忍ぶ感情 Shinobu Kanjyo
Title: Part 3: Shinobu Kanjyo
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Jun/Ohno, Sho/Nino
Genre: action, AU
Chapter: eighteen
Disclaimer: I guess Johnny’s technically owns Arashi, huh? Not me.
Summary: Ohno Satoshi is the student of a strong ninja lord who has lived his life following his teacher’s strict guidance. But what happens when he slowly learns he has to live for himself?
Part 1: Shinobu Ishi ( Chapter one, Chapter two, Chapter three, Chapter four, Chapter five, Chapter six, Chapter seven)
Part 2: Shinobu Kokoro ( Chapter eight, Chapter nine, Chapter ten, Chapter eleven, Chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen)
Part 3: Shinobu Kanjyo ( Chapter fifteen, Chapter sixteen, Chapter seventeen
Jyani had listened intently with a raised eyebrow, but couldn’t offer any ideas as to why the group was attacked after they had completed their mission. He tried to analyze the situation, but the answer he came up with was a little frightening to Jun.
Ohno went on single missions enough that it wasn’t likely he would be a target, since this time he’d had other ninja to back him up when he usually wouldn’t. But Mao and Yokoyama were both inexperienced and recently arrived at the village; if someone had targeted them, it would have made more sense to do it either during the move or before they had made their decision to do so.
The implication was obvious, even though Jyani didn’t come outright and say it.
Jun hadn’t been on a mission in almost a month, instead opting to hang out in the village, either training with Nakai or helping him make a backup supply of items during the winter when ninja weren’t as highly demanded for missions. In fact, the last one he’d taken had been to help out Touma and Yamapi, who had been working exclusively together recently and only occasionally asking for help from a friend when they needed a larger group to complete a mission. But they were both fairly experienced and would probably have been added backup to Jun where Mao and Yokoyama had only been a liability.
It would be an ideal chance for someone to attack him, and maybe one of the only opportunities that had arisen as of late. And knowing the little that he did about Jun’s past, Jyani had probably made an educated guess and determined that there was actually a reason for Jun to be targeted in a situation like this. Lucky for the ninja with the complicated history, Jyani didn’t mention any details around Yokoyama (or Mao since he didn’t realize her connection to Jun), and instead left it open for Jun and Ohno to take care of first and then return to him later when they discovered a possible answer.
The group was excused from the meeting with Jyani saying he would ponder the topic more and keep his eye open for anything else that was unusual in the other missions, and the group paused in the hallway, unsure how to part ways themselves.
Mao was watching Jun cautiously, as if she wanted to tell him to be careful but also didn’t want to reveal that she knew anything about the hidden situation.
Yokoyama seemed confused but was trying to stifle the expression that said so.
“Thank you for your hard work,” he said after looking at the other three members. He ducked his head and offered, “I’m going to go home and get some rest.”
Mao forced a smile at his formal speech and added, “Yeah, I should probably go, too.”
Jun nodded in agreement and took a deep breath. He needed to talk with Ohno alone and he wasn’t really that tired, anyway. The mission had been easy and even though it had ended somewhat unexpectedly, the scuffle wasn’t anywhere near the worst he’d experienced.
As the pair of novices left together, both Ohno and Jun offered a small wave, repeating Yokoyama’s phrase of gratitude for their hard work on the mission. Mao was stifling a yawn and the Yuu had his usual neutral smile on his face, trying to hide how exhausted he was too.
When they couldn’t be seen any more, Jun turned to Ohno with an expression that blatantly said he couldn’t avoid the topic for very long and that it was better to get it over with than drag it out.
He asked the older man in a tight voice, “Do you want to go for a walk? Just for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” was the prompt and expected reply, and Jun led the way out of the Main Building, immediately heading for the path that would take them to their usual training grounds. They’d have to talk with Aiba, Sho, and Nino about this later, but it was better to hash out what the situation could potentially be and what facts were accurate, taking into consideration what Jun and Ohno knew that Jyani didn’t.
Jun walked abreast to Ohno, who was wearing a distracted expression, and he couldn’t come up with any other topic to talk about as headed for the forest, since the only thing on his mind right now was that he might have put his friends and the village at risk once again.
When it felt right, the illusionist finally began to speak.
“Do you think it’s him? My uncle?”
Ohno sighed, knowing that this was directly where Jun was going to go with the whole thing. But it was the same topic that he was worried about, too, so he offered his friend his analysis of the situation, even though he knew it wouldn’t be as good as if it had come from any of Arashi’s other members.
“I don’t know. He was pretty genuine when we met with him, and besides, it’s been four year,” Ohno turned his gaze, which had been staring forward, to land on Jun for a second before he added, “Why would he do something now?”
Jun swallowed nervously and Ohno looked away again as the younger man began to bite his lip. He really didn’t want to be distracted right now, and besides, since it was only the two of them again, it would be easy for Jun to see the effect he was having on the captain. It would be better if he just stared straight forward in a look that made him seemed lost in thought rather than stare at Jun’s lips for the next ten minutes and then make him repeat everything he said once more. Ohno had been doing a good job of resisting his body’s prompting until now and he wasn’t going to let something small like this mess up all that work.
“Yeah, but maybe he just found out that I was still alive…and he’s trying to get me back or something…” Jun suggested and started off into the undergrowth from the path they had been following, intent on just wandering the forest instead of having a location in mind.
They walked a little farther with Jun pushing back some low branches out of their way as they climbed deeper into the trees.
“Who knows about it?” Ohno asked distractedly, looking at the back of Jun’s head as he followed the taller man. “Me, you, Sho-chan, Nino, Aiba-chan…?” he trailed off in an unvoiced question.
Jun paused and looked nervous, but after a second added Mao to the list.
