Arashi (Japan Fundraiser Fic #3): Where the Heart Is 2/4
Hello again, here's part two!
Title: Where the Heart Is
Words: ~9,200 this part
Rating: NC-17
Warnings, description, etc: see previous entry
Man, this chapter had a lot of issues but thank gooooodness I had the expert and elegant advice of lysanderpuck and toinkydoink to straighten that mess out. Thank you guys!!!
PS. this is also available at AO3 if you prefer reading from there!
Another week, another block of ARASHIATIC! tapings. It's their second guest today, an actor turned politician named Kagura, and Aiba is flagging. It's not just the conversation topic that's tiring him (foreign policy and economy -- Sho-chan has completely dominated the last ten minutes); Aiba has been up since five am that morning for drama filming, followed by a solo photoshoot, followed by dance practise. A never ending day at the heels of a never ending week. It's closing in on nine pm now and all he can think about is going home and collapsing on the nearest horizontal surface.
Something sharp jabs into Aiba's ribs.
"Ow," he hisses, his back jerking straight in reflex. There's a flash of wrist movement and Nino's marker disappears back up his sleeve.
"If you fall asleep I will call attention to it," Nino whispers, smiling serenely in the direction of the guest.
"I'm not falling asleep. I'm just tired. I want to stop being here." Aiba knows he's whining, but oh well. He's reached that point in the day when he is physically itching to get out of work. Like, he will implode if he can't go soon. He will go into organ failure. Here lies Aiba Masaki, 1982 - 2020, death by fed-up-ness.
"Suck it up. One more hour."
In his chest is a sigh large enough to topple log cabins, but Aiba manfully withholds it.
The hour passes, feeling like four, and finally, they get the okay from their director that it's a wrap. Aiba thanks everyone, bows a few times, and walks back to the changing room as quickly as his legs can carry him.
He's two steps away from the front door when Nino's voice calls him back.
"Aiba! Can we come over tonight?"
We, he says, which turns out to mean him, Ohno, and an artillery of recording equipment and instruments. Gradually it's become too cramped in Nino's apartment for both Ohno and Nino to record at the same time, Ohno with the microphone and Nino at his slew of electronics. Before, they'd combat this by recording their parts alone and then splicing them together digitally, but now that Aiba has a huge house, Nino is leaping on his chance to actually have a private studio, spacious and neighbourless.
"What if I change my mind and kick you guys out?" Aiba complains, holding an armful of wires while Nino skims around him, plugging in a million and one jacks. "I was going to take the Rip Van Winkle of sleeps and now I can't." It annoys him because he knows Nino knows how exhausted he's feeling but came over anyway, citing the fact that it's rare that both he and Ohno have a free morning together, like they do tomorrow. And apparently if there's a free morning, the best way to take advantage of it is working through the night.
"We could put on headphones," suggests Ohno, lugging in a guitar amp.
"And how do you propose you sing your parts if you're trying to be quiet?" Nino asks.
"Well, could you try to keep it down, at least?" implores Aiba, starting to lose his temper. "I can shut my door and put in ear plugs."
"Actually, I'd like your opinion on the song."
Aiba groans. "Nooo!"
"Yes," says Nino. "Go brush your teeth and put in your curlers or whatever other primping you need to do. We'll call you when we're ready."
Aiba wants to refuse. He really does.
But Ohno and Nino have been working on this record for-fucking-ever and Aiba can count on two hands the number of times they've let other people listen to parts of it. It's not that they're paranoid of their music leaking -- or at least Ohno isn't -- but Nino, in all his music perfectionism, is really anal about not sharing a song until it's completely finished. Aiba thinks that they've fully completed three songs, maybe, out of the twenty or so that Nino wrote originally.
Twenty is a lot. But Nino's been writing them for just as many years. This project he's doing with Ohno means a great deal to him, Aiba knows.
So Aiba doesn't refuse.
And when he's fluffily ensconced in his sleeping shorts and a light blanket, stretched comfortably across the living room couch, Aiba doesn't have any cause to regret his decision. Nino, that conceited little shit, had obviously planned for this exact situation. The song that he plucks out on his acoustic guitar is as slow and as soothing as a lullaby, their high, twinkling notes soon matched with Ohno's melodic voice, and together, it's as much a balm to Aiba's overtired soul as it is a treat for Aiba's ears.
Ohno sings about how the world glitters after rainfall.
By the time he reaches the third chorus, Aiba's fast asleep.
~
Further confounding the whole "well basically we can only use your place to practise and yeah it has to be tonight going into tomorrow morning and no other time will work because we're busy otherwise, obvi" ruse, when Aiba leaves the next morning for drama filming, Nino and Ohno scuttle out after him like some two-headed Siamese zombie twin, complete with pale complexion, red eyes, and cracked dry lips. They really had stayed up the entire night recording; Aiba had slept through the entire thing. He'd been woken up by his cell phone's 6:25 alarm, had looked around blearily, wondering where the hell he was, and had seen Nino and Ohno collapsed on the adjacent loveseat, Nino sprawled on Ohno's snoring chest, and Aiba's dogs using Nino's feet as a headrest. The sight had made Aiba's chest ache in the best way and he'd sacrificed a few precious minutes from his usually-rushed morning routine to stare at the scene and snap a picture on his phone.
He sends the photo to Jun and Sho on the ride to work, and gets an immediate reply from Sho reading !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEN WHERE HOW and a less immediate reply from Jun reading what is it that's so attractive about nino's socks? and then another message from Sho that says New wallpaper!! Thx Aiba.
The music equipment is left in a corner in Aiba's living room, ready for next time.
~
The week following, it's Aiba's turn to pay the favour forward. Sho-chan has been in the foulest mood all day, forcing his laughter on set, his sloping shoulders stiff with tension, and his eyebrows pulled low on his stone-set face. Bad news for Aiba, who doesn't like Sho being angry but can't help but find it’s kind of hot when he is. There's just so much contained power in Sakurai Sho, the brain, the brawn, the boulder, Sho-chan who touches babies with the grace of a deity. Aiba's palms get sweaty just thinking about being gripped tightly by Sho's capable hands, of being able to cling to Sho's lightly muscled back as he licks a stripe up Sho's neck, corded tight with passion.
When, while hurriedly prepping for a last-minute press video, Sho snaps at Nino to shut up and sit his ass down, Aiba is bombarded with so many dirty thoughts that he actually gets a bit dizzy.
Naturally, it's no chore to invite Sho over after work. If Nino can kill two birds with one stone by recording music and lulling Aiba to sleep, then Aiba can too, by getting Sho-chan to relax and get laid at the same time.
"Ahh," sighs Sho, after he takes a long drag from the beer Aiba hands him. They're sitting on Aiba's couch, just lounging, and while Sho had loosened up some when they entered Aiba's house, his posture is still made up of hard planes and taut wires. His fingers are circled around the neck of the bottle like a vice.
"That bad a day, huh?" Aiba quips lamely.
Sho chuckles dryly. "It's nothing. I'm just a bit strained, that's all."
Strained, in Sho's dictionary, is synonymous with "under enough stress to collapse lesser men." Aiba knows Sho's been busy lately. With the news segment on the new Yuuyake Skyscraper finished, he's been suddenly tagged with a million other projects at once: a new drama with Korean co-stars, a new MC job at a national science and arts awards show, a documentary about the skyscraper -- Aiba doesn't envy him. Arashi knows how to be busy, but only Sho can be busy with work that requires studying.
"You should take a load off," suggests Aiba, swinging his legs onto the couch and worming his feet into Sho's lap.
Sho shakes his head, but lays a conciliatory hand on Aiba's bare ankle. "It's not because of work. Well, sorry, not just work."
That catches Aiba's attention. Something else is wrong?
Before he can voice his question, Sho hurries to say, "I can't tell you."
"Why not!"
Sho winces. "I -- promised I wouldn't."
Aiba considers that for a second. "It's something to do with Matsujun?"
"I didn't say that!" Sho says, balking. "How did you figure that out?"
"Come on, Sho-chan. Who else could it be? Oh-chan isn't the type to demand those kinds of things and Nino would either tell all of us or no one. Or maybe just Oh-chan? I guess it would depend on the type of secret."
"It's not a secret," Sho says with vague distaste. "We're not students passing vulgar notes around behind a teacher's back. It's just -- Jun had a question about something and knew I had experience with it, so he came around last night and we talked. And he didn't want any of you guys to worry, so he told me not to mention it. Except I have now." Sho frowns hugely.
"Don't worry about it. My lips are sealed. Can I ask what you talked about?"
Sho twists the beer bottle in his hand, spinning it around and around. His eyes are on the bottle, but his focus is distant.
He says, "It was about marriage."
Aiba's feet slide off the couch and land on the floor with two dull thumps.
"Oh," he says.
Sho rubs his eyes closed. "Yeah."
~
It's not a topic they broach often. Usually, it only comes up in interviews. Who is your ideal wife, how do you picture your wedding, other uninspired questions in that vein. As Johnny's idols, the very idea of marriage hadn't even been feasible to them until a few years ago. For Aiba, it's always been a concept that he carelessly tossed aside, a half-smeared note in a to-do list marked "ah, maybe one day." But in his heart, he knows that day would never come -- he has Arashi. And Aiba knows the other members feel more or less the same way -- a muted resignation for things that would never be. It doesn't detract from their appreciation for what they have, but nonetheless could become a sore spot if incessantly prodded.
Sho keeps his promise and doesn't let out another peep about what he and Jun discussed, but Aiba can guess. It's not that hard.
Sho and Jun have the most conservative families out of them, and Jun's older sister had recently gotten remarried.
His parents must be pushing Jun to find a partner, too.
This is nothing new. Not to Jun, or Aiba, or even to Nino, whose mother believes in the constitution of marriage only a smidgen more than her cynical son. The subject comes every now and again, like a season. Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to love, and if not, the young man's parents will remind him.
Of course Arashi's parents know about their mutual love for each other. The whole world knows, to some extent. But they don't quite understand; they don't take it seriously. Either they don't see the true scope of that love, or they believe the phase will pass, or they think it's just a consequence of their situation - the five of them, stranded on their own island, unrivalled in the vast ocean of the world. Who else would they have time for, after all? They hold out the hope that there will be a steady, respectful, appropriate relationship in the distance, and their children need only a little encouragement to run for it. Nino's and Ohno's parents, at least, the former too permissive and the latter too doting, have hopes that they'll settle down together, in some manner of propriety. But when you add three more men to the equation, things are a little more complicated, harder to deal with. Sho's and Jun's parents, Sho's especially, are still nursing the expectation for a beautiful bride who will compliment their beautiful son. Aiba's mother is still waiting for more grandchildren to accompany Aiba’s brother’s little girl; Aiba hasn't the heart to tell her to solicit Yusuke about that, not him. If she knew the truth, Aiba has no doubt she would try her best to support him, for him to be happy, but he also has no doubt that she would be disappointed.
Every relationship has its sacrifices.
Maybe this is why Sho doesn't want to live here. He's still holding out for -- for something.
Sho touches him fervently that night. Aiba had wanted to feel Sho's passion and now he is, but not in the way that he'd anticipated. Sho's touching Aiba like he has something to prove. His hands are greedy; they drag across Aiba's body with abandon and no little bit of roughness. He kisses Aiba all over, sucks Aiba's breath away; maybe he's trying to soak up Aiba's essence, maybe he's using Aiba as an escape. He's the one pushing Aiba's back to the bed and he's the one moaning like he can't get enough. Trying to lose his fears of a potential future, and anchor himself to the present. Aiba wouldn't be surprised if Sho's also wading through a murky river of filial responsibility, trying to make it to the shore without getting swept up in the current.
