, to be in the kitchen.
“Oh, hey,” Ohno says, wiping his forehead with a towel. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
Nino leans on the counter. “I’m just hanging out.”
“Hanging out?”
“Iced coffee, right? I’ve brewed the coffee, you can get the ice if you want some too.”
Ohno stands there unsure for a few seconds, then springs into action when Nino turns his back and fishes for the pot of brewed coffee. Nino hears the plink of ice cubes against glass. He lets Ohno assemble it all together, his nimble hands a point of interest for Nino. Those hands had touched Nino, had made him feel so good. Rough, delicately shaped hands, hands that had felt like heat stamps.
“Here,” he says, handing the glass to Nino, looking at him curiously.
“No latte art this time?” Nino asks. The way Ohno smiles at him makes Nino’s heart bloom. Is it really that easy? They drink their iced coffees in silence, the smell of damp earth and the tang of the nearby sea wafting in through the windows. Nino is satisfied to see him whole and unharmed, sporting no injuries that he could see. He doesn’t feel the need to ask Ohno other questions-Nino discovers that he’s not angry anymore. But more than that, he finds out that he respects what Ohno does, despite the obvious clash in methodology. Ohno saves lives too, maybe more than Nino ever has or will.
It’s his way of not running away. He doesn’t go every morning, but when he does, Ohno wordlessly gets the ice and prepares two glasses. Their conversations revolve around camp events, meetings, and random people. Sometimes, Ohno mutters about Sho, and Nino knows that he’s more worried than he looks. But most of the time, they settle into a comfortable silence, with Ohno watching Nino play on his 3DS. The way Ohno chuckles whenever his character dies is childish and extremely dangerous to Nino’s heart.
Before Nino knows it, Ohno regularly comes by after his shift at Medicube, to walk with him on the ridiculously short distance to the mess hall for dinner. They don’t eat their dinners together, but to Nino, those mornings with iced coffee and the five-minute walks at night become something treasured, something he’s starting to look forward to. With Ohno, it’s just so easy. They fall into their old conversations, wrapping him in that same feeling of possibility that had surrounded them when the cherry blossoms were falling in Tokyo on their first date.
There are no petals raining on them here, but Nino doesn’t think it matters where they are.
When Ohno finally musters the courage to reach out for his hand one night-Nino had been observing him fidgeting for a couple of nights-he grips it in his, simply and warmly. Ohno huffs out a small breath, almost too tiny for Nino to hear. Almost.
*
Ohno is busy in signing some paperwork-a task that he doesn’t relish-when Jun knocks on his open door. He almost forgot that Jun had scheduled a meeting with him.
“Captain Ohno,” he says, saluting.
“At ease, Jun-kun. Come in,” he says. Jun steps in with an uneasy smile. “Sit.”
The soldier follows him, obedient and efficient as always. “I believe you know why I’m here, sir. I’ve made my decision.”
Ohno wants to approach this the right way-he doesn’t want to mess it up. Colonel Matsuoka has shared with him that after Matsumoto’s stellar record during his stints at Pakistan and now in Cyprus, he is planning to make him the sixth member of Team Alpha Sakura. Ohno knew that he had always planned to round out their numbers, and he himself can’t think of a better candidate than Jun. Although he has worked with him in the past, the past months have better revealed Jun to be someone imbued with leadership, combined with a highly tactical mind and an impressive set of combat skills. His profile is similar and quite complementary to Sho’s, which Colonel Matsuoka really likes. There is no doubt that he would be an asset to Team Alpha Sakura.
It’s why he’s hesitant to hand the recommendation letter lying inside the folder on his desk. He didn’t have a hard time writing it-any employer would be lucky to have someone like Jun. But it would be a loss to the Japan Self-Defense Force as a whole and an unexplored possibility for Ohno’s team.
It would also break the heart of a certain Sakurai Sho.
Ohno knows what an asshole General Sakurai has been to Sho, but if Sho hadn’t spilled everything out that time they got drunk in Kayabacho years ago, he wouldn’t know the true extent of it. Ohno couldn’t believe his ears-Sho would basically be never promoted or rise up the ranks as long as he’s in a relationship with Matsumoto Jun. “Father will make sure of it,” a bleary eyed Sho had said, to Ohno’s horror. Yet it had answered so many questions too-why someone with Sho’s connections and skill set was in Alpha Sakura where there will be no public acclaim or recognition ever, when he could have been more visible and probably higher up in rank than Ohno.
But even so, Ohno knew leaving Jun was never an option for Sho. He may not talk about Jun much, but Ohno knows that Sho always comes out of those hushed Skype calls in a better mood. He had those calls scheduled in his phone calendar-whenever they are stuck somewhere without internet, Ohno always caught him staring at the red dots on his calendar app. He imagines them to be like beacons for Sho.
“I’m not really sure that I want to give this letter to you,” Ohno says, his heart heavy. “Both as your superior-”
“-sir, I can explain-”
“-and as Sho-kun’s friend.” Jun visibly shrinks, biting his lips as if he wants to say something but thinking better of it. Ohno waits. He doesn’t say anything.
Ohno stands up, wishing he was better at this talking thing. But he’s not. He only hopes he could show his sincerity in a way that wouldn’t offend Jun or drive him off. After rummaging for it in his cabinet, he turns to Jun and presents a black beret with a small, embroidered cherry blossom tree to him.
His eyes are wide. “Me?”
“Colonel Matsuoka handpicked you. And I don’t disagree with his choice.”
Jun swallows. “I never thought…wow,” he exhales, eyeing the beret. “This is a surprise, and an honor. But, Captain, I-”
“Matsumoto.” He shakes the beret at him. “Take it. All I ask from you is that you think about it-give it a month or so. And if you really don’t want it, well. Give it back. But give it a month.”
Jun meets his eyes and wordlessly seems to understand that more than an order, it’s a request. A favor. And not from his superior, but from Sho’s friend.
After he takes the beret and the rest of the uniform with shaking hands, Ohno dismisses him. He saw the conflicting emotions in Jun’s eyes. Ohno could only hope that Sho has a plan.
The days pass by in a blur, with days turning into weeks. He visits Sho everyday, but today, it’s different. Sho smiles weakly up at him. “I’m getting shipped back home, aren’t I?”
Ohno nods. “The day after tomorrow. They can care for you better in Tokyo.”
Sho has the audacity to chuckle at him. “Don’t look so glum, Leader. I’ll be up and running after a few months. Can’t have the lot of you getting lost in Kabul, right?”
He knows that Sho is right. “Heal faster, then.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Sho looks at him, his eyes piercing and sad. “I heard from Colonel Matsuoka that First Lieutenant Matsumoto is considering your offer.”
Ohno knows where this is going, and he doesn’t know if he can assure Sho. “Yes.”
“Satoshi-kun? Keep him with you, will you?”
He hears the unspoken implication of while I'm not here. “I can try.”
Sho falls asleep soon after that. Ohno’s heart is heavy the day that Sho gets discharged from Medicube and is flown back home. Somehow, everything is quiet when he’s not around. That night, it rains hard in Cyprus for the first time during their mission. The big drops of water create muddy puddles around camp. He wonders if he should make a run for it-he’ll be soaked by the time he gets to Medicube, but it’s better than being stuck in the office bungalow, alone, wondering if Sho is feeling more comfortable.
He’s about to dash in the rain when a dark figure approaches from the side of the building. It’s Nino with an umbrella. He steps into the porch, sneakers all wet and muddy, squelching against the wood.
“I have cup noodles from my stash,” he says, shaking the plastic bag in his hand.
A silver lining, Ohno thinks. If anything good has happened in the past few weeks, it would be this. It smells like coffee and feels like the warmth of a palm against his own. Ohno doesn’t overthink it, allowing all the details to crash into him instead. Just like tonight, with the welcoming shape of Nino against all the gray. For Ohno, it’s simple.
“I was just about to pick you up.”
Nino closes the umbrella and places it to the side. The sound of the rain drowns out everything. “And risk catching something? You’re not getting a free pass to stay in Medicube for a measly cold, you know.”
Ohno couldn’t take it anymore, he’s wanted it for so long. He figures that with all the rain, no one would see them anyway. Or maybe, he doesn’t care if anyone does. Ohno reaches out for the back of his nape and kisses him. Nino kisses him back.
“Let’s go inside,” he says. Nino nods.
*
Nino thinks that what he will remember the most is the rain thrashing against the glass window. It’s noisy, like the world around them is drowning in a wet blanket of darkness. They sit there, on Ohno’s threadbare office couch, hands roaming slowly as they kiss. God, how he’s missed kissing him.
Somehow, he knows that Ohno isn’t in a hurry. In fact, more than sex-something Nino may or may not have planned when he thought of sharing his cup noodles-Ohno looks like he needed to just be held, for now. And that’s what Nino does. He kisses Ohno back, running a soothing hand down his strong back. It feels like a luxury, like something he should treasure.
Nino has been trying to process his feelings for Ohno ever since he returned from Mali. Ohno is so easy to fall for, that's a given. He’s attracted to and charmed by this person. But more than that is the more dangerous impulse of wanting to give him everything, to reveal all his cards, because something about Ohno makes him feel at ease, like he could never hurt Nino.
But that’s just it, really. The uncomplicated-ness of him, the way he makes feel Nino wanted-he’s not proud of it, but Nino is still just a tiny bit suspicious of it. Not that he’s not appreciating the uncomplicated delicacy of Ohno’s lips right now. He tugs him closer.
Ohno’s stomach grumbles. “Seriously?” Nino asks, laughing.
“Well, it is dinner time.” Ohno untangles his arm from Nino. “I’ll boil some water.”
