{014} Stranger in Town [Jun/Ohno focus]
Title: Stranger in Town
Groups/Pairings: Arashi, Jun/Ohno
Genre: AU, humor
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2300
Summary: Ohno is the sheriff of a small town and Jun is the investigator sent from the big city to find an escaped prisoner.
Notes: Written for kamja for je_otherworlds. And thanks to my beta, bubbly, for her input. <3
Jun slammed the door of his car and glanced up and down Main Street. From what he could see, this wasn’t just the center of town but the only part of town. ‘Not many places to hide,’ Jun thought with satisfaction, a fact that he hoped would make his job easier.
The first rule in any out-of-town investigation was to check in with the local authorities. Jun pulled on the front door of the courthouse, only to find it locked. Who locked the sheriff’s office in the middle of the day? A tiny note proclaimed, “out to lunch,” but there was no indication of when the sheriff would return. He could just sit there and wait indefinitely or… Jun looked at the shops around him. The barbershop to the left also seemed to be closed for lunch, but the newspaper looked like a good place to start. Smaller newspapers like this might be printed on paper, but they were powered by gossip.
Jun sauntered into the newspaper office. He was about to decide that the newspaper office was also out to lunch when he noticed a man hidden behind an open newspaper at a desk in the back of the room. Jun coughed quietly to get his attention. The newspaper dropped to the desk and the man jumped up, eyes wide in surprise.
“Sorry, sorry,” the man stuttered as he rounded the desk. “I’m Sho Sakurai, editor of the Browerville Gazette. How can I help you?” He held out his hand for Jun to shake.
Jun shook the hand firmly and smiled. “Jun Matsumoto. I’m an investigator from Independence. I’m sorry to bother you, but you wouldn’t happen to know where Sheriff...” Jun paused to glance in his notebook. “Sheriff Ohno usually takes his lunch? I need to talk to him about a matter of some urgency, I’m afraid.” Jun might have imagined it but it seemed like the other man was disappointed that Jun didn’t need the services of the newspaper.
“Nothing bad has happened, I hope?” Sho asked, his eyebrows creased in worry.
“Not yet,” Jun replied simply. If the editor of the newspaper didn’t know about the escaped prisoner, he wasn’t going to hear it from Jun. However, it wouldn’t hurt to try to figure out what he did know. “So no big news this week? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
Sho shook his head slowly. “A friend came back home after spending some time in up there in Independence, but otherwise a normal, quiet week. Hopefully Satoshi can help you more. He usually has lunch at the diner, if you want to try there first,” Sho continued, pointing down the street.
Jun nodded his thanks and headed out the door. The diner wasn’t hard to find, bright and cheerful with a sign advertising the best fried chicken and apple pie in the county. The bell on the door announced his arrival. A bright-eyed and smiling man popped up from behind the counter. “Welcome to Aiba Diner. What can I get for you today?” he announced.
The smells drifting from the kitchen were tempting, but Jun was there on business. “I was told that Sheriff Ohno often has lunch here?” he asked, looking around the almost empty diner. The diner’s only other occupant, a slight man idly shuffling a deck of cards, didn’t appear to be a likely choice for the sheriff.
“He took his lunch to go today,” the man behind the counter replied. “He said he was going to the lake to do some fishing.”
Rejecting numerous offers of pie and fried chicken, Jun convinced the overly friendly owner, Aiba, to draw him a map to this lake. The silent man perked up and eagerly leaned over the bar, offering his assistance and snickering at Aiba’s crude drawings. Thanking them for their assistance, Jun turned to leave then paused. “Say, you haven’t seen anyone suspicious around town, have you?” he asked the two men.
Wide-eyed, Aiba shook his head. Aiba’s friend casually twirled a card between his fingers and asked, “What exactly do you mean by ‘suspicious?’”
