Ohno in Wonderland
Title: Ohno in Wonderland
Rating: PG-13ish
Pairing: Ohno/Everyone (specifically Ohno/Jun), Nino/Sho
Genre: AU, fantasy bordering on crack
Chapter: two
Disclaimer: I guess Johnny’s technically owns Arashi, huh? Not me.
Summary: Just like Alice, Ohno falls down the rabbit hole... only there are more familiar people there waiting for him than Alice had. Inspired by the recent Tim Burton Movie, Animated Classic, and the books.
Chapter one
Sho looked human, which was a relief since Ogura and Chinen had been far from that, but he was wearing some funny clothes. It looked like he had something of a cross between an oversized white sheet and a dress hanging off his shoulders, covered in bright red felt hearts and secured by a brown belt around his waist. It was obvious the thing was handmade and not very well at that, but it was cute and Ohno could almost imagine his friend sewing the sloppy pieces of fabric cut in heart shapes on himself.
But he was also wearing metal gloves and boots like a warrior from the Middle Ages and that only made him look more ridiculous.
The worst though, the thing that was making Ohno’s body shake in barely controlled laughter even though Sho was looking at him in offense, was the fact that his friend had a stick toy horse painted white and made of wood tucked between his legs, bright red reins held tightly in his grip.
“I asked what team you play for!” Sho said in a huffy voice, frowning haughtily at Ohno. He pulled back his horse as if it was rearing with impatience and the artist wasn’t sure what to do:
Answer the strange question (which would be taken as something quite personal in the world that he usually lived in) or laugh and make fun of Sho because of what he was wearing?
Or should he try to run in order to not get caught?
“You’re part of the White King’s army, aren’t you?! What are you? A rook? No, I bet you’re just a pawn aren’t you? THERE’S A PAWN IN MY TERRITORY!” the crazed man with a horse cried loudly and started towards Ohno, who could only turn and take off in the opposite direction, startled at the sudden hostile behavior.
Not sure why he was being chased or what Sho’s words meant, or even stopping to think that maybe he should try to talk his way through this, the artist simply tried to escape the man who resembled his friend, hoping that the dream Sho and the real Sho were same in their athletic abilities, too.
Sho had never been good at anything physical, which is why he had become a writer in the first place. He couldn’t win races, he couldn’t wrestle properly, he couldn’t even get away from Nino when the magician wanted something from him.
And this Sho wasn’t any better. After about twenty feet, he tripped on his metal boots and tumbled to the ground, similar to the way that Ohno had before he’d fallen down that hole.
Without thinking, only worrying about the man that might be friend, Ohno stopped and tentatively looked back at Sho, who hadn’t moved once he’d crashed.
Stepping closer, the artist smiled as he heard Sho usual pouting voice.
“Can’t even catch a lowly pawn… Nino is going to be so mad…”
Ah, so Nino was here too? Ohno hoped he was dressed a little better than Sho was.
“Sho-chan, are you okay?” the artist asked cautiously.
The writer’s head shot up suddenly and he stared at Ohno with wide eyes.
“You’re still here?”
“…Yeah… Are you hurt?” He tentatively took a step closer.
“I… I scraped my knee…” Sho sat up and displayed his leg where his white leggings were ripped above his metal boot. True to his word, it was bloody and dirty and looked quite painful. Ohno frowned and leaned down to examine the wound.
“Hah! Got you!” the strangely dressed man said suddenly, pushing Ohno onto the ground, straddling him and pinning his hands above his head.
“Hey! No fair!” the artist pouted, unhappy that he had been tricked and lost whatever game they were playing.
“Oh, I caught someone! It’s the first time! Nino is going to be so proud of me!! I can’t believe you fell for that! I caught someone!” Sho rambled triumphantly with a huge grin on his face.
Just as suddenly, Sho was pulling him up out of the dirt and holding his hand tightly so his prey couldn’t escape. “Come on! Let’s go show Nino!!” he said happily. “You’d better hold on tight or you’ll fall off.”
Ohno got over his pouting at being tricked as soon as Sho helped him on the back of his stick horse and positioned Ohno’s hands at his waist to make sure he was able to stay on properly. Seeing Nino sounded like a good idea, though; if he didn’t know what was going on, at least Ohno would be able to see what kind of strange persona he took inside of his dream, which was slowly becoming something more of a hallucination inside of Ohno’s mind.
But before they had really taken off, a soft and gentle voice sounded somewhere above them, which caused both men to look around in confusion.
“I found a friend
Or maybe, then,
A man who’s simply lost.
He met a knight
Who couldn’t fight
But’s worth his master’s cost.”
“Who’s there?!” Sho demanded with a frown, following the noise that had come from the branches of the trees above them.
Right where the knight was looking, Aiba slowly started to materialize out of the air, stretched out on the boughs of the tree with a large grin.
“Aiba-chan! What’re you doing here?!” Sho said, sounding quite upset and unhappy at the sudden appearance of the other man.
Or man that was dressed as a cat.
Ohno tilted his head again to watch Aiba.
The inventor had two purple cat ears sticking out of his head, one of them directly behind his tiny top hat, and the long tail that the artist had noticed earlier was flicking back and forth above Aiba’s hips.
“I don’t want you causing any mischief now…” Sho warned, but Aiba just smiled at him. It seemed that he knew something that the knight didn’t.
“I see you finally caught someone Sho-chan. Nino will be proud, won’t he?” the cat-looking-man congratulated. Sho ruffled at the statement, but replied with an embarrassed nod, mumbling that he had indeed caught someone and that he hoped Nino would be proud of him.
“You’ve never caught someone before, ne?” Aiba asked, turning over onto his stomach from his side as if he was swimming in water, looking weightless and unaffected by gravity. He shifted his gaze from the knight to Ohno and his tail twitched again, only this time it looked like it was trying to point somewhere.
Ohno turned behind him, where the cat’s tail was directed, but there wasn’t anything there so he faced forward again. Aiba sighed and rolled his eyes while Sho explained his situation, ever the gentlemen.
“No, I haven’t. Nino’s very generous to let me still be a knight despite my failures, but I promised him that I would pay him back one day and I think today is it. I must show him that the effort that he’s put in to me and my training hasn’t been wasted…”
As Sho continued to ramble, looking down at this horse’s head shyly and obviously uncomfortable sharing his humiliating history, Aiba raised an eyebrow and mouth to Ohno leave, pointing again with his tail.
Ohno frowned, since it seemed like it was quite important that he had been caught and he wanted to do anything he could to make sure that Nino was proud of Sho, but he also wasn’t very confident that seeing Nino was going to bring him to his destination, whatever that was.
In the end, as Sho began to explain that he hadn’t grown up like other chess pieces and that he really wanted to continue to live as he was right now, Ohno slowly slipped off the back of the stick horse (which really only entailed retreating a few feet) and quietly took off down the rocky path that Aiba had directed him to.
Less than two minutes later when he was completely out of sight, Ohno heard a surprised exclamation from Sho back where he had just retreated from. Slowing down to turn around, the artist once again rethought his decision to abandon his friend, but Aiba was suddenly in front of him with a distinct pop, grabbing his hand and dragging him farther down the path.
“Come on, let’s go!”
“Aiba-chan!” Ohno tried to argue, but it was all he could do to keep pace with the faster cat-man and so the conversation died while the forest around them flew past.
They ran and ran and finally when the artist began pulling on Aiba’s arm (the kitty wasn’t even out of breath) they stopped and Ohno withdrew his hand in order to rest it on his knees as he bent over gasping for air.
“Hey, Oh-chan,” Aiba greeted cheerfully, since they were out of immediate danger. “You’ve been busy today, huh? Running away from a wedding, getting a little door into trouble… and now Sho-chan’s angry…”
“That’s not my fault!” Ohno responded immediately, lifting his head and staring at Aiba incredulously. “You were the one that-“
“That doesn’t matter, right? Weren’t you looking for me?”
The artist opened his mouth to shoot off a reply before he realized that Aiba was correct and closed it again.
