Hey guys! Obviously I haven't been one for posting fic lately. I haven't had the time or the will. But when I was digging through my stack of unfinished fic, I came across this, and thought I might as well share it because there's a high chance it won't be finished. I hope you guys like the small bits that I did write, as rough as they are. They're roughly chronological but not sequential.
Pairing/Character(s): Aiba/Jun, Ohno/Nino, Sho
Summary: Something along the lines of artifice through alcohol and a whole lot of self-denial and finding oneself, and what it means to know someone from childhood but, at the same time, not really know them at all.
Ref: October 7th, '12, Sunday morning, hideous rain
This is a bad idea, Jun thinks, curling his toes inside his sneakers as the van comes to a stop. This is a terrible idea.
He rubs a patch of glass clean with his sleeve and then quickly decides to revise his opinion.
This is awful.
The cabin is a blurry shape behind the beaded rain drops on Jun's window. But as he slides the door of the van open, bending to duck under the umbrella Ha-kun lofts over him, the shape of the building becomes slightly clearer between the sheets of rain.
It's small with reddish wood slats and square little windows with open shutters. Jun thinks the colors of it would probably be beautiful in the sunlight, but in the haze of rain they look washed out, tinted green and sick. Everything seems to be smoldering with the smell of wet wood.
The sight seems to be as far away from Tokyo, really, as Jun can imagine.
A drop of rain drips underneath the umbrella and hits Jun's cheek. He blinks, then shivers.
"Wow," Aiba breathes out from beside him, having finally clambered out of the car. "Wow! A cabin!"
Jun turns his head. He lets his eyes skitter over how Aiba's hair is curling in little circles over the red tips of his ears, then looks away. Don't, he thinks to himself. Don't, you idiot.
"Hey, Matsujun, maybe we're at that place we went to during the Boating Club!"
"I really don't think so," Jun answers, as patiently as he can.
"But it looks alike, doesn't it?"
Aiba gives him a grin and splatters his way through the puddles.
It does seem alike, a little bit. The weather is almost the same as it had been then, with a snarl of winter coldness in the air. Nino is still hiding inside the warmth of the car, staring outside with a thunderous expression of disgust. Sho is standing by the front door of the slightly ramshackle building looking resigned. And Ohno's just sidled up to Jun's side, hands deep in the pockets of his puffy jacket and shoulders hunched against the cold.
They both stare at Aiba's receding form. Ohno exhales, his breath visible in the misty corners of Jun's vision.
"Don't even," Jun says. "Please?"
Ohno shrugs. "Was I going to?"
You're the only one who hasn't yet, Jun thinks, and you know it. He looks down at Ohno's placid profile. You're just saving it for later, Leader.
"Oi, you lot! Get over here. And get Nino out of the van," Sho hollers, about ten times more pissed than he was before. His voice cuts through the sheeting rain.
Inside the car, Nino screws up his face, curling his fingers into the upholstery.
"I'll get him," Ohno mumbles. In the distance, Aiba's gotten his jeans soaked halfway up his thighs, stained a dark blue and probably freezing.
"…oh, and by the way, we want to revive Mayonaka," Manager says unexpectedly. Jun's head spins around so fast he feels something twang in his neck, which is a secondary sensation to the beer slopping down his front in the constrictive clouds of smoke in the bar. "Well, sort of."
"I'm sorry, what?" Jun manages to cough out.
"Kind of," Manager emphasizes, looking not incredibly alarmed at how Jun is choking on his own spit. "Not really the bicycle thing or traveling alone thing--"
"--isn't that what Mayonaka was?--"
"The whole wilderness aspect of things," Manager finished brightly. "We've rented a cabin, and Arashi will be living together for three weeks. Kind of like, I don't know, Survivor."
Panic flashes over Jun, strong and scarlet. Living together isn't just living together with Nino, Ohno and Sho, which he wouldn't mind, it's also--
"Our schedules," he says feebly. "We're already busy, and we did the training camp for last year's DVD release, didn't we? I'm honored by this opportunity, but don't you think--"
Manager tosses back another swallow of beer. "All cleared. This'll be like half a month of vacation for you all, Jun-kun. And it won't be like the training camp. You'll have to self-film at least one day a week and do activities on the weekends, but it's a nice compromise between giving all five of you time off and still rousing the fans. Accept the gift, won't you?"
Jun collects himself. It's no good to show his state of panic; his manager has a nose like a bloodhound and twice the sense of knowing when something needs to be investigated in the case that Jun lands in the tabloids for something utterly idiotic. He can do this. He can handle this.
It's only Aiba, after all, and he's known Aiba for practically half his life.
It's only Aiba, but it's not the same anymore, not now that--
(Aiba is smiling shyly, running his fingertip down the condensation on the beer bottle.
"Jun--")
He wrestles the memory down and turns a professional smile towards Manager, worthy of any photograph. "Okay, fine. It's a good idea. Tell me more?"