They eat their noodles on the couch, with Nino’s legs propped up on Ohno’s. The rain is still pouring hard outside. Ohno’s small desk lamp bathes everything in a weak, amber glow. Nino finds it ridiculous that he finds this tired-looking uniformed man now slurping his noodles, lips wet with sauce, stunning. But he is, Ohno really is. And he wants him.
“What did you do to your sketch of me?” he asks.
Ohno turns to him. “It’s in my apartment. I took it home with me.”
“Thief.”
“It’s my sketchpad,” he says, chomping through his noodles.
“Oh-chan?”
“Hmm?”
“Can we just get it over with? The sex part, I mean.”
Ohno downs a considerable amount of water, staring accusingly at Nino. “You can’t just say it…like that.”
Nino shrugs. “Don’t you want to?”
Ohno blushes a nice shade of pink, setting aside the glass of water. He clears the table and disappears for awhile. When he returns, he pauses at the doorway, looking at Nino. “Come here,” he says, with a note of command, and Nino feels a thrill climb up his back. He stands up and walks up to Ohno, ready to slink up his arms around his neck. Instead, when he’s near enough, Ohno wheels him around and wraps his arms around his middle, kissing him on his neck.
“Oh-chan,” he murmurs, melting inside his affectionate human cloak.
Ohno peppers his neck with small kisses. He sighs as he feels him moving up, a tentative lick on the shell of his ear making Nino quiver. His breath is warm. “I want to,” he whispers, and Nino twists to meet him in a kiss. It’s an awkward angle and he wants more. He turns around, kissing away Ohno’s protesting sounds. Nino thinks that he mustn’t mind that much, now that his hands are squeezing Nino’s ass appreciatively. Their kiss deepens, and Nino wants more, he needs more.
“I could spend all night doing this,” Ohno murmurs.
“Or we could do better.” As a reply, Ohno pulls Nino’s hips snug against his own, reminding Nino that there are too many layers in between them.
“Show me how fast a soldier can undress,” he says, removing his own clothes.
Ohno steps back and impressively shucks off his clothes in record time. Nino thinks that Ohno should never be in clothes again, of any kind, ever. Ohno grabs his hands with a devious smile and walks them to the couch, lying on his back and pulling Nino in between his legs. To be skin on skin with Ohno is a marvel, and he sighs as Ohno softly bucks up to him, letting his interest be known. When Ohno’s hard-on slides against his own, pleasure fires off all over Nino’s skin. There is a slow, almost languorous precision to Ohno’s thrusts, and his kisses don’t grow sloppy, even as Nino grows impatient and unfocused. Ohno’s hand strays between them to Nino’s cock, setting a lazy rhythm that has Nino keening.
“Fuck me already, Captain,” he finds himself saying. Nino gasps as Ohno squeezes his cock at the use of his title. “Or do you want me to do it? Never had a dick in you before?”
Ohno looks dazed for a second, and for a second, Nino mourns the absence of his hand. But then he grins, sitting up and carrying Nino along with him with ease.
“Trust me, Ninomiya, I’ll do the fucking today.”
Ohno teases Nino with a buck of his hips, snuffling his groan with an open mouthed kiss that leaves him breathless. Nino’s pretty sure he can come just like this, so he breaks away from him and leans to the side, grabbing the lube that he stashed in the plastic bag along with the noodles. He tosses the condoms on Ohno’s belly. “Here.”
Ohno laughs at that as he lies back. He grabs Nino’s hips, his thumbs pressing against the juts of bone there. “You planned this.”
“I’m merely optimistic,” he says, opening the bottle of lube. “Do you want the full show?”
Nino doesn’t wait for his answer and instead turns around, bending over so that Ohno can appreciate the view. He starts working himself, with a finger to begin with. It's a familiar feeling, so he doesn't dwell on the initial discomfort. Soon, he works up to two. When he looks back, he feels like he could come from just seeing Ohno lying there, head on the armrest, lazily pulling on his cock and watching him. Their eyes meet. Nino moans with his own three fingers, high at being a spectacle, turned on by Ohno's rapt attention.
“About done?” Ohno asks, not sounding the least hurried, but eyes looking more intense than Nino’s ever seen them. "A little more," Nino says in a rasp. Watching Ohno roll on a condom is impetus enough for him to finish preparing himself. He concentrates on opening himself up, gasping as he hits a pleasurable spot.
A few seconds later, he feels Ohno kneeling against him, pressing swift kisses on his back. He takes Nino’s hand and replaces it with his own fingers, to Nino’s surprise. Ohno starts slowly, with Nino saying soothing words. Encouraged, he works up to a fast pace, learning what Nino reacts to, and not stopping until Nino bucks against this hand.
“Stop,” he says, moments later, voice faltering. “I’m ready.”
Ohno removes his fingers and without warning, lines up his cock to Nino’s entrance. He pushes in slowly, a guttural moan escaping his lips the moment he’s balls-deep in Nino.
Nino breathes in and out, adjusting to Ohno’s size inside him. He shakes on his haunches. Ohno rubs his hips and his buttocks with his hands. “Are you okay? Nino-”
“Fuck me,” he says.
Ohno doesn’t need telling twice. He starts slow, with shallow strokes that only make Nino want more. “I’m not one of your girls,” he snarls, real pleasure just on the precipice, and Ohno grips his hips, silencing him by sliding almost all of the way out and ramming into him with enough force that almost makes him topple over. Ohno sticks to a brutal pace, and it feels amazing-the perfect blend of punishment and sheer connection. With every movement, he finds a way to slide even deeper, unrelenting and thorough. He feels beads of sweat running down his face, the salt almost marring his vision.
The sounds that Ohno makes are small, yet labored. Nino is overwhelmed by the thought of being filled up by Ohno, repeatedly, with those graceful hips, with a fearsome intention, with a smattering of tender kisses to his shoulder blades. He is propelled forward by Ohno, by the idea of him, by his strong thighs, by a wash of feeling that threatens to drown him. Nino cries out his name.
“Is this enough fucking for you, Nino?” Ohno asks, as he pulls Nino’s hips against him, thrusting over and over again and hitting that one spot that has Nino crumbling. “Not yet?”
And that gentle taunt, more than anything else, tips Nino over the edge. Ohno, sensing that he’s close, reaches over for his cock and jerks him off. He cries out again as he comes, gasping through a crippling orgasm, feeling Ohno inside him, all around him.
Ohno isn’t that far behind. He continues to slide into Nino, movements finally growing erratic. When he comes, it’s with a soft, drawn-out moan that Nino, even in his orgasmic haze, takes note to remember. Ohno, spent, is beautiful.
They lie there together in post-coital satisfaction, after Ohno gets rid of the condom and wiping both of them down with tissue. Nino feels sated, feeling no need to say anything. There’s only this glowing thrum in his heart that says this couldn’t be wrong. It was great sex, yes. They were obviously more than compatible in that respect. But it was something else too. Somehow, it feels like rediscovering something that has always existed anway. Nino realizes that there is no learning curve when it comes to Ohno. Orgasms that seem to come too easy make sense. Quiet mornings make sense. Ohno running his fingers through his hair with heartbreaking tenderness make sense.
“Nino?”
“Hmm?”
“Mission accomplished,” Ohno says. “Right?”
He looks so serious. Nino shuts his eyes close, a peal of laughter gurgling in his throat. “You’re ridiculous.”
“It’s the way I operate. Operation Get-Sex-Out-of-the-Way, a success!”
What a dumbass, this Ohno Satoshi. “Not even remotely funny.”
“We fucked in my office. I’ve never done that before, fucking in an office. Where else can we do it, do you think?”
He doesn’t stop the laughter this time, feeling truly overjoyed. And it isn't just because Ohno was already brainstorming about their next tumble. It's just Ohno, his excitement, his ardor. His silly blissed-out, post-orgasm face. “If I knew you were this chatty after sex, I would’ve never bothered.”
Ohno shuts him up with a smile-shaped kiss. Just the way Nino likes it.
*
Suddenly, camp life becomes more exciting. Now that they got the first time out of the way, he and Nino become increasingly creative and regular in their sexual pursuits. They still have sex in Ohno’s office, most of the time with Ohno still in his camos at Nino’s request. Ohno repeatedly jacks off to the memory of fucking Nino on his lap in the backseat of his jeep, the windows getting all steamy as Nino repeatedly called out his name. There’s also that time when Nino pushed his pants down in his small Medicube office and telling him to be quiet, because his team is right in the next module. Nino then mercilessly sucked him off like there was no tomorrow, and Ohno had to come in silence.
Ohno also likes the regular sex too, the kind where Nino sneaks him in to his bunk during lunch when there’s no one there, and he gets to hold Nino's hands as he comes. Ohno loves the way Nino’s lips parts in pleasure. Maybe someday, he can ask Nino if he can draw him again.
But it’s not only that. Ohno feels that something has caved in Nino, something essential. Their five-minute walks to dinner somehow become ten, as they walk slower, their entwined hands swing together between them ridiculously. Nino even “shares” Aiba and Jun with him, finally. One Saturday night, they go to downtown Nicosia to have their first dinner together, all four of them. Ohno finds out that nobody can embarrass and tease Nino like Aiba and get away with it-Aiba is Nino’s Sho, he realizes in a flurry of warmth. Of course, he also sees firsthand Nino’s easy and deep rapport with Jun. He’d be jealous, but knowing how Jun feels about Sho, and vice-versa, is enough to know how pointless it would be. He respects the history there, and sees that a part of Nino came to be because he once loved Jun.
The month flies by. There are other details, a lot of them whizzing over his head because there’s just too many, but they all do the same thing. They all just make Ohno fall harder for Nino. And if the details aren’t quite clear, his feelings are, anyway.
He’s in love with Nino.
It’s why when Colonel Matsuoka tells him that Team Alpha Sakura has another mission to Kabul, this time for three months, and that they need to leave in two days, he is aghast. He doesn’t reveal all the details to Nino. Not that he asks.