He had been looking for him, but now that he’d found him, he couldn’t remember why…
Aiba smiled in a charming and endearing fashion and then sauntered over to Ohno’s side, placing an arm gently around his shoulder.
“Well, let’s walk while you think, okay? I’m pretty sure that knight won’t be able to track us down, but you never know…”
And with those words they started to move forward again.
“Oh!” came the abrupt exclamation more than ten minutes later. “I wanted you to take me home,” Ohno explained slowly and realized that maybe that reason wasn’t quite relevant any more.
“Home?” Aiba chuckled and his action seemed to have a deeper meaning, although Ohno didn’t really understand what it might be. “I guess that depends on your definition of home…”
Ohno’s eyebrow quirked and he looked at the cat with a naïve expression. Wasn’t home just home?
“Well,” his friend started to explain. “Some people think that home is the place that they pay money for. Some people think that home is the place they grew up in.”
His eyes misting over in understanding, Ohno nodded and listened as the explanation continued.
“Some people think that there is no such thing as home,” Aiba pointedly looked at Ohno. “But if you think that home is simply a place where someone who loves you is waiting, it’s a good thing you came to me!”
Someone who loved him seemed nice, so Ohno simply nodded and gave his friend a small smile.
“Where’re we going, then?” he asked after his brain finished processing the deep conversation, and Aiba simply smiled like a Cheshire cat (which is exactly what he was, Ohno realized).
“To Jun’s. I told him to get ready for something this morning, but he doesn’t know what.” The giddy answer was followed with a wink.
“Jun’s…” Ohno said slowly, looking down the path they were headed. The trees were thinning out a little bit and contrary to the overgrowth that had made walking around difficult earlier, there was a cute cobblestone path now and even the flowers growing by the side of the road seemed to be there for the sole purpose of making everything beautiful.
As they walked, Aiba’s arm slowly fell from Ohno’s shoulder and down to take his hand, smiling again and swishing his tail back and forth leisurely. “Oh-chan, we really need to clean you up. You’re bleeding and your shirt is a mess too.”
Upon mention of his injury the artist looked down at his arm, which was indeed bloody and a little dirty from his scuffle with Sho, but he had forgotten about it in all the excitement of this strange world. And he was actually quite upset that his only good shirt was ruined, but it wasn’t something that couldn’t be fixed later on.
The conversation died after that, since Ohno didn’t think it particularly mattered, and in fact he had become distracted by the rainbow colored paper lanterns that seemed to be growing on the trees all of a sudden. The farther they walked, the brighter the air around them became, and soon there were streamers and balloons and a variety of party decorations stuffed everywhere; in the trees, tied to flowers, even some trailing after a group of bunnies that passed the pair as a large red gate came into sight at the end of the cobblestone path.
“Wow, Jun really went all out, ne?”
“Jun did this?” Ohno asked in surprise, turning to Aiba who only grinned at him in return.
As they came to the final section of road, the cat dropped his friend’s hand and politely opened the gate for him, bowing slightly, and then closed it behind him. Ohno looked back at him curiously, but a second later Aiba had disappeared and reappeared in front of him with a giggle. He took the shorter man’s hand again and they walked through an arch in a wall made of neatly trimmed shrubbery (much like the maze at the real Matsumoto estate, the artist noticed) and the sight that was before them now made Ohno grin.
Although they were still outside, there was a long and full table set up in the middle of a marble floor with mismatched chairs all around it, and there were even more lanterns and balloons and everything, so many party favors that the trees were barely visible past all of the decorations. On top of that there were countless carts full of delicious looking food and steaming teapots, everything that Ohno liked and a lot of things that he hadn’t tried yet.
There was a man in a top hat walking back and forth between each tray and the table distractedly, placing the dishes in the middle of the display, readjusting it to his liking and then taking it back to the cart that it had been on a moment ago. He would turn to the next one and do the same thing again; take the plate of food to the table (where another man was seated and watching him), moved it so it looked good, then promptly picked it up and replace it on the wheeled tray.
Aiba and Ohno slowly approached the setup and finally the man with the hat turned to look at them with an energetic expression.
“Aiba-chan! You’re finally back! I’ve been preparing for something.”
“Oh really? That’s good!” Aiba replied cheerfully, swinging their linked hands back and forth to bring attention to Ohno.
The man in the hat glanced at Ohno just as prompted and the artist immediately realized he was looking at Jun, although this Jun was much different than his best friend in the waking world.
This Jun was not only wearing a top hat with the size still inserted in the band (which the real Jun would never be caught dead in), but had long curly hair that would have been out of control had it not been pulled back by a piece of lace to rest down his back. The Jun that Ohno was in love with had neatly trimmed hair with bangs to one side that he could pull behind his ear; he’d heard that it was a dashing cut, or so Ohno remembered, and had kept his hair in a similar state for almost a year now.
“What was I preparing for again? I forgot.” Jun turned back to the cat and blinked several times. He was also wearing silly clothes, although he was dressed much better than Sho and with an attention to detail that Aiba’s outfit lacked. Although he was in a full suit, the length of his jacket was short and therefore showed almost half of the black vest and white dress shirt he was wearing underneath it. There was a chain for a pocket watch dangling around his waist and when Ohno looked down at the ground he saw that there were two very pointy (dangerously pointy) black boots and that for some reason there was a purple plaid patch on each knee of his slacks.
“That’s because I didn’t tell you,” Aiba giggled in return.
But instead of offering an explanation, the Cheshire cat simply pulled Ohno around the man standing in their way and approached the table. Jun watched them distractedly, but once his eyes fell on the display again, he bristled and immediately rushed over to start rearranging place settings.
The other man seated about halfway down the oversized table seemed to be dozing off, his head drifting up and down in a fashion that Ohno immediately recognized (having been there so often himself).
“You’re not helping?” Aiba asked as he dragged Ohno down past the rows and rows of steaming teapots and delicious looking food, on the wheeled trays waiting off to the side and the table itself.
The unknown man, who had brown floppy ears on the top of his head, jumped at the question and looked around nervously.
His eyes hit Jun first, who had returned to moving items from their carts to the table and then back again, then quickly went to Aiba and Ohno, blinking quickly with a wide gaze.
“Aiba-chan!”
Ohno tilted his head curiously (as he had a lot today), recognizing the face of another one of his friends from the waking world.
The way that he and Touma had met was quite a story. In fact, Ohno had almost killed him.
It involved a still life of a sword and a pineapple and a ladder and Ohno’s attempt at inspiration; with all of those mixed together and Touma, who wasn’t quite clumsy but just didn’t look where he was going most of the time, it had been quite the fiasco.
Of course the artist had dragged the other man back to his studio and tried to clean up some of the blood, but when Jun walked in only ten minutes later and found a half naked Touma in Ohno’s bed, he had pushed the artist outside without asking any questions and Ohno wasn’t allowed back in until Touma was all cleaned up.
Now Ohno and Touma were still friends (despite their strange situation), but for some reason whenever the two of them got together, Jun always seemed to show up too.
Not that Ohno minded.
“You’re just sleeping again?” Aiba asked and brought the artist back into reality (or his dream, Ohno really wasn’t sure).
The mouse Touma looked back at Jun and then once again at the pair, his actions worried and twitchy. “Well, you know how the hatter gets. I tried to help and he only batted my hands away. He said I wasn’t doing it right.”
Nodding in understanding, Aiba hummed a response, but before he could add anything, Touma’s eyes fell on Ohno and he let a small smile out that made him look even more tiny and mousy than before.
“Who’s your cute friend?” he promptly asked, turning back to Aiba.
Beaming, the cat began to swing their hands again and said in a triumphant voice, “This is Oh-chan. He’s going to join us for the party this afternoon.”
“Oh, really?” Touma responded, immediately perking up. “Can he sit by me?”
Aiba laughed in response before looking over at Jun knowingly and then turning his gaze on Ohno, who was watching his taller friend with interested eyes.
“If Jun doesn’t like it, you know he’ll make you move,” he told Touma.
“Oh, I know. Even just for a second is okay, though.”