Nino heaves himself out of the armchair.
"I'm going to go save Sho-kun from himself," he says. "Writing that report isn't good for him, he said a while ago that he was going to go outside to count pinecones. In the forest. Don't wait up," he adds.
The wireframe of the front door rattles, Nino's quick footsteps disappearing down the dirt path. Jun resists the urge to check if Sho is actually in his room or not. Nino's lighter, though - that Nino had taken with him.
Maybe, Jun thinks, the alcohol making his thoughts kind of fuzzy and warm, he should go outside too and ask--
Ohno's chin abruptly lands on Jun's shoulder. "Uwa," Jun yelps, narrowly avoiding spilling the wine over the upholstery.
"Sorry," Ohno says, not apologetic at all. His cheeks are pink with intoxication. "Can I borrow your lap, Jun-kun?" The smile dimples his round cheeks and creases his eyes in the corners.
"Yeah, okay," Jun squeezes out, his heart still bouncing alarmingly in his chest like some defective yo-yo.
The thing about Ohno is that he doesn't lose his subtlety when he's drunk. Even then he's the same as ever, sidling from corner to corner where people don't notice him. Ohno has always been good at picking what kind of people he wants to get attention from.
Jun wonders if he had been standing outside the room listening this whole time. It's possible. But then, he thinks, what does that even mean?
Ohno's spiked hair is prickly against Jun's wrist and soft where the ungelled parts rest against his palm, his head a warm mass in Jun's lap. The other man snuffles quietly as he slips into a doze.
Sho appears in the doorway, looking about as sane as a bulldog with bloodshot-eyes tripping on multiple cups of caffeine. He paces to the far wall, clutches his head, and then paces back.
"What," Jun asks quietly, "you're not collecting pinecones?"
"What?" Sho answers vaguely, then snaps his head back around and narrows his eyes. "No, what, has Nino been telling lies again? Shouldn't you be used to that by now?"
Jun drags his fingers through the short hairs at Ohno's neck. "Probably."
"Has anyone ever told him to stop doing that? How've we gotten through eleven years of that? Maybe we should've spanked it out of him when he was younger?"
"You're angry, Sho-san."
Sho throws himself on the couch, scowling. "Of course I'm angry. I have to share living space with four people stuck back in their pimply age--" Jun winces "--who are emotionally stunted and acting worse than my teenage brother in the middle of a crush. Don't look at me like that," he adds, "you're included. Maybe you should stop hiding behind things when you see Aiba-chan."
"I do not--"
"Oh look, here's Masaki coming to work, I'm going to extricate myself from the room and go talk to the make-up assistant I know you don't even like."
"He smells odd," Jun mutters, scandalized.
"He does," Sho agrees. "Like he's bathed in bad miso, but that's not the point!"
"We got really drunk one time," Nino says flatly, still slicing the cucumber into neat discs. "And we had sex."
The chopsticks slip from Jun's grip.
"I'm possibly not drunk enough for this conversation," he says over the roaring in his ears.
Somehow he finds it odd that Nino is telling him this, and not Aiba who's been Nino's confidante over the years. It's not like Jun and Nino aren't close, but Nino and Aiba have possibly shared snot in their propensity to hang out in each others' pockets.
Of course, maybe it's that Aiba spends three-fourths of his time worrying about every living creature surrounding him instead of himself and has been giving Nino and Ohno soulful looks for years. Aiba isn't exactly the pillar of stability when it comes to feelings.
"It was a long time ago, you'll be fine," Nino snaps, setting the knife down with a sharp clack. He stares down at the counter, shoulders slowly relaxing into a gentle slope. "It was good. From what I remember, anyway. Obviously it was the most horrible idea ever, but when I woke up I thought, maybe, things might be okay--
"Except then he woke up and he said, I don't know what I want and, I'm sorry, we probably shouldn't, and I--"
Nino breaks off, colour high in his cheeks. He picks up the knife again, chopping into the carrots with viciousness. "I can't deal with that. You know that. Leader and I have already tried, so you can all stop pushing me now."
Jun's chest feels heavy. "No, you mean you tried and gave up. You two haven't even talked about it. How do you know--"
Nino turns to face him, shaking. "It ended there, Jun-kun, so you can leave it. I said it before, leave it."
"Sleeping together was not the best idea, Nino, but--"
"Yeah, maybe we shouldn't have, Dad!" Nino yells suddenly, throwing the knife down on the tiles with shocking force. "Maybe if we hadn't, I wouldn't have had to dream about what it was like to sleep in his arms for four fucking years now--"
He breaks off, looking horrified with himself, and runs out of the kitchen.
"Shit," Jun says, and downs the rest of his beer.
Two minutes later and on his fourth beer of the night he becomes aware of a strange snorking coming from the side closet. When he opens the door he sees that Aiba's wedged himself into the towels and the dishes. There's a tear tracking down Aiba's cheek and he looks wretched, breathing hlub-hlub-hlub through his nose.
