a fic by Mystery Self-Lover! : Wrap It up With Unchanging Love
Title: Wrap It up With Unchanging Love
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing(s): Arashi with subtle Aiba/Ohno, Ohno/Nino, Sho/Jun.
Word count: 3436
Summary: A simple chronicle of Arashi’s first ten years; behind all the sparkles, there’s a couch they call theirs.
Warnings: Unintentional anachronisms, perhaps. :p
Notes: Everything, every single thing, alludes to pieces of their actual history, although I wasn’t kidding when I said simple. My recipient would’ve wanted more, but I know she’s happy with this-also happy belated 13th, Arashi! I owe several references to good people around for their translations! Thank you, Right, for the beta. :)
New stage begins as harsh solid white spotlight is revealing a clean brown couch in the center of bare interior. Two small wooden empty tables stand on each side.
.
Ohno sits on the left corner of the couch, fidgeting awkwardly, and waits as per instructions.
.
The sound of a suitcase rolled into the center distracts him as Sho walks toward the sofa. After bowing slightly, Sho takes the other side, with his huge suitcase in front of him, blocking most of his figure.
Together they wait, as per instructions.
.
Aiba sits rigidly on the center, the biggest among the three, with Nino on his left folding his figure small, latching himself to and stealing most of the warmth from Aiba.
It was chilly September after all.
On Aiba’s right, Jun sits as rigid as Aiba but with shimmering eyes, shining with excitement and, just a little bit, pride.
Together they also wait, as per the same set of instructions.
.
Now there are five.
With them squeezed into the couch, looking up dutifully now that they are finally getting the instructions, people in black suits, black shirts, black trousers, with black shades, black shoes, are crowding them. One of them is giving Aiba a paper with words to remember. Another one is giving Ohno practice of proper pronunciation between the touch up of their hair. Another one is giving Nino a glass of water and asking why he looks pale. There’s one who is giving a World cup stuffed toy to Ohno. And one is giving an inflated balloon to Jun, deciding that it won’t work, handing the balloon to Sho and giving Jun a flagpole instead.
.
On cue, suppressing the awkward feeling of having still-foreign hands on their shoulders, they all force their best smile for the flashes of blinding light. When they lift their head after bowing, all of them count till 5 before together saying, “we are Arashi.”
.
[It will always be] the wind we gathered all over ourselves.
.
The light then dims when everyone else leaves cheering and satisfied, leaving them finally alone.
Sho turns to his left only to see Nino looking seasick and Aiba still trying to blink back the unpleasant flash side effect. Ohno turns to his right, seeing Jun and his satisfied lopsided tired grin.
When Ohno’s gaze meets Sho’s, he offers a faint smile. Sho doesn’t smile back, instead he tells everyone that now they can probably sit back before they need to move from the couch.
Ohno leans to the arm of the couch, giving space to the others, and stares to the glossy surface of the left side table. It needs something, something with vivid colors.
.
Sho starts to head straight to his corner, claiming the right side table as his and using it to stack his bloody economics textbooks and porn magazines he couldn’t bring home.
Ohno brings a glazed white ceramic oval vase and places it on the left side table.
.
Nino puts a stem of green gerbera one day. I stole it from the film set, shut up, Jun-kun. Aiba’s smile is a notch brighter and Nino couldn’t bring himself to care for the mocking smiles Jun keeps on aiming at him the whole time.
.
When Sho throws a book out of frustration toward the front center, which happened when Aiba and Ohno were squashed close practicing their lines on the left side of the couch, he doesn’t even apologize.
After a long minute, and Sho settling back to another of his thick textbooks, Aiba pads off stage to fetch the poor book. Sho looks up to find Aiba handing him the book back, sensing a silent scold from Ohno from the other side of the couch, and forces himself to nod and mutters, thank you Aiba-chan.
.
Nino is not around for almost a month. When Jun finally finds Nino curled on the left side of the couch one night clutching a green pillow, he is completely baffled and unable to do anything. With one glance to the wilted gerbera, Jun decides to go home, somehow defeated and useless.
The next day, Jun gets ahead of his morning schedule, takes the first train, then runs all the way to the stage, and finds Nino still curled in almost the same position as when he left the previous night. He takes a soft small white blanket out of his bag and drapes it on Nino. Then, he brings the vase out to the left and comes back with a fresh daisy bunch in it and sets the vase back to its place.
