Fic: The Empty Spaces
Title: The Empty Spaces
Characters/Rating: Sho+Ohno, PG, ~1200
Summary: Ohno's apartment is bare and white, mostly if you're looking at all the wrong places.
"Come in!" The door creaks as Ohno jimmies the knob with the flat of his wrist, juggling the bags he's holding. "I just need to pick up the beer and then we can go."
Sho steps into the apartment cautiously, almost expecting a bolt of lighting to hit him for actually infiltrating a sacred space or for Satoshi to shuffle him right back out.
Apparently, though, the restriction that had been there on visiting the Ohno family home really had been imposed by Satoshi's mother and not by their Leader's desire for privacy.
Sho's kind of glad, because while he knows Nino's room like the back of his hand he's never even had a conception of the place Ohno must be living in besides possibly white walls, pencils, clean rows of the same exact underwear. Sho is fully aware he himself lives in a dump. Nino pretty much lives on his bed and just shoves stuff off when he needs to sleep.
Ohno, though -- he really can't imagine anything other than pencils and underwear.
Now that Ohno's moved out, both Jun and Nino have bragged about visiting. It's the first time Sho's come to Ohno's apartment, because he's not insistent like Jun or Nino on being let into places where he's not allowed. If anything, Jun and Nino are probably Ohno Satoshi's biggest fans. As for Aiba...
Aiba likes cheap yakiniku bars more than he does visiting people's apartments, so Sho doesn't even bring him into the equation.
The first thing Sho sees when crossing the threshold is white walls, and he gives himself one point for accuracy. The second thing he notes is that Ohno's mother must have decorated, because there's small portraits of fruits in bowls dotted in tasteful locations around the hallway.
"Mom did that," Ohno offers unnecessarily, throwing his backpack and the bags down and heading into the kitchen.
"I guessed," Sho says, amused. Beyond Ohno-mama's attempt into making the place seem homely, it is sparse. Sho realises that the reason he could never visualize Ohno's room is because there wasn't anything to see.
Sunlight spills from the tiny window above the sink on to the table, which is covered with a plain blue tablecloth and adorned with a glass which has paintbrushes sticking out of it. The water is mottled grey and the paintbrushes seem to be rusting, which means Ohno probably has been so busy that he'd forgotten they're even there.
"You can look around if you want, Sho-kun," Ohno says. "I don't mind." He's frowning at the piled up dishes in the sink. "Crap. I should probably..."
Sho wheels around. "Sure," he says, "you do that," and escapes before he feels guilty enough to help.
The bedroom is equally nondescript. A laptop sits whirring quietly on the floor, trailing wires from beneath the bed. Sho gives himself another point for guessing about the underwear, which he can see packed away neatly into an open drawer. There isn't even any rusting paintbrushes to mark the fact that Ohno Satoshi lives here, because the laptop and the underwear and even the many baseball caps Satoshi doodles on when he's bored could belong to anybody else.
Sho leaves the room and then pauses.
The door to the next room is thrown open. It's open like an invitation, like someone has thrown open the shutters to the person that is Ohno and shed light on the mastery of his hands. This room is the only place with any real personality. It's Ohno's studio.
Sho has often wondered why Ohno had finally moved out, given that nobody had believed in Ohno's ability to survive by himself for longer than a week. But Sho's figured it out, now. To hell with the rest of the apartment, Sho thinks. Satoshi had wanted this.
It's cluttered and messy and already art-streaked, cramped and dark and badly lit by the only window in the corner. Ohno has strung up studio lights. Sho can see a little sketch of Kaibutsu-kun with an oversized nose on the corner of a crumpled sheet of paper, picking for a booger. There's wadded sketches laid to rest around the feet of the table, because Sho knows that more often than not, unless he's so drawn in that he can't get out, Ohno can lose motivation quickly.
Fishing rods are stacked and leaning into a corner, more cleanly put away than anything else.
But the real piece of interest is the piece of canvas that stretches along the side of the room, not tall but long. It's covered by sheets and Sho really, really wants to see it. But Ohno doesn't show them his work often (if ever), so if anything Sho will see it in maybe two or three years--
As he's thinking that, Ohno comes into the room wiping his hands on a towel. "Want to see it? I only keep it covered so that I don't get sick of looking at it."