Jun resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This is why he hated being sent out of Independence, being forced to work with small-town people who needed every minute detail to be spelled out for them. “Someone you’ve never seen before, who looks like they don’t belong here. Maybe a person who is hanging around town and you don’t know what kind of business brings them here…” Jun trailed off, hoping he didn’t have to spell it out completely.
“The only person fitting that description is… you,” Aiba’s friend replied with a smirk. He flipped the card between his fingers, revealing a joker, and raised an eyebrow at Jun.
Jun looked over at Aiba in time to see him slap a hand over his mouth, shaking with the effort to hold back his laughter. Wordlessly, he stalked out of the diner, letting the door slam shut behind him with a cheerful ding.
Aiba’s directions (and the corrections) took Jun right to the sheriff, who appeared to be sleeping under a tree, the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes and a hand loosely wrapped around a fishing pole. Tugging his suit jacket straight, Jun slowly approached Ohno. He was almost afraid to wake the other man. “Excuse me,” he said quietly, clearing his throat.
Ohno’s free hand pulled up the brim of his hat to reveal sleepy eyes, only mildly surprised at being woken up. “Oh, good afternoon.”
“Hello. I’m Jun Matsumoto, an investigator from the Independence Police Department.” Jun tried to hand over his business card, but the sheriff seemed more interested in checking to see if he still had a worm on his hook.
“Nice to meet you,” Ohno mumbled and recast his line. His eyes followed the flight of the line and watched the bobber settle into place.
“I’m here about the escaped prisoner, Ninomiya. The one being transferred here from Independence,” Jun continued. “They sent me down to try to track him down since he slipped away from our men at the county border. You haven’t seen him around?”
Ohno set his rod into the ground and stood up to face Jun. “We haven’t seen any escaped prisoners around these parts. Besides, I don’t think a prisoner would show up in the town where the cops were bringing him, right?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
Jun didn’t have an answer to that. It didn’t make sense that Ninomiya would be there. At the same time, Ohno was the one who asked the Independence Police Department pick up this man and bring him to the Browerville Courthouse. One would think that the sheriff would be more concerned about the escape of his prisoner. “But you’ll help me find him?” Jun asked, eyebrows raised.
Ohno shrugged and settled back down next to the tree. “He’ll either be found or he won’t. But first I need to catch a few more fish if we’re going to have fish fry at the diner tonight. Care to join me? I have another rod in the squad car.”
Jun stared at the sheriff for a moment. He knew that country people were laidback, but wasn’t this willful negligence of his job? “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few more leads to follow.” He handed his card over and returned to his car, shaking his head.
Jun indeed had more leads to follow, but they turned out to be even more frustrating than the sheriff himself. He was tempted to throw his hands up in disgust and return to Independence, but he was never one to give up on a job. According to one farmer, a man matching Ninomiya’s description was seen heading north, towards Browerville. Another farmer admitted to giving a ride to a man who looked like Ninomiya in the back of his pickup truck, dropping him off just outside Browerville.
All signs pointed towards the town, but no one in Browerville could remember seeing anyone who matched Ninomiya’s description. He almost suspected a cover-up, but why would a quiet town like this shelter a criminal? Jun tucked away his notes and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. As he shut off the light over his hotel room desk, he told himself that he would sit down and have a real conversation with the sheriff in the morning. He wasn’t going to leave Ohno alone until he had some answers.
Jun should’ve known that Ohno would be at the diner first thing in the morning. The man apparently spent more time at the diner or the lake than he did at the courthouse. Jun slid onto a stool next to the sheriff, ordering coffee and pancakes from Aiba, who was far too cheery for the early hour.
“I’ve continued my investigation,” Jun commented quietly and looked over at the sheriff. Ohno grunted into his coffee. It seemed like he wasn’t a morning person either. Jun took that as permission to continue, “I’ve talked to people in the surrounding countryside and there have been sightings of this Ninomiya. It seems like he was headed in this direction, but the trail just disappeared. You’re sure no one has seen him around?” He scanned the room out of habit as he talked. An elderly couple sat in the corner booth. Sakurai sat a few stools down on Ohno’s other side, and Aiba’s friend from the other day sat further down the bar.