The slide of his cock inside Aiba is excruciatingly slow, agonizingly good.
"There?" Sho huffs, his lips nipping at Aiba's collar bone. His hips pull away, push back in, a direct lightning bolt to Aiba's heart.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Aiba pants, trying to keep air moving through his lungs. His nose tingles; he kind of feels like crying. His heart aches, even though by no means is this Sho saying goodbye. If anything, this is Sho saying hello, repeating hello -- Aiba can't read Sho's thoughts, but Sho's message is clear from his touch: I love you, I love you, I am here. Aiba does his best to relay it back.
"This is--" Sho whispers, his voice rough around a grunt.
"Yeah."
"I'm not--"
"It's okay, Sho-chan," Aiba reassures him, and cups his hands around Sho's sharp-jawed face, iridescent with perspiration. "I know."
Sho squeezes his eyes shut with a wrecked moan and comes, shuddering in Aiba's arms.
Aiba holds him tightly, wrapping up Sho with his entire body, and wishes that everything was as simple as this, right here, loving each other with tongues and skin.
He knows Jun would never leave them, just like Sho would never leave them. But it's not as easy as just saying it and making it so. There is a bed they have created, and now they must lie in it. It's the difference between Cinderella, who left her abusive family behind her for a happily ever in a sparkling castle, and the Little Mermaid, who had to lose her fins forever in order to walk on land with her prince. Sho-chan had always wanted to have children. That hasn't changed, even now. For one dream, Sho must give up another. And that's not fair, even though Aiba is ultimately okay with it, even though Aiba is sorry, because Aiba is so selfish. He would rather have Sho with him.
Maybe Aiba should say, instead: Jun would never want to leave, Sho would never want to leave. But those kinds of thoughts hurt, majorly hurt, so Aiba doesn't indulge. Can’t.
When Sho heaves himself downwards and spreads kisses down Aiba's chest, down the dip between his legs, and swallows down Aiba's entire cock to the base, Aiba slaps a hand on his mouth to keep down his sob, and readily lets the pleasure wash his mind blank.
In the languid minutes after orgasm, Sho's solid body is a comforting weight, his heaving chest matching counterpart to Aiba's. Things are quieter here, so unlike the constant hustle and bustle of Tokyo's metropolitan centre. Aiba can imagine himself able to hear his own heartbeat, drumming in a proud echo to Sho's. There is an owl that lives in the trees that border Aiba's backyard, and it hoots mournfully into the night, calling for a mate, singing away his loneliness. In the muted dark of Aiba's bedroom, his walls slathered with photos, the world awash with the monochrome of twilight, it feels as if their troubles are six degrees away -- detached and surreal, like a far-off deadline that you never want to meet.
Aiba is absently struck with a desire that Jun be here too. He wants to feel Jun's skin, the heat in Jun's mouth, map the onion-skin landscape of Jun's chest and ribs. The curlicue edges of Jun's lips are ridiculous and Aiba wants to remind himself how they taste.
Sho lifts himself off Aiba and rolls onto his back with a sigh. He says, "You know, I really do like it here."
"Oh yeah?" Aiba grins, turning to nestle himself in Sho's side. "The company is great, isn't it?"
"Definitely no complaints from my end," Sho laughs. "But I also meant this house in general. I feel like -- things are okay here. I think it's because we're farther away from downtown Tokyo. It's almost a shielding atmosphere. You can't feel the immediate pressures from the outside world, and any worries seem less worrisome. I must admit it's calming. And energizing at the same time," he adds, casting a significant look over Aiba's body.
Aiba smirks. "That's because my house is the best. I mean, it's got me in it. How perfect is that!"
Sho laughs again, but doesn't disagree.
~
The headline reads, Arashi's Matsumoto Jun (36) in new relationship with mystery female! Couple caught on restaurant date!
The rumours say that it's Matsushima Nanako, Ayase Haruka, maybe Aragaki Yui; it’s hard to pinpoint an identity from the grainy, shadow-strewn pictures.
In the two paparazzi photos, snapped when the couple had just exited a Malaysian-themed restaurant, the woman is walking with her head lowered, her wide-brimmed hat pulled down over her face. She has long, straight hair, gorgeous legs, and Jun's arm fits perfectly around her slim shoulders, like they’re a sculpted set.
"She's my cousin," Jun tells them, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"How come we've never met her?" Nino demands, tossing down his tabloid magazine with a huff.
"She studies abroad in France. She was only in town for two days for the fashion show. Also, why do you care?"
"I like her bag," says Nino sullenly.
Her bag is truly a post-modernism feat: it looks more like a crumpled grocery bag than a top-of-the-line haute couture purse. Figures that Nino would want it.
"This is a big deal?" Ohno asks, picking up Nino's discarded magazine. "Is Jun-kun planning to talk about it during an interview?"
"No, I'm not," Jun says vehemently. "You know I like to keep my private life private. The media can speculate all they want, I don't give a shit. It's just annoying, having to deal with it at all. You think they'd tire of picking at the same target for a million years."
"Well, maybe they would if you'd get hitched already." Nino's smile is sharp.
Jun stills. "That's not even remotely funny."
"It's the truth."
"Nino," Sho says firmly. "You're not helping."
Nino sucks his lips in. "Sorry. Jun-pon getting pissy gets me worked up too. His bad temper is contagious."
"I'm not getting pissy," Jun says indignantly.
"You insulted my hair, my shoes, and the state of my nails this morning! Within the same breath!"
Jun crosses his arms. "They're all in horrible condition, that's why." He doesn't apologize, but his face sours.
Nino shrugs. "Like I'm bothered. You're always like this whenever there's a girl rumour. Learn to ignore it already."
"I am ignoring it. Sorry if I'm not as cool about it as you are. Some of us actually pay attention to how the public looks at them. Because that's part of the job, in case you forgot. You hardly ever get gossip like this attached to your name so it's no wonder you don't know how unbelievably frustrating it can become."
"I don't know if that was meant to be a backhanded compliment or an insult, but I feel insulted," says Nino.
Jun sneers. "Good." He stalks out of the green room.
As soon as the door snicks shut, Sho whirls on Nino. "Why do you always have to push him like that, Nino?"
Nino stretches lengthwise across the sofa he's occupying and stares placidly at the ceiling. "Why's he always got to be so bitchy whenever some dumb reporter links him with a girl? It's going to pass. He knows that. So what does it matter?"
Sho looks like he could happily strangle Nino with his bare hands. "It matters because during the time before the rumours pass, the press constantly hounds Jun for the truth about the reports. Every interview that he has from now until whenever is going to mention this."
Nino sits up. "He can say no comment, or tell them to fuck off and mind their own business. Or why not just, I don't know, tell them that she's his cousin? I'm pretty sure that'll squash any marriage rumours faster than Oh-chan can catch a fly."
"I can't do that," adds Ohno.
"It isn't the point that she's his cousin," Sho emphasizes, slapping the newspaper in his hand, folded out on entertainment section, page 2A. "It's that you were right: those rumours wouldn't exist in the first place if he were already in a steady relationship. But he is in one."
Yes he is, thinks Aiba. They all are. And they can never say so.
"All these news articles do," Sho says, shaking together the sheets of his paper with a sombre finality, "is show us that we're never really free from the expectations of the audience."
Nino says nothing, but his eyes train carefully on Sho's face, and eventually, he turns, and tucks himself into the inside corners of the couch. "Don't think I haven't realized that," he mutters, which may or may not be a lie.
Aiba meets Ohno's gaze, wondering if Ohno's expression of weary helplessness was also mirrored in his own. There's nothing to say, really. There's not even anything they can do, other than wait it out. Aside from the situation being completely out of their hands, Jun can take care of himself with these issues. He hates it, so do all of them, but Jun is a Johnny's idol. He knows how to be professional and doesn't need to be hand-held through this.
Aiba invites Jun over that night anyway.
~
"If this is some kind of pity party, Aiba, I swear--"
"Can you get over yourself already?" Aiba says, exasperated beyond measure. "What kind of pity party involves fake feathers and glitter glue?" He twiddles his fingers at a spool of bright green yarn lying on the ground and Jun picks it up for him, throwing it to Aiba's waiting palm.
"Sounds exactly like your style, actually," Jun says dryly.
Aiba giggles. "Hah, well, then you caught me. I only invited you here to cheer you up from your existential marriage-less funk, and not at all because I need someone to call the ambulance in case this thing doesn't work out, which it will." He holds up his makeshift wing to his left arm. "How's that look? Awesome or what?"
"That's not the adjective I would use, but I can't say I'm an expert opinion on homemade craft-supply wings."
"You should do something about that!"
"I don't think I'm the one with the problem here," says Jun, raising his eyebrows pointedly at Aiba fastening his finished wing to his knapsack-based harness.
"Do you know that all famous inventors get criticism like that, when they first start out?"
"You're a famous inventor now? Just because you want to slide down your spiral staircase to see if your preschool project wings will reduce your speed?"
Aiba grins. "I was going to jump off the roof, but I thought maybe I should work my way up to that."
"I guess I should be thankful for any tiny amount of pragmatism you show."
"That's the spirit! Now help me attach this thing to my arm. Look, I used velcro straps! Pretty clever, huh."
Jun sighs.
~
"4.51 seconds."
"What!" Aiba exclaims, tugging the stopwatch from Jun's hand. "That can't be right."
"It is."
"But I took 4.37 seconds with the wings on! How can it take longer without them there causing air resistance?"
Jun shakes his head. "You're the genius inventor here, not me."
Aiba frowns at his stopwatch. "Maybe you're not timing it correctly. Can you spot me from the first floor instead?"
"It's not going to make a difference. You're counting down, and I'm pressing the button when you say go. How is where I'm standing a factor in that?"
Aiba bristles. "I don't know, Matsujun! We just have to try different variables, okay? Haven't you ever heard of the scientific process?"
"Have you?" Jun retorts, and heads downstairs.
When Jun is properly stationed at the foot of the stairs, Aiba sits down on the wooden railing from the second floor and lifts up his right foot, keeping the toes of his left foot on the floor to keep him from slipping.
"Ready?" he calls.
"Go for it."
"Okay! 3, 2, 1, go!"
In retrospect, it wasn't very good scientific procedure for Aiba to push off the ground with his left foot to give himself a slight acceleration. In the other trials, it was just Aiba lifting his foot off the ground and letting gravity doing the rest of the work. But maybe he had gotten incensed by the contrary results, and his body reacted unconsciously to make a wingless slide faster than a wing-full one.
Also, he may've pushed with more force than was strictly safe.
All Aiba knows is that one second he's sliding really fast down the banister, and then there's a flash of Jun's shocked face, and then there's a loud thud, and full-body pain.
"Holy crap Jun!" Aiba cries, flailing. "Sorry, wow, sorry! I didn't mean to crash into you, geez. Sorry, are you okay?"
He pushes himself off Jun, who is knocked out flat on the ground, hair a mess, and wears the expression of a particularly angry pitbull. There are a multitude of bright green feathers caught in his sweater.
Aiba swallows. "Uh, thanks for breaking my fall?"