During their last night together, they lie on Ohno’s couch in a tight squeeze. Ohno is already in the clutches of sleep when Nino whispers to him, perhaps thinking that he’s already dreaming-
“This time, I’ll be waiting patiently. Just come back,” he says.
Ohno tucks that thought in a small corner of his mind. In the months ahead, he will try to remember how Nino had felt in his arms that night, how his breath had tickled his ear.
*
A person’s job can’t stop being his job. That’s the clumsy thought Nino repeats over and over as he pushes down his longing and anxiety for Ohno. He remembers the morning they left. It was an hour before dawn, and Nino had walked silently with Ohno to the helipad. They stopped at a distance, with Ohno giving him a quick hug before he jogged to the rest of his team. The four of them are dressed in the black uniform that they’ve never worn around camp.
He remembered that his heart was up scritching up his throat when someone clapped him from behind the back. “I’ve got him, Kazu,” Jun said. Before he could form a reply, Jun ran to the troop, also decked in that anonymous black. Nino watched Ohno shaking his hand emphatically before they all boarded the helicopter.
They left in complete darkness, right before dawn could catch up with them.
His team’s mission in Cyprus is wrapping up in a month. Nino devotes all his time and energy to ensuring all the protocols that they’ve set in place for Medicube can be easily followed by the local team. He’s proud of what they’ve accomplished, and he spends his time enjoying the company of people that he’s grown fond of-all the lunch ladies that Jun had introduced him to, the kids who always asked for Japanese sweets whenever they visited Medicube, and the rest of the troops whom he’s become friends with.
During their last day in Cyprus, they all gather in the mess hall for one last dinner, arranged by an emotional Aiba. He went all-out-he had revealed to Nino the night before that he’s been working on a Cypriot-Japanese fusion dinner with the lunch ladies, and that he created a special mapo tofu recipe for the occasion. To be fair, everyone seems to enjoy the food as they all reminisce about the past few months. He’ll kill Aiba for making him do another speech, but that will be for when they get back to Tokyo.
Nino sneaks out right before the second round of shots come, inhaling the fresh air as he walks back to his quarters. He bumps into Aiba and Asami by the running track. Nino doesn’t miss the fact that they are holding hands.
“Leaving already?” Aiba asks.
“He’s definitely just trying to dodge the shots,” Asami quips.
Nino continues walking. “Try not to make out by the trees. There are poisonous ones here, you know,” he shouts back. He walks faster, willing the nostalgia not to wash down over him. Will he and Ohno ever walk these fields again? Will they ever return? Will things be different in Japan? He tries to sleep earlier to avoid those questions, wishing that the air wasn’t so fragrant on this last night.
Before Nino knows it, they’re back in Tokyo. They only get a couple of days to rest up, then it’s already back to the usual work. Everything is the same, except everyone compliments them on their tans. Aiba is ecstatic about it and is already looking up tanning salons to maintain his. Nino tells him it’s a shitty idea, and Asami bans him from even thinking about it.
The first serious order of business is the debriefing. All of the upper management and the Todai team who conceptualized Medicube are in attendance. Surprisingly, a lot of the other staff attended, even though they weren’t required. As Nino runs through his slides about how Medicube was able to integrate seamlessly into the community to an attentive audience, he feels pride over what his team was able to accomplish. During the open forum, there is a lot of interest on the next steps and how they could improve the Medicube experience. A lot of residents chimed in with their thoughts on what relevant research could be done for it. Nino answers all of their questions with enthusiasm, surprising even himself.
After the debriefing, Higashiyama-sensei congratulates him on his team’s achievements. “This could be a path for you yet, Ninomiya.”
Nino thinks so too.
*
The view never changes. They never find out if it’s day or night. That, and he can draw the patterns on the cement wall just from his memory.
Jun has stopped getting up whenever they hear a sound outside the metal bars.
*
It’s when the days edge past the three-month mark that Nino starts to feel uneasy. He doesn’t really know who to contact. He has no way of knowing if Ohno was okay. Nino walks around in a daze, wondering each day if it will finally be the day that Ohno will pop up out of nowhere, and Nino will reprimand him over being late.
When Sho comes looking for him in the hospital, arm still in a sling, Nino’s heart falls.
“You don’t go here for physical therapy,” he accuses him.
Sho shakes his head. He invites Nino for coffee. That afternoon, Sho explains how there was a bomb raid in a location he cannot disclose, and Ohno’s troop had to do a quick retreat. After the blast, Ohno and Matsumoto’s bodies weren’t located.
Nino stares at Sho. His face is stern, but his eyes are red-rimmed.
“When Fuma-kun stole your phone,” he finds himself saying, “I saw your wallpaper. Back in the hospital. I just realized now it’s the stupid bonsai’s Jun’s always fussing over. Like, I just connected it in my head right now. Isn’t that weird?”
“Maybe not that weird.”
Their coffee runs cold, and they leave, silently exchanging numbers.
*
They are too well-trained. Their spirits don’t break when their body tells them to. Jun asks him about Nino’s favorite color. He makes a "buuu" send when Ohno says 'blue'.
*
Nino breaks down. He doesn’t go to work for a week. Aiba brings hims soup, and stays beside him.
*
Ohno realizes that he doesn’t know what Nino's favorite color is, and Jun won't say anything. Asshole. Jun says Sho has too many pairs of red boxer briefs. When Ohno asks how Jun would know, he receives the biggest eye roll in the history of mankind.
"You're fast," Ohno reprimands him, when he mentions that Jun doesn't call him "Captain" anymore and settles for a stern "Ohno". He is rewarded by a warm smile, a balm on a string of endless days that blur into each other. It's that stern voice that helps him keep quiet when other people enter the cell, their vitriol and penchant for tiny acts of violence relentless. Ohno. You can do it.
*
Eight months, and Nino has stopped crying. There is no use.
Sho had transferred his therapy to Nino’s hospital. Nino takes a personal interest in his therapy program, moved at Sho’s determination. Moved, and sometimes pissed when he gets too stubborn. He doesn’t want him to get hurt. They have opposite personalities, but Nino finds himself invested in him. Sometimes, Aiba keeps them company. They eat out, grab drinks, play video games that Sho never wins.
When Sho laughs for the first time, Nino thinks he can understand a little bit why Jun had loved him.
Loves him.
Loved.
There is no use.
*
They break his fingers. He will not yield. He will not sell out the friends he’s met, friends of different nationalities, friends that only fight for the same reason that he does. To keep the peace. To keep what is good whole.
He thinks of Nino’s laughter.
He will not give in, there is no way.
At least, he thinks that, until he sees an unrecognizable face beside him.
I kept him with me, Sho-kun, but I wonder if this is counted.
*
It’s Aiba who tells him that it was love, a year later. That no one could take that away from him, ever. He wants to believe Aiba, but he is not equipped to do so. He erases Cyprus from the maps of his mind, even as the tang of the salty air clings to his memories. He buries it with even more work.
When Sho gets promoted to Captain, Nino attends the ceremony. He shakes his head the stricken look that Sho shoots his way once the star is pinned on his shoulder.
Sho is a great soldier, and an even better man.
Sho is a friend.
*
His knees ache, while his head bumps against Jun’s shoulder. The air is too dry, too arid. He wonders if he’ll ever see the sea again.
They’ve stopped asking questions like that months ago.
Jun puts him down only when there is starlight above them. It feels extravagant to rest.
*
He ignores Sho’s phonecall, even if he hasn’t seen him for a month. Sho had gone away for another mission-Nino’s now used to his sporadic absences. Nino can’t wait to grab a beer with him, but he’s scheduled to scrub in for a surgery that will take half the day. Later, he thinks. It’ll be a prize.
The sun is setting when he exits the hospital.
Sho is holding Jun’s hand. His breath stills. He sees the scars on that beautiful face. No, no.
And then, behind them.
Nino’s legs don’t move. He stays in place.
Ohno walks up the driveway, just like he did that spring night a long time ago. Nino’s lips tremble, his whole body trembles. The world spins and spins as Ohno wraps him up in his arms fiercely.
It’s terrible, to love.
*
Ohno cries for the first time in front of his team.
Team Alpha Sakura-Bambi, Dacchi, Rockstar, Pi-chan-are looking at him, tears streaming down their faces. The past month is a blur. Somehow, they had made it across the desert, to a UN encampment that Jun had tracked down using only his memory of it from training years ago.
They are so withered, so bone-tired, that they could only stare at the Pakistani officer when they were told that JSDF had been contacted. They arrive in less than a day. Even seeing their faces are too much, so much so that words couldn’t come out. But now, now that he hears commands in his mother tongue, now that they are inside the helicopter, one with a small insignia of a cherry blossom tree on the side, Ohno cries.
He can’t stop. His shoulders ache painfully with the effort, but he cannot stop.
Sho’s voice wavers as he radios in to Colonel Matsuoka. “Leader and Momo secured. I repeat, Leader and Momo secured. Leader and Momo are going home,” he says.
*
It’s a normal day for Nino in the hospital. After a round of surgery in the morning, he attended a meeting with Todai graduate students. They had showed him the prototypes for Medicube 2.0-an even sleeker, state-of-the-art facility that Japan could even be prouder of. With the results from the first Medicube mission and the extensive reaseach Nino’s team has put in along with the Todai students, they received more funding than they had initally expected. The Medicube Program is expected to roll out in five other countries in the next few months.
Tired but satisfied from a day’s work, he showers quickly and heads home. The apartment is oddly spotless. He opens the fridge to check if there’s enough beer. He frowns as he sees only one six-pack left. Great.
The doorbell rings as he sets up the takoyaki pan on the table.