“Can’t say I’ve seen such a criminal,” Ohno commented quietly. He glanced over at Jun briefly, then dug into his waffles.
Aiba set a mug of coffee in front of Jun, but Jun wasn’t going to be distracted or allow Ohno to brush him aside. He pulled out his notebook again, flipping to the page where he had written the description of Ninomiya. “Our men were unable to provide me with a photograph - they didn’t think they would need one - but this Ninomiya has dark hair, brown eyes, slight build. Apparently he is left-handed and it seems like he was working in Independence doing… card tricks?” Jun looked up at Ohno in confusion, wondering why he hadn’t noticed the criminal’s strange profession.
Movement down the bar caught Jun’s attention. He looked around Ohno and past Sakurai to see Aiba’s friend sipping a mug of coffee and twirling a playing card between the fingers of his left hand. A playing card. Jun jumped up from the booth. “You!” He pointed at Aiba’s friend. “What’s your name?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” He set his mug down with a smirk.
“Kazunari Ninomiya.” Jun stated flatly and narrowed his eyes. Nino nodded. Jun looked back at Ohno. “He was here this whole time?” he asked, his voice raising an octave.
Ohno looked up from his waffles in mild surprise. “Oh, Matsumoto, you’re still here?”
“Yes, I am still here and arresting the criminal right under your nose.” Jun fumbled at the handcuffs dangling from his belt. He could hardly believe that a man like this was sheriff. He had almost freed his handcuffs from the clip when he was stopped by Sho’s hand on his arm.
“Please have a seat and I’ll explain everything,” Sho said quietly, guiding Jun to the stool between him and Ohno.
“You were in on this too?” Jun was beginning to think that the entire town was mad.
“Calm down, we don’t want grandma and grandpa over there to get excited.” Sho’s guiding hand pushed Jun firmly onto the stool. “And yes, I knew of it. Let me explain.”
“I think I need another cup of coffee,” Jun sighed wearily.
Aiba placed a fresh cup in front of him as Sho started to explain. “Your notes were correct. Nino was working in Independence practicing his card tricks. The city offered him a larger, more varied audience. When time came for him to return home, he conveniently packed his wallet away in the luggage he sent ahead and was unable to buy a bus ticket. So Sheriff Ohno called on the Independence police to bring him home.”
Jun turned on Ohno. “So you used the police as a taxi service for your friend?”
Ohno thought it over for a moment. “Well, yeah, I guess I did. The police chief owed me a favor.”
“What Satoshi neglected to mention was that I was a friend and not a criminal,” Nino piped up.
Jun shook his head in confusion. “But then why did you try to escape?”
“They must’ve picked the two dumbest police officers in Independence,” Nino replied with a laugh. “They turned down the road to Clarkfield, where they would’ve put me in a real prison. Of course I was going to escape.”
Jun shook his head. The story was almost too strange to be true, but he no longer had to worry about a dangerous criminal on the loose. It also meant that he was free to leave this strange town with its backwards townspeople.
“Well, if I’m not needed here anymore, I’m going fishing,” Ohno declared as he pushed his stool away from the bar. He walked out of the diner without waiting for an answer.
Jun turned to Sho, who seemed to be the most reasonable person in the bunch. “It seems like he spends more time at the lake than at the courthouse.”
Sho grinned. “Not much work for him to do there. We do have the lowest crime rate in the state, after all. If you stayed here a bit longer, you might realize it’s not so bad outside the city. Of course, with no criminals, you’d be out of a job.” He took a last sip of coffee and slid off his stool. “Plenty of work for me today,” he commented to no one in particular. “Ahhh, ‘Nino confounds Independence investigator’ is going to make a great headline.”
Jun’s eyes widened in horror. Small-town newspapers really were powered by gossip.