Jun takes a deep breath.
And starts laughing.
Aiba says again, "Um," but Jun just laughs harder.
The last time something like this happened, Jun was two days shy of a world record in sleep deprivation, and the slightest bit of anything was enough to set him off. Sho's concerned mothering sent him into giggles, then Ohno's reacting giggles amped Jun into convulsions. Nino loved it; Aiba remembers finding it morbidly fascinating too -- he'd never seen Matsujun high on life before. But then Jun's hysterics had peaked and plummeted in a landslide; he spent the remainder of the day trying to kill all of them with the power of his glare, as if they personally were to blame for every second of his migraine. He was so venomous he almost made Aiba cry.
So it comes as a surprise now when Jun reaches up and cradles Aiba's face with a tastefully-adorned hand. Aiba would jerk away but for the strangely contented curve Jun's mouth is now calming into.
"Thanks," he says simply.
"For what?" Aiba asks.
Jun's eyelashes dip, uncharacteristically bashful for half a second. "Just. You bringing me here. I feel better. You being stupid is never not hilarious."
"I think you're trying to mock me but let me remind you once again that I'm a very mature adult."
"How mature?" Jun asks.
"Pretty mature."
Aiba gasps as Jun grabs his arms, pulls him back on top of Jun's body, and rolls his hips up into Aiba's in one smooth, languid arc. "That mature?" He laughs, seeing Aiba's expression.
"Here?" Aiba gapes. "On the floor?!"
"Relax, I'm just messing with you." Jun relaxes, still holding a curlicue of a smile.
"Not that I'm against it! But -- upstairs?"
Jun laughs. "Maybe later," he allows, and for all intents and purposes, seems to be perfectly content lying on the cold, hardwood floor, supporting the weight of another person. His grin fades in increments, like a sunset. "It's nice to do this," he says. "Get the stress of the day out by acting like idiots."
"Hey," Aiba protests.
"You're a 37-year-old trying to make a viable pair of wings out of craft supplies. You're an idiot."
"Well, that's an insult to you too, since you're in love with me!"
Jun kisses him swiftly, at the side of Aiba's mouth. As if he was a lovestruck girl, bravely confessing her affections for the first time. "Seems that way," he says.
Something very large and warm barrels through Aiba at that, leaving his insides a wrecked mush in its wake. Suddenly it is imperative that they have no clothes separating the two of them, that they be skin to skin and heart to heart, so Aiba can empty his tsunami emotions in a willing vessel before he overflows and goes mad from it.
Jun's designer pants are gently pulled down, his designer underwear is carefully peeled off, his cock is stroked reverently until it rests, curved and hard, in Aiba's appreciative hand. Aiba has done this so many times before, but he will never get tired of it, never, this access that Jun grants him. Jun's impatient with so many things, but with Aiba, like this, he always lets Aiba take his fill of whatever he wants, lets Aiba gorge himself on Jun's beauty, inside and out. The world could crumble to ashes around them and still Aiba would be caught like a seeking moth in the dark heat of Jun's eyes.
Today is different, somehow. Maybe the stress of the dating rumours affected Jun more than he let on, maybe it's a mysterious accumulation of other factors, maybe it's a spell woven through the sea-scented air of Chiba, but Jun is utterly silent the whole way through today, watching every move Aiba makes with an intensity that should be scary and maybe is, a little, but Aiba's not complaining. Aiba aches with desire, taking Jun's passivity to his advantage, needing to show Jun just how much it means to him that Jun loves him.
He kisses Jun's cock until Jun's breath is hitching unabashedly, long, capable fingers tangling in Aiba's hair. He kisses Jun's mouth until Jun is panting, shoving his hips up to grind against Aiba's erection, still caught in the cloth prison of Aiba's clothes. He kisses Jun's eyes, his cheeks, his jaw, his left ear; stays there, in the nook of Jun's neck, whispering stupid promises, as he strokes Jun to completion. The way that Jun hashes out Aiba's name, a noise from the very depths of Jun's chest, is a validation of Aiba's entire existence.
He drapes himself over Jun's body as Jun tries to catch his breath, Aiba's face pressed to Jun's chest.
"That's something that I wouldn't mind having every day," Jun says, hand soft in Aiba's hair, heartbeat strong under Aiba's cheek.
"You--" Aiba starts, but thinks better of it. Instead, he gets to his feet and walks to the front corridor of the house, where he's tossed his day bag. He rummages inside it for a second, two.
"Aiba."
Jun's pushed himself onto his elbows when Aiba returns; his expression is mildly curious, but there's no anxiety at all. He looks beautiful, dishevelled, at home. Aiba crouches down, drops a kiss onto Jun's upturned lips. Jun tries to deepen the kiss, but Aiba leans back, holding out his hand.
Jun looks at Aiba's gift.
"Ah," he says.
"You could, right?" Aiba asks, and hates himself a little for how shaky he sounds. He's nervous; he doesn't want to be, but he is. "You could have it every day."
"You kept them," Jun says, not really a question.
Aiba struggles with an urge to close his fingers and hide away. "I made them for you guys. They'll always be yours."
Jun stares for a while longer, long enough that worms start squirming in Aiba's stomach, but Aiba forces himself to be still, be patient, reminding himself that he won't be so hasty this time. He won't scare anyone with the force of his love.
Even though he does love Jun, so much.
But it's perfect, it's right thing to do, because a thousand hundred million seconds later, Jun smiles, just a little, and picks up the key waiting on Aiba's palm; and Aiba remembers how to breathe.
~
They've migrated to the living room and are simply lying there in silence, Jun mulling about serious and probably melodramatic things on the couch and Aiba basking in quiet joy on the loveseat, when Jun's cell phone buzzes.
"Should I pick up?" he asks. "It's Nino."
"You should pick up," Aiba says. "He won't leave you alone until you do."
With a heavy sigh, Jun pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses the call button. "What is it?" he snaps. There's a pause. "No." Another one. "No." A longer one. "Good for him." Then, finally, "I'm at Aiba's. If you really want to apologize, do it in person." And he hangs up.
"Soooo what's happening?" Aiba wheedles.
Jun pushes himself more firmly into Aiba's couch cushions. "That guy is such a pain. Apparently Sho-kun 'talked to him'. Yelled at him, more like. He wanted to apologize."
"Good! That's great! He should apologize."
"He should, yes, but I don't really care. I'm not angry at him."
"Oh. You're not?"
Jun's legs stretch out to the armrest of the couch. "He was just projecting, that moron."
"Projecti-- huh? Nino's got a girlfriend rumour, too?"
"Not that." Jun makes an exasperated Aiba, keep up kind of noise. "About getting hitched. He's in denial."
"What? About what?"
"Change." He's got his key held up in his fingers and is examining it critically, as if gauging for flaws. "Sometimes you just have to go for it."
~
As far back as Aiba can recall, Nino had always been a firm believer in the Time Changes, But Not Me theory of living, more basely recognized as the cliché, If It Ain't Broke, Why Fix It? When Aiba met Nino at the glamorous age of fourteen, Nino, then one year younger and ten years more arrogant, already possessed much of the stellar, discordant personality that, as an adult, would shape his world view just as much as it shaped how the world viewed him. Wit and talent he had, along with a respectable amount of charisma for someone so mousey and flippant. What measure of ability he owned though, was unfortunately matched with an equal amount of indifference that could be labelled as satisfaction some days, laziness others. Aiba grew up with Nino, has known him longest out of all the Arashi members, and can't exactly admit that this type of outlook hasn't served Nino well in life. It was, regardless, what Nino preferred. Nino didn't do change, didn't aspire to change; he accepted it if it came, but didn't expect it to come. He could almost be mistaken for being zen, if he weren't such a fucking prick sometimes.
It took a while -- many years, in fact -- for Aiba to realize that Nino had notable limits. He was like Silly Putty or plasticine. He could stretch and stretch and stretch and cheerfully take another shape -- at the end of the day, he'd still be himself, still able to mold comfortably back in his old casing with the littlest of effort. Pull him too hard too fast, though, and he would snap. Big changes, big personal changes: these Nino couldn't handle, and rarely did.
The chaotic breakdown of his parents' marriage had left a long, lasting impression on their youngest child; parts of Nino's heart had been permanently chipped away decades before he'd even offered the remaining bits, the best he could muster, to Aiba, at the ripe old age of thirty-one.
Aiba hadn't found Nino wanting, though. He couldn't. How could anyone? Nino could be as embittered as he pleased, but he still believed in love, and Aiba couldn't imagine him any different.
All of this is what speeds through Aiba's mind when Nino finally shows up at his door, face a storm, and demands to see Jun.
"Why did he have to drag me out here? It took a whole hour to drive!"
"He made a really nice dinner for me, but there's too many leftovers," says Aiba.
"Bullshit," Nino says, and makes a show of stomping off his shoes.
"He's still mad at you," Aiba admits, which is a lie, but one close enough to the truth that Nino believes it.
Nino grimaces. "I showed up, didn't I? Where is he?"
"I'm right here," answers Jun, striding out of the kitchen, where he actually had been preparing food -- if only for Aiba's pets. He walks towards them and stands before Nino, arms crossed.
Nino scowls.
Jun waits.
"Oh my God, are you serious," Nino cries, slapping both hands to his cheeks in frustration. "I already apologized over the phone! And plus, I don't recall you being the one who got his entire mind, body and soul insulted to a pulp."
"This isn't even about that, and you know it," Jun says sharply. "This is about that conversation we had last week."
Last week, as Jun had told Aiba, he and Nino had a long talk about why they thought moving in with Aiba would be the worst decision ever. There had been alcohol involved, and by the end of the night, Nino was holding back Jun's hair as Jun puked in the toilet and it was then that Nino had sniped that if living with Aiba wasn't the worst decision ever, then living with Jun sure as hell would be. Toss in Ohno and Sho, and it was pretty much a recipe for disaster.
After Jun had puked out enough of his stomach to notice that the churning, boiling feeling deep in the pit of his gut wasn't alcohol poisoning, but rather an incredible, unfathomable, swell of rage at Nino's opinion, naturally, he expressed his offense. How could it be that bad to live with the four of them? None of them were serial murderers or child molesters or people who wore sandals with socks (not anymore, no thanks to the Juniors' style department), and they actually all got along. How did Nino get off, being so pessimistic? It wouldn't be bad at all. It could even be great.
This kind of revelation, made while staring at the murky orange cesspool of his own puke and toilet water, had slammed the immediate truth into Jun: he and Nino were pulling a Queen Gertrude -- doth protesting too much. Way, way, too much.
Jun had already admitted that sincerely considering the implications of Aiba's house scared him, but Nino, caught in a cage of his own unnamed anxieties, hadn't worked up to that level yet. When Jun confronted him about it, he reacted predictably, with vitriol, indignation, and diversion. He couldn't dump Jun home fast enough. And then he avoided Jun's calls the next day. And then when Jun gave up and let the matter drop, the scandal about Jun's lady company broke out, and Nino had been front row centre, ready with his own special brand of hard truth.
"It's not fair that he should get to talk straight like that to me, but can't deal when I speak like that to him," Jun had said, before asking if he could look through Aiba's bag. Aiba had wondered what Jun had hoped to accomplish, bringing Nino out this far -- not just from the city, but out of his comfort zone.
"You call that a conversation?" Nino accuses. "There was plenty of stuff coming out of your mouth, but they weren't words."