Yawning, he takes a seat on the foot of the couch, stealing warmth from the blanket, and goes to reading his script. When Sho comes an hour later with his big bag of books, Jun looks up, offers a silent greeting, and pats a spot beside him. Sho stares longingly at his usual spot on the right part of the couch, right where Nino’s socked feet are covered with blanket but accepts the offer without fuss, settling himself beside Jun, with a significant space between them.
.
I will not say it but this first deep love I have felt is a storm.
.
The spotlight dims a shade. Spring is coming and hardly anyone ever comes by.
Yet Sho doesn’t forget to set the keychain he bought from Sendai on the right table when he passes to pick up a book from his stack.
Nino comes few days later, only to take a nap with Jun’s blanket all afternoon before he leaves.
Aiba and Ohno giggle their way in the next week, hauling boxes full of bits and pieces they bought during the trip. A vintage cast iron ashtray from Nagoya, a bottle of daiginjyo sake from Sapporo, two boxes of tenjin macaroons from Fukuoka and a painting from Hiroshima.
This is getting out of hand, Aiba-chan, Ohno says. Don’t you think we need a cupboard?
Aiba nods. Why don’t we get one then?
Jun initially regrets his choice of buying packages of Fu and Shiroebi senbei. Nevertheless, for the first time after their tour ended, everyone huddles on the couch, snacking both while lightly grumbling on how not all of them are of age for beer and drinking tea while snacking after a long day at work is not providing the same relaxing effect. Jun turns to Ohno and smiles. Ohno smiles back.
Two months later, Nino brings his old cupboard from his mother’s house to be set on the back of the couch. Tokyo souvenir my ass, he grouses.
.
They have been talking about it for a while.
And with Aiba on the center again, with Sho and Nino bowing extremely low, and with Jun and Ohno flanking them on the far side, they plead for a television show, bowing to the front.
They want this.
They really want this.
.
When Sho went back from his first Mayonaka he wasn’t happy, but after purposely watching Jun’s episode, it was hard to hold up a grudge.
The next day, he ends up buying a red rose for the vase for no reason. Or so he says. The amount of ribbing he gets for the next weeks doesn’t faze him because having Nino laughing in his face, Aiba and Ohno giggling on his side as he studies and Jun faintly blushing and avoiding him, again for no reason, feels kinda right.
.
Two months together in Shinagawa is extremely fun but they all miss the couch.
.
Next thing they realize, Jun’s blushing doesn’t last. His hair gets longer and soon his eyes change; they don’t sparkle openly anymore, they now shine with poised determination.
.
Sho went to Kisarazu with all his textbooks. The right side table is empty for now.
.
Aiba has difficulty breathing lately and the only consolation is Ohno rubbing his back when he’s having a fit or Nino staring at him angrily every time he walks toward the couch from the left side on a day off.
Nino then misses his stop more often and blames it on exhaustion. Aiba doesn’t believe him but he lets Nino have his way because he can have a strong and trusted shoulder to sleep on a little longer.
.
One day when Jun is around because he needs a break from reading his script, when Sho is sleeping on his corner, tucked with the blanket, when Nino and Ohno are having their bento lunch, Aiba walks in carrying a saxophone case.
An opaque blue par light streaks across the stage for an instant.
Nino holds Ohno’s bento for him and Jun shifts a bit to make way. Ohno walks over to Aiba who tries to smile at him and, just this time, doesn’t get anything back. He sighs heavily and lets Ohno grab his case. Jun then tugs Aiba down and forces him to sit down beside Nino.
Eyes bright with anger, trying to say something for a good minute, Ohno at the end throws the saxophone case to the front center. No crashed sound is heard but he’s sure that he made his point by then.
When he turns and walks back to couch, Aiba reaches to him, pulling Ohno down into a hug before he whispers for only Ohno to hear, Leader, thank you.
Sho sleeps through everything, with a loud snore.
.
Nino doesn’t understand why front center keeps on shouting at them but he, along with Sho and Ohno, bow their obligatory apology, and carry on ignoring them, concentrating on the tasks at hand.
Jun doesn’t understand either, but he then requests a time out, a time for themselves, a time when the harsh light is turned off. Aiba is beside Jun all the way, making sure his request is granted.
It then is.
.
Let’s gather the fragments of the future and go.