Groups/Pairings: Arashi, Jun/Ohno
Genre: AU, humor
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2300
Summary: Ohno is the sheriff of a small town and Jun is the investigator sent from the big city to find an escaped prisoner.
Notes: Written for kamja for je_otherworlds. And thanks to my beta, bubbly, for her input. <3
Jun slammed the door of his car and glanced up and down Main Street. From what he could see, this wasn’t just the center of town but the only part of town. ‘Not many places to hide,’ Jun thought with satisfaction, a fact that he hoped would make his job easier.
The first rule in any out-of-town investigation was to check in with the local authorities. Jun pulled on the front door of the courthouse, only to find it locked. Who locked the sheriff’s office in the middle of the day? A tiny note proclaimed, “out to lunch,” but there was no indication of when the sheriff would return. He could just sit there and wait indefinitely or… Jun looked at the shops around him. The barbershop to the left also seemed to be closed for lunch, but the newspaper looked like a good place to start. Smaller newspapers like this might be printed on paper, but they were powered by gossip.
Jun sauntered into the newspaper office. He was about to decide that the newspaper office was also out to lunch when he noticed a man hidden behind an open newspaper at a desk in the back of the room. Jun coughed quietly to get his attention. The newspaper dropped to the desk and the man jumped up, eyes wide in surprise.
“Sorry, sorry,” the man stuttered as he rounded the desk. “I’m Sho Sakurai, editor of the Browerville Gazette. How can I help you?” He held out his hand for Jun to shake.
Jun shook the hand firmly and smiled. “Jun Matsumoto. I’m an investigator from Independence. I’m sorry to bother you, but you wouldn’t happen to know where Sheriff...” Jun paused to glance in his notebook. “Sheriff Ohno usually takes his lunch? I need to talk to him about a matter of some urgency, I’m afraid.” Jun might have imagined it but it seemed like the other man was disappointed that Jun didn’t need the services of the newspaper.
“Nothing bad has happened, I hope?” Sho asked, his eyebrows creased in worry.
“Not yet,” Jun replied simply. If the editor of the newspaper didn’t know about the escaped prisoner, he wasn’t going to hear it from Jun. However, it wouldn’t hurt to try to figure out what he did know. “So no big news this week? Nothing out of the ordinary?”
Sho shook his head slowly. “A friend came back home after spending some time in up there in Independence, but otherwise a normal, quiet week. Hopefully Satoshi can help you more. He usually has lunch at the diner, if you want to try there first,” Sho continued, pointing down the street.
Jun nodded his thanks and headed out the door. The diner wasn’t hard to find, bright and cheerful with a sign advertising the best fried chicken and apple pie in the county. The bell on the door announced his arrival. A bright-eyed and smiling man popped up from behind the counter. “Welcome to Aiba Diner. What can I get for you today?” he announced.
The smells drifting from the kitchen were tempting, but Jun was there on business. “I was told that Sheriff Ohno often has lunch here?” he asked, looking around the almost empty diner. The diner’s only other occupant, a slight man idly shuffling a deck of cards, didn’t appear to be a likely choice for the sheriff.
“He took his lunch to go today,” the man behind the counter replied. “He said he was going to the lake to do some fishing.”
Rejecting numerous offers of pie and fried chicken, Jun convinced the overly friendly owner, Aiba, to draw him a map to this lake. The silent man perked up and eagerly leaned over the bar, offering his assistance and snickering at Aiba’s crude drawings. Thanking them for their assistance, Jun turned to leave then paused. “Say, you haven’t seen anyone suspicious around town, have you?” he asked the two men.
Wide-eyed, Aiba shook his head. Aiba’s friend casually twirled a card between his fingers and asked, “What exactly do you mean by ‘suspicious?’”
Jun resisted the urge to roll his eyes. This is why he hated being sent out of Independence, being forced to work with small-town people who needed every minute detail to be spelled out for them. “Someone you’ve never seen before, who looks like they don’t belong here. Maybe a person who is hanging around town and you don’t know what kind of business brings them here…” Jun trailed off, hoping he didn’t have to spell it out completely.