"Don't be crude."
"I'm sorry I let you ruin my scarf with your vomit. There, happy?"
"You know I'm not."
Nino expels a breath that rattles his entire frame. "That night. You were oversimplifying things," he bites out.
Jun's eyes narrow. "How so."
"Because!" Nino's arms jerk, an aborted gesture. "Because you had your epiphany on the floor of a men's room, that's why! You said I was protesting too much and started quoting Shakespeare and I wasn't protesting at all in the first place, I was just stating facts! If we live together, things will get complicated, and things getting complicated will make it hard to deal with, and if it's hard to deal with, it might--" Nino's face turns away. "It'll be bad. Obviously."
Aiba's entire body thrums with anxiety at that, but this is not his talk to interrupt. It feels like the other two have forgotten about his presence entirely.
"You're not willing to try at all, is what you're saying," Jun says.
"Are you?"
Jun's eyelids dip. "So what if I am?"
Nino's lips part with shock. "Are you crazy? You know all the things that could go wrong, what it could cost us! All of us! You agreed with me that the risk wasn't worth it!"
"And I changed my mind. I think it is."
"So what happens if we fuck up?" Nino shouts.
"We'll work it out," Jun returns, just as quickly. "We've gotten this far together. What on earth could break us apart now?"
"WE COULD, YOU IDIOT!"
Aiba cracks -- it's not conscious, there's no discernible thought, just pure reaction -- there's Nino's voice yelling in high panic and then suddenly there's Aiba's arms wrapped around him, holding tightly, his hand cupping the back of Nino's neck, his arm iron around Nino's shoulders.
"We won't, we won't," Aiba hears himself saying, over and over, while Nino stands as stiff as a pole and near hyperventilates into Aiba's collarbone.
"No we won't," Jun repeats, and Aiba hears the jingle of a keychain as Jun reaches over and presses Nino's yellow-tailed key into Nino's limp hand. A vow.
And as Nino's short, stubby fingers close over the key in an uncertain grip, his other arm rises, with all the reluctant obedience of a soldier carrying out a suicide order, to hug Aiba back.
~
Aiba was thirty when Sho-chan kissed him for the first time, in the shadowed back end of a bar in Osaka. He was thirty-one when Ohno pecked him on the lips, a friendly peck, an I'm-glad-you're-with-me-Aiba-chan peck, and Aiba didn’t let Ohno pull away. Aiba was newly thirty-two when he got kissed (a stolen kiss) by Nino, and thirty-two still but feeling like a new man when he finally reached across that final divide and pulled Jun into his embrace.
It was Sho's kiss that was marked a turning point in Aiba's life, an ungraceful shove into a pioneering journey of a vast, unexplored continent consisting of no-holds-barred, yes-to-everything, always-and-forever love. It was Aiba's first foray in touching an Arashi member with intent. Well preceding that incident, it was common knowledge that Ohno and Nino were sleeping together. Except since it was them, for various inexplicable laws of their combined natures, their relationship didn't hold the significant impact that is usually afforded to members within the same group dating, or even just normal dating full stop. They weren't together together, not like that. It was Taka and Yuuji, Oh S and Miya K, and they were a force that was as unquestionable as the seasons, the weather, the earth's ocean currents. They just were, and no one really questioned it that much. For Sho to kiss Aiba, though, despite how they "forgot all about it, don't worry" the next hung over morning, and then for Aiba to dream about that kiss every other night for what felt like freaking eons, interspersed with occasional cameos by Jun, Ohno, and Nino, that was something Aiba had to evaluate a little more seriously. One intergroup relationship was bad enough, no matter that it was an ambiguous one, but two? It could shake the very foundations of Arashi. Aiba wouldn't have it. Outwardly, he never brought up that incident again to Sho, but inwardly, he replayed it so often it became the background anthem of his repressed life.
Aiba suffered in lonesome torture for a full sixteen months until he caught sight of his second Arashi-life-changing event. It happened after Aiba's backstage kiss with Ohno, fuelled by concert energy, and not long before Nino's jealousy-tinged but-wasn't-I-your-first? kiss with Aiba at Aiba's Merry Birthday party. A normal evening in an otherwise normal week and he stumbled across Nino and Sho making out like frantic, guilty teenagers in the front seat of Sho's car. Aiba had wanted to approach Sho to ask him for a ride home, but noticed a weird shifting blob donned in very familiar colours and hairstyles moving in the front of Sho's silver Audi. As Aiba realized what he was seeing through the windows of the passenger seat, the world had actually blurred and tilted beneath his feet. He might have fainted, if Sho hadn't caught his eye, yelped, shoved Nino away, and came scrambling out of the car with a red face but redder lips. It had taken almost five minutes of streaming apology before he caught notice of Aiba's dazed, glassy eyes, and had asked him if he was okay.
And oh, was Aiba better than okay. He had, just as he had so many years ago, on location in the middle of the night, listening to Sho's casual remarks on what were supposed to be irrelevant things, felt a strange new light spark in his mind, a tiny, delicate seed take root.
That original kiss with Sho had been exhilarating, amazing, right, but even then, emboldened under the influence of alcohol and nostalgia, it was the scariest thing Aiba had ever done in his life. That said loads; Aiba had done a heck of a lot with his life by that point. He thought he'd never be able to top the sensation of that moment: all of his hopes and fears mixing, escalating together, running headfirst over a cliff face with no clue how deep the trench lay, the adrenaline of doing what he'd always wanted but never could say aloud, tasting the sake on Sho's lips, reveling in the heat of Sho's mouth, Aiba had been sure nothing would wreck him as much as this. The later kisses he shared with Ohno and Nino and Jun, those kisses were precious, had meant everything, but they were, realistically, not world-shifting, the trio of them too encumbered by time limits and confusion and superimposed with shit-what-are-we-doing panic. Sho's drunken kiss had been thoughtless, reckless, brave, and good, it allowed Aiba to at once unburden his soul and self-realize it, but most importantly, it had been the start, the Big Bang, the first step into a new world; it provided the grounds for everything else that followed after.
But catching Nino and Sho together was something else: an equally hair-raising, spine-tingling, brain-fritzing moment, but also revelatory. It wasn't the physical sight of Nino and Sho's kiss that impacted Aiba, hit him with as much force as a meteorite on a sandy beach (although yes it was so hot), but the meaning of the kiss itself. Seeing Sho and Nino paw at each other with unfettered desire made plain to Aiba just how much the other members of the group wanted one another. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed before, when now, opening his mind to the idea, it seemed as transparent as the windows of Sho's car, which provided Aiba with not just a view the show, but also a reflection of this potential, of what he could have. What they could all have, and share together, in a fairy tale ending that should be too good to be true but wasn't. The sight meant that Aiba, as Arashi had always, always taught him, was not alone.
Maybe Aiba would have let sleeping dogs lie, however, if things had concluded at that. Sho and Aiba shared an inebriated kiss and grope in a dodgy yakiniku bar, Sho and Nino had a questionably sober necking session the day before Sho was due for his two-week visit to Nicaragua, which presumably Nino would tell Ohno about, because Nino didn't keep secrets from Ohno, but that was it, the end, no more, go home. Aiba could attribute either situation to a variety of reasons, endless lists of reasons, which were all ultimately excuses and covers, but whatever, tolerable. Sufficient.
But because Aiba's world view had shifted (other Arashi members were attracted to each other when they weren't Ohno and Nino and it wasn't Aiba doing the lusting?!), he began to see, as if a veil had been lifted from his senses -- no amount of pretexts in the world could explain away the lingering gazes Jun gave to Sho when he thought no one was looking, the appreciative smirk on Nino's face when Jun waltzed in with a new haircut, the ever-so-slight furrow of brow Ohno would make when Sho wasn't at his side at the beginning of a talk-heavy segment, the bright grin that Jun couldn't temper when Ohno called for his help... Aiba watched all of this; how the five of them had managed to last so long without some kind of implosion occurring became a greater miracle to him each consecutive day.
He doesn't dare take credit for getting the five of them together. That had been, as was Arashi's tendency, a group effort. Even Aiba's awkward attempts at seduction (just light teasing, just to catch anyone's interest, just to see that he could) had been barely more successful than accidental crotch-brushes in the sweat-dampened madness of their concert changing rooms. What Aiba does take credit for is his uncoordinated, brazen statement to the other four members at their concert wrap-up dinner of 2014. He'd had too much to drink, and too much to drink after Arashi concerts only ever resulted in one thing for Aiba: love confessions.
Under the pooled efforts of sake, good food, post-performance high, and the amazing atmosphere the five of them created together, no matter if they had an audience or not, Aiba had proclaimed his devotion to each member in turn, then all of them at once, and had ended his spontaneous oration with a declaration for the ages: "We should just give in and do each other! It'll be awesome!!"
It wasn't awesome, because it didn't happen. Aiba, in his own ungainly way, had again pulled a Da Vinci, and unleashed upon the world an artifact that was years ahead of its time.
That proclamation, brushed off the next morning with good but strained humour and just a little teasing by the others, had occurred in November, a month before Nino kissed Aiba and ten months before Aiba kissed Jun; all the time leading up to that point, Aiba had spent in a downward spiral of patience and sanity. Afterwards, he forced himself to take a step back. He hadn't let go of the idea, but he hadn't pushed it again so blatantly. What he'd only been peripherally aware of at the time, was that his hopeful and hopeless statement that night had set a new course of events in motion -- like a butterfly flapping its wings causing, inexorably, inevitably, a typhoon on the other side of the planet. Some kind of destiny for five boyish souls tied together by the bond of their group. Compelled by Aiba's bumbling initiative, they'd been, unbeknownst to even themselves, slowly gravitating towards each other with a surety that was customary to planetary orbits. During that interim, there came plenty more compromising and hastily apologized for situations among the members, Aiba's notwithstanding, and they were all, in the end, guilty bedfellows. It was merely an issue of admitting the truth to themselves, of putting a word to their mutual desire, to the path they were all walking down. Eventually, one day, Aiba's keenness got the better of him, and he had, after an extensive internal debate that culminated in the conclusion, "I'm talking myself in circles here, fuck, ah, let's just go for it," taken the wild leap to grab at his irrepressible vision of the future with both hands: hands framing Jun's startled face, hands pulling Jun in for a kiss, hands that convinced Jun to give in as well. The others members burst in the room at that exact moment, and the rest, well -- cliché or not, Aiba would take it.
It was both a triumph and a relief; the past year had left them all in a state of jittery nerves, anticipating something that no one dared to name but became harder and harder to ignore with each passing day. Aiba kissing Jun just happened to be the final kick to get their engine revving.
That was five years ago. They'd had a fair share of ups and downs within those years, like any relationship multiplied by a factorial of five, but they'd stuck it out, gotten stronger, cultivated their bond from a single string into a braided rope. They'd been happy. More than happy. Aiba's mind was a flourishing forest, his heart a contained sun. He thought he'd never want anything more.
Wrong, of course.
Wrong, but that was okay. It turns out okay, because with Jun and Nino accepting their keys to Aiba's house, Sho -- already mostly convinced anyway -- and Ohno, who dutifully followed the four of them in his characteristic leading form, are not far behind, and then it's a set, it's complete, it's done. The puzzle pieces all gathered, the family whole, the debut of a new great adventure and the finale of the fairy tale that Aiba had dreamt for them long ago, under so many stars and streaks of colour.
part 3
Title: Where the Heart Is
Words: ~9,200 this part
Rating: NC-17
Warnings, description, etc: see previous entry
Man, this chapter had a lot of issues but thank gooooodness I had the expert and elegant advice of lysanderpuck and toinkydoink to straighten that mess out. Thank you guys!!!