Ohno already figured that, but he had just wanted to double check.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like the girl. In fact it was quite the contrary. She made a perfect match for Jun and although Leader was trying to be okay with that idea, he couldn’t stop his stomach from tensing up whenever he thought about it.
But Mao was a girl that could handle Jun’s aggressive nature and she was really nice anyway, and Ohno couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather see his friend with. And even though it was obvious (Jun had made it obvious) that there was nothing currently going on between them and that the illusionist held no more than friendly feelings for her, Ohno thought that that made the situation all the better. If Jun wasn’t completely in love but just content, it would probably work out the best. He’d be able to focus on his missions with the other members instead of thinking of Mao all the time, and he’d stay level headed in tough situations. Unlike Ohno.
“Well, if that’s it…” the older ninja responded although his thoughts were diverting, much as they usually did. “I mean, Jyani doesn’t even know…”
Admitting that fact forced Ohno’s throat to constrict a little and made it obvious how much he had demented everything that he had been dedicated to before he had met Jun. Jyani had gone out of his way to teach Ohno the facts of life and warn him about anything and everything, and Ohno had responded by keeping secrets and blatantly resisting his master. He was trying to make up for that now, but every time he saw the beauty of Jun’s back or had thoughts about kissing his flushed lips, he realized that he had made no progress to becoming the ninja Jyani wanted him to be, despite his abstinence.
Ohno was distracted once again as Jun rubbed his hand against his face in irritation, upset that he couldn’t figure the answer out himself.
“I don’t know… I don’t know…” he sighed, stopping to look down at the ground by his feet. Ohno followed his gaze, even though there wasn’t anything there worth looking at.
“I guess it’s possible someone overheard us?” Leader offered, but knew the chances of that were slim. It wasn’t something they talked about often, and when they did, it was in a vague way like right now. They never made mention of names or exactly who Jun was, and only used implicative statements to discuss the situation that could be quite the liability to the rest of the village.
“I don’t know,” Jun admitted again, shuffling over to a log that had fallen over a few feet away and plopping down in the middle of it.
Ohno took a seat next to him, unable to stop himself from sitting close to the younger man (not that there was much room anyway), and his hand fell on Jun’s shoulder of its own accord.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It’s possible that they were just trying to rob us and chose their target carelessly,” Ohno mumbled, trying his hardest to make Jun feel at ease about the whole situation. Leader didn’t honestly believe that Matsumoto had sent out another band of ninja after Jun, but he couldn’t come up with any other explanations besides the one he had just voiced.
The illusionist turned to him and looked into Ohno’s eyes, and suddenly Ohno couldn’t pull himself away.
There was an expression of somberness and anxiety and something else that Leader didn’t want to think about all mixed into one shade of deep brown staring back at him.
Jun’s Adam’s apple bobbed up at down as he tried to force himself to say something and Ohno’s gaze darted to the younger man’s lips, which were slightly parted and looking just as alluring as they always had.
“Leader…” Jun started in a heavy voice, leaning forward.
One of his hands was on Ohno’s thigh, sliding upwards and causing the older man to shiver, and the other was gently touching his face as they stared at each other again.
But the swordmaster’s head was buzzing in a warning, and even though it took longer for him to stand up that it usually would have, he did so firmly, dragging himself out of Jun’s tempting grasp and frantically averting his gaze.
“We should go tell Aiba. And Sho and Nino might be back from their mission if we’re lucky,” he said, feeling his blood pumping far too quickly to be healthy and heat rushing to fill his face.
Ohno started back the way they had come, even though Jun was still sitting on the log and staring at him as he retreated.
+++
Nino had heard the details of the attack from Ohno and Jun, but even after talking about it with Sho until late the next morning (their day off), the two of them agreed that Leader was probably right. It must have just been a coincidence, since there was no other plausible explanation. Sho had mentioned that it was strange that their friends had been attacked in such a fashion, and Nino thought so as well, but there was really no apparent reason why it had happened. There was no way that anyone else had found out about Jun, mostly because Arashi kept their lips sealed in order to protect the secret and because Mao hadn’t known that Jun was alive a little more than a month ago.
Although days off were nice, especially because the rest of the group was usually busy and the couple could have some alone time in their private quarters, Sho would always start getting antsy right after noon came around and eventually wander off to do something productive.
Nino would usually lay around in their futon for a little while longer, either taking a short nap or re-reading one of his books (or borrowing one from Aiba, since he’d already read all of Sho’s, too), but he eventually got bored and forced himself out of bed. He’d put his clothes back on and find something to eat in the kitchens and then either went looking for his boyfriend or occasionally someone else to bother instead of training like Ohno would want him to.
Today he wandered towards the village, since Sho had mentioned when he was getting dressed earlier that he was going to head out to find the rest of Arashi to tell them their conclusions, which hadn’t really amounted to anything. And Nino knew if he went anywhere close to Ohno the older man would curiously ask why he wasn’t training, and then there was no way Nino would be able to spend the rest of the day as he wanted. Leader’s cuteness came with unintended guilt as far as Nino was concerned, so it was better if the swordmaster simply thought that Nino was tired and recovering from the previous mission for the entire day.
But by doing his usual sweep around the village, touching up with people he had missed over the last few days and making sure that everything was still as it should be, he yielded surprisingly good results today.
Out all afternoon, it wasn’t until there was a sunset visible over the top of the forest that Nino returned to their private quarters, giving his friends a triumphant smile.
Ohno wasn’t there, of course. Nino had heard from Touma earlier that the swordmaster was training Yokoyama this afternoon, which implied that he wouldn’t be done until dusk had set in, and then he’d had to make the trip home, anyway. It would be late and probably time for sleep by the time Leader returned tonight.
But Jun was there, and he was the one that mattered at the moment.
He was sitting with Sho, discussing the attack again, trying to give the tactician any extra details even if he didn’t think they were important, and Nino was sure they had talked the whole thing through at least twice already. Aiba was complacently trying to sew some material together (which didn’t really look like anything in particular), but he was smiling unconsciously as usual and lost within his own mind as Nino entered the room.