“The only person fitting that description is… you,” Aiba’s friend replied with a smirk. He flipped the card between his fingers, revealing a joker, and raised an eyebrow at Jun.
Jun looked over at Aiba in time to see him slap a hand over his mouth, shaking with the effort to hold back his laughter. Wordlessly, he stalked out of the diner, letting the door slam shut behind him with a cheerful ding.
Aiba’s directions (and the corrections) took Jun right to the sheriff, who appeared to be sleeping under a tree, the brim of his hat pulled over his eyes and a hand loosely wrapped around a fishing pole. Tugging his suit jacket straight, Jun slowly approached Ohno. He was almost afraid to wake the other man. “Excuse me,” he said quietly, clearing his throat.
Ohno’s free hand pulled up the brim of his hat to reveal sleepy eyes, only mildly surprised at being woken up. “Oh, good afternoon.”
“Hello. I’m Jun Matsumoto, an investigator from the Independence Police Department.” Jun tried to hand over his business card, but the sheriff seemed more interested in checking to see if he still had a worm on his hook.
“Nice to meet you,” Ohno mumbled and recast his line. His eyes followed the flight of the line and watched the bobber settle into place.
“I’m here about the escaped prisoner, Ninomiya. The one being transferred here from Independence,” Jun continued. “They sent me down to try to track him down since he slipped away from our men at the county border. You haven’t seen him around?”
Ohno set his rod into the ground and stood up to face Jun. “We haven’t seen any escaped prisoners around these parts. Besides, I don’t think a prisoner would show up in the town where the cops were bringing him, right?” he asked with a lopsided grin.
Jun didn’t have an answer to that. It didn’t make sense that Ninomiya would be there. At the same time, Ohno was the one who asked the Independence Police Department pick up this man and bring him to the Browerville Courthouse. One would think that the sheriff would be more concerned about the escape of his prisoner. “But you’ll help me find him?” Jun asked, eyebrows raised.
Ohno shrugged and settled back down next to the tree. “He’ll either be found or he won’t. But first I need to catch a few more fish if we’re going to have fish fry at the diner tonight. Care to join me? I have another rod in the squad car.”
Jun stared at the sheriff for a moment. He knew that country people were laidback, but wasn’t this willful negligence of his job? “If you’ll excuse me, I have a few more leads to follow.” He handed his card over and returned to his car, shaking his head.
Jun indeed had more leads to follow, but they turned out to be even more frustrating than the sheriff himself. He was tempted to throw his hands up in disgust and return to Independence, but he was never one to give up on a job. According to one farmer, a man matching Ninomiya’s description was seen heading north, towards Browerville. Another farmer admitted to giving a ride to a man who looked like Ninomiya in the back of his pickup truck, dropping him off just outside Browerville.
All signs pointed towards the town, but no one in Browerville could remember seeing anyone who matched Ninomiya’s description. He almost suspected a cover-up, but why would a quiet town like this shelter a criminal? Jun tucked away his notes and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. As he shut off the light over his hotel room desk, he told himself that he would sit down and have a real conversation with the sheriff in the morning. He wasn’t going to leave Ohno alone until he had some answers.
Jun should’ve known that Ohno would be at the diner first thing in the morning. The man apparently spent more time at the diner or the lake than he did at the courthouse. Jun slid onto a stool next to the sheriff, ordering coffee and pancakes from Aiba, who was far too cheery for the early hour.
“I’ve continued my investigation,” Jun commented quietly and looked over at the sheriff. Ohno grunted into his coffee. It seemed like he wasn’t a morning person either. Jun took that as permission to continue, “I’ve talked to people in the surrounding countryside and there have been sightings of this Ninomiya. It seems like he was headed in this direction, but the trail just disappeared. You’re sure no one has seen him around?” He scanned the room out of habit as he talked. An elderly couple sat in the corner booth. Sakurai sat a few stools down on Ohno’s other side, and Aiba’s friend from the other day sat further down the bar.