The mouse smiled brightly at Ohno and the artist couldn’t help but return the action.
“Is that alright, Oh-chan? Why don’t you sit by Touma right now while I go talk to Jun?” Aiba said kindly.
“Okay…” he replied, and the mouse immediately pulled out a fluffy armchair to his right while Aiba patted Ohno reassuringly on the back and disappeared, showing up at Jun’s side a moment later.
As he plopped down in the padded pink armchair (which was really comfortable), Ohno stared at the food laid out before him, taking in its delicious smell with a sigh.
“Hungry?” Touma asked with another grin, staring at Ohno’s face unabashedly. It was only polite, so the artist blushed and nodded shyly and Touma basically squeed in response.
“Do you want to eat something?” the mouse proposed after a second, reaching for a place of beautiful looking sliced potatoes, but Ohno stopped him with another bashful look.
“It’s okay, I’ll wait for the party.” Glancing up, the artist noticed Jun and Aiba both staring at him from the distance of one of the many carts littering the courtyard, and the cat was saying something with a grin to the curly haired hatter, who didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him.
“Well, at least I can offer you some tea?” Touma suggested, reaching for a steaming tea pot just next to the plate of delicious looking food. But Jun was quickly coming towards them now, expertly dodging the wheeled trays in his way, and Aiba had disappeared again.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Ohno was taken aback by the force in Jun’s voice. “This isn’t right. I can’t have this.” He had ended up on the opposite side of the table once he had approached the pair and stared at Ohno and Touma for about five seconds, then promptly stomped down the long expanse of the setup while the duo simply watched.
After patiently waiting for the hatter to reach their side, Touma ruffled when Jun pulled Ohno up by the arm and tore him out of his chair.
Ohno stumbled, but the taller man held him up and looked back and forth down the rows of chairs.
“What to do with you, what to do with you…”
The artist was unable to do anything else but simply watch the copy of the man he loved as he fretted over something that didn’t really seem to matter.
Before he realized it, Ohno was being dragged down the table to where Aiba was already spread out in another fluffy chair, his legs over one armrest and his back resting on the other.
The pair stopped in front of him and Jun frowned down at the cat before he pulled Ohno past him as well.
They walked all the way down to the head of the table and Jun finally let go of him, popping himself into the single chair there, facing the rest of the seats. The hatter looked down at Touma and Aiba, and then tentatively glanced back at Ohno, who hadn’t moved since Jun had released him, not sure what to do with himself.
There was an awkward moment in which Ohno stole a glance at him, Jun looked away, and then slowly their eyes met again.
“You can sit there,” the hatter conceded, indicating the chair to his left. Ohno held back a smile and shuffled over to the offered seat, which was a regular kitchen chair that had a cute blue cushion attached to the back.
“He hasn’t had any tea yet!” Touma yelled from his spot, which was more than halfway down the other side of the table.
Jun jumped and his eyes widened.
He looked at Ohno in distress just as the artist had finished making himself comfortable.
“No tea?!” he demanded, although it seemed he was more horrified at himself than Ohno.
On the verge of pointing out that he had just sat down, the artist was stopped before he could open his mouth by Jun standing up, his oversized chair jumping back a few inches at his quick movements.
He reached for the nearest tea pot, touched it, then shook his head and went for the next one down, even though he had to climb halfway on the table to get it, disrupting several plates and glasses in the process. But he ignored those and carefully filled the teacup that was sitting in front of Ohno’s plate with a few mumbled complaints that weren’t distinguishable. When he was finished, Jun looked up at the artist seriously, the tea pot still posed carefully in his hands.
“Do you take cream or sugar?” he asked slowly and deliberately, as if it were the most important question in the world.
Ohno was going to answer no anyway, but at the fearful shaking heads that he saw from Touma (who had moved several seats closer since the last time Ohno had checked) and Aiba (who was drifting over the back of Jun’s chair), the artist slowly replied in the negative.
Jun let out the breath he was holding and placed the teapot back on the table, not anywhere close to where it had started, but it appeared he no longer cared about the aesthetics of the setting.
Reappearing in a chair a few down on the opposite side of the table from Ohno, Aiba grinned at the pair as Jun relaxed again, and then watched in amusement as the hatter picked up his tea cup and began tapping the rim of it on the side of the table, in the same way that he would to see if a melon was ripe or not.
“Can we eat yet?” the Cheshire asked and Jun mumbled something distractedly, shaking the tea cup next to his ear and then chewing on it lightly.
Ohno tried not to laugh and Aiba replied, “Excuse me?”
Jun finally looked up, glancing at the cat and then the mouse (who was closing in on the trio) and then Ohno. When his eyes met with the artist’s, he bristled and blushed, then looked back down at his cup. He properly set it back on the small plate and then reached for the teapot that he had rejected earlier.
“I said yes.”
Aiba smiled and immediately pulled a plate of food closer to him, and somehow Touma was scooting some dishes towards Ohno, who ducked his head in gratitude and began placing portions of the tasty looking entrees onto the clean plate set before him.
After the first bite he brightened up (he hadn’t had anything to eat yet, even at the real Jun’s wedding), and smiled widely. “It’s really good!”
Jun glanced at him from under the rim of his top hat (he was still pouring tea into his cup, but only drops at a time) and then looked away, trying to hide his pleased grin.
Eventually Touma took up the seat next to Aiba, who was still a few down from Jun, and when the cat and mouse were finished eating, Ohno wasn’t nearly done yet. Jun hadn’t touched anything, but when he thought Ohno wasn’t looking he would push a plate of cake or fried rice or turkey breast within his reach. Otherwise only watched his cup, not offering any conversation even though the artist was complimenting his cooking every time he tried something new.
Aiba was slowly working through a slice of pie and Touma was sipping his tea and avidly watching Ohno again when the artist finally set down his fork and sighed happily.
Although there had been little if no talking between the two of them, Ohno was content that he could have this Jun all to himself (despite this Jun being much stranger than his), and felt like he was living in a dream inside of his dream. He wondered briefly of what his life would be like if he simply stayed dreaming forever. Was that possible?
“Would you like some more tea?” the hatter asked quietly and Aiba and Touma turned to watch the interaction with curious glances.
After making sure he was making the right choice with a nod from each of his friends, Ohno lifted his cup to answer Jun’s question, and the curly haired man refilled it promptly.
They smiled at each other and it was Ohno’s turn to look down at his cup shyly, slowly raising it to his lips in order to focus on something other than the handsome host on his right.
Just as he took a little of the hot liquid into his mouth, Ohno jumped as he suddenly felt a hand on his thigh and dropped his cup. Jun’s arm was hidden under the table and it was obvious the other two weren’t close enough to have done something like that.
Tea was spilled all down the front of his already filthy shirt and the cup clinked on the edge of his empty plate before it tumbled onto the hard pavement under them, breaking into several pieces with an expected ring.
With his hand still on Ohno’s leg, Jun looked down at the broken cutlery, and the artist was almost terrified of what would come next.
“He broke a cup!” Jun said in a stunned voice, returning his gaze to Ohno.
“He broke a cup!” Touma repeated, standing up and sending his simple wooden chair to the ground behind him.
“Ah! He broke a cup!” Aiba said in a brighter voice, smiling widely.
Jun stood and shoved his chair out of the way, pulling Ohno out of his own and dragging him down the table, cheerfully chanting, “He broke a cup, he broke a cup!”
Only able to look at Aiba, who seemed to know the answers to all of his questions, the visitor was hauled past the uneaten food until they had passed most of the seats and several more delicious looking cakes.
“You broke a cup!” Aiba explained happily, taking the chair next to Ohno, who was seated once again at Jun’s side. “We have to get you a new one, right?”
Touma, who was the last of the train, sat next to Aiba, completing the line.
“Would you like some tea?” Jun offered again, picking up a brightly colored pot and not waiting for a response from the artist. “How about some cake? This one is really my favorite!” he continued, pulling something that Ohno had never seen before towards them and immediately slicing into it with an unused plate. Aiba and Touma also reached for some fresh tea and cookies that were shaped like pieces of sushi.
