The Bolder Thing to Do
Title: The Bolder Thing to Do
Rating: PG -13
Pairing: Ohmiya
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, life after realizing you were harboring feelings for your best friend was not either full of rainbows and smiley faces nor painful and unwieldy. It was pretty much the same life, with the added bonus of the room becoming a little brighter when Ohno entered it and a guiltily envious feeling every time he turned his attention to someone who wasn't Nino.
Notes: Title taken from the Gregory and the Hawk song of the same name. ♥
The first time Nino confessed, Ohno turned him down.
Nino hadn't planned on confessing that day or ever, to be honest. It had taken two years of being best friends before the day he realized that things had changed. They'd been sitting in the green room, waiting to be called out for some interview or photo shoot or something; Nino honestly didn't remember. All he remembered was sitting in a chair, playing his Gameboy, and looking up to see Aiba's head in Ohno's lap.
It wasn't like this was an unusual occurrence; at any given time, Aiba was molesting one of his fellow members. But for some reason, this particular time, Nino's hands clenched around his Gameboy and he felt a twist of something in his stomach. It wasn't until a few hours later, when he was laying in bed and staring at the ceiling that he came up with a name for that feeling and puzzled out exactly why he would feel jealousy at that specific time. The moment of realization was marked simply by a whispered "well, fuck."
Contrary to popular belief, life after realizing you were harboring feelings for your best friend was not either full of rainbows and smiley faces nor painful and unwieldy. It was pretty much the same life, with the added bonus of the room becoming a little brighter when Ohno entered it and a guiltily envious feeling every time he turned his attention to someone who wasn't Nino.
Nino was perfectly content to keep these feelings secret for the rest of their lives, pretty sure that Ohno didn't feel the same way and not wanting to ruin their friendship, let alone their careers, for something that was ignorable. Not that he was particularly good at hiding it, it turned out.
"So, you're in love with Captain," Aiba said point blank one evening when the two of them had gone out for dinner after a recording session. Nino choked on his ramen. Aiba just smiled pleasantly back, no indication of sympathy for Nino's near death experience.
"Excuse me?" he finally managed, still feeling the awkward throat soreness but more shocked than in pain.
"You're in love with Captain," Aiba repeated, as evenly as he could manage through his ridiculously huge grin. "Come on, we all know about it. Even Sho figured it out, although he kept trying to stay in denial by saying you just had the flu for a week or so." He paused and seemed to understand the unspoken question in Nino's eyes. "Oh, Ohno doesn't know, of course. He's as clueless as ever. At least, we're pretty sure he is. He's kind of hard to read sometimes."
"Gee, thanks," Nino muttered, taking a sip of his tea and trying to figure out his next response. Did he deny it? That was silly; they knew. Downplay it? That seemed like the best course of action and he opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Aiba.
"We all approve, by the way," Aiba smiled, cutting off all logical thought processes from Nino's mind. "Truth be told, we've kind of been waiting for it to happen since a few months or so after the debut. I completely understand why you haven't done anything," a faraway look Nino didn't have the energy to dissect was in his eyes, "but, just in case, we wanted you to know we're on your side."
Which was all nice and good but all the friendly support in the world means nothing if the object of your desire isn't giving you any hints and one wrong move could threaten friendship and career in one fell swoop. Nino knew that he was reading much too much into every gesture, every smile, every text message but it was getting hard not to. He was headed on the path towards mental breakdown but there was nowhere else to go.
It happened one day, kind of out of the blue. They'd been eating lunch in the TBS cafeteria, Ohno enjoying a bowl of udon and Nino trying to ignore how hyperaware he was of Ohno's knee lightly knocking against his under the table. They'd been talking about something to do with the show, a location shoot coming up that Ohno didn't particularly want to go to.
"Why not?" Nino teased. "Tired of the wonderfully relaxing five hour bus ride?"
"As much as I love the bus," Ohno smiled ruefully, "I was actually supposed to have a date that night and now I'll have to cancel it."
Nino felt his stomach bottom out and the katsudon in front of him suddenly looked like the most unappetizing dish ever but he managed out a small "oh." Ohno frowned.