Although he had to wait for Jun to finish describing the uniform the enemy had been in, eventually the chatting pair turned to him to inquire about the satisfied smirk Nino was wearing.
“Kazu?” Sho asked tentatively with a questioning expression.
But Nino turned to Jun and put his hands on his hips.
“I found out about your mystery boy today.”
Jun looked stunned for a second and it obviously took him a moment to figure out what Nino was talking about.
“Yokoyama?” he guessed tentatively. Nino was surprised that Jun had forgotten so quickly about this man that he had quite obviously marked as his rival and had complained about for several days straight, not to mention that he’d dragged Nino with him to follow the recruit around when he could.
Even though the attack was a surprise, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go with the pieces of information they had. It was better to leave it be for right now.
Nino rolled his eyes and gave a mock sigh before responding. “Well, I guess if you don’t want to know…” he mumbled, looking at the wall to his side instead of at his friend. It hadn’t really been that much work to find out (actually it had pretty much just fallen into his lap), but Jun didn’t need to know that.
“No, I do-“ he started quickly, turning his full attention to Nino. “What did you find out?” came the earnest inquiry.
“Well…” Nino tried to sound like he really didn’t think Jun wanted to know that badly, even though he would have told him anyway. Or at least he would have told Aiba so that Jun could overhear them and be irritated that Nino wasn’t telling him directly.
He plopped down and faced Jun, Sho still seated next to the younger man, and was unable to hold in the details any longer. The herbalist was looking up from his creation, now paying attention to the other members even though he was still trying to continue his stitches with his concentration split.
“You should have found out before me, you know,” Nino started to lecture, loving every second of torturing Jun, who was giving him a look of anticipation and obviously curious about the whole thing now that the subject had been brought up.
“Whaaat?! Just tell me already,” he whined, scrunching up his face in a pout.
“Fine, fine.” Nino paused and all of the men were looking at him intently. “Okay, well, I was talking with Nakai this afternoon-“
“Nakai?” Jun interrupted immediately with an inquiring tone. He had probably only seen him a few days ago, since he was still occasionally taking lessons from him (even though he had mastered everything Nakai had thrown at him).
“Yes. Turns out that he knows Yokoyama,” Nino explained.
“Really?” Aiba’s voice burst out from the corner and he scooted a little closer, pulling his equipment with him.
“Uh huh. Actually, Nakai told me that he owed Yokoyama a favor, and so Yokoyama asked him to help him move here and get set up as his payment, basically. It was really funny, you know. He was calling Yokoyama ‘that pain in the ass’ the whole time,” Nino added with a chuckle and Jun was holding back a smile as he pictured Nino’s words in his head. “So, after I grilled him a little more, Nakai said that he knew Yokoyama from a while back and that he had recently lost his house where he’d been living and asked about moving here. It’s been a popular place among other ninja clans recently, right?”
Sho, Aiba, and Jun gave him an affirmative grunt in return, and Nino continued with his commentary.
“Anyway, so Yokoyama called in the favor that Nakai owed him, asking him to help him find a place to stay, put in a good word with Jyani, and get Ohno to train him.”
“Ah,” Jun said with an enlightening look and Nino nodded avidly.
But after a second Nino’s expression dropped into neutrality and then he started to frown guiltily, biting his lip and sending an apologetic look to Jun.
“Actually, that last part was sort of my fault. Remember when I told Nakai if he trained you that Ohno would owe him a favor? Well, he took that seriously and told Oh-chan I said as much and that he was calling in his debt.” Nino paused for a breath. “Knowing Leader, he was probably all stubborn about it and said something idiotic like well, if Nino said so, I have to be responsible, you know? Stupid Ohno. If he had said no, Nakai would have fought him a little, but in the end he would have caved.”
Nino rubbed his head and tried not to feel too bad about the situation that had arose from his careless words, but Jun wasn’t looking angry. In fact, he looked relieved when he realized that Ohno had begun training Yokoyama because he was forced to, not because he wanted to.
And although he didn’t say so, Nino knew that the reason that Ohno had taken Yokoyama as an apprentice wasn’t because he respected Nino’s words (actually, it was more like Ohno to say that Nino could train him instead, if he had been the one to make the promise).
No, Leader had probably accepted the trade because he really did feel like he owed Nakai a favor for training Jun. Ohno was doing it because it was his stubborn roundabout way of showing his respect and affection for the youngest Arashi member, but Nino knew that Jun would never figure that out alone.
Which was okay to Nino, since Jun really didn’t need to be fuller of himself than he already was.
“So, there you go,” he said with finality, his pessimistic mood disappearing and a satisfied grin appearing back on his face.
“Nakai didn’t say where he knew Yokoyama from? That geezer’s been living here for his whole life, right?” Jun asked slowly, the wheels in his head still turning from the new information.
“He didn’t say anything about that. But you can ask him yourself, now that you know where to go,” Nino replied, leaning back on his hands and stretching his legs out in front of him, touching one of Sho’s knees lightly with his shin.
“Hmm. We still don’t know why he came either…” Jun added under his breath, rubbing his chin as he continued to think.
“I don’t know. Nakai made it sound like if Ohno wasn’t going to train him, he wasn’t going to make the move. Maybe he just wanted to be the pupil of a master? Leader’s pretty famous, isn’t he?” Nino answered immediately, since it had been a reason that had come up before. It made perfect sense, anyway.
“That’s true… It would definitely be something to brag about, since Oh-chan’s never trained anyone before,” Aiba added and Nino almost jumped. The herbalist was usually so chatty and right in the discussion, but this was first substantial contribution he’d made to the conversation so far. He was back to sewing whatever it was in his hand, and upon closer inspection, Nino thought that it looked vaguely like a beet.