Sho widens his eyes. "Really?"
"Really," Ohno repeats, and pulls down the sheets. Sho's eyes track from left to right, white, white, until they hit a galaxy.
The thinness of Ohno's lines are almost laughable against all the white they have yet to cover, but as he keeps looking at it Sho realizes that it's an explosion waiting to happen. The swirls lick out into the empty space, itching to consume it. Shapes and forms dance between the intricately planned swoops. It's amazing. It's--
It's--
"Satoshi," Sho frowns, squinting at the canvas. "Is that a monkey in scuba goggles picking up a building?"
Ohno shrugs over his shoulder from where he's clattering around the table. "Ah," he replies, "it might be."
"Is... is that Nino riding on a big rocket?"
"Hey, I forgot I drew that!"
Sho pauses. No matter how he looks at it, that looks just plain wrong. He sighs and moves on. Ohno's father has been made into a bowling ball with his eyes and glasses, while Ohno's mother is a small form peering around a tree of broccoli in the lower corner. Aiba's eye peeks out inquisitively from behind a cloud and a black man flexes his muscles, standing proud in a lightning-streaked Speedo. Between a spinning daikon and a sketch of a cat-eared Hachiko, diminutive caricatures of Sho and Jun dance the tango. The studio may be a reflection of Ohno, but this is a reflection of Satoshi's world.
Before he can stop himself, Sho bursts out laughing. Ohno looks pleased as Sho wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes.
"It's brilliant," Sho says.
"It's nothing," Ohno says modestly. "It'll take me a long time to finish it. I don't even have a plan."
Sho helps him drape the sheets back on the edges. "That's the best way to do it, isn't it?"
"I've never drawn properly," Ohno grins, "so I don't know. Let's get the beer?"
They bustle out of the bare apartment, laughing and joking with each other. When Sho asks Ohno to promise him that he won't ever draw the double parka, ever, even if it is funny, Ohno blinks at him and says that he's already saved the middle of the canvas for the occasion.
Sho elbows him in the side. Ohno spills the beer all over the mat Ohno's mother has put in front of the apartment door.
Characters/Rating: Sho+Ohno, PG, ~1200
Summary: Ohno's apartment is bare and white, mostly if you're looking at all the wrong places.
"Come in!" The door creaks as Ohno jimmies the knob with the flat of his wrist, juggling the bags he's holding. "I just need to pick up the beer and then we can go."
Sho steps into the apartment cautiously, almost expecting a bolt of lighting to hit him for actually infiltrating a sacred space or for Satoshi to shuffle him right back out.
Apparently, though, the restriction that had been there on visiting the Ohno family home really had been imposed by Satoshi's mother and not by their Leader's desire for privacy.
Sho's kind of glad, because while he knows Nino's room like the back of his hand he's never even had a conception of the place Ohno must be living in besides possibly white walls, pencils, clean rows of the same exact underwear. Sho is fully aware he himself lives in a dump. Nino pretty much lives on his bed and just shoves stuff off when he needs to sleep.
Ohno, though -- he really can't imagine anything other than pencils and underwear.
Now that Ohno's moved out, both Jun and Nino have bragged about visiting. It's the first time Sho's come to Ohno's apartment, because he's not insistent like Jun or Nino on being let into places where he's not allowed. If anything, Jun and Nino are probably Ohno Satoshi's biggest fans. As for Aiba...
Aiba likes cheap yakiniku bars more than he does visiting people's apartments, so Sho doesn't even bring him into the equation.
The first thing Sho sees when crossing the threshold is white walls, and he gives himself one point for accuracy. The second thing he notes is that Ohno's mother must have decorated, because there's small portraits of fruits in bowls dotted in tasteful locations around the hallway.
"Mom did that," Ohno offers unnecessarily, throwing his backpack and the bags down and heading into the kitchen.
"I guessed," Sho says, amused. Beyond Ohno-mama's attempt into making the place seem homely, it is sparse. Sho realises that the reason he could never visualize Ohno's room is because there wasn't anything to see.
Sunlight spills from the tiny window above the sink on to the table, which is covered with a plain blue tablecloth and adorned with a glass which has paintbrushes sticking out of it. The water is mottled grey and the paintbrushes seem to be rusting, which means Ohno probably has been so busy that he'd forgotten they're even there.