But before he could take a bite of the recommended desert, the comfortable atmosphere was interrupted with a yell of triumph from the direction of the entrance to the garden.
“We found him!”
All four heads turned at the same time to watch several men dressed in red and white enter the patio, streamers caught around some of their feet and one of them fighting with a statically charged balloon.
“We found the pawn! Take him to the Red Queen!!”
Jun immediately stood with an annoyed expression and began stomping towards the leader of the search party, a man that Ohno once again recognized despite his strange white hat, which looked like it belonged in the trees with the other decorations more than it did on his head.
“Kame, what are you doing here? You’re interrupting my social gathering.”
“We’re taking the pawn to the Red Queen!” the uptight soldier said with a salute and then motioned for the other men around him to go to the table.
Jun ‘tsk’ed and grimaced at the group, unable to do anything but watch as his prefect setup of food trays were tipped over and then as some of the underlings apprehended Ohno and Touma (Aiba had already disappeared by then).
Running over to the men who had Ohno by the elbows (all of which were dressed in plain red and white bed sheets-or something looking like that, anyway), Jun tried to push them away and rescue the artist, but instead he was only reprimanded himself.
“You can’t take him! He’s not a pawn!”
“How do you know that?” Kame said calmly, watching from the entrance as his subordinates brought the prisoners to him.
“He told me!” Jun tried to argue, even though they had never had a talk like that. They had barely talked at all.
“Of course a pawn would tell you he’s not a pawn!” Kame argued.
“Sir, do we really need the hatter?” one of the guards detaining Jun asked, and the curly haired man looked at him with irritation.
Kame, who in Ohno’s real life was a “style expert” for the Matsumoto family (meaning he did Jun’s mother’s makeup and cut her hair and gave her tips on the latest fashions, and Ohno was pretty sure that Jun got the same help, although when he had mentioned that to his friend before Jun had blushed and venomously denied it), was looking just as chic as usual, although his hair was much shorter than the real Kame’s (opposite of Jun, which the artist found curious). Right now he was wearing a pointy white hat on his head and was dressed in a completely white suit with the exception of a red tie.
“Take him. Nino’s been looking for a playmate,” he smirked in response and Jun let out an irritated sigh with a pinched expression. Touma had already struggled away from the men who’d had him, but they had simply shrugged and let him go and therefore the mouse had avoided candidacy for the position.
“At least let me walk by Oh-chan,” Jun asked, and it was obvious he knew he had no choice in the matter but to comply.
“Nope. The pawn stays with me,” Kame teased, dropping a hand over Ohno’s shoulder as he was brought to the captain’s side and Jun’s face scrunched up again in annoyance.
“That’s not nice, you know,” the hatter started as the chess pieces began pushing him forward, his hands secured behind his back by a loose streamer. It looked pretty easy to break, but Jun seemed to be playing along with his capture and wasn’t trying to get away. “Watch the hat!” he chided, turning angrily to the man that had just jolted the offended accessory.
“Well, maybe if someone would invite someone else to their tea parties a little more, someone else might be more willing to do more favors for someone.”
“Are you talking about Nino? Because I invite him all the time-“
“I’m talking about me, you twit!” Kame looked frustrated for a second, but simply sighed and shook his head. Turning to Ohno, whose arms were also tied behind him with a streamer (he played along too), Kame dragged the artist after him as the troupe finally left the garden.
Oh well. Ohno wasn’t sure he was closer to getting home (although considering Aiba’s earlier lecture, maybe that was not what he was looking for after all), but this dream was only getting more interesting and he wanted to see what sort of silly clothes Nino would be in anyway, so he didn’t struggle with Kame as they walked through the foliage that he had passed earlier. Some of Jun’s balloons and streamers had fallen out of their places, but otherwise it looked mostly the same.
For the first leg of their journey, Jun argued with some of the guards forcing him along (although he seemed to be fairly cooperative, contrary to his complaints), but the artist couldn’t hear most of the conversation behind him because of Kame’s ceaseless chatter. As they traveled, Ohno wondered if Sho had been the one to alert Kame of his presence and thought that possibly these men didn’t have much to do in their free time if that were the case.
It wasn’t very far until they had started in another direction, a new one that Ohno had never been in before. He watched as the heavy foliage changed to something a little more open and in the distance a castle was visible after a while, although it still looked rather far away.
As they walked, Kame was rattling off a few things about his job as a bishop for the Red Queen and the fact that he currently held the record for most enemies captured, but in truth Ohno was only half paying attention. Much more importantly he was listening to make sure that Jun was being treated well, and except for curses and complaints leaving his mouth every few minutes, everything seemed fine.
Eventually they got close enough to the castle that Ohno could see lines and lines of plants that made up the outward garden of the fortress. They were rose bushes… At least Ohno thought they were…
All of them were drenched in red paint. It wasn’t even only on the flowers, which would make some sense. It just seemed like someone had taken a bucket and dumped it on the shrubs.
Kame noticed his stare and explained as they walked past, “The work of our resident knight. I’m still not sure why Nino keeps him around…He’s basically useless.”
Ohno frowned at the bishops curt words but didn’t respond. He was sort of surprised that someone hadn’t fixed the problem already, but he didn’t want to bring it up just in case there was a complicated explanation behind it. He’d already listened to Kame talk enough today and was glad that the other man seemed to be out of conversation topics.
The group made their way through the outward gardens and finally reached the main doors leading inside the castle, which were already open in wait for their return. Without hesitating, Kame directed the artist up the main stairs in the entrance hall and through another set of pearly white doors that had giant red hearts painted on them. Ohno was looking around at the valentine’s-esque decorations distractedly when a clanging sound came from somewhere in front of them and he turned to find Sho huffily stomping towards them, his wooden horse nowhere to be seen (Ohno would only imagine he had left it in the stables outside).
“Kame, you took my pawn!” he whined with a frown, stopping a few feet in front of the leading pair, which didn’t pause for him and so the knight was forced to walk abreast to Ohno as they continued to where the artist assumed Nino was waiting.
“You didn’t capture him, I did,” the bishop replied arrogantly, not facing his comrade.
“I got him first!! I got you first, didn’t I?” Sho asked Ohno with a pathetic look.
“He’s right, he got me first,” Ohno added in hopes of making Sho’s argument a little more secure.
“Don’t care. I brought him back and that’s what counts.” Kame started walking a little faster, which caused Ohno to stumble briefly. Two guards waiting outside of the biggest doors in the place so far jumped to attention, pulling the entrance back and Sho began jogging to get inside the reception hall before the rest of them.
“Nino!” the knight called as he walked in. “Nino, this is the pawn I was telling you about! Kame took him from me!”
“You had to have him first for me to take him from you!” Kame immediately replied, rushing forward so he could be at the same level as Sho, letting Ohno go in his haste. The artist slowly stopped walking, but the men guarding Jun were behind him and so one of them let the hatter go in order to push the other prisoner forward.
“You’re not fatigued, are you?” Jun asked quietly, looking at the outsider with genuine concern. Ohno smiled at the awkward question and shook his head.
A voice that Ohno immediately recognized as Nino’s, even though he hadn’t actually put his eyes on the magician yet, came in an annoyed tone as the two chess pieces continued to argue.
“Sho, is that true?”
“Nino, I caught him! I really did!” Sho stopped in front of a throne, which was on a raised platform, with Kame on his other side blocking Ohno’s view.
“You didn’t, I found him at the hatter’s-“
“I was forming a strategy-“
“Strategy my ass, you couldn’t catch a mouse in a mousetrap-“
“Be quiet! Both of you!”
And Nino’s booming voice did indeed cause the room to go silent.
“Bring the pawn to me.”
+++
A/N: How are you liking it so far? I think the poem stanza in the middle was a little out of place, but I wanted to use something like that since it's in the books too. And the alter-Arashi-egos are coming out. I'm curious what your thoughts on them are. ^_^
Thanks for reading. As always, criticism and another other comments are welcome!