Let’s just go like this to the barefoot future
.
Later when Aiba suggests they should go out and grab some beer for celebration on a discussion done well, Sho notices that it is almost dawn. Jun smiles sleepily, leaning his head on Ohno who already dozed off seconds before. Nino whines that Aiba is too loud but Sho then turns his attention to Nino and begins to fret.
.
It was like his old day in Kyoto, Ohno sighs as he goes through another set of sword practice for the umpteenth time that day.
He misses everyone already.
.
When Sho spilled his coffee on the couch, Nino scolds him and makes him promise to bring flowers the next day even if it’s Nino’s turn.
Sho gets a bunch of yellow daisies and a light blue pillow the next Monday, just to make a point.
When Ohno one night walks toward the couch, Jun is curled and sound asleep on Sho’s corner with his blanket. He sees the blue pillow and a brand new red blanket on his corner and catches on Nino’s message.
.
When Sho graduates he buys a polka-dot purple table lamp to replace his towering stack of textbooks on the right side table.
Aiba doodles a heart, connecting few dots together on the lid with Ohno’s marker. Nino adds few circling lines just to make the heart shine. Jun blushes when he walks in that day, a rare occurrence, but Sho doesn’t notice.
.
As soon as they walk toward the couch, not actually trying to hide his tears, Nino clings harder to Aiba. Sho pats Aiba’s hair, tugging in playfully to deflect the increasing tightness on his own chest as Aiba starts crying again. Jun just stands ungainly by the couch, fighting back his own tears, managing to do so until Ohno’s hand tugs his sleeves gently. Jun turns to see Ohno’s bright smile with tears streaking down before he laughs, letting the tears flow once again.
.
Aiba just needs to sleep; it has been an exhausting weekend.
Ohno then pulls the blanket over them, kisses Aiba’s forehead, and they sleep with the head light still blaring, ignoring the three tangled bodies down at the carpet sharing their only two pillows.
.
Ohno sets a brand new television set across the couch the next week.
On a Saturday afternoon Nino drags Sho out of his house on his day off while Jun comes excitedly because Ohno promises them all free beers.
.
They are five years olds currently stuck with a kindergarten’s hat, ninja pants, a cheerleader short skirt, a priest robe, and most importantly, a maid hairband. The par lights are broken and there are no streaks of light or mirror ball effect for the night. But they can still share cheap champagne, more sugar coated cake and a comfortable couch.
.
I’m glad to be in Arashi.
.
Jun believes that it will be a good invention and when he requests a moving stage for their next concert, the other four are with him bowing their respect and request, making sure their request is granted.
And as a gesture of thanks, Jun takes another tiger shirt Aiba offered the other day just to cover someone’s ass. The other three shirts stay untouched under the left side table and Aiba is still not happy but at least Jun has tried.
Sho takes the rest home three days later.
Aiba finally catches scent of this and retaliates by telling Sho the details of Ohno and Nino’s smooching escapades on his corner of the couch a week before, and a week before that, and a week before that.
Jun then has the delight of watching Sho scolding Ohno and Nino on professionalism and appropriate shared space hygiene, Nino attacking Aiba mid lecture by glomming onto his back and shouting, goddamn tattletale, and Ohno enjoying the scene with him.
.
While everyone gets restless, once again witnessing Jun’s eyes shining with the same scary poised determination, only with an annoying perm this time, Sho is somehow proud.
Jun tries harder this time.
.
From Monday to Sunday
Every every every day
Lucky lucky lucky my life
.
Nino hesitates a bit but he knows that delaying will get him the same result. He walks toward the couch, squeezing beside Sho and Aiba as usual, and waits.
Jun notices first, and then snags the wig, commenting on how cheap it is. Sho says Nino looks cute. Aiba cannot stop touching his head.
Ohno on the other hand knows something Nino doesn't.
.
For a what seems to be a long while there are only four.
Jun is nonchalantly clinging to Ohno most of the time, Sho had a phone installed on the right table for no reason, and Aiba buys an ugly yellow carpet.
.
Nino comes back only to find that Aiba will fly on a kite, Sho is coaxed into skydiving, and he is to watch sakura blooms in October with Ohno.
Jun, on the other side of the couch, is deeply engaged in memorizing some Chinese words for the next project already. With a hair extension.
.
Near the end of year, Sho comes by, already flushed drunk yet holding two bottles of, expensive this time, champagne.