"Are you okay?" he asked, suspicious sympathy in his eyes. "You've been acting weird for awhile now."
"I'm fine," Nino responded automatically, eyes looking everywhere but Ohno's.
"Nino," the older man said again, focused on his steadily reddening face.
And that was it. Something in him broke and Nino felt words spilling out his mouth with a frightening speed, words that, with every passing syllable, he wished he could take back.
"You're right; I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for years now. Do you know how much it sucks to be in love with someone who loves you, too, but not in the same way? Do you know how much it sucks to be with your best friend but spend every second wondering if that hand on your shoulder is just a friendly gesture or more than that? To know if you even breathed a word of this, you might ruin both your career and the best friendship you've ever had? Because I'm pretty sure you don't, Satoshi, and that's why I'm not okay."
The speech was out and it wasn't coming back. Ohno's face reflected the pure shock that Nino had always dreaded, the reason he never said anything. This was stupid, stupid stupid.
"Do you mean..." Ohno trailed off, still connecting the ideas in his head. Nino wasn't about to help him. He'd already said enough.
"What do you think I mean, Oh-chan?" he asked wearily, feeling strength drain out of him with each passing second.
"You like me?" he finally asked, looking both shocked and slightly uneasy. This was the last thing Nino wanted and he felt his stomach churn anxiously.
"Get the man a prize," he sighed, dropping his head to bury it in his folded arms on the table, not wanting to look at the impending disappointment written in Ohno's face.
"Nino," Ohno said awkwardly and Nino knew what was coming, had always known what was coming. This is why he never wanted him to know. And now he'd fucked it up. "You know that you're my best friend, right?"
Nino grunted from the table. Ohno continued in the same unsure way.
"I don't---" he paused, "--I don't really feel that way about you. I'm--I'm sorry."
And there it was. It was what he'd always expected, almost waited for ever since that awful evening when his heart had jumped into his throat for the first time. But if he'd been so prepared, why did it hurt so much?
Apparently, though, Ohno wasn't done.
"You're still my best friend, though," he continued, something like sympathy (or was it pity?) in his voice. "I don't want to lose you."
"Where am I going?" Nino's voice was muffled, considering he was talking into the table at this point, but he didn't really care. Nothing really mattered too much at this point.
"I don't know," he heard the frown in Ohno's voice. "But the thing is, I don't want to hurt you either. It--" Ohno paused again and Nino heard him swallow. "It's probably pretty hard to be around me, huh? So, if, you know, it helps, I can, I don't know, make myself scare for awhile."
That Nino had not been expecting and looked up to see Ohno's nervously self-concious expression. It kind of pissed him off.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, a little more angry than he had intended.
"Well," Ohno frowned, "I just thought that I might be, I don't know, a distraction?" Ohno opened his mouth to continue speaking but Nino cut him off.
"Don't be an arrogant ass, Ohno," Nino's voice was poisonous, even to his own ears. "I got on fine before this announcement or had you forgotten? I may like you but my world does not revolve around you. I can continue living in your presence so don't go and inconvenience Arashi by trying to make yourself disappear anywhere. I'm fine."
Nino didn't usually like to make scenes by storming out of places, it seemed like such a girly thing to do, but he didn't want to look at Ohno's guilty face one second longer. He felt Ohno's eyes on his back, watching him leave but he couldn't bring himself to care.
-------
Nino wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find when he came to work the next Monday. He had had an unprecedented two days off after his scene with Ohno, which had both worked for and against him. The good thing was that he didn't have to see either Ohno, which would kill him a little bit, or the others, which would kill him with the waves of attempted sympathy he knew they would radiate. The bad thing was that this left him to stew, alone, in his apartment for two days. Convinced that thinking too much was what got him into this trouble in the first place, Nino threw himself into video games, actually beating one Final Fantasy and getting halfway through another before he had to show up to work on Monday.
"You look like shit," Jun greeted him when he walked into dressing room. The younger man was getting fitted in something that looked vaguely like a sparkly pink bubble jacket. Nino wished he had the energy to come up with a remark but he really didn't.