Chapter three
Rating: PG-13ish
Pairing: Ohno/Everyone (specifically Ohno/Jun), Nino/Sho
Genre: AU, fantasy bordering on crack
Chapter: two
Disclaimer: I guess Johnny’s technically owns Arashi, huh? Not me.
Summary: Just like Alice, Ohno falls down the rabbit hole... only there are more familiar people there waiting for him than Alice had. Inspired by the recent Tim Burton Movie, Animated Classic, and the books.
Chapter one
Sho looked human, which was a relief since Ogura and Chinen had been far from that, but he was wearing some funny clothes. It looked like he had something of a cross between an oversized white sheet and a dress hanging off his shoulders, covered in bright red felt hearts and secured by a brown belt around his waist. It was obvious the thing was handmade and not very well at that, but it was cute and Ohno could almost imagine his friend sewing the sloppy pieces of fabric cut in heart shapes on himself.
But he was also wearing metal gloves and boots like a warrior from the Middle Ages and that only made him look more ridiculous.
The worst though, the thing that was making Ohno’s body shake in barely controlled laughter even though Sho was looking at him in offense, was the fact that his friend had a stick toy horse painted white and made of wood tucked between his legs, bright red reins held tightly in his grip.
“I asked what team you play for!” Sho said in a huffy voice, frowning haughtily at Ohno. He pulled back his horse as if it was rearing with impatience and the artist wasn’t sure what to do:
Answer the strange question (which would be taken as something quite personal in the world that he usually lived in) or laugh and make fun of Sho because of what he was wearing?
Or should he try to run in order to not get caught?
“You’re part of the White King’s army, aren’t you?! What are you? A rook? No, I bet you’re just a pawn aren’t you? THERE’S A PAWN IN MY TERRITORY!” the crazed man with a horse cried loudly and started towards Ohno, who could only turn and take off in the opposite direction, startled at the sudden hostile behavior.
Not sure why he was being chased or what Sho’s words meant, or even stopping to think that maybe he should try to talk his way through this, the artist simply tried to escape the man who resembled his friend, hoping that the dream Sho and the real Sho were same in their athletic abilities, too.
Sho had never been good at anything physical, which is why he had become a writer in the first place. He couldn’t win races, he couldn’t wrestle properly, he couldn’t even get away from Nino when the magician wanted something from him.
And this Sho wasn’t any better. After about twenty feet, he tripped on his metal boots and tumbled to the ground, similar to the way that Ohno had before he’d fallen down that hole.
Without thinking, only worrying about the man that might be friend, Ohno stopped and tentatively looked back at Sho, who hadn’t moved once he’d crashed.
Stepping closer, the artist smiled as he heard Sho usual pouting voice.
“Can’t even catch a lowly pawn… Nino is going to be so mad…”
Ah, so Nino was here too? Ohno hoped he was dressed a little better than Sho was.
“Sho-chan, are you okay?” the artist asked cautiously.
The writer’s head shot up suddenly and he stared at Ohno with wide eyes.
“You’re still here?”
“…Yeah… Are you hurt?” He tentatively took a step closer.
“I… I scraped my knee…” Sho sat up and displayed his leg where his white leggings were ripped above his metal boot. True to his word, it was bloody and dirty and looked quite painful. Ohno frowned and leaned down to examine the wound.
“Hah! Got you!” the strangely dressed man said suddenly, pushing Ohno onto the ground, straddling him and pinning his hands above his head.
“Hey! No fair!” the artist pouted, unhappy that he had been tricked and lost whatever game they were playing.
“Oh, I caught someone! It’s the first time! Nino is going to be so proud of me!! I can’t believe you fell for that! I caught someone!” Sho rambled triumphantly with a huge grin on his face.
Just as suddenly, Sho was pulling him up out of the dirt and holding his hand tightly so his prey couldn’t escape. “Come on! Let’s go show Nino!!” he said happily. “You’d better hold on tight or you’ll fall off.”
Ohno got over his pouting at being tricked as soon as Sho helped him on the back of his stick horse and positioned Ohno’s hands at his waist to make sure he was able to stay on properly. Seeing Nino sounded like a good idea, though; if he didn’t know what was going on, at least Ohno would be able to see what kind of strange persona he took inside of his dream, which was slowly becoming something more of a hallucination inside of Ohno’s mind.
But before they had really taken off, a soft and gentle voice sounded somewhere above them, which caused both men to look around in confusion.
“I found a friend
Or maybe, then,
A man who’s simply lost.
He met a knight
Who couldn’t fight
But’s worth his master’s cost.”
“Who’s there?!” Sho demanded with a frown, following the noise that had come from the branches of the trees above them.
Right where the knight was looking, Aiba slowly started to materialize out of the air, stretched out on the boughs of the tree with a large grin.
“Aiba-chan! What’re you doing here?!” Sho said, sounding quite upset and unhappy at the sudden appearance of the other man.
Or man that was dressed as a cat.
Ohno tilted his head again to watch Aiba.
The inventor had two purple cat ears sticking out of his head, one of them directly behind his tiny top hat, and the long tail that the artist had noticed earlier was flicking back and forth above Aiba’s hips.
“I don’t want you causing any mischief now…” Sho warned, but Aiba just smiled at him. It seemed that he knew something that the knight didn’t.
“I see you finally caught someone Sho-chan. Nino will be proud, won’t he?” the cat-looking-man congratulated. Sho ruffled at the statement, but replied with an embarrassed nod, mumbling that he had indeed caught someone and that he hoped Nino would be proud of him.
“You’ve never caught someone before, ne?” Aiba asked, turning over onto his stomach from his side as if he was swimming in water, looking weightless and unaffected by gravity. He shifted his gaze from the knight to Ohno and his tail twitched again, only this time it looked like it was trying to point somewhere.
Ohno turned behind him, where the cat’s tail was directed, but there wasn’t anything there so he faced forward again. Aiba sighed and rolled his eyes while Sho explained his situation, ever the gentlemen.
“No, I haven’t. Nino’s very generous to let me still be a knight despite my failures, but I promised him that I would pay him back one day and I think today is it. I must show him that the effort that he’s put in to me and my training hasn’t been wasted…”
As Sho continued to ramble, looking down at this horse’s head shyly and obviously uncomfortable sharing his humiliating history, Aiba raised an eyebrow and mouth to Ohno leave, pointing again with his tail.
Ohno frowned, since it seemed like it was quite important that he had been caught and he wanted to do anything he could to make sure that Nino was proud of Sho, but he also wasn’t very confident that seeing Nino was going to bring him to his destination, whatever that was.
In the end, as Sho began to explain that he hadn’t grown up like other chess pieces and that he really wanted to continue to live as he was right now, Ohno slowly slipped off the back of the stick horse (which really only entailed retreating a few feet) and quietly took off down the rocky path that Aiba had directed him to.
Less than two minutes later when he was completely out of sight, Ohno heard a surprised exclamation from Sho back where he had just retreated from. Slowing down to turn around, the artist once again rethought his decision to abandon his friend, but Aiba was suddenly in front of him with a distinct pop, grabbing his hand and dragging him farther down the path.
“Come on, let’s go!”
“Aiba-chan!” Ohno tried to argue, but it was all he could do to keep pace with the faster cat-man and so the conversation died while the forest around them flew past.
They ran and ran and finally when the artist began pulling on Aiba’s arm (the kitty wasn’t even out of breath) they stopped and Ohno withdrew his hand in order to rest it on his knees as he bent over gasping for air.
“Hey, Oh-chan,” Aiba greeted cheerfully, since they were out of immediate danger. “You’ve been busy today, huh? Running away from a wedding, getting a little door into trouble… and now Sho-chan’s angry…”
“That’s not my fault!” Ohno responded immediately, lifting his head and staring at Aiba incredulously. “You were the one that-“
“That doesn’t matter, right? Weren’t you looking for me?”
The artist opened his mouth to shoot off a reply before he realized that Aiba was correct and closed it again.