Shit just gets real, he beams to all of them. Monday night.
.
Jun went to Ikea on the weekend.
Sho finds a new shiny wall cabinet perched on the far left wall when he comes early Monday morning.
.
Aiba keeps his reindeer costume, and his shiny Prada bag, on the bottom shelf of Nino’s cupboard, just in case.
.
Sho grows impatient, reaching for another can of beer, complaining that it has been almost an hour in. Aiba and Nino are busy commenting on the extras, while Ohno’s still in full focus on the screen.
Few minutes later, the scene changes and all of them huddle back closer as the man with what Ohno then points out as ‘whoa diamond’ on screen turns with a hotdog in hand.
.
A small piano stands on the near front left when Ohno arrives one day. He frowns for a while before walking toward the couch to sleep, his original plan for the morning. He later awakens to soft tunes and a hunchbacked figure leaning forward on the stool.
Jun rushes in toward the piano from the right side, holding a steaming cup of coffee and a red coaster, putting them on the far side of the lid, before he walks back and leaves.
Ohno snuggles closer to the comfortable pillow and lets the lingering tunes lull him back to sleep.
.
We might be bad at singing. We might also be bad at dancing. Our conversations might be boring. Who's to know?
But everything, everything we do is heartfelt.
.
Sho starts wearing hakama all summer when he is around and reading newspaper while lounging on his right corner nonchalantly.
The left table has never been prettier though.
.
Start running, start running, let's welcome tomorrow.
.
Ohno comes. He sits next to Aiba, stroking the falling hair from the forehead and kisses his forehead. You are beautiful. Aiba closes his eyes, unable to hold back his tears, and Ohno goes to the left side of the stage, giving him a moment.
.
The ends of the days are sparkling because time colors them with light.
.
Ohno is exhausted, dirty and smells like old paint. Aiba needs to read the script, correction, not only read, he must have everything memorized by the next morning for a Tensai filming.
Ohno just needs to sleep.
So they do.
.
He finds Jun curled on the corner of the couch. Sho clears his throat, making his presence known and Jun, tears flowing freely, looks up and says, I’m practicing. Go away.
Sho nods but he stays around a while.
.
Ohno doodles on the entire surface of the right door of Jun’s cabinet.
Aiba buys him a new set of sketching supplies the next day, while Nino is busy taking pictures of details.
.
Naked? Sho squeaks.
Metaphorically, Sho-kun, Jun answers.
Wait. No Naked?
A blush. Shut the hell up, rainbow! Go practice your finger licks!
.
Sho is worried so he calls Nino who lets him know that Aiba has already told Jun that he has everything covered.
That night, just like any other, Aiba waits for Ohno over the couch.
.
For a very short while, again, there are only four.
They merrily go to Nikko, making fun of Sho on national television instead of showing signs of unease. All of them vote ‘ay’ for another haunted house shooting schedule when Sho comes back.
.
There’s nothing else you can do but enjoy every second of it, Jun mutters as he raises himself from the couch and walks to follow the others.
.
Aiba somehow starts bringing long stem orchid lately.
.
They all slump and sag closed on the couch at such late hour, stubbornly not wanting to be the first one to move and dispense space for the others.
We have walked this far, Aiba begins sleepily.
And from here on, Sho cuts him pleasantly before detaching himself from the tangle and taking the first spot down on the carpet.
.
Black with a hint of white, a slice of red bit and a sliver of gold.
.
From now on as well, thank you.
.
They are ten years old.
They were somehow not in Japan but Sho manages to get a cheap champagne, just to make a point. Jun acquires the flutes straight from the hotel kitchen, while Nino convinces Aiba they do not need the same couch now, any couch will do. Ohno was five minutes late but when they were all there, colorful light streaks as if they were on center stage back home.
.
The solid white spotlight is still as harsh as it was at the beginning; it can even be obtrusively bright and lurid at times. But Aiba and Sho will buy or bring more stuff in. Nino will always cling to his old pillow. And Ohno will always give his corner spot to Jun anytime he asks.
.
They are ten years and three weeks old.
They all nod when a voice calls out, taking their time fixing with their clothes while waiting for Ohno to find his other sock. Sho grumbles that someone, most probably Ohno, sat on his cardigan. Aiba is partially dragging a sleep walking Nino toward the exit when Jun looks around and asks, ready?