Asami’s face crowds the monitor. “Open up, you NEET,” she says. Aiba is behind her, jiggling a couple of plastic bags. He lets them in. The enter with a barrage of hospital gossip-Kei-chan from radiology getting married to Nurse Mayu being one of them-and settle in like they live there. Nino grumbles about Aiba just grabbing his apron without asking for Nino’s permission. Aiba smiles and replies by tying the ribbon on Asami’s back with a flourish.
“We should do a dessert-ish one for Sho-chan, don’t you think?” Aiba says, as he starts chopping some cabbages.
“He eats everything anyway,” Nino says, sitting back and letting them do all the work.
“Why don’t you get me a beer, Ninomiya,” Asami orders, as she mixes the batter.
“You’re ordering me around?”
“Beer,” she repeats. “I’m here as your friend’s girlfriend. Shouldn’t you be trying to impress me or something?”
Nino stands up and laughs. “Nope, you’re just one of the boys, I’m afraid.”
They are halfway through their beers and almost finished with preps when the doorbell rings again.
Jun and Sho are bickering about who left the bottle of wine at home as they toe off their shoes on the genkan. Ohno, on the other hand, looks repentantly at him.
“I told you to get it this morning,” Nino accuses him.
“I was napping,” he says, bringing in the bags of beer to the kitchen.
“Now we have to wait for all of it to get chilled.”
Ohno pouts. “I bought ice.” He straightens out after he places everything int the fridge. “You’re not really mad, are you?”
“Try me,” Nino says, as Ohno slinks his arms around Nino’s waist.
The smile on Ohno’s face is beatific. “I can’t let you be mad at me today.”
When Ohno leans in for a kiss, Nino thinks he can’t really be mad at him, not really, not ever. Ohno coaxes him closer, kissing him sweetly.
It’s been a rough road. Nino had kept Ohno suffocatingly close, afraid to lose him again. There were fights, disagreements that Nino knew were because of his selfishness and his fear. Many times, he had just wanted to run away. The cruelty of it hadn’t even been the first thing to strike him-it was the absolute ease of it. Nino could run away and never have to face uncertainty again.
But he stayed. It’s not that he owed it to Ohno-Ohno would never forgive him for staying for that reason. But it was because there was no more imagining a life without him. Those months in Cyprus happened. Those months thinking and believing the worst happened. Ohno coming back happened.
Ohno, still loving him, as simply as he had before. It’s still happening.
Ohno’s first few missions back were a test for Nino. He hadn’t really slept then, during those nights. But he has learned to wait. He waits now, in true patience, even if sometimes his worries render him sleepless. He knows now that the risk is part of Ohno, part of the best thing that’s ever walked into his life and thankfully tried a lame pick-up line on him. Ohno was, and is, worth it.
Tonight, Nino sits in his appartment, surrounded by friends, at peace. There is no knowing what happens next. But here, as he partakes in a takoyaki party that he will eventually have to clear out himself later-Nino finds that days are just that. Days. And how he chooses to spend them has more power than the things in the future that may or may not come to be. It doesn't sound like an impressive thing to have learned, but he has. Here, around this table, is proof that life happens one moment at a time.
Here, as Sho complains about Jun constantly telling him to wear his beret properly.
Here, as Aiba continues to beam at him with a genuine warmth, saying in a smile what Nino needs great courage to believe.
Here, right here, as Ohno holds his hand underneath the table as he eats another takoyaki, smiling at him with his mouth full.
Nino cannot afford running away from a tomorrow that will come anyway, because he is here.
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Nino, happy birthday to you, they sing.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Ohno/Nino, Sho/Jun
Word count: 26,634
Summary: Nino is a talented young surgeon who is at a crossroads in his medical career. Ohno is the fearless Captain of Japan’s elite Special Forces Group. Their paths cross in Japan, but things do not work out. Months later, they are surprised to find each other in the same UN outpost at Cyprus, both on missions of their own.
Part 2
*
Sakurai, the one who’s always eating his meals with Ohno, leads the cadence call, with Ohno effortlessly jogging on the rear, making sure that everyone’s up to speed. Not that it was needed-everyone looked hearty and fit. The troops all jog shirtless, enthusiastically calling back Sakurai’s lines to him.
Everyday! Everybody!
The world isn’t over yet
It’s not too late to start trying
Let’s get on
Let’s get on yeah!
You are my soul! Soul!
We won’t give up!
No one can get in our way
Gather the wind in your body
And make a storm happen!
Nino wonders who came up with the rhyme that doesn’t even rhyme and if everyone in the Japanese army are required to have six-pack abs. Not that he’s bitter-it's just that, if there’s one thing that he hates in camp, it’s this energetic, monstrous routine every morning. No one can remain asleep with their noisy chanting. He’s heard from Aiba that all the girls from his team gather in front of Medicube early with their cups of coffee, waiting for the show everyday. Today is his lucky day-he sighs as he sees all of them leaning against the short gate in a line.
“You girls have no pride,” Nino says, settling between Asami and an uncharacteristically grumpy Aiba.
Asami sighs. “You don’t understand, this is heaven. Who knew all the cute boys were in the army? I didn’t even know we still had an army.”
Nino scoffs. “How can you say that? You’ve been working with me all these years. Aiba-shi here’s not that bad as well, if you can look past his glaring idiocy.”
“’Not that bad’ is an understatement, Asami-chan,” Aiba quips. He tries to get into her line of vision, but she promptly shoves him aside.
“Please. I’ve decided-I’m just going to reinlist every year in this camp and spend my mornings watching this parade for the rest of my life. It’s like conveyor belt sushi, only instead of uni, there’s abs.”
“They don’t make a lot of money you know, these military guys,” Aiba says.
“For your information, we’re not that shallow.” Asami huffs, as she points out a soldier with an extra puffed-out chest to an equally excited Shihori, another doctor on the team.
“No, not that one! He’s coming, he’s coming!”
“But here you are objectifying shirtless men,” Nino replies, to an elbow immediately digging at him. “Ow!”
“Him!” Shihori exclaims. “I hate to be selfish, women, but dibs on First Lieutenant Okada. Look at those strong arms! They look like they’re itching to hug someone who has my exact body proportions,” she announces.
“Shi-chan!” Asami roars in laughter.
“What! Look at how dreamy he is. I’ll take Sakurai-san in a pinch, though. Pride of Japan, those two!”
“Ikuta-san is the real pride of Japan! He looks like a movie star,” Mayu, a young nurse says, to which Asako-sensei replies fervently-“Nope, it has to be Yamashita, ladies. That chest.”
“Well, no need to choose,” Asami says. “I mean, Matsumoto-san looks like he’s in a commercial 24/7. What kind of person sweats but looks like he doesn’t? Do you get it?”
The girls all nod in agreement, even Asako-sensei who is undoubtedly married and older than everyone there. "But Captain Ohno is more my type. He's so nimble, and my god, those abs," she adds, with the girls sighing as the the tail-end of the group round the corner.
“Show-offs. They don’t need to be shirtless for that, do they? I bet Matsujun is just lapping all of this up,” Aiba grumbles, sipping his coffee beside Nino. All Nino could think that he really hates this morning routine as a sweaty, shirtless Ohno jogs past him, looking not the least winded. His only consolation is that Aiba’s too busy pouting about Asami to tease Nino about his “Captain Oh-chan-san”, which he hasn’t stopped doing since that damn unit arrived. After the meal Aiba had inadvertently cooked for him and Ohno, Nino had told Aiba that whatever he and Ohno had was over, that it would be nice if he could stop doing unnecessary things.
“You know, Matsujun and I have been catching up. I didn’t spill any details, don’t worry. But he says you’re the type to run if you’re given the space to,” Aiba said. “And I think he’s right.”
Nino had sat there, quiet. It’s still on his mind, of course. It was true that Jun was the one who had left, the one whose dreams changed. Nino couldn’t control any of that, and had been the one to break things off with Jun. He hadn’t wanted the pain of growing apart while trying to maintain a long-distance relationship. In his mind, the moment Jun made his decision, he had already left him. But with a chill, Nino realizes that it might be true-that he was the one who ran away first.
He mourns about the fact that his ex-boyfriend and bestfriend are gossiping and dissecting his feelings, as if they were all still undergraduates in Todai, bickering and making fun of each other during study breaks. Just for spite, he starts calling Jun “Jun-pon” in front of everyone, hoping that it catches on. As for Aiba, he just gives him a harder time than usual-at work or otherwise. The two assholes look unfazed, to Nino’s consternation.
A week later, they wake up to a morning jog with less members, with no Sho leading the cadence call in sight. It’s a slightly less boisterous affair without his original chanting. The girls are all abuzz, wondering if Captain Ohno’s troop left at night, and if it was a permanent departure. Nino watches the dust in the wake of their jogging, keenly missing the one who usually jogged behind the troops, as if preferring to make sure that everyone makes it instead of being the one to spur them on. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach, now that he has an idea of how dangerous Ohno’s job really is. From his injuries and the deference that Jun, who Nino knows to not be easily impressed, gives him, he now knows that Ohno is leading a kind of operation that has massive ramifications. It’s a chilling thought.
During their weekly Monday meeting later that day, Jun looks out of sorts and takes up all of the room with his bad mood. He’s still efficient as he runs down the week’s agenda, but Nino could tell that there would be no sweet, simpering smiles for the lunch ladies today. The meeting is brief. Jun storms out of the room immediately after.
“I saw them last night,” Aiba tells him as they walk back to Medicube.
“Who?”
“Him and Sakurai-kun. They were arguing, I couldn’t hear what they were saying though. But Matsujun stormed off,” Aiba says. Nino is surprised at the image, but the more he lets it absorb, it comes to him so simply that he can’t believe he didn’t see it before.
After his morning rounds, Nino drops by Jun’s office, which is nothing but a small, tidy room with austere furnishings and a ridiculously tiny bonsai plant. Jun’s eyes flash up at him.