Nino raised his eyebrow at the item but no one saw the action and so he turned back to Jun as the younger man shrugged and sighed, falling onto his back to look up at the ceiling. He seemed more at ease with the situation than the last time they’d talked about it, but at the same time nothing had really changed because of the revelation. Ohno was still out into the dark of night with another man, and Nino could feel empathy for the illusionist even though his own love was safely by his side, gently rubbing his leg.
+++
Ohno corrected Yokoyama’s arm movement again, changing the way he held the sword.
It was a complicated move, the swordmaster knew that, but he couldn’t understand why this guy couldn’t get the position correct after being righted more than ten times in a row.
He was hoping that he would do it accurately at least once and then Ohno would congratulate him and they could go home. It had been a long day, with his morning being full of talking with Sho, Jun and Aiba about the incident from two days ago, and then meeting with Jyani, who still didn’t have any new insights, and it wasn’t until the afternoon that he was finally able to start his lesson with Yokoyama.
The sun had just set and Ohno wasn’t feeling very optimistic about the boy completing the move tonight, so he calmly told Yokoyama that they would try again tomorrow, starting in the morning.
As he began collecting his sparse belongings, Ohno heard his pupil sigh in disappointment and walk over to a tree at the edge of the clearing, just a few feet away from where they had been practicing. He plopped down in front of it, leaning his back against it for support.
Yokoyama watched Ohno as the older man continued to work, but even though Leader had no particular attachment to him, it was obvious the student was frustrated with the fact that he couldn’t complete the last move properly before training was over for the night.
And Leader being Leader was unable to leave his pupil in such a state. He tried to console himself by saying that once he was done he could go back to the Main Building and see Jun and Nino and Sho and Aiba and go to sleep, but that didn’t stop him from slouching as he approached Yokoyama.
“I’m sorry… I’m useless…” the man mumbled, rubbing his hand across his face and removing his gaze from the swordmaster.
Ohno squatted down in front of him and shook his head, forcing a small grin. “It’s a hard move. Once you get it, you’ll be proud of yourself.”
That sounded lame, but he didn’t know what else to say, not being nearly as eloquent as any of his friends.
Silence overtook the clearing and the cold was starting to set into his skin now that Ohno had stopping moving; he was sweaty all over and the air was picking up on the moisture, making the coolness around him that much worse.
He really wanted to go home.
But instead, since Yokoyama hadn’t stood yet and was looking at him expectantly, Ohno sighed and sat down next to his student even though he had no other words to offer him.
He wondered if there was any quick way to get out of this, but it didn’t seem like it.
“Thank you for training me.”
Leader furrowed his brows, uncomfortable at the words; after all, he wasn’t really doing all of this for Yokoyama. Not in the least.
“You’re really amazing, you know that?”
Ohno looked over at Yokoyama distractedly with a frown on his face, feeling more out of place by the second. It was the first compliment he’d gotten from his student, and usually they completed their training sessions with almost no words exchanged between them. Ohno liked it better that way.
“No, not really-“ he half heartedly countered, returning his gaze to the ground in front of him and forcing a nervous grin.
“I’m serious. You’re good at everything. You’ve mastered using a sword, you’re a great leader to Arashi, and you’re calm and don’t let your feelings get to you in the heat of battle…” Yokoyama said with a lowered voice, somewhere between respectful and envious.
Ohno wholeheartedly disagreed with the last statement, remembering when the village had been under attack and he had abandoned his friends to save Jun. Sho had gotten badly hurt because of that and he had caused so much pain to each of them in different ways. If Ohno had been levelheaded things would have turned out differently… But it was probably better that he’d made that mistake then, instead of during a more serious situation in which there was much more to lose.
“Plus, you’re really handsome, but still cute…”
Ohno furrowed his brows deeper and glanced over at Yokoyama, who was smiling softly at his hands.
“I know this is probably weird…” he continued, but then paused to take a shallow breath, “It’s weird even for me…” The student shifted his eyes to meet Ohno’s and Leader froze. “It’s never happened to me before…”
The younger man took a deep breath before his admission.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Leader gulped, but his expression remained the same. He was nervous at the confession, but he knew that his face was only showing his usual bored look, even if it was somewhat tinged in uncertainty and confusion.
Yokoyama raised his hand to lightly touch Ohno’s cheek and the older man stiffened as the other ninja began advancing on him, just like Jun had done a little while ago.
Leader glanced at Yokoyama’s lips and realized that they looked nothing like Jun’s, not in the slightest.
Therefore he wasn’t tempted.
Since he had a lot of practice with Jun (whom he did want to kiss but wouldn’t let himself do so), Ohno was immediately stopping anything before it was even close to happening.
This would make their relationship more complicated, to say the least, but Ohno had dealt with Jun up until now and he knew that pushing Yokoyama away would be much, much easier, since there was minimal attraction on Leader’s side.
“I’m sorry,” Ohno said seriously, then felt compelled to explain himself a little better and warn Yokoyama before he was too deeply caught. “Love isn’t something for ninja. It will only create problems if you allow yourself to succumb to it.”
The swordmaster believed every word of it, but sometimes watching Jun made him want to forsake everything he had worked so hard for and betray Jyani, his beloved mentor that saved him at a young age and brought him up as his own child.
Leader pushed himself off the ground and walked over to his equipment. He causally picked it up and started back towards the Main Building, almost completely forgetting about Yokoyama sitting stunned behind him and only thinking of the gentle smile on Jun’s face that would greet him when he got back.
+++
A/N: There's some Ohno POV for you! :D After the last chapter I guess this one isn't so exciting, right?
I apologize for not updating for a long time! Still not feeling motivated and now I'm getting sick as well... Actually I'm moving at the end of March, so I'm not sure if I'll be writing and/or updating much while I'm busy. But I'll try!