"Thanks," he responded sarcastically, hearing how tired he was come out in his voice. Jun winced and so did he. When was the last time he had slept? Jun didn't say anything else that morning but Nino felt his eyes on him and he wasn't sure he liked the pity they held.
Ohno didn't come in until five minutes before they started recording and Nino was grateful. He wasn't exactly mad at Ohno, it wasn't any fault of his to not return his feelings, but he felt awkward around him, knowing that Ohno knew. When the cameras were on, Nino played his normal role but if anyone noticed that he sat next to Sho today and didn't pay Ohno much attention, they didn't mention it. It wasn't until the cameras were off, a few hours later, that things got uncomfortable.
"Did you hear?" Aiba smiled, bouncing off the set with more energy than Nino thought should be endowed in a normal human. "Ohno got a new stageplay!" Mumbles of congratulations were heard and Ohno nodded absently but that, apparently, wasn't enough for Aiba.
"Isn't it great, Nino?" Aiba asked and Nino felt, not for the first time, that sometimes life would be easier if he could just punch Aiba in the face every once in awhile. "Shouldn't you congratulate him?"
"I did," Nino replied, trying to give Aiba a death glare that the older man was either ignoring or not picking up on.
"Not very well," Aiba laughed and, with a swift hip bump that Nino wasn't expecting, knocked Nino into Ohno's arms.
Nino froze. Great. This was just what he needed. He looked up hesitantly to catch Ohno's eye and was surprised to find that he didn't looked disgusted, just tired.
"Congratulations," Nino breathed. Ohno smiled awkwardly and nodded.
There was a beat of silence before Nino scurried out of the weak hold Ohno had on him and, feeling out of place, grabbed his things before rushing home, ears burning and questions he didn't have the answers to on his lips.
Nino's phone buzzed as he got to the steps outside the station. Reluctantly, he pulled it out to look at the message.
I want to be okay. Can we be okay?
A sigh of relief and a quick reply before he dashed down to almost miss his train.
Of course we're okay. See you tomorrow.
-------
The second time Nino confessed, he wasn't even entirely sure it was a confession.
A year or so had passed since the first awkward speech and things were completely normal, like nothing had ever happened. At least, it seemed that way, as far as Ohno was concerned. Things pretty much still sucked on Nino's end.
It was all well and good to agree that things were normal, okay or whatever word you wanted to put on it. It was another to actually manage to get over feelings, something Nino wasn't able to do on the spot like that. In fact, no matter how hard he worked, he was pretty sure he just loved Ohno more than he had originally, despite how much he wished to the contrary.
He was aware Sho, if none of the others, knew what was going on because he had begun receiving care packages. Of course, Sho would never call them that, saying that he heard that Nino needed new socks or one of their managers had sent this new soap sample or the program they were appearing in had gifted them some snack food. It was always a lie and everyone always saw through it but Nino appreciated the intention, at the very least.
It was a few weeks before the Countdown when it happened. Nino wasn't really looking forward to the New Year. Nothing personal, it was just that he knew that Ohno's family was going to be taking a trip at the beginning of the year, while they still had some time off, and Nino wasn't particularly looking forward to two weeks without Ohno. Not that he would ever share that embarrassing thought but as long as it remained solely in his head, it was okay. Or so he thought.
"Nino, are you sick?" Ohno asked out of the blue during a break in rehearsal. He had thought he'd escaped to the safety of the hallway but Ohno must have followed him because there he was, blocking the way back to the studio. Nino sighed, part weariness and part frustration.
"I'm not sick," he replied, giving Ohno an eyebrow that apparently did nothing. "Why do you ask?"
"You just haven't really been yourself lately," Ohno replied and there was that goddamn suspicion in his gaze again. Nino hated that look. "You've seemed rather down."
"I'm just frustrated with this dance," Nino responded automatically, thanking his brain silently for having an excuse he hadn't been aware of. "I keep flubbing the bridge."
"No," Ohno countered, his face falsely confident, "I don't think that's it."
"Oh, you don't?" Nino asked incredulously, hoping against hope that Ohno wasn't going to say anything.
"Nope," Ohno shook his head. "In fact, I think we both know what's going on."
"Leave it be," Nino warned, trying to give Ohno a dangerous look but probably only managing to look tired.