PS. this is also available at AO3 if you prefer reading from there!
Another week, another block of ARASHIATIC! tapings. It's their second guest today, an actor turned politician named Kagura, and Aiba is flagging. It's not just the conversation topic that's tiring him (foreign policy and economy -- Sho-chan has completely dominated the last ten minutes); Aiba has been up since five am that morning for drama filming, followed by a solo photoshoot, followed by dance practise. A never ending day at the heels of a never ending week. It's closing in on nine pm now and all he can think about is going home and collapsing on the nearest horizontal surface.
Something sharp jabs into Aiba's ribs.
"Ow," he hisses, his back jerking straight in reflex. There's a flash of wrist movement and Nino's marker disappears back up his sleeve.
"If you fall asleep I will call attention to it," Nino whispers, smiling serenely in the direction of the guest.
"I'm not falling asleep. I'm just tired. I want to stop being here." Aiba knows he's whining, but oh well. He's reached that point in the day when he is physically itching to get out of work. Like, he will implode if he can't go soon. He will go into organ failure. Here lies Aiba Masaki, 1982 - 2020, death by fed-up-ness.
"Suck it up. One more hour."
In his chest is a sigh large enough to topple log cabins, but Aiba manfully withholds it.
The hour passes, feeling like four, and finally, they get the okay from their director that it's a wrap. Aiba thanks everyone, bows a few times, and walks back to the changing room as quickly as his legs can carry him.
He's two steps away from the front door when Nino's voice calls him back.
"Aiba! Can we come over tonight?"
We, he says, which turns out to mean him, Ohno, and an artillery of recording equipment and instruments. Gradually it's become too cramped in Nino's apartment for both Ohno and Nino to record at the same time, Ohno with the microphone and Nino at his slew of electronics. Before, they'd combat this by recording their parts alone and then splicing them together digitally, but now that Aiba has a huge house, Nino is leaping on his chance to actually have a private studio, spacious and neighbourless.
"What if I change my mind and kick you guys out?" Aiba complains, holding an armful of wires while Nino skims around him, plugging in a million and one jacks. "I was going to take the Rip Van Winkle of sleeps and now I can't." It annoys him because he knows Nino knows how exhausted he's feeling but came over anyway, citing the fact that it's rare that both he and Ohno have a free morning together, like they do tomorrow. And apparently if there's a free morning, the best way to take advantage of it is working through the night.
"We could put on headphones," suggests Ohno, lugging in a guitar amp.
"And how do you propose you sing your parts if you're trying to be quiet?" Nino asks.
"Well, could you try to keep it down, at least?" implores Aiba, starting to lose his temper. "I can shut my door and put in ear plugs."
"Actually, I'd like your opinion on the song."
Aiba groans. "Nooo!"
"Yes," says Nino. "Go brush your teeth and put in your curlers or whatever other primping you need to do. We'll call you when we're ready."
Aiba wants to refuse. He really does.
But Ohno and Nino have been working on this record for-fucking-ever and Aiba can count on two hands the number of times they've let other people listen to parts of it. It's not that they're paranoid of their music leaking -- or at least Ohno isn't -- but Nino, in all his music perfectionism, is really anal about not sharing a song until it's completely finished. Aiba thinks that they've fully completed three songs, maybe, out of the twenty or so that Nino wrote originally.
Twenty is a lot. But Nino's been writing them for just as many years. This project he's doing with Ohno means a great deal to him, Aiba knows.
So Aiba doesn't refuse.
And when he's fluffily ensconced in his sleeping shorts and a light blanket, stretched comfortably across the living room couch, Aiba doesn't have any cause to regret his decision. Nino, that conceited little shit, had obviously planned for this exact situation. The song that he plucks out on his acoustic guitar is as slow and as soothing as a lullaby, their high, twinkling notes soon matched with Ohno's melodic voice, and together, it's as much a balm to Aiba's overtired soul as it is a treat for Aiba's ears.
Ohno sings about how the world glitters after rainfall.
By the time he reaches the third chorus, Aiba's fast asleep.
~
Further confounding the whole "well basically we can only use your place to practise and yeah it has to be tonight going into tomorrow morning and no other time will work because we're busy otherwise, obvi" ruse, when Aiba leaves the next morning for drama filming, Nino and Ohno scuttle out after him like some two-headed Siamese zombie twin, complete with pale complexion, red eyes, and cracked dry lips. They really had stayed up the entire night recording; Aiba had slept through the entire thing. He'd been woken up by his cell phone's 6:25 alarm, had looked around blearily, wondering where the hell he was, and had seen Nino and Ohno collapsed on the adjacent loveseat, Nino sprawled on Ohno's snoring chest, and Aiba's dogs using Nino's feet as a headrest. The sight had made Aiba's chest ache in the best way and he'd sacrificed a few precious minutes from his usually-rushed morning routine to stare at the scene and snap a picture on his phone.
He sends the photo to Jun and Sho on the ride to work, and gets an immediate reply from Sho reading !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHEN WHERE HOW and a less immediate reply from Jun reading what is it that's so attractive about nino's socks? and then another message from Sho that says New wallpaper!! Thx Aiba.
The music equipment is left in a corner in Aiba's living room, ready for next time.
~
The week following, it's Aiba's turn to pay the favour forward. Sho-chan has been in the foulest mood all day, forcing his laughter on set, his sloping shoulders stiff with tension, and his eyebrows pulled low on his stone-set face. Bad news for Aiba, who doesn't like Sho being angry but can't help but find it’s kind of hot when he is. There's just so much contained power in Sakurai Sho, the brain, the brawn, the boulder, Sho-chan who touches babies with the grace of a deity. Aiba's palms get sweaty just thinking about being gripped tightly by Sho's capable hands, of being able to cling to Sho's lightly muscled back as he licks a stripe up Sho's neck, corded tight with passion.
When, while hurriedly prepping for a last-minute press video, Sho snaps at Nino to shut up and sit his ass down, Aiba is bombarded with so many dirty thoughts that he actually gets a bit dizzy.
Naturally, it's no chore to invite Sho over after work. If Nino can kill two birds with one stone by recording music and lulling Aiba to sleep, then Aiba can too, by getting Sho-chan to relax and get laid at the same time.
"Ahh," sighs Sho, after he takes a long drag from the beer Aiba hands him. They're sitting on Aiba's couch, just lounging, and while Sho had loosened up some when they entered Aiba's house, his posture is still made up of hard planes and taut wires. His fingers are circled around the neck of the bottle like a vice.
"That bad a day, huh?" Aiba quips lamely.
Sho chuckles dryly. "It's nothing. I'm just a bit strained, that's all."
Strained, in Sho's dictionary, is synonymous with "under enough stress to collapse lesser men." Aiba knows Sho's been busy lately. With the news segment on the new Yuuyake Skyscraper finished, he's been suddenly tagged with a million other projects at once: a new drama with Korean co-stars, a new MC job at a national science and arts awards show, a documentary about the skyscraper -- Aiba doesn't envy him. Arashi knows how to be busy, but only Sho can be busy with work that requires studying.
"You should take a load off," suggests Aiba, swinging his legs onto the couch and worming his feet into Sho's lap.
Sho shakes his head, but lays a conciliatory hand on Aiba's bare ankle. "It's not because of work. Well, sorry, not just work."
That catches Aiba's attention. Something else is wrong?
Before he can voice his question, Sho hurries to say, "I can't tell you."
"Why not!"
Sho winces. "I -- promised I wouldn't."
Aiba considers that for a second. "It's something to do with Matsujun?"
"I didn't say that!" Sho says, balking. "How did you figure that out?"
"Come on, Sho-chan. Who else could it be? Oh-chan isn't the type to demand those kinds of things and Nino would either tell all of us or no one. Or maybe just Oh-chan? I guess it would depend on the type of secret."
"It's not a secret," Sho says with vague distaste. "We're not students passing vulgar notes around behind a teacher's back. It's just -- Jun had a question about something and knew I had experience with it, so he came around last night and we talked. And he didn't want any of you guys to worry, so he told me not to mention it. Except I have now." Sho frowns hugely.
"Don't worry about it. My lips are sealed. Can I ask what you talked about?"
Sho twists the beer bottle in his hand, spinning it around and around. His eyes are on the bottle, but his focus is distant.
He says, "It was about marriage."
Aiba's feet slide off the couch and land on the floor with two dull thumps.
"Oh," he says.
Sho rubs his eyes closed. "Yeah."
~
It's not a topic they broach often. Usually, it only comes up in interviews. Who is your ideal wife, how do you picture your wedding, other uninspired questions in that vein. As Johnny's idols, the very idea of marriage hadn't even been feasible to them until a few years ago. For Aiba, it's always been a concept that he carelessly tossed aside, a half-smeared note in a to-do list marked "ah, maybe one day." But in his heart, he knows that day would never come -- he has Arashi. And Aiba knows the other members feel more or less the same way -- a muted resignation for things that would never be. It doesn't detract from their appreciation for what they have, but nonetheless could become a sore spot if incessantly prodded.
Sho keeps his promise and doesn't let out another peep about what he and Jun discussed, but Aiba can guess. It's not that hard.
Sho and Jun have the most conservative families out of them, and Jun's older sister had recently gotten remarried.
His parents must be pushing Jun to find a partner, too.
This is nothing new. Not to Jun, or Aiba, or even to Nino, whose mother believes in the constitution of marriage only a smidgen more than her cynical son. The subject comes every now and again, like a season. Spring, when a young man's fancy turns to love, and if not, the young man's parents will remind him.
Of course Arashi's parents know about their mutual love for each other. The whole world knows, to some extent. But they don't quite understand; they don't take it seriously. Either they don't see the true scope of that love, or they believe the phase will pass, or they think it's just a consequence of their situation - the five of them, stranded on their own island, unrivalled in the vast ocean of the world. Who else would they have time for, after all? They hold out the hope that there will be a steady, respectful, appropriate relationship in the distance, and their children need only a little encouragement to run for it. Nino's and Ohno's parents, at least, the former too permissive and the latter too doting, have hopes that they'll settle down together, in some manner of propriety. But when you add three more men to the equation, things are a little more complicated, harder to deal with. Sho's and Jun's parents, Sho's especially, are still nursing the expectation for a beautiful bride who will compliment their beautiful son. Aiba's mother is still waiting for more grandchildren to accompany Aiba’s brother’s little girl; Aiba hasn't the heart to tell her to solicit Yusuke about that, not him. If she knew the truth, Aiba has no doubt she would try her best to support him, for him to be happy, but he also has no doubt that she would be disappointed.
Every relationship has its sacrifices.
Maybe this is why Sho doesn't want to live here. He's still holding out for -- for something.
Sho touches him fervently that night. Aiba had wanted to feel Sho's passion and now he is, but not in the way that he'd anticipated. Sho's touching Aiba like he has something to prove. His hands are greedy; they drag across Aiba's body with abandon and no little bit of roughness. He kisses Aiba all over, sucks Aiba's breath away; maybe he's trying to soak up Aiba's essence, maybe he's using Aiba as an escape. He's the one pushing Aiba's back to the bed and he's the one moaning like he can't get enough. Trying to lose his fears of a potential future, and anchor himself to the present. Aiba wouldn't be surprised if Sho's also wading through a murky river of filial responsibility, trying to make it to the shore without getting swept up in the current.