Together they are.
.
Rating: PG
Group/Pairing(s): Arashi with subtle Aiba/Ohno, Ohno/Nino, Sho/Jun.
Word count: 3436
Summary: A simple chronicle of Arashi’s first ten years; behind all the sparkles, there’s a couch they call theirs.
Warnings: Unintentional anachronisms, perhaps. :p
Notes: Everything, every single thing, alludes to pieces of their actual history, although I wasn’t kidding when I said simple. My recipient would’ve wanted more, but I know she’s happy with this-also happy belated 13th, Arashi! I owe several references to good people around for their translations! Thank you, Right, for the beta. :)
New stage begins as harsh solid white spotlight is revealing a clean brown couch in the center of bare interior. Two small wooden empty tables stand on each side.
.
Ohno sits on the left corner of the couch, fidgeting awkwardly, and waits as per instructions.
.
The sound of a suitcase rolled into the center distracts him as Sho walks toward the sofa. After bowing slightly, Sho takes the other side, with his huge suitcase in front of him, blocking most of his figure.
Together they wait, as per instructions.
.
Aiba sits rigidly on the center, the biggest among the three, with Nino on his left folding his figure small, latching himself to and stealing most of the warmth from Aiba.
It was chilly September after all.
On Aiba’s right, Jun sits as rigid as Aiba but with shimmering eyes, shining with excitement and, just a little bit, pride.
Together they also wait, as per the same set of instructions.
.
Now there are five.
With them squeezed into the couch, looking up dutifully now that they are finally getting the instructions, people in black suits, black shirts, black trousers, with black shades, black shoes, are crowding them. One of them is giving Aiba a paper with words to remember. Another one is giving Ohno practice of proper pronunciation between the touch up of their hair. Another one is giving Nino a glass of water and asking why he looks pale. There’s one who is giving a World cup stuffed toy to Ohno. And one is giving an inflated balloon to Jun, deciding that it won’t work, handing the balloon to Sho and giving Jun a flagpole instead.
.
On cue, suppressing the awkward feeling of having still-foreign hands on their shoulders, they all force their best smile for the flashes of blinding light. When they lift their head after bowing, all of them count till 5 before together saying, “we are Arashi.”
.
[It will always be] the wind we gathered all over ourselves.
.
The light then dims when everyone else leaves cheering and satisfied, leaving them finally alone.
Sho turns to his left only to see Nino looking seasick and Aiba still trying to blink back the unpleasant flash side effect. Ohno turns to his right, seeing Jun and his satisfied lopsided tired grin.
When Ohno’s gaze meets Sho’s, he offers a faint smile. Sho doesn’t smile back, instead he tells everyone that now they can probably sit back before they need to move from the couch.
Ohno leans to the arm of the couch, giving space to the others, and stares to the glossy surface of the left side table. It needs something, something with vivid colors.
.
Sho starts to head straight to his corner, claiming the right side table as his and using it to stack his bloody economics textbooks and porn magazines he couldn’t bring home.
Ohno brings a glazed white ceramic oval vase and places it on the left side table.
.
Nino puts a stem of green gerbera one day. I stole it from the film set, shut up, Jun-kun. Aiba’s smile is a notch brighter and Nino couldn’t bring himself to care for the mocking smiles Jun keeps on aiming at him the whole time.
.
When Sho throws a book out of frustration toward the front center, which happened when Aiba and Ohno were squashed close practicing their lines on the left side of the couch, he doesn’t even apologize.
After a long minute, and Sho settling back to another of his thick textbooks, Aiba pads off stage to fetch the poor book. Sho looks up to find Aiba handing him the book back, sensing a silent scold from Ohno from the other side of the couch, and forces himself to nod and mutters, thank you Aiba-chan.
.
Nino is not around for almost a month. When Jun finally finds Nino curled on the left side of the couch one night clutching a green pillow, he is completely baffled and unable to do anything. With one glance to the wilted gerbera, Jun decides to go home, somehow defeated and useless.
The next day, Jun gets ahead of his morning schedule, takes the first train, then runs all the way to the stage, and finds Nino still curled in almost the same position as when he left the previous night. He takes a soft small white blanket out of his bag and drapes it on Nino. Then, he brings the vase out to the left and comes back with a fresh daisy bunch in it and sets the vase back to its place.