"I think you're still not over me," Ohno continued, a question on his face despite the confidence in his tone. "I think you're upset about our New Year's trip."
"I didn't say that, Ohno," Nino sighed.
"But it's true, isn't it?"
Nino didn't know what to do anymore. How was he supposed to "get over" Ohno if the man kept bring it up?
"What do you want me to say?" Nino asked honestly. "What do you want me to do?"
Ohno seemed to contemplate this question for a second, eyes gazing up and to the right as if an answer resided there. Nino just wanted to get back to rehearsal.
"Do your best," Ohno finally responded. Nino blinked.
"Do my best at what?"
"At getting over me," Ohno replied with sad smile. He turned and disappeared back to the dance studio, gone before he could see Nino crumple.
Didn't Ohno know he was already doing that?
-------
Nino always knew when Ohno was dating someone. Ohno liked to be secretive about his relationships, never even telling the other members unless something supremely important came up and even then, only if it were strictly necessary. He was intensely concerned with keeping his private life private and Nino could respect that.
For someone who was trying so hard to be secretive, though, Nino really wished that Ohno would learn to cover it up better from his best friend. It really wasn't hard to tell.
The first thing that would go would be replies to text messages. A few days with a lack of reply wasn't cause for alarm; Ohno frequently forgot to charge his cell phone and would only realize a few days later. It was when it got to be a week and Nino's simple "Still alive?" hadn't been responded to that Nino would know something was up.
Pretty soon, Ohno would start coming late to work. Never anything strict, like interviews or photo shoots but things that could be shuffled around, rearranged were game. He'd make up some excuse about the trains running late or oversleeping or his mother telling him to run an errand and since they were so common and so Ohno, everyone would laugh it off. But Nino knew. Nino could always tell.
The worst is when it got serious enough that Ohno would start canceling plans they had. Never anything huge, just quick messages that said things like "Can't come today after all. Sorry!" and Nino's heart would sink a little lower in his chest as he stopped at the bento shop on his way home for a quick dinner.
It usually was something little like that but one time, Ohno crossed a line. He and Nino had made plans to spend a weekend at an onsen in Hakone. It was more of a trip than they normally planned and Nino was honestly kind of surprised that Ohno had agreed to it, as cautious as the older man could be about things around Nino. Ohno had said his back hurt, though, and they were the only two that had the upcoming weekend off so they had called in a reservation after work and made plans to head up after Nino's interview on Friday.
Nino waited for four hours at Shibuya before he realized that Ohno wasn't coming. Their train had left hours earlier but Nino didn't want to give up hope, sure that every idiot in a trucker hat and mask was Ohno, about to apologize that he was late and he was so sorry but he was halfway there before he realized he had forgotten his toothbrush or some sort of foolish thing at home and had rushed home to get it and why didn't they take the next train?
The last train pulled out of the station when Nino finally texted Ohno. They still could have taken Nino's car if they really wanted to go but Nino doubted it. He could imagine what Ohno was up to and it pained him as much as it pissed him off.
Ohno showed up to work on Monday looking like a typhoon had blown through his soul. His hair was disheveled, he wore a ratty tee shirt and baggy shorts that Nino hadn't seen in years and he obviously hadn't slept in days. So, she'd broken up with him. That much was obvious. And yet, despite the deep love and adoration Nino had for Ohno, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Ohno didn't try to talk to Nino until the following week, taking awhile to break out of the funk the breakup had put him in. The others covered for him, saying he had a bad case of the flu but everyone knew what was really up. Nino didn't even say good morning anymore.
"Nino," Ohno grabbed his arm as he was turning the corner in an NTV hallway. Nino hadn't even been aware Ohno was in the studio that day, thinking he and Sho were only shooting VTRs. He was so busy wondering what Ohno was doing there that he didn't even question when Ohno pulled him into an empty meeting room.
"Can I help you?" Nino finally asked, sitting in a chair by the door and crossing his arms, not willing to give Ohno any leeway. The older man sighed, looking weary with the world and sunk into a chair across the table from him. Nino didn't give an inch.
"So, Yuka broke up with me on Friday," Ohno started, giving Nino an uneasy look, like he wasn't sure how he was going to react.