He had been looking for him, but now that he’d found him, he couldn’t remember why…
Aiba smiled in a charming and endearing fashion and then sauntered over to Ohno’s side, placing an arm gently around his shoulder.
“Well, let’s walk while you think, okay? I’m pretty sure that knight won’t be able to track us down, but you never know…”
And with those words they started to move forward again.
“Oh!” came the abrupt exclamation more than ten minutes later. “I wanted you to take me home,” Ohno explained slowly and realized that maybe that reason wasn’t quite relevant any more.
“Home?” Aiba chuckled and his action seemed to have a deeper meaning, although Ohno didn’t really understand what it might be. “I guess that depends on your definition of home…”
Ohno’s eyebrow quirked and he looked at the cat with a naïve expression. Wasn’t home just home?
“Well,” his friend started to explain. “Some people think that home is the place that they pay money for. Some people think that home is the place they grew up in.”
His eyes misting over in understanding, Ohno nodded and listened as the explanation continued.
“Some people think that there is no such thing as home,” Aiba pointedly looked at Ohno. “But if you think that home is simply a place where someone who loves you is waiting, it’s a good thing you came to me!”
Someone who loved him seemed nice, so Ohno simply nodded and gave his friend a small smile.
“Where’re we going, then?” he asked after his brain finished processing the deep conversation, and Aiba simply smiled like a Cheshire cat (which is exactly what he was, Ohno realized).
“To Jun’s. I told him to get ready for something this morning, but he doesn’t know what.” The giddy answer was followed with a wink.
“Jun’s…” Ohno said slowly, looking down the path they were headed. The trees were thinning out a little bit and contrary to the overgrowth that had made walking around difficult earlier, there was a cute cobblestone path now and even the flowers growing by the side of the road seemed to be there for the sole purpose of making everything beautiful.
As they walked, Aiba’s arm slowly fell from Ohno’s shoulder and down to take his hand, smiling again and swishing his tail back and forth leisurely. “Oh-chan, we really need to clean you up. You’re bleeding and your shirt is a mess too.”
Upon mention of his injury the artist looked down at his arm, which was indeed bloody and a little dirty from his scuffle with Sho, but he had forgotten about it in all the excitement of this strange world. And he was actually quite upset that his only good shirt was ruined, but it wasn’t something that couldn’t be fixed later on.
The conversation died after that, since Ohno didn’t think it particularly mattered, and in fact he had become distracted by the rainbow colored paper lanterns that seemed to be growing on the trees all of a sudden. The farther they walked, the brighter the air around them became, and soon there were streamers and balloons and a variety of party decorations stuffed everywhere; in the trees, tied to flowers, even some trailing after a group of bunnies that passed the pair as a large red gate came into sight at the end of the cobblestone path.
“Wow, Jun really went all out, ne?”
“Jun did this?” Ohno asked in surprise, turning to Aiba who only grinned at him in return.
As they came to the final section of road, the cat dropped his friend’s hand and politely opened the gate for him, bowing slightly, and then closed it behind him. Ohno looked back at him curiously, but a second later Aiba had disappeared and reappeared in front of him with a giggle. He took the shorter man’s hand again and they walked through an arch in a wall made of neatly trimmed shrubbery (much like the maze at the real Matsumoto estate, the artist noticed) and the sight that was before them now made Ohno grin.
Although they were still outside, there was a long and full table set up in the middle of a marble floor with mismatched chairs all around it, and there were even more lanterns and balloons and everything, so many party favors that the trees were barely visible past all of the decorations. On top of that there were countless carts full of delicious looking food and steaming teapots, everything that Ohno liked and a lot of things that he hadn’t tried yet.
There was a man in a top hat walking back and forth between each tray and the table distractedly, placing the dishes in the middle of the display, readjusting it to his liking and then taking it back to the cart that it had been on a moment ago. He would turn to the next one and do the same thing again; take the plate of food to the table (where another man was seated and watching him), moved it so it looked good, then promptly picked it up and replace it on the wheeled tray.
Aiba and Ohno slowly approached the setup and finally the man with the hat turned to look at them with an energetic expression.
“Aiba-chan! You’re finally back! I’ve been preparing for something.”
“Oh really? That’s good!” Aiba replied cheerfully, swinging their linked hands back and forth to bring attention to Ohno.
The man in the hat glanced at Ohno just as prompted and the artist immediately realized he was looking at Jun, although this Jun was much different than his best friend in the waking world.
This Jun was not only wearing a top hat with the size still inserted in the band (which the real Jun would never be caught dead in), but had long curly hair that would have been out of control had it not been pulled back by a piece of lace to rest down his back. The Jun that Ohno was in love with had neatly trimmed hair with bangs to one side that he could pull behind his ear; he’d heard that it was a dashing cut, or so Ohno remembered, and had kept his hair in a similar state for almost a year now.
“What was I preparing for again? I forgot.” Jun turned back to the cat and blinked several times. He was also wearing silly clothes, although he was dressed much better than Sho and with an attention to detail that Aiba’s outfit lacked. Although he was in a full suit, the length of his jacket was short and therefore showed almost half of the black vest and white dress shirt he was wearing underneath it. There was a chain for a pocket watch dangling around his waist and when Ohno looked down at the ground he saw that there were two very pointy (dangerously pointy) black boots and that for some reason there was a purple plaid patch on each knee of his slacks.
“That’s because I didn’t tell you,” Aiba giggled in return.
But instead of offering an explanation, the Cheshire cat simply pulled Ohno around the man standing in their way and approached the table. Jun watched them distractedly, but once his eyes fell on the display again, he bristled and immediately rushed over to start rearranging place settings.
The other man seated about halfway down the oversized table seemed to be dozing off, his head drifting up and down in a fashion that Ohno immediately recognized (having been there so often himself).
“You’re not helping?” Aiba asked as he dragged Ohno down past the rows and rows of steaming teapots and delicious looking food, on the wheeled trays waiting off to the side and the table itself.
The unknown man, who had brown floppy ears on the top of his head, jumped at the question and looked around nervously.
His eyes hit Jun first, who had returned to moving items from their carts to the table and then back again, then quickly went to Aiba and Ohno, blinking quickly with a wide gaze.
“Aiba-chan!”
Ohno tilted his head curiously (as he had a lot today), recognizing the face of another one of his friends from the waking world.
The way that he and Touma had met was quite a story. In fact, Ohno had almost killed him.
It involved a still life of a sword and a pineapple and a ladder and Ohno’s attempt at inspiration; with all of those mixed together and Touma, who wasn’t quite clumsy but just didn’t look where he was going most of the time, it had been quite the fiasco.
Of course the artist had dragged the other man back to his studio and tried to clean up some of the blood, but when Jun walked in only ten minutes later and found a half naked Touma in Ohno’s bed, he had pushed the artist outside without asking any questions and Ohno wasn’t allowed back in until Touma was all cleaned up.
Now Ohno and Touma were still friends (despite their strange situation), but for some reason whenever the two of them got together, Jun always seemed to show up too.
Not that Ohno minded.
“You’re just sleeping again?” Aiba asked and brought the artist back into reality (or his dream, Ohno really wasn’t sure).
The mouse Touma looked back at Jun and then once again at the pair, his actions worried and twitchy. “Well, you know how the hatter gets. I tried to help and he only batted my hands away. He said I wasn’t doing it right.”
Nodding in understanding, Aiba hummed a response, but before he could add anything, Touma’s eyes fell on Ohno and he let a small smile out that made him look even more tiny and mousy than before.
“Who’s your cute friend?” he promptly asked, turning back to Aiba.
Beaming, the cat began to swing their hands again and said in a triumphant voice, “This is Oh-chan. He’s going to join us for the party this afternoon.”
“Oh, really?” Touma responded, immediately perking up. “Can he sit by me?”
Aiba laughed in response before looking over at Jun knowingly and then turning his gaze on Ohno, who was watching his taller friend with interested eyes.
“If Jun doesn’t like it, you know he’ll make you move,” he told Touma.
“Oh, I know. Even just for a second is okay, though.”