Chapter nineteen
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Jun/Ohno, Sho/Nino
Genre: action, AU
Chapter: eighteen
Disclaimer: I guess Johnny’s technically owns Arashi, huh? Not me.
Summary: Ohno Satoshi is the student of a strong ninja lord who has lived his life following his teacher’s strict guidance. But what happens when he slowly learns he has to live for himself?
Part 1: Shinobu Ishi ( Chapter one, Chapter two, Chapter three, Chapter four, Chapter five, Chapter six, Chapter seven)
Part 2: Shinobu Kokoro ( Chapter eight, Chapter nine, Chapter ten, Chapter eleven, Chapter twelve, Chapter thirteen, Chapter fourteen)
Part 3: Shinobu Kanjyo ( Chapter fifteen, Chapter sixteen, Chapter seventeen
Jyani had listened intently with a raised eyebrow, but couldn’t offer any ideas as to why the group was attacked after they had completed their mission. He tried to analyze the situation, but the answer he came up with was a little frightening to Jun.
Ohno went on single missions enough that it wasn’t likely he would be a target, since this time he’d had other ninja to back him up when he usually wouldn’t. But Mao and Yokoyama were both inexperienced and recently arrived at the village; if someone had targeted them, it would have made more sense to do it either during the move or before they had made their decision to do so.
The implication was obvious, even though Jyani didn’t come outright and say it.
Jun hadn’t been on a mission in almost a month, instead opting to hang out in the village, either training with Nakai or helping him make a backup supply of items during the winter when ninja weren’t as highly demanded for missions. In fact, the last one he’d taken had been to help out Touma and Yamapi, who had been working exclusively together recently and only occasionally asking for help from a friend when they needed a larger group to complete a mission. But they were both fairly experienced and would probably have been added backup to Jun where Mao and Yokoyama had only been a liability.
It would be an ideal chance for someone to attack him, and maybe one of the only opportunities that had arisen as of late. And knowing the little that he did about Jun’s past, Jyani had probably made an educated guess and determined that there was actually a reason for Jun to be targeted in a situation like this. Lucky for the ninja with the complicated history, Jyani didn’t mention any details around Yokoyama (or Mao since he didn’t realize her connection to Jun), and instead left it open for Jun and Ohno to take care of first and then return to him later when they discovered a possible answer.
The group was excused from the meeting with Jyani saying he would ponder the topic more and keep his eye open for anything else that was unusual in the other missions, and the group paused in the hallway, unsure how to part ways themselves.
Mao was watching Jun cautiously, as if she wanted to tell him to be careful but also didn’t want to reveal that she knew anything about the hidden situation.
Yokoyama seemed confused but was trying to stifle the expression that said so.
“Thank you for your hard work,” he said after looking at the other three members. He ducked his head and offered, “I’m going to go home and get some rest.”
Mao forced a smile at his formal speech and added, “Yeah, I should probably go, too.”
Jun nodded in agreement and took a deep breath. He needed to talk with Ohno alone and he wasn’t really that tired, anyway. The mission had been easy and even though it had ended somewhat unexpectedly, the scuffle wasn’t anywhere near the worst he’d experienced.
As the pair of novices left together, both Ohno and Jun offered a small wave, repeating Yokoyama’s phrase of gratitude for their hard work on the mission. Mao was stifling a yawn and the Yuu had his usual neutral smile on his face, trying to hide how exhausted he was too.
When they couldn’t be seen any more, Jun turned to Ohno with an expression that blatantly said he couldn’t avoid the topic for very long and that it was better to get it over with than drag it out.
He asked the older man in a tight voice, “Do you want to go for a walk? Just for a few minutes.”
“Sure,” was the prompt and expected reply, and Jun led the way out of the Main Building, immediately heading for the path that would take them to their usual training grounds. They’d have to talk with Aiba, Sho, and Nino about this later, but it was better to hash out what the situation could potentially be and what facts were accurate, taking into consideration what Jun and Ohno knew that Jyani didn’t.
Jun walked abreast to Ohno, who was wearing a distracted expression, and he couldn’t come up with any other topic to talk about as headed for the forest, since the only thing on his mind right now was that he might have put his friends and the village at risk once again.
When it felt right, the illusionist finally began to speak.
“Do you think it’s him? My uncle?”
Ohno sighed, knowing that this was directly where Jun was going to go with the whole thing. But it was the same topic that he was worried about, too, so he offered his friend his analysis of the situation, even though he knew it wouldn’t be as good as if it had come from any of Arashi’s other members.
“I don’t know. He was pretty genuine when we met with him, and besides, it’s been four year,” Ohno turned his gaze, which had been staring forward, to land on Jun for a second before he added, “Why would he do something now?”
Jun swallowed nervously and Ohno looked away again as the younger man began to bite his lip. He really didn’t want to be distracted right now, and besides, since it was only the two of them again, it would be easy for Jun to see the effect he was having on the captain. It would be better if he just stared straight forward in a look that made him seemed lost in thought rather than stare at Jun’s lips for the next ten minutes and then make him repeat everything he said once more. Ohno had been doing a good job of resisting his body’s prompting until now and he wasn’t going to let something small like this mess up all that work.
“Yeah, but maybe he just found out that I was still alive…and he’s trying to get me back or something…” Jun suggested and started off into the undergrowth from the path they had been following, intent on just wandering the forest instead of having a location in mind.
They walked a little farther with Jun pushing back some low branches out of their way as they climbed deeper into the trees.
“Who knows about it?” Ohno asked distractedly, looking at the back of Jun’s head as he followed the taller man. “Me, you, Sho-chan, Nino, Aiba-chan…?” he trailed off in an unvoiced question.
Jun paused and looked nervous, but after a second added Mao to the list.
Ohno already figured that, but he had just wanted to double check.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like the girl. In fact it was quite the contrary. She made a perfect match for Jun and although Leader was trying to be okay with that idea, he couldn’t stop his stomach from tensing up whenever he thought about it.