"You don't say?" Nino asked dryly.
"I took it pretty hard. We'd been going out since --"
"--November. I know." Ohno gave Nino a surprised look and Nino just laughed mirthlessly. "You're not sneaky, you know. I've known since the beginning."
Now it was Ohno's turn. "Oh."
"And so?" Nino asked, not feeling anything like sympathy. "What do you want me to do about it? I don't think she'll listen to me if you want me to beg her to come back."
"No, no," Ohno shook his head, obviously still trying to understand that Nino had always known. "I just wanted to say that that was the reason I couldn't go to the onsen that weekend."
An awkward silence.
"...that's all you have to say?" Nino asked finally. Ohno blinked.
"Well, yeah."
Nino couldn't handle his idiocy anymore. He jumped out of his chair and made to leave the room, stopping only when he heard Ohno let out a strangled yelp of his name from behind. Nino whirled around, fixing the older man with a death glare.
"This isn't working, Satoshi. If you still want to be my best friend, you need to make an effort. I don't care who you're fucking but if you're going to fuck me over, at least have the decency to send me a fucking text message so I don't wait at the station for you. I don't care how depressed or shocked or whatever you were; that's what friends do. They let each other know. Who knows? Maybe I would have taken you out for drinks, my treat for once. But we'll never know because I spent that evening with the station employees.
And beyond that, Oh-chan, maybe you could try not being a nonentity when you're in a relationship. You may be able to fool the others with your little excuses but i know better. It's one thing to be a little lax with your work duties when you're dating someone. It's another to completely stop texting your friends, so we don't even know if you're still alive. This is a two way street and I've been going it alone. If you still want to do this, you have to try."
Nino let out a huge sigh he hadn't been aware was in him, amazed that all of that came out at once. Ohno looked shell shocked but Nino didn't care; the man needed a wake up call. Neither said anything for a moment, Nino still getting over the fact that he actually said it and Ohno processing the information. Finally, Ohno cleared his throat.
"You're right."
Nino blinked. "I'm what?"
"You're right," Ohno repeated, looking more serious than he had in a long time. "You're right, Nino. I've been a horrible friend. I shouldn't have done the things I've done."
"You forgot about me."
He heard the words come out of his mouth and he wanted to kick himself. Where did the strong guy that had just chewed out Ohno go? Nino felt the tiny crack in his armor widen, though, when Ohno responded lightly, looking down at his hands.
"I didn't forget about you. But I didn't let you know that I was thinking of you, either, which is the most important part."
Nino was beginning to wonder if they were going to hug or something when Ohno looked up at him with tired eyes and Nino felt his knees buckle, just a little bit.
"Are we okay?"
Always the same question. Always the same answer.
"Of course we're okay."
And Nino snuck out of the room and down the hall before he could think too much about it.
-------
It took Nino getting a serious girlfriend to change the game.
Nino hadn't ever really been that interested in women, worrying at points in his teen years that he was Ohno-sexual but Masami was nice and pretty and funny and best of all, she liked him. When she asked him out for drinks after shooting one night, he accepted and pretty soon, it had become a regular thing.
He was aware it had become serious only after a few months, when every other text message was from her and it became clear that the others had figured out where he snuck off to after rehearsal.
"What happened with Ohno?" Jun finally asked one day, when they found themselves alone in the recording studio.
"I don't know?" Nino frowned. "What do you mean, what happened?"
"You're dating that Masami girl, right?" Jun asked. Nino nodded. "Well then, have you given up on Ohno?"
"I gave up on Ohno a long time ago, Jun," Nino tried to end the conversation. Jun just gave him a look.
"I'm only going to say one more thing and then I'll let you make your own mistakes. Nino, do you actually like this girl or is she just a placeholder?"
Nino didn't have an answer to that.
After a few months of a somewhat blissful relationship, Nino began to notice something that the other members had noticed much earlier, namely that this new distraction wasn't hindering Nino's work so much as Ohno's. It was subtle, a completely different kind of annoyance than Nino's had been at much the same situation but it was unmistakably in the same family of feelings. The older man was much more irritable than he normal was, actually snapping at the other members when things went wrong. Not that anyone could read Ohno normally but it seemed like suddenly, his heart wasn't in it like it had been.