Yawning, he takes a seat on the foot of the couch, stealing warmth from the blanket, and goes to reading his script. When Sho comes an hour later with his big bag of books, Jun looks up, offers a silent greeting, and pats a spot beside him. Sho stares longingly at his usual spot on the right part of the couch, right where Nino’s socked feet are covered with blanket but accepts the offer without fuss, settling himself beside Jun, with a significant space between them.
.
I will not say it but this first deep love I have felt is a storm.
.
The spotlight dims a shade. Spring is coming and hardly anyone ever comes by.
Yet Sho doesn’t forget to set the keychain he bought from Sendai on the right table when he passes to pick up a book from his stack.
Nino comes few days later, only to take a nap with Jun’s blanket all afternoon before he leaves.
Aiba and Ohno giggle their way in the next week, hauling boxes full of bits and pieces they bought during the trip. A vintage cast iron ashtray from Nagoya, a bottle of daiginjyo sake from Sapporo, two boxes of tenjin macaroons from Fukuoka and a painting from Hiroshima.
This is getting out of hand, Aiba-chan, Ohno says. Don’t you think we need a cupboard?
Aiba nods. Why don’t we get one then?
Jun initially regrets his choice of buying packages of Fu and Shiroebi senbei. Nevertheless, for the first time after their tour ended, everyone huddles on the couch, snacking both while lightly grumbling on how not all of them are of age for beer and drinking tea while snacking after a long day at work is not providing the same relaxing effect. Jun turns to Ohno and smiles. Ohno smiles back.
Two months later, Nino brings his old cupboard from his mother’s house to be set on the back of the couch. Tokyo souvenir my ass, he grouses.
.
They have been talking about it for a while.
And with Aiba on the center again, with Sho and Nino bowing extremely low, and with Jun and Ohno flanking them on the far side, they plead for a television show, bowing to the front.
They want this.
They really want this.
.
When Sho went back from his first Mayonaka he wasn’t happy, but after purposely watching Jun’s episode, it was hard to hold up a grudge.
The next day, he ends up buying a red rose for the vase for no reason. Or so he says. The amount of ribbing he gets for the next weeks doesn’t faze him because having Nino laughing in his face, Aiba and Ohno giggling on his side as he studies and Jun faintly blushing and avoiding him, again for no reason, feels kinda right.
.
Two months together in Shinagawa is extremely fun but they all miss the couch.
.
Next thing they realize, Jun’s blushing doesn’t last. His hair gets longer and soon his eyes change; they don’t sparkle openly anymore, they now shine with poised determination.
.
Sho went to Kisarazu with all his textbooks. The right side table is empty for now.
.
Aiba has difficulty breathing lately and the only consolation is Ohno rubbing his back when he’s having a fit or Nino staring at him angrily every time he walks toward the couch from the left side on a day off.
Nino then misses his stop more often and blames it on exhaustion. Aiba doesn’t believe him but he lets Nino have his way because he can have a strong and trusted shoulder to sleep on a little longer.
.
One day when Jun is around because he needs a break from reading his script, when Sho is sleeping on his corner, tucked with the blanket, when Nino and Ohno are having their bento lunch, Aiba walks in carrying a saxophone case.
An opaque blue par light streaks across the stage for an instant.
Nino holds Ohno’s bento for him and Jun shifts a bit to make way. Ohno walks over to Aiba who tries to smile at him and, just this time, doesn’t get anything back. He sighs heavily and lets Ohno grab his case. Jun then tugs Aiba down and forces him to sit down beside Nino.
Eyes bright with anger, trying to say something for a good minute, Ohno at the end throws the saxophone case to the front center. No crashed sound is heard but he’s sure that he made his point by then.
When he turns and walks back to couch, Aiba reaches to him, pulling Ohno down into a hug before he whispers for only Ohno to hear, Leader, thank you.
Sho sleeps through everything, with a loud snore.
.
Nino doesn’t understand why front center keeps on shouting at them but he, along with Sho and Ohno, bow their obligatory apology, and carry on ignoring them, concentrating on the tasks at hand.
Jun doesn’t understand either, but he then requests a time out, a time for themselves, a time when the harsh light is turned off. Aiba is beside Jun all the way, making sure his request is granted.
It then is.
.
Let’s gather the fragments of the future and go.
Let’s just go like this to the barefoot future
.