But Mao was a girl that could handle Jun’s aggressive nature and she was really nice anyway, and Ohno couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather see his friend with. And even though it was obvious (Jun had made it obvious) that there was nothing currently going on between them and that the illusionist held no more than friendly feelings for her, Ohno thought that that made the situation all the better. If Jun wasn’t completely in love but just content, it would probably work out the best. He’d be able to focus on his missions with the other members instead of thinking of Mao all the time, and he’d stay level headed in tough situations. Unlike Ohno.
“Well, if that’s it…” the older ninja responded although his thoughts were diverting, much as they usually did. “I mean, Jyani doesn’t even know…”
Admitting that fact forced Ohno’s throat to constrict a little and made it obvious how much he had demented everything that he had been dedicated to before he had met Jun. Jyani had gone out of his way to teach Ohno the facts of life and warn him about anything and everything, and Ohno had responded by keeping secrets and blatantly resisting his master. He was trying to make up for that now, but every time he saw the beauty of Jun’s back or had thoughts about kissing his flushed lips, he realized that he had made no progress to becoming the ninja Jyani wanted him to be, despite his abstinence.
Ohno was distracted once again as Jun rubbed his hand against his face in irritation, upset that he couldn’t figure the answer out himself.
“I don’t know… I don’t know…” he sighed, stopping to look down at the ground by his feet. Ohno followed his gaze, even though there wasn’t anything there worth looking at.
“I guess it’s possible someone overheard us?” Leader offered, but knew the chances of that were slim. It wasn’t something they talked about often, and when they did, it was in a vague way like right now. They never made mention of names or exactly who Jun was, and only used implicative statements to discuss the situation that could be quite the liability to the rest of the village.
“I don’t know,” Jun admitted again, shuffling over to a log that had fallen over a few feet away and plopping down in the middle of it.
Ohno took a seat next to him, unable to stop himself from sitting close to the younger man (not that there was much room anyway), and his hand fell on Jun’s shoulder of its own accord.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It’s possible that they were just trying to rob us and chose their target carelessly,” Ohno mumbled, trying his hardest to make Jun feel at ease about the whole situation. Leader didn’t honestly believe that Matsumoto had sent out another band of ninja after Jun, but he couldn’t come up with any other explanations besides the one he had just voiced.
The illusionist turned to him and looked into Ohno’s eyes, and suddenly Ohno couldn’t pull himself away.
There was an expression of somberness and anxiety and something else that Leader didn’t want to think about all mixed into one shade of deep brown staring back at him.
Jun’s Adam’s apple bobbed up at down as he tried to force himself to say something and Ohno’s gaze darted to the younger man’s lips, which were slightly parted and looking just as alluring as they always had.
“Leader…” Jun started in a heavy voice, leaning forward.
One of his hands was on Ohno’s thigh, sliding upwards and causing the older man to shiver, and the other was gently touching his face as they stared at each other again.
But the swordmaster’s head was buzzing in a warning, and even though it took longer for him to stand up that it usually would have, he did so firmly, dragging himself out of Jun’s tempting grasp and frantically averting his gaze.
“We should go tell Aiba. And Sho and Nino might be back from their mission if we’re lucky,” he said, feeling his blood pumping far too quickly to be healthy and heat rushing to fill his face.
Ohno started back the way they had come, even though Jun was still sitting on the log and staring at him as he retreated.
+++
Nino had heard the details of the attack from Ohno and Jun, but even after talking about it with Sho until late the next morning (their day off), the two of them agreed that Leader was probably right. It must have just been a coincidence, since there was no other plausible explanation. Sho had mentioned that it was strange that their friends had been attacked in such a fashion, and Nino thought so as well, but there was really no apparent reason why it had happened. There was no way that anyone else had found out about Jun, mostly because Arashi kept their lips sealed in order to protect the secret and because Mao hadn’t known that Jun was alive a little more than a month ago.
Although days off were nice, especially because the rest of the group was usually busy and the couple could have some alone time in their private quarters, Sho would always start getting antsy right after noon came around and eventually wander off to do something productive.
Nino would usually lay around in their futon for a little while longer, either taking a short nap or re-reading one of his books (or borrowing one from Aiba, since he’d already read all of Sho’s, too), but he eventually got bored and forced himself out of bed. He’d put his clothes back on and find something to eat in the kitchens and then either went looking for his boyfriend or occasionally someone else to bother instead of training like Ohno would want him to.
Today he wandered towards the village, since Sho had mentioned when he was getting dressed earlier that he was going to head out to find the rest of Arashi to tell them their conclusions, which hadn’t really amounted to anything. And Nino knew if he went anywhere close to Ohno the older man would curiously ask why he wasn’t training, and then there was no way Nino would be able to spend the rest of the day as he wanted. Leader’s cuteness came with unintended guilt as far as Nino was concerned, so it was better if the swordmaster simply thought that Nino was tired and recovering from the previous mission for the entire day.
But by doing his usual sweep around the village, touching up with people he had missed over the last few days and making sure that everything was still as it should be, he yielded surprisingly good results today.
Out all afternoon, it wasn’t until there was a sunset visible over the top of the forest that Nino returned to their private quarters, giving his friends a triumphant smile.
Ohno wasn’t there, of course. Nino had heard from Touma earlier that the swordmaster was training Yokoyama this afternoon, which implied that he wouldn’t be done until dusk had set in, and then he’d had to make the trip home, anyway. It would be late and probably time for sleep by the time Leader returned tonight.
But Jun was there, and he was the one that mattered at the moment.
He was sitting with Sho, discussing the attack again, trying to give the tactician any extra details even if he didn’t think they were important, and Nino was sure they had talked the whole thing through at least twice already. Aiba was complacently trying to sew some material together (which didn’t really look like anything in particular), but he was smiling unconsciously as usual and lost within his own mind as Nino entered the room.