"You've got to be kidding me," Jun sighs, pulling Aiba out by one slight wrist. "This is why Nino doesn't tell you these things."
"Jun, Jun, shut up," Aiba sniffles. "This is bad, okay - it's worse than I thought--"
"Well, what did you even expect?"
"I don't know!" Aiba says. He wipes his sleeve across his face and breathes in deeply. "We have to do something."
The situation makes a little seed sprout to life in Jun's mind. It grows insidiously, and he knows what to say without thinking about it.
"If we don't help them they'll be unhappy--" Aiba is saying, waving his hands in swooping circles, "--they'll be unhappy and I can't stand that, Matsujun, I really can't--"
Jun cuts him off. "I don't think we should do anything."
"What?"
Aiba stares at him. The words spill from Jun's mouth like marbles.
"Look, it's their decision, isn't it? Nino and Satoshi are adults, it's not our place to matchmake them because we think they'd be good together. Actually, knowing them, you know they'd get sick of each other before long. They've known each other far too long. And anyway, I don't think a relationship within the group is a good idea…"
Jun trails off. Aiba's mouth has thinned and whitened; the kitchen lights are reflected in his eyes in dozens of tiny dots. Aiba doesn't look angry, precisely - because Jun doesn't think that Aiba has the ability to be angry, but there's something in the set of his shoulders that makes Jun take a step back and his chest ache. Finally, finally, Jun himself understands what he's saying, the cruelness of it, the sharpness.
They stand face-to-face and Aiba's hand rises, then falls.
"That just now wasn't about Leader and Nino-chan," Aiba says flatly, "was it. That was about you and me."
"Aiba-chan," Jun says, staring at him miserably.
"I-- I haven't pushed you at all, I haven't even-- "
Aiba's voice rises and he cuts himself off, throwing his head back as his chest heaves. His hand is shaking as he draws it over his eyes and when he drops it to look at Jun his face is pink. Aiba's bangs are sticking to his forehead haphazardly and he looks--
"Aiba," Jun says again, panicked. "Wait."
"I'm going to bed," Aiba says. His voice wavers. "Good night, Jun-chan."
His heavy footsteps disappear up the wooden stairs, plodding steadily until there's the sound of a door creaking close from above.
The bottle of beer hangs limply from Jun's fingers. Jun stares at it, his mouth twisting, and sends it hurtling to the floor.
afraid that the whole work/company thing affects how they see us each other
-ridiculous that we've grown up together and we're still afraid
why is nino being so open?
-sho: nobody says we have to fall in love with each other just because we're in the same group
jun: nobody said we couldn't
-why nino sits through 3 years of talk about fish
things they like/dislike about each other
'tiny little jiichan'
sho+jun discussion regarding 'learning how to live w/ each other'
jun asks if the reason they didn't get along was b/c of his crush on sho
sho says no, he just hated everything then + thought himself a rebel; thought same of nino but nino was different
outline:
*length of time 3 weeks
*activities on weekends?
news from manager/broken up with flashbacks
arrive at cabin
settling in/groceries (empty on alcohol) <- at tiny market, they're in the mountains somewhere (look it up!)
bed
next morning everyone's gone except o
wander
runs into n/a/s
(a lot of conv with s? but it has to be with everyone, not just about relationships
middle of 3rd week a/j? timing-wise
o+n don't get together within the story, left ambiguous? ask aes?)
tell him about weekend plans
(at best 1 day recorded a week, has to be at least 1 day in story that's tense)
hesitant rotation of cooking, to keep sho away from dangerous recipes
aiba: i'm not like nino (ref: aware of artifice in job)
"I get jealous," Jun says, his voice sticking in his throat. "And I hate it," he continues, "I hate it when I have to explain myself twice." Don't you see? he thinks. The beer is turning sour in his stomach. "I get angry too much." He doesn't want this right now, this fuzzy, floating feeling that's making him talk. It's horrible.
Aiba only smiles and nods, his cheeks creasing. He looks flushed and pleased, his hair sticking to his forehead with sweat.
"Don't you see?" Jun says desperately. Don't you see?
But if Jun'd thought that this would make Aiba go away he's unsurprisingly wrong - after all, it's Aiba, Aiba takes whatever logic people normally see and turns it on its head. Aiba is moving closer like there's a magnetic force between them in the alcohol-laden air, or maybe it's that Jun is moving forward too.
It's a shock when Aiba lightly traces the contour of his cheek with his fingertips, the barely skimming touch a brand of fire. Aiba's been avoiding touching Jun this whole time, not even pats on the shoulder or their normal collisions on couches. It had been a drought he hadn't even realized.
This close Jun can see that Aiba's pupils are blown, the shared air between them humid in a rapid series of breaths.
Aiba is still smiling, wide and bright. He cups Jun's face in his big palm and squeezes reassuringly. "You say all that like it's a bad thing."