“I know what you’re going to ask, and I’m telling you now that I don’t know the answer either,” he says.
Nino sits down, not too surprised that Jun can read him well after all these years. They sit there in silence as Jun types furiously on his laptop. Nino sees the worry lines on his forehead, the dark bags under his eyes. It’s not that Jun has aged-he has, but he’s still stunning, if even more so-it’s that Jun looks worried. Granted, he’s always been a big worrywart, but Nino knows that this is a different level. It's as if the very air around him is charged with a tense energy.
His flurry of productivity soon tapers off. Jun sighs, rubbing his eyes, leaning back on his chair. “He wouldn’t tell me where they were going. And I understand that, I do,” he says, as if convincing himself.
“That’s good?” Nino doesn’t know what to answer.
“Kazu, we’ve been seeing each other since New York, did you know that? Sakurai-san and I.”
Nino’s only pieced the details together this morning, with a lot of things making more sense now. “That’s why he had looked familiar in the hospital,” he says. “Because even before that, I’ve already seen Sho-kun, although I couldn’t place him.”
“‘Sho-kun’? Seen him where?”
“Well, that’s what Ohno-san calls him. And I saw him often on your Facebook back then-the two of you together looked straight as fuck, doing beer bongs with a bunch of sorority girls between all those drills. How would I know that he was your rebound?”
Jun smiles wanly at that. “You broke up with me, may I remind you. And he’s no rebound.”
“Duh,” Nino says, smiling back at him. Eventually, he squeezes out the story from Jun over the simple lunch that Fuma brings for them. Jun’s thought process is so Jun that it hurts Nino to hear about it-but it also makes him want to smack some sense into him, because it’s so irrational.
“He won’t forgive himself,” he says, even though he knows that Jun probably grapples with that fact everyday. “And what will you do after, anyway? You love this job, anyone with eyes can see that.”
“I can study medicine again,” he says, to Nino raising his brows. “Don’t look at me like that.” He sets his chopsticks down, apparently losing his appetite.
Nino watches him, silent, knowing that Jun needs him to listen now. It has always taken him longer than others to warm up and articulate what he means-that much, Nino remembers.
“I was brutal to him last night. I let him leave thinking I didn’t love him anymore, Kazu,” he says, words running into each other, the vowels and consonants crashing together violently. “I did it. I said it.”
Jun buries his head in his hands. “Stupid.” his voice almost too soft for Nino to hear. He laughs bitterly. “Compared to us, you and I were a cakewalk.”
“Jun,” he says, grabbing one of his hands.
He takes some time to compose himself. When he resurfaces, his face is painfully resolute again, but Nino knows better. “He better return home safe. Captain Ohno too,” Jun says, standing up and leaving the room to call for Fuma to clear the dishes before Nino could get a word in.
Jun, apparently, sees his heart clearly as well. Still.
Five days later, they catch a chilling news report on CNN about a bloody drug cartel in Mali finally dismantled by a “lean international operations unit rumored to be backed by the United Nations”-a dreadfully unspecific bit of information just to distinguish them from the French troops who were there for ground operations against Islamic militant groups. There aren’t many details about it, except for the newscaster explaining how it was an impossible operation that could have ended in civilian warfare.
21 killed, 4 injured. The report didn’t discriminate between the good guys and the bad. The blood that drains from Jun’s face beside him probably mirrors Nino’s own.
The one-day limbo between waiting for more news casts an uneasy atmosphere in the camp. At this point, everyone in the JSDF camp suspects with a reverent kind of awe that Ohno’s troop had to be behind that operation, that the lessons they have been so adept at teaching and training them in are actually things that they do in real life-they weren’t just normal military teachers sent from Tokyo. Right in front of them, all along, was proof that Japan had an active troop that partook in less than diplomatic missions. The talk about “secret elite unit” simmers down whenever Jun is around, but it doesn’t stop the whispers. The timing-and the other clues-are too coincidental.
Nino is on an offsite health inspection with Jun when Jun recieves a call from a “Colonel Matsuoka”. Nino could see Jun’s body, tense and poised for action as he listens to his superior.
“They’re back,” Jun says simply. The drive back to camp is unnervingly silent. When they arrive, Jun turns to him, eyes serious. “We are expecting one injured person, Ninomiya-sensei. Recovering from ballistic trauma to his torso from close-range armed conflict, injury was incurred two days ago. Please equip the Medicube accordingly.” Jun runs off without saying another word once they arrive. Everyone hears the huge EC225 helicopter arriving at the field. Nino comes with his team, ready to receive them.
Was it Ohno? He steadies his heart. Was this also what happened? With that healed gunshot wound on his stomach?
Toma and Okada are first to go down, bracing a stretcher carefully down the helicopter, with Yamashita and Jun at the other end. Nino breathes out. So it’s Sho who got shot. Not that it makes things better. Aiba runs up to meet them and directs them to the backdoor of Medicube. Nino runs with them, only looking back once to confirm that it’s really Ohno on the rear, alive and whole, talking to a tall, scary-looking officer beside him. He feels ashamed as relief floods all over him.
At Medicube, Nino immediately checks Sho’s vital signs and listens to Toma’s detailed report. He is extremely pale, but Nino rules out exsanguination and hypoxia. He looks to be stabilizing, thanks to the emergency operation done on him before they flew out of Mali. He will need constant monitoring, in case there are further complications, of which there's a big chance of. His clavicles don't look good. Jun doesn’t budge from where he’s standing, right at Sho's feet.
It takes awhile for everything to settle down again, but it does. Ohno and his troop do not explain what happened-instead, Colonel Matsuoka, the tall officer who came back with them, rally the troops to focus on their training, impressing upon them the need for readiness at all times. He is both imposing and charismatic, and his presence seems to have its intended effect of deflecting the attention away from Sho’s injury, what had caused it, and where they all went. A week later, they are back doing their drills and lessons, with the exception of Sho who is recuperating from his surgeries. Nino’s team had to do operate on his shattered clavicle a day after they returned. When not doing his duties, Jun was a permanent fixture in Medicube, sitting by Sho’s side.
After the troop’s first morning jog back, Nino waits at the empty mess hall, where he knows Ohno will make an iced coffee for himself in the small kitchen, always choosing to shower later after everyone is done. Today is especially hot, and Nino can see it in the way that sweat trickles down Ohno’s temples, down his neck, his collarbones, his soaked shirt. He stops in his place at the door, not expecting anyone, least of all Nino, to be in the kitchen.
“Oh, hey,” Ohno says, wiping his forehead with a towel. “I’ve never seen you here before.”
Nino leans on the counter. “I’m just hanging out.”
“Hanging out?”
“Iced coffee, right? I’ve brewed the coffee, you can get the ice if you want some too.”
Ohno stands there unsure for a few seconds, then springs into action when Nino turns his back and fishes for the pot of brewed coffee. Nino hears the plink of ice cubes against glass. He lets Ohno assemble it all together, his nimble hands a point of interest for Nino. Those hands had touched Nino, had made him feel so good. Rough, delicately shaped hands, hands that had felt like heat stamps.
“Here,” he says, handing the glass to Nino, looking at him curiously.
“No latte art this time?” Nino asks. The way Ohno smiles at him makes Nino’s heart bloom. Is it really that easy? They drink their iced coffees in silence, the smell of damp earth and the tang of the nearby sea wafting in through the windows. Nino is satisfied to see him whole and unharmed, sporting no injuries that he could see. He doesn’t feel the need to ask Ohno other questions-Nino discovers that he’s not angry anymore. But more than that, he finds out that he respects what Ohno does, despite the obvious clash in methodology. Ohno saves lives too, maybe more than Nino ever has or will.
It’s his way of not running away. He doesn’t go every morning, but when he does, Ohno wordlessly gets the ice and prepares two glasses. Their conversations revolve around camp events, meetings, and random people. Sometimes, Ohno mutters about Sho, and Nino knows that he’s more worried than he looks. But most of the time, they settle into a comfortable silence, with Ohno watching Nino play on his 3DS. The way Ohno chuckles whenever his character dies is childish and extremely dangerous to Nino’s heart.
Before Nino knows it, Ohno regularly comes by after his shift at Medicube, to walk with him on the ridiculously short distance to the mess hall for dinner. They don’t eat their dinners together, but to Nino, those mornings with iced coffee and the five-minute walks at night become something treasured, something he’s starting to look forward to. With Ohno, it’s just so easy. They fall into their old conversations, wrapping him in that same feeling of possibility that had surrounded them when the cherry blossoms were falling in Tokyo on their first date.
There are no petals raining on them here, but Nino doesn’t think it matters where they are.
When Ohno finally musters the courage to reach out for his hand one night-Nino had been observing him fidgeting for a couple of nights-he grips it in his, simply and warmly. Ohno huffs out a small breath, almost too tiny for Nino to hear. Almost.
*
Ohno is busy in signing some paperwork-a task that he doesn’t relish-when Jun knocks on his open door. He almost forgot that Jun had scheduled a meeting with him.
“Captain Ohno,” he says, saluting.
“At ease, Jun-kun. Come in,” he says. Jun steps in with an uneasy smile. “Sit.”
The soldier follows him, obedient and efficient as always. “I believe you know why I’m here, sir. I’ve made my decision.”
Ohno wants to approach this the right way-he doesn’t want to mess it up. Colonel Matsuoka has shared with him that after Matsumoto’s stellar record during his stints at Pakistan and now in Cyprus, he is planning to make him the sixth member of Team Alpha Sakura. Ohno knew that he had always planned to round out their numbers, and he himself can’t think of a better candidate than Jun. Although he has worked with him in the past, the past months have better revealed Jun to be someone imbued with leadership, combined with a highly tactical mind and an impressive set of combat skills. His profile is similar and quite complementary to Sho’s, which Colonel Matsuoka really likes. There is no doubt that he would be an asset to Team Alpha Sakura.