Although he had to wait for Jun to finish describing the uniform the enemy had been in, eventually the chatting pair turned to him to inquire about the satisfied smirk Nino was wearing.
“Kazu?” Sho asked tentatively with a questioning expression.
But Nino turned to Jun and put his hands on his hips.
“I found out about your mystery boy today.”
Jun looked stunned for a second and it obviously took him a moment to figure out what Nino was talking about.
“Yokoyama?” he guessed tentatively. Nino was surprised that Jun had forgotten so quickly about this man that he had quite obviously marked as his rival and had complained about for several days straight, not to mention that he’d dragged Nino with him to follow the recruit around when he could.
Even though the attack was a surprise, there wasn’t really anywhere else to go with the pieces of information they had. It was better to leave it be for right now.
Nino rolled his eyes and gave a mock sigh before responding. “Well, I guess if you don’t want to know…” he mumbled, looking at the wall to his side instead of at his friend. It hadn’t really been that much work to find out (actually it had pretty much just fallen into his lap), but Jun didn’t need to know that.
“No, I do-“ he started quickly, turning his full attention to Nino. “What did you find out?” came the earnest inquiry.
“Well…” Nino tried to sound like he really didn’t think Jun wanted to know that badly, even though he would have told him anyway. Or at least he would have told Aiba so that Jun could overhear them and be irritated that Nino wasn’t telling him directly.
He plopped down and faced Jun, Sho still seated next to the younger man, and was unable to hold in the details any longer. The herbalist was looking up from his creation, now paying attention to the other members even though he was still trying to continue his stitches with his concentration split.
“You should have found out before me, you know,” Nino started to lecture, loving every second of torturing Jun, who was giving him a look of anticipation and obviously curious about the whole thing now that the subject had been brought up.
“Whaaat?! Just tell me already,” he whined, scrunching up his face in a pout.
“Fine, fine.” Nino paused and all of the men were looking at him intently. “Okay, well, I was talking with Nakai this afternoon-“
“Nakai?” Jun interrupted immediately with an inquiring tone. He had probably only seen him a few days ago, since he was still occasionally taking lessons from him (even though he had mastered everything Nakai had thrown at him).
“Yes. Turns out that he knows Yokoyama,” Nino explained.
“Really?” Aiba’s voice burst out from the corner and he scooted a little closer, pulling his equipment with him.
“Uh huh. Actually, Nakai told me that he owed Yokoyama a favor, and so Yokoyama asked him to help him move here and get set up as his payment, basically. It was really funny, you know. He was calling Yokoyama ‘that pain in the ass’ the whole time,” Nino added with a chuckle and Jun was holding back a smile as he pictured Nino’s words in his head. “So, after I grilled him a little more, Nakai said that he knew Yokoyama from a while back and that he had recently lost his house where he’d been living and asked about moving here. It’s been a popular place among other ninja clans recently, right?”
Sho, Aiba, and Jun gave him an affirmative grunt in return, and Nino continued with his commentary.
“Anyway, so Yokoyama called in the favor that Nakai owed him, asking him to help him find a place to stay, put in a good word with Jyani, and get Ohno to train him.”
“Ah,” Jun said with an enlightening look and Nino nodded avidly.
But after a second Nino’s expression dropped into neutrality and then he started to frown guiltily, biting his lip and sending an apologetic look to Jun.
“Actually, that last part was sort of my fault. Remember when I told Nakai if he trained you that Ohno would owe him a favor? Well, he took that seriously and told Oh-chan I said as much and that he was calling in his debt.” Nino paused for a breath. “Knowing Leader, he was probably all stubborn about it and said something idiotic like well, if Nino said so, I have to be responsible, you know? Stupid Ohno. If he had said no, Nakai would have fought him a little, but in the end he would have caved.”
Nino rubbed his head and tried not to feel too bad about the situation that had arose from his careless words, but Jun wasn’t looking angry. In fact, he looked relieved when he realized that Ohno had begun training Yokoyama because he was forced to, not because he wanted to.
And although he didn’t say so, Nino knew that the reason that Ohno had taken Yokoyama as an apprentice wasn’t because he respected Nino’s words (actually, it was more like Ohno to say that Nino could train him instead, if he had been the one to make the promise).
No, Leader had probably accepted the trade because he really did feel like he owed Nakai a favor for training Jun. Ohno was doing it because it was his stubborn roundabout way of showing his respect and affection for the youngest Arashi member, but Nino knew that Jun would never figure that out alone.
Which was okay to Nino, since Jun really didn’t need to be fuller of himself than he already was.
“So, there you go,” he said with finality, his pessimistic mood disappearing and a satisfied grin appearing back on his face.
“Nakai didn’t say where he knew Yokoyama from? That geezer’s been living here for his whole life, right?” Jun asked slowly, the wheels in his head still turning from the new information.
“He didn’t say anything about that. But you can ask him yourself, now that you know where to go,” Nino replied, leaning back on his hands and stretching his legs out in front of him, touching one of Sho’s knees lightly with his shin.
“Hmm. We still don’t know why he came either…” Jun added under his breath, rubbing his chin as he continued to think.
“I don’t know. Nakai made it sound like if Ohno wasn’t going to train him, he wasn’t going to make the move. Maybe he just wanted to be the pupil of a master? Leader’s pretty famous, isn’t he?” Nino answered immediately, since it had been a reason that had come up before. It made perfect sense, anyway.
“That’s true… It would definitely be something to brag about, since Oh-chan’s never trained anyone before,” Aiba added and Nino almost jumped. The herbalist was usually so chatty and right in the discussion, but this was first substantial contribution he’d made to the conversation so far. He was back to sewing whatever it was in his hand, and upon closer inspection, Nino thought that it looked vaguely like a beet.