The mouse smiled brightly at Ohno and the artist couldn’t help but return the action.
“Is that alright, Oh-chan? Why don’t you sit by Touma right now while I go talk to Jun?” Aiba said kindly.
“Okay…” he replied, and the mouse immediately pulled out a fluffy armchair to his right while Aiba patted Ohno reassuringly on the back and disappeared, showing up at Jun’s side a moment later.
As he plopped down in the padded pink armchair (which was really comfortable), Ohno stared at the food laid out before him, taking in its delicious smell with a sigh.
“Hungry?” Touma asked with another grin, staring at Ohno’s face unabashedly. It was only polite, so the artist blushed and nodded shyly and Touma basically squeed in response.
“Do you want to eat something?” the mouse proposed after a second, reaching for a place of beautiful looking sliced potatoes, but Ohno stopped him with another bashful look.
“It’s okay, I’ll wait for the party.” Glancing up, the artist noticed Jun and Aiba both staring at him from the distance of one of the many carts littering the courtyard, and the cat was saying something with a grin to the curly haired hatter, who didn’t seem to be paying much attention to him.
“Well, at least I can offer you some tea?” Touma suggested, reaching for a steaming tea pot just next to the plate of delicious looking food. But Jun was quickly coming towards them now, expertly dodging the wheeled trays in his way, and Aiba had disappeared again.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Ohno was taken aback by the force in Jun’s voice. “This isn’t right. I can’t have this.” He had ended up on the opposite side of the table once he had approached the pair and stared at Ohno and Touma for about five seconds, then promptly stomped down the long expanse of the setup while the duo simply watched.
After patiently waiting for the hatter to reach their side, Touma ruffled when Jun pulled Ohno up by the arm and tore him out of his chair.
Ohno stumbled, but the taller man held him up and looked back and forth down the rows of chairs.
“What to do with you, what to do with you…”
The artist was unable to do anything else but simply watch the copy of the man he loved as he fretted over something that didn’t really seem to matter.
Before he realized it, Ohno was being dragged down the table to where Aiba was already spread out in another fluffy chair, his legs over one armrest and his back resting on the other.
The pair stopped in front of him and Jun frowned down at the cat before he pulled Ohno past him as well.
They walked all the way down to the head of the table and Jun finally let go of him, popping himself into the single chair there, facing the rest of the seats. The hatter looked down at Touma and Aiba, and then tentatively glanced back at Ohno, who hadn’t moved since Jun had released him, not sure what to do with himself.
There was an awkward moment in which Ohno stole a glance at him, Jun looked away, and then slowly their eyes met again.
“You can sit there,” the hatter conceded, indicating the chair to his left. Ohno held back a smile and shuffled over to the offered seat, which was a regular kitchen chair that had a cute blue cushion attached to the back.
“He hasn’t had any tea yet!” Touma yelled from his spot, which was more than halfway down the other side of the table.
Jun jumped and his eyes widened.
He looked at Ohno in distress just as the artist had finished making himself comfortable.
“No tea?!” he demanded, although it seemed he was more horrified at himself than Ohno.
On the verge of pointing out that he had just sat down, the artist was stopped before he could open his mouth by Jun standing up, his oversized chair jumping back a few inches at his quick movements.
He reached for the nearest tea pot, touched it, then shook his head and went for the next one down, even though he had to climb halfway on the table to get it, disrupting several plates and glasses in the process. But he ignored those and carefully filled the teacup that was sitting in front of Ohno’s plate with a few mumbled complaints that weren’t distinguishable. When he was finished, Jun looked up at the artist seriously, the tea pot still posed carefully in his hands.
“Do you take cream or sugar?” he asked slowly and deliberately, as if it were the most important question in the world.
Ohno was going to answer no anyway, but at the fearful shaking heads that he saw from Touma (who had moved several seats closer since the last time Ohno had checked) and Aiba (who was drifting over the back of Jun’s chair), the artist slowly replied in the negative.
Jun let out the breath he was holding and placed the teapot back on the table, not anywhere close to where it had started, but it appeared he no longer cared about the aesthetics of the setting.
Reappearing in a chair a few down on the opposite side of the table from Ohno, Aiba grinned at the pair as Jun relaxed again, and then watched in amusement as the hatter picked up his tea cup and began tapping the rim of it on the side of the table, in the same way that he would to see if a melon was ripe or not.
“Can we eat yet?” the Cheshire asked and Jun mumbled something distractedly, shaking the tea cup next to his ear and then chewing on it lightly.
Ohno tried not to laugh and Aiba replied, “Excuse me?”
Jun finally looked up, glancing at the cat and then the mouse (who was closing in on the trio) and then Ohno. When his eyes met with the artist’s, he bristled and blushed, then looked back down at his cup. He properly set it back on the small plate and then reached for the teapot that he had rejected earlier.
“I said yes.”
Aiba smiled and immediately pulled a plate of food closer to him, and somehow Touma was scooting some dishes towards Ohno, who ducked his head in gratitude and began placing portions of the tasty looking entrees onto the clean plate set before him.
After the first bite he brightened up (he hadn’t had anything to eat yet, even at the real Jun’s wedding), and smiled widely. “It’s really good!”
Jun glanced at him from under the rim of his top hat (he was still pouring tea into his cup, but only drops at a time) and then looked away, trying to hide his pleased grin.
Eventually Touma took up the seat next to Aiba, who was still a few down from Jun, and when the cat and mouse were finished eating, Ohno wasn’t nearly done yet. Jun hadn’t touched anything, but when he thought Ohno wasn’t looking he would push a plate of cake or fried rice or turkey breast within his reach. Otherwise only watched his cup, not offering any conversation even though the artist was complimenting his cooking every time he tried something new.
Aiba was slowly working through a slice of pie and Touma was sipping his tea and avidly watching Ohno again when the artist finally set down his fork and sighed happily.
Although there had been little if no talking between the two of them, Ohno was content that he could have this Jun all to himself (despite this Jun being much stranger than his), and felt like he was living in a dream inside of his dream. He wondered briefly of what his life would be like if he simply stayed dreaming forever. Was that possible?
“Would you like some more tea?” the hatter asked quietly and Aiba and Touma turned to watch the interaction with curious glances.
After making sure he was making the right choice with a nod from each of his friends, Ohno lifted his cup to answer Jun’s question, and the curly haired man refilled it promptly.
They smiled at each other and it was Ohno’s turn to look down at his cup shyly, slowly raising it to his lips in order to focus on something other than the handsome host on his right.
Just as he took a little of the hot liquid into his mouth, Ohno jumped as he suddenly felt a hand on his thigh and dropped his cup. Jun’s arm was hidden under the table and it was obvious the other two weren’t close enough to have done something like that.
Tea was spilled all down the front of his already filthy shirt and the cup clinked on the edge of his empty plate before it tumbled onto the hard pavement under them, breaking into several pieces with an expected ring.
With his hand still on Ohno’s leg, Jun looked down at the broken cutlery, and the artist was almost terrified of what would come next.
“He broke a cup!” Jun said in a stunned voice, returning his gaze to Ohno.
“He broke a cup!” Touma repeated, standing up and sending his simple wooden chair to the ground behind him.
“Ah! He broke a cup!” Aiba said in a brighter voice, smiling widely.
Jun stood and shoved his chair out of the way, pulling Ohno out of his own and dragging him down the table, cheerfully chanting, “He broke a cup, he broke a cup!”
Only able to look at Aiba, who seemed to know the answers to all of his questions, the visitor was hauled past the uneaten food until they had passed most of the seats and several more delicious looking cakes.
“You broke a cup!” Aiba explained happily, taking the chair next to Ohno, who was seated once again at Jun’s side. “We have to get you a new one, right?”
Touma, who was the last of the train, sat next to Aiba, completing the line.
“Would you like some tea?” Jun offered again, picking up a brightly colored pot and not waiting for a response from the artist. “How about some cake? This one is really my favorite!” he continued, pulling something that Ohno had never seen before towards them and immediately slicing into it with an unused plate. Aiba and Touma also reached for some fresh tea and cookies that were shaped like pieces of sushi.