It’s why he’s hesitant to hand the recommendation letter lying inside the folder on his desk. He didn’t have a hard time writing it-any employer would be lucky to have someone like Jun. But it would be a loss to the Japan Self-Defense Force as a whole and an unexplored possibility for Ohno’s team.
It would also break the heart of a certain Sakurai Sho.
Ohno knows what an asshole General Sakurai has been to Sho, but if Sho hadn’t spilled everything out that time they got drunk in Kayabacho years ago, he wouldn’t know the true extent of it. Ohno couldn’t believe his ears-Sho would basically be never promoted or rise up the ranks as long as he’s in a relationship with Matsumoto Jun. “Father will make sure of it,” a bleary eyed Sho had said, to Ohno’s horror. Yet it had answered so many questions too-why someone with Sho’s connections and skill set was in Alpha Sakura where there will be no public acclaim or recognition ever, when he could have been more visible and probably higher up in rank than Ohno.
But even so, Ohno knew leaving Jun was never an option for Sho. He may not talk about Jun much, but Ohno knows that Sho always comes out of those hushed Skype calls in a better mood. He had those calls scheduled in his phone calendar-whenever they are stuck somewhere without internet, Ohno always caught him staring at the red dots on his calendar app. He imagines them to be like beacons for Sho.
“I’m not really sure that I want to give this letter to you,” Ohno says, his heart heavy. “Both as your superior-”
“-sir, I can explain-”
“-and as Sho-kun’s friend.” Jun visibly shrinks, biting his lips as if he wants to say something but thinking better of it. Ohno waits. He doesn’t say anything.
Ohno stands up, wishing he was better at this talking thing. But he’s not. He only hopes he could show his sincerity in a way that wouldn’t offend Jun or drive him off. After rummaging for it in his cabinet, he turns to Jun and presents a black beret with a small, embroidered cherry blossom tree to him.
His eyes are wide. “Me?”
“Colonel Matsuoka handpicked you. And I don’t disagree with his choice.”
Jun swallows. “I never thought…wow,” he exhales, eyeing the beret. “This is a surprise, and an honor. But, Captain, I-”
“Matsumoto.” He shakes the beret at him. “Take it. All I ask from you is that you think about it-give it a month or so. And if you really don’t want it, well. Give it back. But give it a month.”
Jun meets his eyes and wordlessly seems to understand that more than an order, it’s a request. A favor. And not from his superior, but from Sho’s friend.
After he takes the beret and the rest of the uniform with shaking hands, Ohno dismisses him. He saw the conflicting emotions in Jun’s eyes. Ohno could only hope that Sho has a plan.
The days pass by in a blur, with days turning into weeks. He visits Sho everyday, but today, it’s different. Sho smiles weakly up at him. “I’m getting shipped back home, aren’t I?”
Ohno nods. “The day after tomorrow. They can care for you better in Tokyo.”
Sho has the audacity to chuckle at him. “Don’t look so glum, Leader. I’ll be up and running after a few months. Can’t have the lot of you getting lost in Kabul, right?”
He knows that Sho is right. “Heal faster, then.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Sho looks at him, his eyes piercing and sad. “I heard from Colonel Matsuoka that First Lieutenant Matsumoto is considering your offer.”
Ohno knows where this is going, and he doesn’t know if he can assure Sho. “Yes.”
“Satoshi-kun? Keep him with you, will you?”
He hears the unspoken implication of while I'm not here. “I can try.”
Sho falls asleep soon after that. Ohno’s heart is heavy the day that Sho gets discharged from Medicube and is flown back home. Somehow, everything is quiet when he’s not around. That night, it rains hard in Cyprus for the first time during their mission. The big drops of water create muddy puddles around camp. He wonders if he should make a run for it-he’ll be soaked by the time he gets to Medicube, but it’s better than being stuck in the office bungalow, alone, wondering if Sho is feeling more comfortable.
He’s about to dash in the rain when a dark figure approaches from the side of the building. It’s Nino with an umbrella. He steps into the porch, sneakers all wet and muddy, squelching against the wood.
“I have cup noodles from my stash,” he says, shaking the plastic bag in his hand.
A silver lining, Ohno thinks. If anything good has happened in the past few weeks, it would be this. It smells like coffee and feels like the warmth of a palm against his own. Ohno doesn’t overthink it, allowing all the details to crash into him instead. Just like tonight, with the welcoming shape of Nino against all the gray. For Ohno, it’s simple.
“I was just about to pick you up.”
Nino closes the umbrella and places it to the side. The sound of the rain drowns out everything. “And risk catching something? You’re not getting a free pass to stay in Medicube for a measly cold, you know.”
Ohno couldn’t take it anymore, he’s wanted it for so long. He figures that with all the rain, no one would see them anyway. Or maybe, he doesn’t care if anyone does. Ohno reaches out for the back of his nape and kisses him. Nino kisses him back.
“Let’s go inside,” he says. Nino nods.
*
Nino thinks that what he will remember the most is the rain thrashing against the glass window. It’s noisy, like the world around them is drowning in a wet blanket of darkness. They sit there, on Ohno’s threadbare office couch, hands roaming slowly as they kiss. God, how he’s missed kissing him.
Somehow, he knows that Ohno isn’t in a hurry. In fact, more than sex-something Nino may or may not have planned when he thought of sharing his cup noodles-Ohno looks like he needed to just be held, for now. And that’s what Nino does. He kisses Ohno back, running a soothing hand down his strong back. It feels like a luxury, like something he should treasure.
Nino has been trying to process his feelings for Ohno ever since he returned from Mali. Ohno is so easy to fall for, that's a given. He’s attracted to and charmed by this person. But more than that is the more dangerous impulse of wanting to give him everything, to reveal all his cards, because something about Ohno makes him feel at ease, like he could never hurt Nino.
But that’s just it, really. The uncomplicated-ness of him, the way he makes feel Nino wanted-he’s not proud of it, but Nino is still just a tiny bit suspicious of it. Not that he’s not appreciating the uncomplicated delicacy of Ohno’s lips right now. He tugs him closer.
Ohno’s stomach grumbles. “Seriously?” Nino asks, laughing.
“Well, it is dinner time.” Ohno untangles his arm from Nino. “I’ll boil some water.”
They eat their noodles on the couch, with Nino’s legs propped up on Ohno’s. The rain is still pouring hard outside. Ohno’s small desk lamp bathes everything in a weak, amber glow. Nino finds it ridiculous that he finds this tired-looking uniformed man now slurping his noodles, lips wet with sauce, stunning. But he is, Ohno really is. And he wants him.
“What did you do to your sketch of me?” he asks.
Ohno turns to him. “It’s in my apartment. I took it home with me.”
“Thief.”
“It’s my sketchpad,” he says, chomping through his noodles.
“Oh-chan?”
“Hmm?”
“Can we just get it over with? The sex part, I mean.”
Ohno downs a considerable amount of water, staring accusingly at Nino. “You can’t just say it…like that.”
Nino shrugs. “Don’t you want to?”
Ohno blushes a nice shade of pink, setting aside the glass of water. He clears the table and disappears for awhile. When he returns, he pauses at the doorway, looking at Nino. “Come here,” he says, with a note of command, and Nino feels a thrill climb up his back. He stands up and walks up to Ohno, ready to slink up his arms around his neck. Instead, when he’s near enough, Ohno wheels him around and wraps his arms around his middle, kissing him on his neck.
“Oh-chan,” he murmurs, melting inside his affectionate human cloak.
Ohno peppers his neck with small kisses. He sighs as he feels him moving up, a tentative lick on the shell of his ear making Nino quiver. His breath is warm. “I want to,” he whispers, and Nino twists to meet him in a kiss. It’s an awkward angle and he wants more. He turns around, kissing away Ohno’s protesting sounds. Nino thinks that he mustn’t mind that much, now that his hands are squeezing Nino’s ass appreciatively. Their kiss deepens, and Nino wants more, he needs more.
“I could spend all night doing this,” Ohno murmurs.
“Or we could do better.” As a reply, Ohno pulls Nino’s hips snug against his own, reminding Nino that there are too many layers in between them.
“Show me how fast a soldier can undress,” he says, removing his own clothes.
Ohno steps back and impressively shucks off his clothes in record time. Nino thinks that Ohno should never be in clothes again, of any kind, ever. Ohno grabs his hands with a devious smile and walks them to the couch, lying on his back and pulling Nino in between his legs. To be skin on skin with Ohno is a marvel, and he sighs as Ohno softly bucks up to him, letting his interest be known. When Ohno’s hard-on slides against his own, pleasure fires off all over Nino’s skin. There is a slow, almost languorous precision to Ohno’s thrusts, and his kisses don’t grow sloppy, even as Nino grows impatient and unfocused. Ohno’s hand strays between them to Nino’s cock, setting a lazy rhythm that has Nino keening.
“Fuck me already, Captain,” he finds himself saying. Nino gasps as Ohno squeezes his cock at the use of his title. “Or do you want me to do it? Never had a dick in you before?”
Ohno looks dazed for a second, and for a second, Nino mourns the absence of his hand. But then he grins, sitting up and carrying Nino along with him with ease.
“Trust me, Ninomiya, I’ll do the fucking today.”
Ohno teases Nino with a buck of his hips, snuffling his groan with an open mouthed kiss that leaves him breathless. Nino’s pretty sure he can come just like this, so he breaks away from him and leans to the side, grabbing the lube that he stashed in the plastic bag along with the noodles. He tosses the condoms on Ohno’s belly. “Here.”
Ohno laughs at that as he lies back. He grabs Nino’s hips, his thumbs pressing against the juts of bone there. “You planned this.”
“I’m merely optimistic,” he says, opening the bottle of lube. “Do you want the full show?”