"You can look around if you want, Sho-kun," Ohno says. "I don't mind." He's frowning at the piled up dishes in the sink. "Crap. I should probably..."
Sho wheels around. "Sure," he says, "you do that," and escapes before he feels guilty enough to help.
The bedroom is equally nondescript. A laptop sits whirring quietly on the floor, trailing wires from beneath the bed. Sho gives himself another point for guessing about the underwear, which he can see packed away neatly into an open drawer. There isn't even any rusting paintbrushes to mark the fact that Ohno Satoshi lives here, because the laptop and the underwear and even the many baseball caps Satoshi doodles on when he's bored could belong to anybody else.
Sho leaves the room and then pauses.
The door to the next room is thrown open. It's open like an invitation, like someone has thrown open the shutters to the person that is Ohno and shed light on the mastery of his hands. This room is the only place with any real personality. It's Ohno's studio.
Sho has often wondered why Ohno had finally moved out, given that nobody had believed in Ohno's ability to survive by himself for longer than a week. But Sho's figured it out, now. To hell with the rest of the apartment, Sho thinks. Satoshi had wanted this.
It's cluttered and messy and already art-streaked, cramped and dark and badly lit by the only window in the corner. Ohno has strung up studio lights. Sho can see a little sketch of Kaibutsu-kun with an oversized nose on the corner of a crumpled sheet of paper, picking for a booger. There's wadded sketches laid to rest around the feet of the table, because Sho knows that more often than not, unless he's so drawn in that he can't get out, Ohno can lose motivation quickly.
Fishing rods are stacked and leaning into a corner, more cleanly put away than anything else.
But the real piece of interest is the piece of canvas that stretches along the side of the room, not tall but long. It's covered by sheets and Sho really, really wants to see it. But Ohno doesn't show them his work often (if ever), so if anything Sho will see it in maybe two or three years--
As he's thinking that, Ohno comes into the room wiping his hands on a towel. "Want to see it? I only keep it covered so that I don't get sick of looking at it."
Sho widens his eyes. "Really?"
"Really," Ohno repeats, and pulls down the sheets. Sho's eyes track from left to right, white, white, until they hit a galaxy.
The thinness of Ohno's lines are almost laughable against all the white they have yet to cover, but as he keeps looking at it Sho realizes that it's an explosion waiting to happen. The swirls lick out into the empty space, itching to consume it. Shapes and forms dance between the intricately planned swoops. It's amazing. It's--
It's--
"Satoshi," Sho frowns, squinting at the canvas. "Is that a monkey in scuba goggles picking up a building?"
Ohno shrugs over his shoulder from where he's clattering around the table. "Ah," he replies, "it might be."
"Is... is that Nino riding on a big rocket?"
"Hey, I forgot I drew that!"
Sho pauses. No matter how he looks at it, that looks just plain wrong. He sighs and moves on. Ohno's father has been made into a bowling ball with his eyes and glasses, while Ohno's mother is a small form peering around a tree of broccoli in the lower corner. Aiba's eye peeks out inquisitively from behind a cloud and a black man flexes his muscles, standing proud in a lightning-streaked Speedo. Between a spinning daikon and a sketch of a cat-eared Hachiko, diminutive caricatures of Sho and Jun dance the tango. The studio may be a reflection of Ohno, but this is a reflection of Satoshi's world.
Before he can stop himself, Sho bursts out laughing. Ohno looks pleased as Sho wipes the tears from the corners of his eyes.
"It's brilliant," Sho says.
"It's nothing," Ohno says modestly. "It'll take me a long time to finish it. I don't even have a plan."
Sho helps him drape the sheets back on the edges. "That's the best way to do it, isn't it?"
"I've never drawn properly," Ohno grins, "so I don't know. Let's get the beer?"
They bustle out of the bare apartment, laughing and joking with each other. When Sho asks Ohno to promise him that he won't ever draw the double parka, ever, even if it is funny, Ohno blinks at him and says that he's already saved the middle of the canvas for the occasion.
Sho elbows him in the side. Ohno spills the beer all over the mat Ohno's mother has put in front of the apartment door.