Later when Aiba suggests they should go out and grab some beer for celebration on a discussion done well, Sho notices that it is almost dawn. Jun smiles sleepily, leaning his head on Ohno who already dozed off seconds before. Nino whines that Aiba is too loud but Sho then turns his attention to Nino and begins to fret.
.
It was like his old day in Kyoto, Ohno sighs as he goes through another set of sword practice for the umpteenth time that day.
He misses everyone already.
.
When Sho spilled his coffee on the couch, Nino scolds him and makes him promise to bring flowers the next day even if it’s Nino’s turn.
Sho gets a bunch of yellow daisies and a light blue pillow the next Monday, just to make a point.
When Ohno one night walks toward the couch, Jun is curled and sound asleep on Sho’s corner with his blanket. He sees the blue pillow and a brand new red blanket on his corner and catches on Nino’s message.
.
When Sho graduates he buys a polka-dot purple table lamp to replace his towering stack of textbooks on the right side table.
Aiba doodles a heart, connecting few dots together on the lid with Ohno’s marker. Nino adds few circling lines just to make the heart shine. Jun blushes when he walks in that day, a rare occurrence, but Sho doesn’t notice.
.
As soon as they walk toward the couch, not actually trying to hide his tears, Nino clings harder to Aiba. Sho pats Aiba’s hair, tugging in playfully to deflect the increasing tightness on his own chest as Aiba starts crying again. Jun just stands ungainly by the couch, fighting back his own tears, managing to do so until Ohno’s hand tugs his sleeves gently. Jun turns to see Ohno’s bright smile with tears streaking down before he laughs, letting the tears flow once again.
.
Aiba just needs to sleep; it has been an exhausting weekend.
Ohno then pulls the blanket over them, kisses Aiba’s forehead, and they sleep with the head light still blaring, ignoring the three tangled bodies down at the carpet sharing their only two pillows.
.
Ohno sets a brand new television set across the couch the next week.
On a Saturday afternoon Nino drags Sho out of his house on his day off while Jun comes excitedly because Ohno promises them all free beers.
.
They are five years olds currently stuck with a kindergarten’s hat, ninja pants, a cheerleader short skirt, a priest robe, and most importantly, a maid hairband. The par lights are broken and there are no streaks of light or mirror ball effect for the night. But they can still share cheap champagne, more sugar coated cake and a comfortable couch.
.
I’m glad to be in Arashi.
.
Jun believes that it will be a good invention and when he requests a moving stage for their next concert, the other four are with him bowing their respect and request, making sure their request is granted.
And as a gesture of thanks, Jun takes another tiger shirt Aiba offered the other day just to cover someone’s ass. The other three shirts stay untouched under the left side table and Aiba is still not happy but at least Jun has tried.
Sho takes the rest home three days later.
Aiba finally catches scent of this and retaliates by telling Sho the details of Ohno and Nino’s smooching escapades on his corner of the couch a week before, and a week before that, and a week before that.
Jun then has the delight of watching Sho scolding Ohno and Nino on professionalism and appropriate shared space hygiene, Nino attacking Aiba mid lecture by glomming onto his back and shouting, goddamn tattletale, and Ohno enjoying the scene with him.
.
While everyone gets restless, once again witnessing Jun’s eyes shining with the same scary poised determination, only with an annoying perm this time, Sho is somehow proud.
Jun tries harder this time.
.
From Monday to Sunday
Every every every day
Lucky lucky lucky my life
.
Nino hesitates a bit but he knows that delaying will get him the same result. He walks toward the couch, squeezing beside Sho and Aiba as usual, and waits.
Jun notices first, and then snags the wig, commenting on how cheap it is. Sho says Nino looks cute. Aiba cannot stop touching his head.
Ohno on the other hand knows something Nino doesn't.
.
For a what seems to be a long while there are only four.
Jun is nonchalantly clinging to Ohno most of the time, Sho had a phone installed on the right table for no reason, and Aiba buys an ugly yellow carpet.
.
Nino comes back only to find that Aiba will fly on a kite, Sho is coaxed into skydiving, and he is to watch sakura blooms in October with Ohno.
Jun, on the other side of the couch, is deeply engaged in memorizing some Chinese words for the next project already. With a hair extension.
.
Near the end of year, Sho comes by, already flushed drunk yet holding two bottles of, expensive this time, champagne.