The slide of his cock inside Aiba is excruciatingly slow, agonizingly good.
"There?" Sho huffs, his lips nipping at Aiba's collar bone. His hips pull away, push back in, a direct lightning bolt to Aiba's heart.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Aiba pants, trying to keep air moving through his lungs. His nose tingles; he kind of feels like crying. His heart aches, even though by no means is this Sho saying goodbye. If anything, this is Sho saying hello, repeating hello -- Aiba can't read Sho's thoughts, but Sho's message is clear from his touch: I love you, I love you, I am here. Aiba does his best to relay it back.
"This is--" Sho whispers, his voice rough around a grunt.
"Yeah."
"I'm not--"
"It's okay, Sho-chan," Aiba reassures him, and cups his hands around Sho's sharp-jawed face, iridescent with perspiration. "I know."
Sho squeezes his eyes shut with a wrecked moan and comes, shuddering in Aiba's arms.
Aiba holds him tightly, wrapping up Sho with his entire body, and wishes that everything was as simple as this, right here, loving each other with tongues and skin.
He knows Jun would never leave them, just like Sho would never leave them. But it's not as easy as just saying it and making it so. There is a bed they have created, and now they must lie in it. It's the difference between Cinderella, who left her abusive family behind her for a happily ever in a sparkling castle, and the Little Mermaid, who had to lose her fins forever in order to walk on land with her prince. Sho-chan had always wanted to have children. That hasn't changed, even now. For one dream, Sho must give up another. And that's not fair, even though Aiba is ultimately okay with it, even though Aiba is sorry, because Aiba is so selfish. He would rather have Sho with him.
Maybe Aiba should say, instead: Jun would never want to leave, Sho would never want to leave. But those kinds of thoughts hurt, majorly hurt, so Aiba doesn't indulge. Can’t.
When Sho heaves himself downwards and spreads kisses down Aiba's chest, down the dip between his legs, and swallows down Aiba's entire cock to the base, Aiba slaps a hand on his mouth to keep down his sob, and readily lets the pleasure wash his mind blank.
In the languid minutes after orgasm, Sho's solid body is a comforting weight, his heaving chest matching counterpart to Aiba's. Things are quieter here, so unlike the constant hustle and bustle of Tokyo's metropolitan centre. Aiba can imagine himself able to hear his own heartbeat, drumming in a proud echo to Sho's. There is an owl that lives in the trees that border Aiba's backyard, and it hoots mournfully into the night, calling for a mate, singing away his loneliness. In the muted dark of Aiba's bedroom, his walls slathered with photos, the world awash with the monochrome of twilight, it feels as if their troubles are six degrees away -- detached and surreal, like a far-off deadline that you never want to meet.
Aiba is absently struck with a desire that Jun be here too. He wants to feel Jun's skin, the heat in Jun's mouth, map the onion-skin landscape of Jun's chest and ribs. The curlicue edges of Jun's lips are ridiculous and Aiba wants to remind himself how they taste.
Sho lifts himself off Aiba and rolls onto his back with a sigh. He says, "You know, I really do like it here."
"Oh yeah?" Aiba grins, turning to nestle himself in Sho's side. "The company is great, isn't it?"
"Definitely no complaints from my end," Sho laughs. "But I also meant this house in general. I feel like -- things are okay here. I think it's because we're farther away from downtown Tokyo. It's almost a shielding atmosphere. You can't feel the immediate pressures from the outside world, and any worries seem less worrisome. I must admit it's calming. And energizing at the same time," he adds, casting a significant look over Aiba's body.
Aiba smirks. "That's because my house is the best. I mean, it's got me in it. How perfect is that!"
Sho laughs again, but doesn't disagree.
~
The headline reads, Arashi's Matsumoto Jun (36) in new relationship with mystery female! Couple caught on restaurant date!
The rumours say that it's Matsushima Nanako, Ayase Haruka, maybe Aragaki Yui; it’s hard to pinpoint an identity from the grainy, shadow-strewn pictures.
In the two paparazzi photos, snapped when the couple had just exited a Malaysian-themed restaurant, the woman is walking with her head lowered, her wide-brimmed hat pulled down over her face. She has long, straight hair, gorgeous legs, and Jun's arm fits perfectly around her slim shoulders, like they’re a sculpted set.
"She's my cousin," Jun tells them, and pinches the bridge of his nose.
"How come we've never met her?" Nino demands, tossing down his tabloid magazine with a huff.
"She studies abroad in France. She was only in town for two days for the fashion show. Also, why do you care?"
"I like her bag," says Nino sullenly.
Her bag is truly a post-modernism feat: it looks more like a crumpled grocery bag than a top-of-the-line haute couture purse. Figures that Nino would want it.
"This is a big deal?" Ohno asks, picking up Nino's discarded magazine. "Is Jun-kun planning to talk about it during an interview?"
"No, I'm not," Jun says vehemently. "You know I like to keep my private life private. The media can speculate all they want, I don't give a shit. It's just annoying, having to deal with it at all. You think they'd tire of picking at the same target for a million years."
"Well, maybe they would if you'd get hitched already." Nino's smile is sharp.
Jun stills. "That's not even remotely funny."
"It's the truth."
"Nino," Sho says firmly. "You're not helping."
Nino sucks his lips in. "Sorry. Jun-pon getting pissy gets me worked up too. His bad temper is contagious."
"I'm not getting pissy," Jun says indignantly.
"You insulted my hair, my shoes, and the state of my nails this morning! Within the same breath!"
Jun crosses his arms. "They're all in horrible condition, that's why." He doesn't apologize, but his face sours.
Nino shrugs. "Like I'm bothered. You're always like this whenever there's a girl rumour. Learn to ignore it already."
"I am ignoring it. Sorry if I'm not as cool about it as you are. Some of us actually pay attention to how the public looks at them. Because that's part of the job, in case you forgot. You hardly ever get gossip like this attached to your name so it's no wonder you don't know how unbelievably frustrating it can become."
"I don't know if that was meant to be a backhanded compliment or an insult, but I feel insulted," says Nino.
Jun sneers. "Good." He stalks out of the green room.
As soon as the door snicks shut, Sho whirls on Nino. "Why do you always have to push him like that, Nino?"
Nino stretches lengthwise across the sofa he's occupying and stares placidly at the ceiling. "Why's he always got to be so bitchy whenever some dumb reporter links him with a girl? It's going to pass. He knows that. So what does it matter?"
Sho looks like he could happily strangle Nino with his bare hands. "It matters because during the time before the rumours pass, the press constantly hounds Jun for the truth about the reports. Every interview that he has from now until whenever is going to mention this."
Nino sits up. "He can say no comment, or tell them to fuck off and mind their own business. Or why not just, I don't know, tell them that she's his cousin? I'm pretty sure that'll squash any marriage rumours faster than Oh-chan can catch a fly."
"I can't do that," adds Ohno.
"It isn't the point that she's his cousin," Sho emphasizes, slapping the newspaper in his hand, folded out on entertainment section, page 2A. "It's that you were right: those rumours wouldn't exist in the first place if he were already in a steady relationship. But he is in one."
Yes he is, thinks Aiba. They all are. And they can never say so.
"All these news articles do," Sho says, shaking together the sheets of his paper with a sombre finality, "is show us that we're never really free from the expectations of the audience."
Nino says nothing, but his eyes train carefully on Sho's face, and eventually, he turns, and tucks himself into the inside corners of the couch. "Don't think I haven't realized that," he mutters, which may or may not be a lie.
Aiba meets Ohno's gaze, wondering if Ohno's expression of weary helplessness was also mirrored in his own. There's nothing to say, really. There's not even anything they can do, other than wait it out. Aside from the situation being completely out of their hands, Jun can take care of himself with these issues. He hates it, so do all of them, but Jun is a Johnny's idol. He knows how to be professional and doesn't need to be hand-held through this.
Aiba invites Jun over that night anyway.
~
"If this is some kind of pity party, Aiba, I swear--"
"Can you get over yourself already?" Aiba says, exasperated beyond measure. "What kind of pity party involves fake feathers and glitter glue?" He twiddles his fingers at a spool of bright green yarn lying on the ground and Jun picks it up for him, throwing it to Aiba's waiting palm.
"Sounds exactly like your style, actually," Jun says dryly.
Aiba giggles. "Hah, well, then you caught me. I only invited you here to cheer you up from your existential marriage-less funk, and not at all because I need someone to call the ambulance in case this thing doesn't work out, which it will." He holds up his makeshift wing to his left arm. "How's that look? Awesome or what?"
"That's not the adjective I would use, but I can't say I'm an expert opinion on homemade craft-supply wings."
"You should do something about that!"
"I don't think I'm the one with the problem here," says Jun, raising his eyebrows pointedly at Aiba fastening his finished wing to his knapsack-based harness.
"Do you know that all famous inventors get criticism like that, when they first start out?"
"You're a famous inventor now? Just because you want to slide down your spiral staircase to see if your preschool project wings will reduce your speed?"
Aiba grins. "I was going to jump off the roof, but I thought maybe I should work my way up to that."
"I guess I should be thankful for any tiny amount of pragmatism you show."
"That's the spirit! Now help me attach this thing to my arm. Look, I used velcro straps! Pretty clever, huh."
Jun sighs.
~
"4.51 seconds."
"What!" Aiba exclaims, tugging the stopwatch from Jun's hand. "That can't be right."
"It is."
"But I took 4.37 seconds with the wings on! How can it take longer without them there causing air resistance?"
Jun shakes his head. "You're the genius inventor here, not me."
Aiba frowns at his stopwatch. "Maybe you're not timing it correctly. Can you spot me from the first floor instead?"
"It's not going to make a difference. You're counting down, and I'm pressing the button when you say go. How is where I'm standing a factor in that?"
Aiba bristles. "I don't know, Matsujun! We just have to try different variables, okay? Haven't you ever heard of the scientific process?"
"Have you?" Jun retorts, and heads downstairs.
When Jun is properly stationed at the foot of the stairs, Aiba sits down on the wooden railing from the second floor and lifts up his right foot, keeping the toes of his left foot on the floor to keep him from slipping.
"Ready?" he calls.
"Go for it."
"Okay! 3, 2, 1, go!"
In retrospect, it wasn't very good scientific procedure for Aiba to push off the ground with his left foot to give himself a slight acceleration. In the other trials, it was just Aiba lifting his foot off the ground and letting gravity doing the rest of the work. But maybe he had gotten incensed by the contrary results, and his body reacted unconsciously to make a wingless slide faster than a wing-full one.
Also, he may've pushed with more force than was strictly safe.
All Aiba knows is that one second he's sliding really fast down the banister, and then there's a flash of Jun's shocked face, and then there's a loud thud, and full-body pain.
"Holy crap Jun!" Aiba cries, flailing. "Sorry, wow, sorry! I didn't mean to crash into you, geez. Sorry, are you okay?"
He pushes himself off Jun, who is knocked out flat on the ground, hair a mess, and wears the expression of a particularly angry pitbull. There are a multitude of bright green feathers caught in his sweater.
Aiba swallows. "Uh, thanks for breaking my fall?"
Jun takes a deep breath.