Nino doesn’t wait for his answer and instead turns around, bending over so that Ohno can appreciate the view. He starts working himself, with a finger to begin with. It's a familiar feeling, so he doesn't dwell on the initial discomfort. Soon, he works up to two. When he looks back, he feels like he could come from just seeing Ohno lying there, head on the armrest, lazily pulling on his cock and watching him. Their eyes meet. Nino moans with his own three fingers, high at being a spectacle, turned on by Ohno's rapt attention.
“About done?” Ohno asks, not sounding the least hurried, but eyes looking more intense than Nino’s ever seen them. "A little more," Nino says in a rasp. Watching Ohno roll on a condom is impetus enough for him to finish preparing himself. He concentrates on opening himself up, gasping as he hits a pleasurable spot.
A few seconds later, he feels Ohno kneeling against him, pressing swift kisses on his back. He takes Nino’s hand and replaces it with his own fingers, to Nino’s surprise. Ohno starts slowly, with Nino saying soothing words. Encouraged, he works up to a fast pace, learning what Nino reacts to, and not stopping until Nino bucks against this hand.
“Stop,” he says, moments later, voice faltering. “I’m ready.”
Ohno removes his fingers and without warning, lines up his cock to Nino’s entrance. He pushes in slowly, a guttural moan escaping his lips the moment he’s balls-deep in Nino.
Nino breathes in and out, adjusting to Ohno’s size inside him. He shakes on his haunches. Ohno rubs his hips and his buttocks with his hands. “Are you okay? Nino-”
“Fuck me,” he says.
Ohno doesn’t need telling twice. He starts slow, with shallow strokes that only make Nino want more. “I’m not one of your girls,” he snarls, real pleasure just on the precipice, and Ohno grips his hips, silencing him by sliding almost all of the way out and ramming into him with enough force that almost makes him topple over. Ohno sticks to a brutal pace, and it feels amazing-the perfect blend of punishment and sheer connection. With every movement, he finds a way to slide even deeper, unrelenting and thorough. He feels beads of sweat running down his face, the salt almost marring his vision.
The sounds that Ohno makes are small, yet labored. Nino is overwhelmed by the thought of being filled up by Ohno, repeatedly, with those graceful hips, with a fearsome intention, with a smattering of tender kisses to his shoulder blades. He is propelled forward by Ohno, by the idea of him, by his strong thighs, by a wash of feeling that threatens to drown him. Nino cries out his name.
“Is this enough fucking for you, Nino?” Ohno asks, as he pulls Nino’s hips against him, thrusting over and over again and hitting that one spot that has Nino crumbling. “Not yet?”
And that gentle taunt, more than anything else, tips Nino over the edge. Ohno, sensing that he’s close, reaches over for his cock and jerks him off. He cries out again as he comes, gasping through a crippling orgasm, feeling Ohno inside him, all around him.
Ohno isn’t that far behind. He continues to slide into Nino, movements finally growing erratic. When he comes, it’s with a soft, drawn-out moan that Nino, even in his orgasmic haze, takes note to remember. Ohno, spent, is beautiful.
They lie there together in post-coital satisfaction, after Ohno gets rid of the condom and wiping both of them down with tissue. Nino feels sated, feeling no need to say anything. There’s only this glowing thrum in his heart that says this couldn’t be wrong. It was great sex, yes. They were obviously more than compatible in that respect. But it was something else too. Somehow, it feels like rediscovering something that has always existed anway. Nino realizes that there is no learning curve when it comes to Ohno. Orgasms that seem to come too easy make sense. Quiet mornings make sense. Ohno running his fingers through his hair with heartbreaking tenderness make sense.
“Nino?”
“Hmm?”
“Mission accomplished,” Ohno says. “Right?”
He looks so serious. Nino shuts his eyes close, a peal of laughter gurgling in his throat. “You’re ridiculous.”
“It’s the way I operate. Operation Get-Sex-Out-of-the-Way, a success!”
What a dumbass, this Ohno Satoshi. “Not even remotely funny.”
“We fucked in my office. I’ve never done that before, fucking in an office. Where else can we do it, do you think?”
He doesn’t stop the laughter this time, feeling truly overjoyed. And it isn't just because Ohno was already brainstorming about their next tumble. It's just Ohno, his excitement, his ardor. His silly blissed-out, post-orgasm face. “If I knew you were this chatty after sex, I would’ve never bothered.”
Ohno shuts him up with a smile-shaped kiss. Just the way Nino likes it.
*
Suddenly, camp life becomes more exciting. Now that they got the first time out of the way, he and Nino become increasingly creative and regular in their sexual pursuits. They still have sex in Ohno’s office, most of the time with Ohno still in his camos at Nino’s request. Ohno repeatedly jacks off to the memory of fucking Nino on his lap in the backseat of his jeep, the windows getting all steamy as Nino repeatedly called out his name. There’s also that time when Nino pushed his pants down in his small Medicube office and telling him to be quiet, because his team is right in the next module. Nino then mercilessly sucked him off like there was no tomorrow, and Ohno had to come in silence.
Ohno also likes the regular sex too, the kind where Nino sneaks him in to his bunk during lunch when there’s no one there, and he gets to hold Nino's hands as he comes. Ohno loves the way Nino’s lips parts in pleasure. Maybe someday, he can ask Nino if he can draw him again.
But it’s not only that. Ohno feels that something has caved in Nino, something essential. Their five-minute walks to dinner somehow become ten, as they walk slower, their entwined hands swing together between them ridiculously. Nino even “shares” Aiba and Jun with him, finally. One Saturday night, they go to downtown Nicosia to have their first dinner together, all four of them. Ohno finds out that nobody can embarrass and tease Nino like Aiba and get away with it-Aiba is Nino’s Sho, he realizes in a flurry of warmth. Of course, he also sees firsthand Nino’s easy and deep rapport with Jun. He’d be jealous, but knowing how Jun feels about Sho, and vice-versa, is enough to know how pointless it would be. He respects the history there, and sees that a part of Nino came to be because he once loved Jun.
The month flies by. There are other details, a lot of them whizzing over his head because there’s just too many, but they all do the same thing. They all just make Ohno fall harder for Nino. And if the details aren’t quite clear, his feelings are, anyway.
He’s in love with Nino.
It’s why when Colonel Matsuoka tells him that Team Alpha Sakura has another mission to Kabul, this time for three months, and that they need to leave in two days, he is aghast. He doesn’t reveal all the details to Nino. Not that he asks.
During their last night together, they lie on Ohno’s couch in a tight squeeze. Ohno is already in the clutches of sleep when Nino whispers to him, perhaps thinking that he’s already dreaming-
“This time, I’ll be waiting patiently. Just come back,” he says.
Ohno tucks that thought in a small corner of his mind. In the months ahead, he will try to remember how Nino had felt in his arms that night, how his breath had tickled his ear.
*
A person’s job can’t stop being his job. That’s the clumsy thought Nino repeats over and over as he pushes down his longing and anxiety for Ohno. He remembers the morning they left. It was an hour before dawn, and Nino had walked silently with Ohno to the helipad. They stopped at a distance, with Ohno giving him a quick hug before he jogged to the rest of his team. The four of them are dressed in the black uniform that they’ve never worn around camp.
He remembered that his heart was up scritching up his throat when someone clapped him from behind the back. “I’ve got him, Kazu,” Jun said. Before he could form a reply, Jun ran to the troop, also decked in that anonymous black. Nino watched Ohno shaking his hand emphatically before they all boarded the helicopter.
They left in complete darkness, right before dawn could catch up with them.
His team’s mission in Cyprus is wrapping up in a month. Nino devotes all his time and energy to ensuring all the protocols that they’ve set in place for Medicube can be easily followed by the local team. He’s proud of what they’ve accomplished, and he spends his time enjoying the company of people that he’s grown fond of-all the lunch ladies that Jun had introduced him to, the kids who always asked for Japanese sweets whenever they visited Medicube, and the rest of the troops whom he’s become friends with.
During their last day in Cyprus, they all gather in the mess hall for one last dinner, arranged by an emotional Aiba. He went all-out-he had revealed to Nino the night before that he’s been working on a Cypriot-Japanese fusion dinner with the lunch ladies, and that he created a special mapo tofu recipe for the occasion. To be fair, everyone seems to enjoy the food as they all reminisce about the past few months. He’ll kill Aiba for making him do another speech, but that will be for when they get back to Tokyo.
Nino sneaks out right before the second round of shots come, inhaling the fresh air as he walks back to his quarters. He bumps into Aiba and Asami by the running track. Nino doesn’t miss the fact that they are holding hands.
“Leaving already?” Aiba asks.
“He’s definitely just trying to dodge the shots,” Asami quips.
Nino continues walking. “Try not to make out by the trees. There are poisonous ones here, you know,” he shouts back. He walks faster, willing the nostalgia not to wash down over him. Will he and Ohno ever walk these fields again? Will they ever return? Will things be different in Japan? He tries to sleep earlier to avoid those questions, wishing that the air wasn’t so fragrant on this last night.
Before Nino knows it, they’re back in Tokyo. They only get a couple of days to rest up, then it’s already back to the usual work. Everything is the same, except everyone compliments them on their tans. Aiba is ecstatic about it and is already looking up tanning salons to maintain his. Nino tells him it’s a shitty idea, and Asami bans him from even thinking about it.
The first serious order of business is the debriefing. All of the upper management and the Todai team who conceptualized Medicube are in attendance. Surprisingly, a lot of the other staff attended, even though they weren’t required. As Nino runs through his slides about how Medicube was able to integrate seamlessly into the community to an attentive audience, he feels pride over what his team was able to accomplish. During the open forum, there is a lot of interest on the next steps and how they could improve the Medicube experience. A lot of residents chimed in with their thoughts on what relevant research could be done for it. Nino answers all of their questions with enthusiasm, surprising even himself.