“Can’t say I’ve seen such a criminal,” Ohno commented quietly. He glanced over at Jun briefly, then dug into his waffles.
Aiba set a mug of coffee in front of Jun, but Jun wasn’t going to be distracted or allow Ohno to brush him aside. He pulled out his notebook again, flipping to the page where he had written the description of Ninomiya. “Our men were unable to provide me with a photograph - they didn’t think they would need one - but this Ninomiya has dark hair, brown eyes, slight build. Apparently he is left-handed and it seems like he was working in Independence doing… card tricks?” Jun looked up at Ohno in confusion, wondering why he hadn’t noticed the criminal’s strange profession.
Movement down the bar caught Jun’s attention. He looked around Ohno and past Sakurai to see Aiba’s friend sipping a mug of coffee and twirling a playing card between the fingers of his left hand. A playing card. Jun jumped up from the booth. “You!” He pointed at Aiba’s friend. “What’s your name?”
“Why don’t you tell me?” He set his mug down with a smirk.
“Kazunari Ninomiya.” Jun stated flatly and narrowed his eyes. Nino nodded. Jun looked back at Ohno. “He was here this whole time?” he asked, his voice raising an octave.
Ohno looked up from his waffles in mild surprise. “Oh, Matsumoto, you’re still here?”
“Yes, I am still here and arresting the criminal right under your nose.” Jun fumbled at the handcuffs dangling from his belt. He could hardly believe that a man like this was sheriff. He had almost freed his handcuffs from the clip when he was stopped by Sho’s hand on his arm.
“Please have a seat and I’ll explain everything,” Sho said quietly, guiding Jun to the stool between him and Ohno.
“You were in on this too?” Jun was beginning to think that the entire town was mad.
“Calm down, we don’t want grandma and grandpa over there to get excited.” Sho’s guiding hand pushed Jun firmly onto the stool. “And yes, I knew of it. Let me explain.”
“I think I need another cup of coffee,” Jun sighed wearily.
Aiba placed a fresh cup in front of him as Sho started to explain. “Your notes were correct. Nino was working in Independence practicing his card tricks. The city offered him a larger, more varied audience. When time came for him to return home, he conveniently packed his wallet away in the luggage he sent ahead and was unable to buy a bus ticket. So Sheriff Ohno called on the Independence police to bring him home.”
Jun turned on Ohno. “So you used the police as a taxi service for your friend?”
Ohno thought it over for a moment. “Well, yeah, I guess I did. The police chief owed me a favor.”
“What Satoshi neglected to mention was that I was a friend and not a criminal,” Nino piped up.
Jun shook his head in confusion. “But then why did you try to escape?”
“They must’ve picked the two dumbest police officers in Independence,” Nino replied with a laugh. “They turned down the road to Clarkfield, where they would’ve put me in a real prison. Of course I was going to escape.”
Jun shook his head. The story was almost too strange to be true, but he no longer had to worry about a dangerous criminal on the loose. It also meant that he was free to leave this strange town with its backwards townspeople.
“Well, if I’m not needed here anymore, I’m going fishing,” Ohno declared as he pushed his stool away from the bar. He walked out of the diner without waiting for an answer.
Jun turned to Sho, who seemed to be the most reasonable person in the bunch. “It seems like he spends more time at the lake than at the courthouse.”
Sho grinned. “Not much work for him to do there. We do have the lowest crime rate in the state, after all. If you stayed here a bit longer, you might realize it’s not so bad outside the city. Of course, with no criminals, you’d be out of a job.” He took a last sip of coffee and slid off his stool. “Plenty of work for me today,” he commented to no one in particular. “Ahhh, ‘Nino confounds Independence investigator’ is going to make a great headline.”
Jun’s eyes widened in horror. Small-town newspapers really were powered by gossip.