And starts laughing.
Aiba says again, "Um," but Jun just laughs harder.
The last time something like this happened, Jun was two days shy of a world record in sleep deprivation, and the slightest bit of anything was enough to set him off. Sho's concerned mothering sent him into giggles, then Ohno's reacting giggles amped Jun into convulsions. Nino loved it; Aiba remembers finding it morbidly fascinating too -- he'd never seen Matsujun high on life before. But then Jun's hysterics had peaked and plummeted in a landslide; he spent the remainder of the day trying to kill all of them with the power of his glare, as if they personally were to blame for every second of his migraine. He was so venomous he almost made Aiba cry.
So it comes as a surprise now when Jun reaches up and cradles Aiba's face with a tastefully-adorned hand. Aiba would jerk away but for the strangely contented curve Jun's mouth is now calming into.
"Thanks," he says simply.
"For what?" Aiba asks.
Jun's eyelashes dip, uncharacteristically bashful for half a second. "Just. You bringing me here. I feel better. You being stupid is never not hilarious."
"I think you're trying to mock me but let me remind you once again that I'm a very mature adult."
"How mature?" Jun asks.
"Pretty mature."
Aiba gasps as Jun grabs his arms, pulls him back on top of Jun's body, and rolls his hips up into Aiba's in one smooth, languid arc. "That mature?" He laughs, seeing Aiba's expression.
"Here?" Aiba gapes. "On the floor?!"
"Relax, I'm just messing with you." Jun relaxes, still holding a curlicue of a smile.
"Not that I'm against it! But -- upstairs?"
Jun laughs. "Maybe later," he allows, and for all intents and purposes, seems to be perfectly content lying on the cold, hardwood floor, supporting the weight of another person. His grin fades in increments, like a sunset. "It's nice to do this," he says. "Get the stress of the day out by acting like idiots."
"Hey," Aiba protests.
"You're a 37-year-old trying to make a viable pair of wings out of craft supplies. You're an idiot."
"Well, that's an insult to you too, since you're in love with me!"
Jun kisses him swiftly, at the side of Aiba's mouth. As if he was a lovestruck girl, bravely confessing her affections for the first time. "Seems that way," he says.
Something very large and warm barrels through Aiba at that, leaving his insides a wrecked mush in its wake. Suddenly it is imperative that they have no clothes separating the two of them, that they be skin to skin and heart to heart, so Aiba can empty his tsunami emotions in a willing vessel before he overflows and goes mad from it.
Jun's designer pants are gently pulled down, his designer underwear is carefully peeled off, his cock is stroked reverently until it rests, curved and hard, in Aiba's appreciative hand. Aiba has done this so many times before, but he will never get tired of it, never, this access that Jun grants him. Jun's impatient with so many things, but with Aiba, like this, he always lets Aiba take his fill of whatever he wants, lets Aiba gorge himself on Jun's beauty, inside and out. The world could crumble to ashes around them and still Aiba would be caught like a seeking moth in the dark heat of Jun's eyes.
Today is different, somehow. Maybe the stress of the dating rumours affected Jun more than he let on, maybe it's a mysterious accumulation of other factors, maybe it's a spell woven through the sea-scented air of Chiba, but Jun is utterly silent the whole way through today, watching every move Aiba makes with an intensity that should be scary and maybe is, a little, but Aiba's not complaining. Aiba aches with desire, taking Jun's passivity to his advantage, needing to show Jun just how much it means to him that Jun loves him.
He kisses Jun's cock until Jun's breath is hitching unabashedly, long, capable fingers tangling in Aiba's hair. He kisses Jun's mouth until Jun is panting, shoving his hips up to grind against Aiba's erection, still caught in the cloth prison of Aiba's clothes. He kisses Jun's eyes, his cheeks, his jaw, his left ear; stays there, in the nook of Jun's neck, whispering stupid promises, as he strokes Jun to completion. The way that Jun hashes out Aiba's name, a noise from the very depths of Jun's chest, is a validation of Aiba's entire existence.
He drapes himself over Jun's body as Jun tries to catch his breath, Aiba's face pressed to Jun's chest.
"That's something that I wouldn't mind having every day," Jun says, hand soft in Aiba's hair, heartbeat strong under Aiba's cheek.
"You--" Aiba starts, but thinks better of it. Instead, he gets to his feet and walks to the front corridor of the house, where he's tossed his day bag. He rummages inside it for a second, two.
"Aiba."
Jun's pushed himself onto his elbows when Aiba returns; his expression is mildly curious, but there's no anxiety at all. He looks beautiful, dishevelled, at home. Aiba crouches down, drops a kiss onto Jun's upturned lips. Jun tries to deepen the kiss, but Aiba leans back, holding out his hand.
Jun looks at Aiba's gift.
"Ah," he says.
"You could, right?" Aiba asks, and hates himself a little for how shaky he sounds. He's nervous; he doesn't want to be, but he is. "You could have it every day."
"You kept them," Jun says, not really a question.
Aiba struggles with an urge to close his fingers and hide away. "I made them for you guys. They'll always be yours."
Jun stares for a while longer, long enough that worms start squirming in Aiba's stomach, but Aiba forces himself to be still, be patient, reminding himself that he won't be so hasty this time. He won't scare anyone with the force of his love.
Even though he does love Jun, so much.
But it's perfect, it's right thing to do, because a thousand hundred million seconds later, Jun smiles, just a little, and picks up the key waiting on Aiba's palm; and Aiba remembers how to breathe.
~
They've migrated to the living room and are simply lying there in silence, Jun mulling about serious and probably melodramatic things on the couch and Aiba basking in quiet joy on the loveseat, when Jun's cell phone buzzes.
"Should I pick up?" he asks. "It's Nino."
"You should pick up," Aiba says. "He won't leave you alone until you do."
With a heavy sigh, Jun pulls his phone out of his pocket and presses the call button. "What is it?" he snaps. There's a pause. "No." Another one. "No." A longer one. "Good for him." Then, finally, "I'm at Aiba's. If you really want to apologize, do it in person." And he hangs up.
"Soooo what's happening?" Aiba wheedles.
Jun pushes himself more firmly into Aiba's couch cushions. "That guy is such a pain. Apparently Sho-kun 'talked to him'. Yelled at him, more like. He wanted to apologize."
"Good! That's great! He should apologize."
"He should, yes, but I don't really care. I'm not angry at him."
"Oh. You're not?"
Jun's legs stretch out to the armrest of the couch. "He was just projecting, that moron."
"Projecti-- huh? Nino's got a girlfriend rumour, too?"
"Not that." Jun makes an exasperated Aiba, keep up kind of noise. "About getting hitched. He's in denial."
"What? About what?"
"Change." He's got his key held up in his fingers and is examining it critically, as if gauging for flaws. "Sometimes you just have to go for it."
~
As far back as Aiba can recall, Nino had always been a firm believer in the Time Changes, But Not Me theory of living, more basely recognized as the cliché, If It Ain't Broke, Why Fix It? When Aiba met Nino at the glamorous age of fourteen, Nino, then one year younger and ten years more arrogant, already possessed much of the stellar, discordant personality that, as an adult, would shape his world view just as much as it shaped how the world viewed him. Wit and talent he had, along with a respectable amount of charisma for someone so mousey and flippant. What measure of ability he owned though, was unfortunately matched with an equal amount of indifference that could be labelled as satisfaction some days, laziness others. Aiba grew up with Nino, has known him longest out of all the Arashi members, and can't exactly admit that this type of outlook hasn't served Nino well in life. It was, regardless, what Nino preferred. Nino didn't do change, didn't aspire to change; he accepted it if it came, but didn't expect it to come. He could almost be mistaken for being zen, if he weren't such a fucking prick sometimes.
It took a while -- many years, in fact -- for Aiba to realize that Nino had notable limits. He was like Silly Putty or plasticine. He could stretch and stretch and stretch and cheerfully take another shape -- at the end of the day, he'd still be himself, still able to mold comfortably back in his old casing with the littlest of effort. Pull him too hard too fast, though, and he would snap. Big changes, big personal changes: these Nino couldn't handle, and rarely did.
The chaotic breakdown of his parents' marriage had left a long, lasting impression on their youngest child; parts of Nino's heart had been permanently chipped away decades before he'd even offered the remaining bits, the best he could muster, to Aiba, at the ripe old age of thirty-one.
Aiba hadn't found Nino wanting, though. He couldn't. How could anyone? Nino could be as embittered as he pleased, but he still believed in love, and Aiba couldn't imagine him any different.
All of this is what speeds through Aiba's mind when Nino finally shows up at his door, face a storm, and demands to see Jun.
"Why did he have to drag me out here? It took a whole hour to drive!"
"He made a really nice dinner for me, but there's too many leftovers," says Aiba.
"Bullshit," Nino says, and makes a show of stomping off his shoes.
"He's still mad at you," Aiba admits, which is a lie, but one close enough to the truth that Nino believes it.
Nino grimaces. "I showed up, didn't I? Where is he?"
"I'm right here," answers Jun, striding out of the kitchen, where he actually had been preparing food -- if only for Aiba's pets. He walks towards them and stands before Nino, arms crossed.
Nino scowls.
Jun waits.
"Oh my God, are you serious," Nino cries, slapping both hands to his cheeks in frustration. "I already apologized over the phone! And plus, I don't recall you being the one who got his entire mind, body and soul insulted to a pulp."
"This isn't even about that, and you know it," Jun says sharply. "This is about that conversation we had last week."
Last week, as Jun had told Aiba, he and Nino had a long talk about why they thought moving in with Aiba would be the worst decision ever. There had been alcohol involved, and by the end of the night, Nino was holding back Jun's hair as Jun puked in the toilet and it was then that Nino had sniped that if living with Aiba wasn't the worst decision ever, then living with Jun sure as hell would be. Toss in Ohno and Sho, and it was pretty much a recipe for disaster.
After Jun had puked out enough of his stomach to notice that the churning, boiling feeling deep in the pit of his gut wasn't alcohol poisoning, but rather an incredible, unfathomable, swell of rage at Nino's opinion, naturally, he expressed his offense. How could it be that bad to live with the four of them? None of them were serial murderers or child molesters or people who wore sandals with socks (not anymore, no thanks to the Juniors' style department), and they actually all got along. How did Nino get off, being so pessimistic? It wouldn't be bad at all. It could even be great.
This kind of revelation, made while staring at the murky orange cesspool of his own puke and toilet water, had slammed the immediate truth into Jun: he and Nino were pulling a Queen Gertrude -- doth protesting too much. Way, way, too much.
Jun had already admitted that sincerely considering the implications of Aiba's house scared him, but Nino, caught in a cage of his own unnamed anxieties, hadn't worked up to that level yet. When Jun confronted him about it, he reacted predictably, with vitriol, indignation, and diversion. He couldn't dump Jun home fast enough. And then he avoided Jun's calls the next day. And then when Jun gave up and let the matter drop, the scandal about Jun's lady company broke out, and Nino had been front row centre, ready with his own special brand of hard truth.
"It's not fair that he should get to talk straight like that to me, but can't deal when I speak like that to him," Jun had said, before asking if he could look through Aiba's bag. Aiba had wondered what Jun had hoped to accomplish, bringing Nino out this far -- not just from the city, but out of his comfort zone.
"You call that a conversation?" Nino accuses. "There was plenty of stuff coming out of your mouth, but they weren't words."