But before he could take a bite of the recommended desert, the comfortable atmosphere was interrupted with a yell of triumph from the direction of the entrance to the garden.
“We found him!”
All four heads turned at the same time to watch several men dressed in red and white enter the patio, streamers caught around some of their feet and one of them fighting with a statically charged balloon.
“We found the pawn! Take him to the Red Queen!!”
Jun immediately stood with an annoyed expression and began stomping towards the leader of the search party, a man that Ohno once again recognized despite his strange white hat, which looked like it belonged in the trees with the other decorations more than it did on his head.
“Kame, what are you doing here? You’re interrupting my social gathering.”
“We’re taking the pawn to the Red Queen!” the uptight soldier said with a salute and then motioned for the other men around him to go to the table.
Jun ‘tsk’ed and grimaced at the group, unable to do anything but watch as his prefect setup of food trays were tipped over and then as some of the underlings apprehended Ohno and Touma (Aiba had already disappeared by then).
Running over to the men who had Ohno by the elbows (all of which were dressed in plain red and white bed sheets-or something looking like that, anyway), Jun tried to push them away and rescue the artist, but instead he was only reprimanded himself.
“You can’t take him! He’s not a pawn!”
“How do you know that?” Kame said calmly, watching from the entrance as his subordinates brought the prisoners to him.
“He told me!” Jun tried to argue, even though they had never had a talk like that. They had barely talked at all.
“Of course a pawn would tell you he’s not a pawn!” Kame argued.
“Sir, do we really need the hatter?” one of the guards detaining Jun asked, and the curly haired man looked at him with irritation.
Kame, who in Ohno’s real life was a “style expert” for the Matsumoto family (meaning he did Jun’s mother’s makeup and cut her hair and gave her tips on the latest fashions, and Ohno was pretty sure that Jun got the same help, although when he had mentioned that to his friend before Jun had blushed and venomously denied it), was looking just as chic as usual, although his hair was much shorter than the real Kame’s (opposite of Jun, which the artist found curious). Right now he was wearing a pointy white hat on his head and was dressed in a completely white suit with the exception of a red tie.
“Take him. Nino’s been looking for a playmate,” he smirked in response and Jun let out an irritated sigh with a pinched expression. Touma had already struggled away from the men who’d had him, but they had simply shrugged and let him go and therefore the mouse had avoided candidacy for the position.
“At least let me walk by Oh-chan,” Jun asked, and it was obvious he knew he had no choice in the matter but to comply.
“Nope. The pawn stays with me,” Kame teased, dropping a hand over Ohno’s shoulder as he was brought to the captain’s side and Jun’s face scrunched up again in annoyance.
“That’s not nice, you know,” the hatter started as the chess pieces began pushing him forward, his hands secured behind his back by a loose streamer. It looked pretty easy to break, but Jun seemed to be playing along with his capture and wasn’t trying to get away. “Watch the hat!” he chided, turning angrily to the man that had just jolted the offended accessory.
“Well, maybe if someone would invite someone else to their tea parties a little more, someone else might be more willing to do more favors for someone.”
“Are you talking about Nino? Because I invite him all the time-“
“I’m talking about me, you twit!” Kame looked frustrated for a second, but simply sighed and shook his head. Turning to Ohno, whose arms were also tied behind him with a streamer (he played along too), Kame dragged the artist after him as the troupe finally left the garden.
Oh well. Ohno wasn’t sure he was closer to getting home (although considering Aiba’s earlier lecture, maybe that was not what he was looking for after all), but this dream was only getting more interesting and he wanted to see what sort of silly clothes Nino would be in anyway, so he didn’t struggle with Kame as they walked through the foliage that he had passed earlier. Some of Jun’s balloons and streamers had fallen out of their places, but otherwise it looked mostly the same.
For the first leg of their journey, Jun argued with some of the guards forcing him along (although he seemed to be fairly cooperative, contrary to his complaints), but the artist couldn’t hear most of the conversation behind him because of Kame’s ceaseless chatter. As they traveled, Ohno wondered if Sho had been the one to alert Kame of his presence and thought that possibly these men didn’t have much to do in their free time if that were the case.
It wasn’t very far until they had started in another direction, a new one that Ohno had never been in before. He watched as the heavy foliage changed to something a little more open and in the distance a castle was visible after a while, although it still looked rather far away.
As they walked, Kame was rattling off a few things about his job as a bishop for the Red Queen and the fact that he currently held the record for most enemies captured, but in truth Ohno was only half paying attention. Much more importantly he was listening to make sure that Jun was being treated well, and except for curses and complaints leaving his mouth every few minutes, everything seemed fine.
Eventually they got close enough to the castle that Ohno could see lines and lines of plants that made up the outward garden of the fortress. They were rose bushes… At least Ohno thought they were…
All of them were drenched in red paint. It wasn’t even only on the flowers, which would make some sense. It just seemed like someone had taken a bucket and dumped it on the shrubs.
Kame noticed his stare and explained as they walked past, “The work of our resident knight. I’m still not sure why Nino keeps him around…He’s basically useless.”
Ohno frowned at the bishops curt words but didn’t respond. He was sort of surprised that someone hadn’t fixed the problem already, but he didn’t want to bring it up just in case there was a complicated explanation behind it. He’d already listened to Kame talk enough today and was glad that the other man seemed to be out of conversation topics.
The group made their way through the outward gardens and finally reached the main doors leading inside the castle, which were already open in wait for their return. Without hesitating, Kame directed the artist up the main stairs in the entrance hall and through another set of pearly white doors that had giant red hearts painted on them. Ohno was looking around at the valentine’s-esque decorations distractedly when a clanging sound came from somewhere in front of them and he turned to find Sho huffily stomping towards them, his wooden horse nowhere to be seen (Ohno would only imagine he had left it in the stables outside).
“Kame, you took my pawn!” he whined with a frown, stopping a few feet in front of the leading pair, which didn’t pause for him and so the knight was forced to walk abreast to Ohno as they continued to where the artist assumed Nino was waiting.
“You didn’t capture him, I did,” the bishop replied arrogantly, not facing his comrade.
“I got him first!! I got you first, didn’t I?” Sho asked Ohno with a pathetic look.
“He’s right, he got me first,” Ohno added in hopes of making Sho’s argument a little more secure.
“Don’t care. I brought him back and that’s what counts.” Kame started walking a little faster, which caused Ohno to stumble briefly. Two guards waiting outside of the biggest doors in the place so far jumped to attention, pulling the entrance back and Sho began jogging to get inside the reception hall before the rest of them.
“Nino!” the knight called as he walked in. “Nino, this is the pawn I was telling you about! Kame took him from me!”
“You had to have him first for me to take him from you!” Kame immediately replied, rushing forward so he could be at the same level as Sho, letting Ohno go in his haste. The artist slowly stopped walking, but the men guarding Jun were behind him and so one of them let the hatter go in order to push the other prisoner forward.
“You’re not fatigued, are you?” Jun asked quietly, looking at the outsider with genuine concern. Ohno smiled at the awkward question and shook his head.
A voice that Ohno immediately recognized as Nino’s, even though he hadn’t actually put his eyes on the magician yet, came in an annoyed tone as the two chess pieces continued to argue.
“Sho, is that true?”
“Nino, I caught him! I really did!” Sho stopped in front of a throne, which was on a raised platform, with Kame on his other side blocking Ohno’s view.
“You didn’t, I found him at the hatter’s-“
“I was forming a strategy-“
“Strategy my ass, you couldn’t catch a mouse in a mousetrap-“
“Be quiet! Both of you!”
And Nino’s booming voice did indeed cause the room to go silent.
“Bring the pawn to me.”
+++
A/N: How are you liking it so far? I think the poem stanza in the middle was a little out of place, but I wanted to use something like that since it's in the books too. And the alter-Arashi-egos are coming out. I'm curious what your thoughts on them are. ^_^
Thanks for reading. As always, criticism and another other comments are welcome!
Chapter three