Shit just gets real, he beams to all of them. Monday night.
.
Jun went to Ikea on the weekend.
Sho finds a new shiny wall cabinet perched on the far left wall when he comes early Monday morning.
.
Aiba keeps his reindeer costume, and his shiny Prada bag, on the bottom shelf of Nino’s cupboard, just in case.
.
Sho grows impatient, reaching for another can of beer, complaining that it has been almost an hour in. Aiba and Nino are busy commenting on the extras, while Ohno’s still in full focus on the screen.
Few minutes later, the scene changes and all of them huddle back closer as the man with what Ohno then points out as ‘whoa diamond’ on screen turns with a hotdog in hand.
.
A small piano stands on the near front left when Ohno arrives one day. He frowns for a while before walking toward the couch to sleep, his original plan for the morning. He later awakens to soft tunes and a hunchbacked figure leaning forward on the stool.
Jun rushes in toward the piano from the right side, holding a steaming cup of coffee and a red coaster, putting them on the far side of the lid, before he walks back and leaves.
Ohno snuggles closer to the comfortable pillow and lets the lingering tunes lull him back to sleep.
.
We might be bad at singing. We might also be bad at dancing. Our conversations might be boring. Who's to know?
But everything, everything we do is heartfelt.
.
Sho starts wearing hakama all summer when he is around and reading newspaper while lounging on his right corner nonchalantly.
The left table has never been prettier though.
.
Start running, start running, let's welcome tomorrow.
.
Ohno comes. He sits next to Aiba, stroking the falling hair from the forehead and kisses his forehead. You are beautiful. Aiba closes his eyes, unable to hold back his tears, and Ohno goes to the left side of the stage, giving him a moment.
.
The ends of the days are sparkling because time colors them with light.
.
Ohno is exhausted, dirty and smells like old paint. Aiba needs to read the script, correction, not only read, he must have everything memorized by the next morning for a Tensai filming.
Ohno just needs to sleep.
So they do.
.
He finds Jun curled on the corner of the couch. Sho clears his throat, making his presence known and Jun, tears flowing freely, looks up and says, I’m practicing. Go away.
Sho nods but he stays around a while.
.
Ohno doodles on the entire surface of the right door of Jun’s cabinet.
Aiba buys him a new set of sketching supplies the next day, while Nino is busy taking pictures of details.
.
Naked? Sho squeaks.
Metaphorically, Sho-kun, Jun answers.
Wait. No Naked?
A blush. Shut the hell up, rainbow! Go practice your finger licks!
.
Sho is worried so he calls Nino who lets him know that Aiba has already told Jun that he has everything covered.
That night, just like any other, Aiba waits for Ohno over the couch.
.
For a very short while, again, there are only four.
They merrily go to Nikko, making fun of Sho on national television instead of showing signs of unease. All of them vote ‘ay’ for another haunted house shooting schedule when Sho comes back.
.
There’s nothing else you can do but enjoy every second of it, Jun mutters as he raises himself from the couch and walks to follow the others.
.
Aiba somehow starts bringing long stem orchid lately.
.
They all slump and sag closed on the couch at such late hour, stubbornly not wanting to be the first one to move and dispense space for the others.
We have walked this far, Aiba begins sleepily.
And from here on, Sho cuts him pleasantly before detaching himself from the tangle and taking the first spot down on the carpet.
.
Black with a hint of white, a slice of red bit and a sliver of gold.
.
From now on as well, thank you.
.
They are ten years old.
They were somehow not in Japan but Sho manages to get a cheap champagne, just to make a point. Jun acquires the flutes straight from the hotel kitchen, while Nino convinces Aiba they do not need the same couch now, any couch will do. Ohno was five minutes late but when they were all there, colorful light streaks as if they were on center stage back home.
.
The solid white spotlight is still as harsh as it was at the beginning; it can even be obtrusively bright and lurid at times. But Aiba and Sho will buy or bring more stuff in. Nino will always cling to his old pillow. And Ohno will always give his corner spot to Jun anytime he asks.
.
They are ten years and three weeks old.
They all nod when a voice calls out, taking their time fixing with their clothes while waiting for Ohno to find his other sock. Sho grumbles that someone, most probably Ohno, sat on his cardigan. Aiba is partially dragging a sleep walking Nino toward the exit when Jun looks around and asks, ready?
Together they are.
.