After the debriefing, Higashiyama-sensei congratulates him on his team’s achievements. “This could be a path for you yet, Ninomiya.”
Nino thinks so too.
*
The view never changes. They never find out if it’s day or night. That, and he can draw the patterns on the cement wall just from his memory.
Jun has stopped getting up whenever they hear a sound outside the metal bars.
*
It’s when the days edge past the three-month mark that Nino starts to feel uneasy. He doesn’t really know who to contact. He has no way of knowing if Ohno was okay. Nino walks around in a daze, wondering each day if it will finally be the day that Ohno will pop up out of nowhere, and Nino will reprimand him over being late.
When Sho comes looking for him in the hospital, arm still in a sling, Nino’s heart falls.
“You don’t go here for physical therapy,” he accuses him.
Sho shakes his head. He invites Nino for coffee. That afternoon, Sho explains how there was a bomb raid in a location he cannot disclose, and Ohno’s troop had to do a quick retreat. After the blast, Ohno and Matsumoto’s bodies weren’t located.
Nino stares at Sho. His face is stern, but his eyes are red-rimmed.
“When Fuma-kun stole your phone,” he finds himself saying, “I saw your wallpaper. Back in the hospital. I just realized now it’s the stupid bonsai’s Jun’s always fussing over. Like, I just connected it in my head right now. Isn’t that weird?”
“Maybe not that weird.”
Their coffee runs cold, and they leave, silently exchanging numbers.
*
They are too well-trained. Their spirits don’t break when their body tells them to. Jun asks him about Nino’s favorite color. He makes a "buuu" send when Ohno says 'blue'.
*
Nino breaks down. He doesn’t go to work for a week. Aiba brings hims soup, and stays beside him.
*
Ohno realizes that he doesn’t know what Nino's favorite color is, and Jun won't say anything. Asshole. Jun says Sho has too many pairs of red boxer briefs. When Ohno asks how Jun would know, he receives the biggest eye roll in the history of mankind.
"You're fast," Ohno reprimands him, when he mentions that Jun doesn't call him "Captain" anymore and settles for a stern "Ohno". He is rewarded by a warm smile, a balm on a string of endless days that blur into each other. It's that stern voice that helps him keep quiet when other people enter the cell, their vitriol and penchant for tiny acts of violence relentless. Ohno. You can do it.
*
Eight months, and Nino has stopped crying. There is no use.
Sho had transferred his therapy to Nino’s hospital. Nino takes a personal interest in his therapy program, moved at Sho’s determination. Moved, and sometimes pissed when he gets too stubborn. He doesn’t want him to get hurt. They have opposite personalities, but Nino finds himself invested in him. Sometimes, Aiba keeps them company. They eat out, grab drinks, play video games that Sho never wins.
When Sho laughs for the first time, Nino thinks he can understand a little bit why Jun had loved him.
Loves him.
Loved.
There is no use.
*
They break his fingers. He will not yield. He will not sell out the friends he’s met, friends of different nationalities, friends that only fight for the same reason that he does. To keep the peace. To keep what is good whole.
He thinks of Nino’s laughter.
He will not give in, there is no way.
At least, he thinks that, until he sees an unrecognizable face beside him.
I kept him with me, Sho-kun, but I wonder if this is counted.
*
It’s Aiba who tells him that it was love, a year later. That no one could take that away from him, ever. He wants to believe Aiba, but he is not equipped to do so. He erases Cyprus from the maps of his mind, even as the tang of the salty air clings to his memories. He buries it with even more work.
When Sho gets promoted to Captain, Nino attends the ceremony. He shakes his head the stricken look that Sho shoots his way once the star is pinned on his shoulder.
Sho is a great soldier, and an even better man.
Sho is a friend.
*
His knees ache, while his head bumps against Jun’s shoulder. The air is too dry, too arid. He wonders if he’ll ever see the sea again.
They’ve stopped asking questions like that months ago.
Jun puts him down only when there is starlight above them. It feels extravagant to rest.
*
He ignores Sho’s phonecall, even if he hasn’t seen him for a month. Sho had gone away for another mission-Nino’s now used to his sporadic absences. Nino can’t wait to grab a beer with him, but he’s scheduled to scrub in for a surgery that will take half the day. Later, he thinks. It’ll be a prize.
The sun is setting when he exits the hospital.
Sho is holding Jun’s hand. His breath stills. He sees the scars on that beautiful face. No, no.
And then, behind them.
Nino’s legs don’t move. He stays in place.
Ohno walks up the driveway, just like he did that spring night a long time ago. Nino’s lips tremble, his whole body trembles. The world spins and spins as Ohno wraps him up in his arms fiercely.
It’s terrible, to love.
*
Ohno cries for the first time in front of his team.
Team Alpha Sakura-Bambi, Dacchi, Rockstar, Pi-chan-are looking at him, tears streaming down their faces. The past month is a blur. Somehow, they had made it across the desert, to a UN encampment that Jun had tracked down using only his memory of it from training years ago.
They are so withered, so bone-tired, that they could only stare at the Pakistani officer when they were told that JSDF had been contacted. They arrive in less than a day. Even seeing their faces are too much, so much so that words couldn’t come out. But now, now that he hears commands in his mother tongue, now that they are inside the helicopter, one with a small insignia of a cherry blossom tree on the side, Ohno cries.
He can’t stop. His shoulders ache painfully with the effort, but he cannot stop.
Sho’s voice wavers as he radios in to Colonel Matsuoka. “Leader and Momo secured. I repeat, Leader and Momo secured. Leader and Momo are going home,” he says.
*
It’s a normal day for Nino in the hospital. After a round of surgery in the morning, he attended a meeting with Todai graduate students. They had showed him the prototypes for Medicube 2.0-an even sleeker, state-of-the-art facility that Japan could even be prouder of. With the results from the first Medicube mission and the extensive reaseach Nino’s team has put in along with the Todai students, they received more funding than they had initally expected. The Medicube Program is expected to roll out in five other countries in the next few months.
Tired but satisfied from a day’s work, he showers quickly and heads home. The apartment is oddly spotless. He opens the fridge to check if there’s enough beer. He frowns as he sees only one six-pack left. Great.
The doorbell rings as he sets up the takoyaki pan on the table.
Asami’s face crowds the monitor. “Open up, you NEET,” she says. Aiba is behind her, jiggling a couple of plastic bags. He lets them in. The enter with a barrage of hospital gossip-Kei-chan from radiology getting married to Nurse Mayu being one of them-and settle in like they live there. Nino grumbles about Aiba just grabbing his apron without asking for Nino’s permission. Aiba smiles and replies by tying the ribbon on Asami’s back with a flourish.
“We should do a dessert-ish one for Sho-chan, don’t you think?” Aiba says, as he starts chopping some cabbages.
“He eats everything anyway,” Nino says, sitting back and letting them do all the work.
“Why don’t you get me a beer, Ninomiya,” Asami orders, as she mixes the batter.
“You’re ordering me around?”
“Beer,” she repeats. “I’m here as your friend’s girlfriend. Shouldn’t you be trying to impress me or something?”
Nino stands up and laughs. “Nope, you’re just one of the boys, I’m afraid.”
They are halfway through their beers and almost finished with preps when the doorbell rings again.
Jun and Sho are bickering about who left the bottle of wine at home as they toe off their shoes on the genkan. Ohno, on the other hand, looks repentantly at him.
“I told you to get it this morning,” Nino accuses him.
“I was napping,” he says, bringing in the bags of beer to the kitchen.
“Now we have to wait for all of it to get chilled.”
Ohno pouts. “I bought ice.” He straightens out after he places everything int the fridge. “You’re not really mad, are you?”
“Try me,” Nino says, as Ohno slinks his arms around Nino’s waist.
The smile on Ohno’s face is beatific. “I can’t let you be mad at me today.”
When Ohno leans in for a kiss, Nino thinks he can’t really be mad at him, not really, not ever. Ohno coaxes him closer, kissing him sweetly.
It’s been a rough road. Nino had kept Ohno suffocatingly close, afraid to lose him again. There were fights, disagreements that Nino knew were because of his selfishness and his fear. Many times, he had just wanted to run away. The cruelty of it hadn’t even been the first thing to strike him-it was the absolute ease of it. Nino could run away and never have to face uncertainty again.
But he stayed. It’s not that he owed it to Ohno-Ohno would never forgive him for staying for that reason. But it was because there was no more imagining a life without him. Those months in Cyprus happened. Those months thinking and believing the worst happened. Ohno coming back happened.
Ohno, still loving him, as simply as he had before. It’s still happening.
Ohno’s first few missions back were a test for Nino. He hadn’t really slept then, during those nights. But he has learned to wait. He waits now, in true patience, even if sometimes his worries render him sleepless. He knows now that the risk is part of Ohno, part of the best thing that’s ever walked into his life and thankfully tried a lame pick-up line on him. Ohno was, and is, worth it.
Tonight, Nino sits in his appartment, surrounded by friends, at peace. There is no knowing what happens next. But here, as he partakes in a takoyaki party that he will eventually have to clear out himself later-Nino finds that days are just that. Days. And how he chooses to spend them has more power than the things in the future that may or may not come to be. It doesn't sound like an impressive thing to have learned, but he has. Here, around this table, is proof that life happens one moment at a time.
Here, as Sho complains about Jun constantly telling him to wear his beret properly.
Here, as Aiba continues to beam at him with a genuine warmth, saying in a smile what Nino needs great courage to believe.
Here, right here, as Ohno holds his hand underneath the table as he eats another takoyaki, smiling at him with his mouth full.
Nino cannot afford running away from a tomorrow that will come anyway, because he is here.
Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Nino, happy birthday to you, they sing.