Nino raised his eyebrow at the item but no one saw the action and so he turned back to Jun as the younger man shrugged and sighed, falling onto his back to look up at the ceiling. He seemed more at ease with the situation than the last time they’d talked about it, but at the same time nothing had really changed because of the revelation. Ohno was still out into the dark of night with another man, and Nino could feel empathy for the illusionist even though his own love was safely by his side, gently rubbing his leg.
+++
Ohno corrected Yokoyama’s arm movement again, changing the way he held the sword.
It was a complicated move, the swordmaster knew that, but he couldn’t understand why this guy couldn’t get the position correct after being righted more than ten times in a row.
He was hoping that he would do it accurately at least once and then Ohno would congratulate him and they could go home. It had been a long day, with his morning being full of talking with Sho, Jun and Aiba about the incident from two days ago, and then meeting with Jyani, who still didn’t have any new insights, and it wasn’t until the afternoon that he was finally able to start his lesson with Yokoyama.
The sun had just set and Ohno wasn’t feeling very optimistic about the boy completing the move tonight, so he calmly told Yokoyama that they would try again tomorrow, starting in the morning.
As he began collecting his sparse belongings, Ohno heard his pupil sigh in disappointment and walk over to a tree at the edge of the clearing, just a few feet away from where they had been practicing. He plopped down in front of it, leaning his back against it for support.
Yokoyama watched Ohno as the older man continued to work, but even though Leader had no particular attachment to him, it was obvious the student was frustrated with the fact that he couldn’t complete the last move properly before training was over for the night.
And Leader being Leader was unable to leave his pupil in such a state. He tried to console himself by saying that once he was done he could go back to the Main Building and see Jun and Nino and Sho and Aiba and go to sleep, but that didn’t stop him from slouching as he approached Yokoyama.
“I’m sorry… I’m useless…” the man mumbled, rubbing his hand across his face and removing his gaze from the swordmaster.
Ohno squatted down in front of him and shook his head, forcing a small grin. “It’s a hard move. Once you get it, you’ll be proud of yourself.”
That sounded lame, but he didn’t know what else to say, not being nearly as eloquent as any of his friends.
Silence overtook the clearing and the cold was starting to set into his skin now that Ohno had stopping moving; he was sweaty all over and the air was picking up on the moisture, making the coolness around him that much worse.
He really wanted to go home.
But instead, since Yokoyama hadn’t stood yet and was looking at him expectantly, Ohno sighed and sat down next to his student even though he had no other words to offer him.
He wondered if there was any quick way to get out of this, but it didn’t seem like it.
“Thank you for training me.”
Leader furrowed his brows, uncomfortable at the words; after all, he wasn’t really doing all of this for Yokoyama. Not in the least.
“You’re really amazing, you know that?”
Ohno looked over at Yokoyama distractedly with a frown on his face, feeling more out of place by the second. It was the first compliment he’d gotten from his student, and usually they completed their training sessions with almost no words exchanged between them. Ohno liked it better that way.
“No, not really-“ he half heartedly countered, returning his gaze to the ground in front of him and forcing a nervous grin.
“I’m serious. You’re good at everything. You’ve mastered using a sword, you’re a great leader to Arashi, and you’re calm and don’t let your feelings get to you in the heat of battle…” Yokoyama said with a lowered voice, somewhere between respectful and envious.
Ohno wholeheartedly disagreed with the last statement, remembering when the village had been under attack and he had abandoned his friends to save Jun. Sho had gotten badly hurt because of that and he had caused so much pain to each of them in different ways. If Ohno had been levelheaded things would have turned out differently… But it was probably better that he’d made that mistake then, instead of during a more serious situation in which there was much more to lose.
“Plus, you’re really handsome, but still cute…”
Ohno furrowed his brows deeper and glanced over at Yokoyama, who was smiling softly at his hands.
“I know this is probably weird…” he continued, but then paused to take a shallow breath, “It’s weird even for me…” The student shifted his eyes to meet Ohno’s and Leader froze. “It’s never happened to me before…”
The younger man took a deep breath before his admission.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Leader gulped, but his expression remained the same. He was nervous at the confession, but he knew that his face was only showing his usual bored look, even if it was somewhat tinged in uncertainty and confusion.
Yokoyama raised his hand to lightly touch Ohno’s cheek and the older man stiffened as the other ninja began advancing on him, just like Jun had done a little while ago.
Leader glanced at Yokoyama’s lips and realized that they looked nothing like Jun’s, not in the slightest.
Therefore he wasn’t tempted.
Since he had a lot of practice with Jun (whom he did want to kiss but wouldn’t let himself do so), Ohno was immediately stopping anything before it was even close to happening.
This would make their relationship more complicated, to say the least, but Ohno had dealt with Jun up until now and he knew that pushing Yokoyama away would be much, much easier, since there was minimal attraction on Leader’s side.
“I’m sorry,” Ohno said seriously, then felt compelled to explain himself a little better and warn Yokoyama before he was too deeply caught. “Love isn’t something for ninja. It will only create problems if you allow yourself to succumb to it.”
The swordmaster believed every word of it, but sometimes watching Jun made him want to forsake everything he had worked so hard for and betray Jyani, his beloved mentor that saved him at a young age and brought him up as his own child.
Leader pushed himself off the ground and walked over to his equipment. He causally picked it up and started back towards the Main Building, almost completely forgetting about Yokoyama sitting stunned behind him and only thinking of the gentle smile on Jun’s face that would greet him when he got back.
+++
A/N: There's some Ohno POV for you! :D After the last chapter I guess this one isn't so exciting, right?
I apologize for not updating for a long time! Still not feeling motivated and now I'm getting sick as well... Actually I'm moving at the end of March, so I'm not sure if I'll be writing and/or updating much while I'm busy. But I'll try!
Chapter nineteen