"Don't be crude."
"I'm sorry I let you ruin my scarf with your vomit. There, happy?"
"You know I'm not."
Nino expels a breath that rattles his entire frame. "That night. You were oversimplifying things," he bites out.
Jun's eyes narrow. "How so."
"Because!" Nino's arms jerk, an aborted gesture. "Because you had your epiphany on the floor of a men's room, that's why! You said I was protesting too much and started quoting Shakespeare and I wasn't protesting at all in the first place, I was just stating facts! If we live together, things will get complicated, and things getting complicated will make it hard to deal with, and if it's hard to deal with, it might--" Nino's face turns away. "It'll be bad. Obviously."
Aiba's entire body thrums with anxiety at that, but this is not his talk to interrupt. It feels like the other two have forgotten about his presence entirely.
"You're not willing to try at all, is what you're saying," Jun says.
"Are you?"
Jun's eyelids dip. "So what if I am?"
Nino's lips part with shock. "Are you crazy? You know all the things that could go wrong, what it could cost us! All of us! You agreed with me that the risk wasn't worth it!"
"And I changed my mind. I think it is."
"So what happens if we fuck up?" Nino shouts.
"We'll work it out," Jun returns, just as quickly. "We've gotten this far together. What on earth could break us apart now?"
"WE COULD, YOU IDIOT!"
Aiba cracks -- it's not conscious, there's no discernible thought, just pure reaction -- there's Nino's voice yelling in high panic and then suddenly there's Aiba's arms wrapped around him, holding tightly, his hand cupping the back of Nino's neck, his arm iron around Nino's shoulders.
"We won't, we won't," Aiba hears himself saying, over and over, while Nino stands as stiff as a pole and near hyperventilates into Aiba's collarbone.
"No we won't," Jun repeats, and Aiba hears the jingle of a keychain as Jun reaches over and presses Nino's yellow-tailed key into Nino's limp hand. A vow.
And as Nino's short, stubby fingers close over the key in an uncertain grip, his other arm rises, with all the reluctant obedience of a soldier carrying out a suicide order, to hug Aiba back.
~
Aiba was thirty when Sho-chan kissed him for the first time, in the shadowed back end of a bar in Osaka. He was thirty-one when Ohno pecked him on the lips, a friendly peck, an I'm-glad-you're-with-me-Aiba-chan peck, and Aiba didn’t let Ohno pull away. Aiba was newly thirty-two when he got kissed (a stolen kiss) by Nino, and thirty-two still but feeling like a new man when he finally reached across that final divide and pulled Jun into his embrace.
It was Sho's kiss that was marked a turning point in Aiba's life, an ungraceful shove into a pioneering journey of a vast, unexplored continent consisting of no-holds-barred, yes-to-everything, always-and-forever love. It was Aiba's first foray in touching an Arashi member with intent. Well preceding that incident, it was common knowledge that Ohno and Nino were sleeping together. Except since it was them, for various inexplicable laws of their combined natures, their relationship didn't hold the significant impact that is usually afforded to members within the same group dating, or even just normal dating full stop. They weren't together together, not like that. It was Taka and Yuuji, Oh S and Miya K, and they were a force that was as unquestionable as the seasons, the weather, the earth's ocean currents. They just were, and no one really questioned it that much. For Sho to kiss Aiba, though, despite how they "forgot all about it, don't worry" the next hung over morning, and then for Aiba to dream about that kiss every other night for what felt like freaking eons, interspersed with occasional cameos by Jun, Ohno, and Nino, that was something Aiba had to evaluate a little more seriously. One intergroup relationship was bad enough, no matter that it was an ambiguous one, but two? It could shake the very foundations of Arashi. Aiba wouldn't have it. Outwardly, he never brought up that incident again to Sho, but inwardly, he replayed it so often it became the background anthem of his repressed life.
Aiba suffered in lonesome torture for a full sixteen months until he caught sight of his second Arashi-life-changing event. It happened after Aiba's backstage kiss with Ohno, fuelled by concert energy, and not long before Nino's jealousy-tinged but-wasn't-I-your-first? kiss with Aiba at Aiba's Merry Birthday party. A normal evening in an otherwise normal week and he stumbled across Nino and Sho making out like frantic, guilty teenagers in the front seat of Sho's car. Aiba had wanted to approach Sho to ask him for a ride home, but noticed a weird shifting blob donned in very familiar colours and hairstyles moving in the front of Sho's silver Audi. As Aiba realized what he was seeing through the windows of the passenger seat, the world had actually blurred and tilted beneath his feet. He might have fainted, if Sho hadn't caught his eye, yelped, shoved Nino away, and came scrambling out of the car with a red face but redder lips. It had taken almost five minutes of streaming apology before he caught notice of Aiba's dazed, glassy eyes, and had asked him if he was okay.
And oh, was Aiba better than okay. He had, just as he had so many years ago, on location in the middle of the night, listening to Sho's casual remarks on what were supposed to be irrelevant things, felt a strange new light spark in his mind, a tiny, delicate seed take root.
That original kiss with Sho had been exhilarating, amazing, right, but even then, emboldened under the influence of alcohol and nostalgia, it was the scariest thing Aiba had ever done in his life. That said loads; Aiba had done a heck of a lot with his life by that point. He thought he'd never be able to top the sensation of that moment: all of his hopes and fears mixing, escalating together, running headfirst over a cliff face with no clue how deep the trench lay, the adrenaline of doing what he'd always wanted but never could say aloud, tasting the sake on Sho's lips, reveling in the heat of Sho's mouth, Aiba had been sure nothing would wreck him as much as this. The later kisses he shared with Ohno and Nino and Jun, those kisses were precious, had meant everything, but they were, realistically, not world-shifting, the trio of them too encumbered by time limits and confusion and superimposed with shit-what-are-we-doing panic. Sho's drunken kiss had been thoughtless, reckless, brave, and good, it allowed Aiba to at once unburden his soul and self-realize it, but most importantly, it had been the start, the Big Bang, the first step into a new world; it provided the grounds for everything else that followed after.
But catching Nino and Sho together was something else: an equally hair-raising, spine-tingling, brain-fritzing moment, but also revelatory. It wasn't the physical sight of Nino and Sho's kiss that impacted Aiba, hit him with as much force as a meteorite on a sandy beach (although yes it was so hot), but the meaning of the kiss itself. Seeing Sho and Nino paw at each other with unfettered desire made plain to Aiba just how much the other members of the group wanted one another. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed before, when now, opening his mind to the idea, it seemed as transparent as the windows of Sho's car, which provided Aiba with not just a view the show, but also a reflection of this potential, of what he could have. What they could all have, and share together, in a fairy tale ending that should be too good to be true but wasn't. The sight meant that Aiba, as Arashi had always, always taught him, was not alone.
Maybe Aiba would have let sleeping dogs lie, however, if things had concluded at that. Sho and Aiba shared an inebriated kiss and grope in a dodgy yakiniku bar, Sho and Nino had a questionably sober necking session the day before Sho was due for his two-week visit to Nicaragua, which presumably Nino would tell Ohno about, because Nino didn't keep secrets from Ohno, but that was it, the end, no more, go home. Aiba could attribute either situation to a variety of reasons, endless lists of reasons, which were all ultimately excuses and covers, but whatever, tolerable. Sufficient.
But because Aiba's world view had shifted (other Arashi members were attracted to each other when they weren't Ohno and Nino and it wasn't Aiba doing the lusting?!), he began to see, as if a veil had been lifted from his senses -- no amount of pretexts in the world could explain away the lingering gazes Jun gave to Sho when he thought no one was looking, the appreciative smirk on Nino's face when Jun waltzed in with a new haircut, the ever-so-slight furrow of brow Ohno would make when Sho wasn't at his side at the beginning of a talk-heavy segment, the bright grin that Jun couldn't temper when Ohno called for his help... Aiba watched all of this; how the five of them had managed to last so long without some kind of implosion occurring became a greater miracle to him each consecutive day.
He doesn't dare take credit for getting the five of them together. That had been, as was Arashi's tendency, a group effort. Even Aiba's awkward attempts at seduction (just light teasing, just to catch anyone's interest, just to see that he could) had been barely more successful than accidental crotch-brushes in the sweat-dampened madness of their concert changing rooms. What Aiba does take credit for is his uncoordinated, brazen statement to the other four members at their concert wrap-up dinner of 2014. He'd had too much to drink, and too much to drink after Arashi concerts only ever resulted in one thing for Aiba: love confessions.
Under the pooled efforts of sake, good food, post-performance high, and the amazing atmosphere the five of them created together, no matter if they had an audience or not, Aiba had proclaimed his devotion to each member in turn, then all of them at once, and had ended his spontaneous oration with a declaration for the ages: "We should just give in and do each other! It'll be awesome!!"
It wasn't awesome, because it didn't happen. Aiba, in his own ungainly way, had again pulled a Da Vinci, and unleashed upon the world an artifact that was years ahead of its time.
That proclamation, brushed off the next morning with good but strained humour and just a little teasing by the others, had occurred in November, a month before Nino kissed Aiba and ten months before Aiba kissed Jun; all the time leading up to that point, Aiba had spent in a downward spiral of patience and sanity. Afterwards, he forced himself to take a step back. He hadn't let go of the idea, but he hadn't pushed it again so blatantly. What he'd only been peripherally aware of at the time, was that his hopeful and hopeless statement that night had set a new course of events in motion -- like a butterfly flapping its wings causing, inexorably, inevitably, a typhoon on the other side of the planet. Some kind of destiny for five boyish souls tied together by the bond of their group. Compelled by Aiba's bumbling initiative, they'd been, unbeknownst to even themselves, slowly gravitating towards each other with a surety that was customary to planetary orbits. During that interim, there came plenty more compromising and hastily apologized for situations among the members, Aiba's notwithstanding, and they were all, in the end, guilty bedfellows. It was merely an issue of admitting the truth to themselves, of putting a word to their mutual desire, to the path they were all walking down. Eventually, one day, Aiba's keenness got the better of him, and he had, after an extensive internal debate that culminated in the conclusion, "I'm talking myself in circles here, fuck, ah, let's just go for it," taken the wild leap to grab at his irrepressible vision of the future with both hands: hands framing Jun's startled face, hands pulling Jun in for a kiss, hands that convinced Jun to give in as well. The others members burst in the room at that exact moment, and the rest, well -- cliché or not, Aiba would take it.
It was both a triumph and a relief; the past year had left them all in a state of jittery nerves, anticipating something that no one dared to name but became harder and harder to ignore with each passing day. Aiba kissing Jun just happened to be the final kick to get their engine revving.
That was five years ago. They'd had a fair share of ups and downs within those years, like any relationship multiplied by a factorial of five, but they'd stuck it out, gotten stronger, cultivated their bond from a single string into a braided rope. They'd been happy. More than happy. Aiba's mind was a flourishing forest, his heart a contained sun. He thought he'd never want anything more.
Wrong, of course.
Wrong, but that was okay. It turns out okay, because with Jun and Nino accepting their keys to Aiba's house, Sho -- already mostly convinced anyway -- and Ohno, who dutifully followed the four of them in his characteristic leading form, are not far behind, and then it's a set, it's complete, it's done. The puzzle pieces all gathered, the family whole, the debut of a new great adventure and the finale of the fairy tale that Aiba had dreamt for them long ago, under so many stars and streaks of colour.
part 3