During one dance rehearsal, Aiba flubbed a step for the twenty third time when Ohno turned around, something almost resembling a snarl on his face.
"How many times do we have to do this, Aiba?" he asked, frustration eating through his tone. Sho winced and Aiba hiccuped, apologizing with every other breath.
After practice was over, Nino sat in the greenroom, checking his phone before heading out when he felt more than saw Ohno enter. Nino did his best to ignore the other man as he came over and collapsed on the other end of the couch.
"Text from the girl?" Ohno asked, picking up his baseball hat from the nearby table and plopping it onto his face. The tone hadn't been harsh but it hadn't been normal, either and after the scene earlier, Nino was done.
"What's your problem?" he asked, eyes still trained on his phone. He saw Ohno peek one eye out from under the cap in his peripheral vision but made no show of seeing.
"Don't have one," Ohno's voice was gruff. Nino chuckled humorlessly.
"Then what was that with Aiba out there?"
"Just frustrated. Tired. You know."
At this, Nino finally snapped his phone shut, shoved it in his pocket and turned so that he was facing Ohno, nudging him with his sneaker.
"No, I really don't know. You've been tired and frustrated before but you never take it out on Aiba. Something else is up. What is it?" Ohno seemed reluctant but a few more nudges from Nino made him sigh, pushing the baseball cap farther up onto his head and turning back to face Nino, sneaker to sneaker on the couch.
"You don't like her more than me, right?"
Ohno's voice was quiet and he was looking at him all uncertainty and hesitancy. Nino felt his breath catch in his throat. This was dangerous.
"What do you mean?" The words were cautious, soft. Nino was walking on thin ice and worried he might enjoy the drowning.
"Well, we're best friends, right?" Ohno asked, gaining some sort of strength from the encouragement in Nino's eyes and the way the younger man nodded. "But I feel like I'm losing you. You always sneak off to meet her or text her or go out drinking with her. I haven't gotten to make plans with you in two months." Ohno paused. He spoke next to his hands rather than Nino. "I don't want a girl to come between us."
If Nino had had the nerve, he would have laughed at how ridiculous this whole situation was. Ohno, king of the fourteen night stand, was worried about a girl coming in the middle of their friendship? But there was real anxiety in Ohno's gaze and Nino watched as his hand moved to rest on his shoulder.
"Oh-chan," he smiled, soft and genuine, "no one is ever going to get in the middle of our friendship, be they man, woman or otherwise. I mean, we're Ohmiya SK. There's no room for a third person."
Ohno smiled, accepting the answer with a nod and a ruffle of Nino's hair; Nino cursed the blood he could feel rushing to his cheeks. He made eye contact with Ohno and the other man read the unspoken question in the gaze and nodded.
"We're okay."
-------
Nino broke up with Masami two weeks later, a week away from their nine month anniversary. When she asked him why, he simply said that he felt they'd grown apart.
-------
Nino continued his charade of being over Ohno, an act that no one really believed but everyone indulged. He ignored the way his heart fluttered when Ohno smiled at him mid-concert or the flip flop of his stomach when the incoming text message read "Oh-chan ♥."
Most of all, he never called Ohno out again on his girlfriends. Part of it was that he knew he wouldn't be able to handle another conversation like that but the other part was, honestly, he hadn't noticed any of the typical behavior in the past few years. It seemed odd that Ohno, who had seemed to be with someone within a week of breaking up with the previous girl for years, was suddenly in a dry spell but Nino didn't question it. He'd take what he could get.
"Whatever happened between you and Ohno?" Sho asked one day, driving Nino home after work. Sho rarely asked about things like this and Nino frowned, pausing his game.
"What do you mean? Nothing. Nothing's happened with us."
"Really?" Sho asked, disbelief in his voice. "Cause that guy's changed in the past year or so and I honestly thought it must be because of you."
"Changed?" Nino asked, curious. He couldn't think of anything that different, other than the girlfriend thing. Maybe he invited him out to ramen a little more often than he used to. And okay, he did tend to call ever other day simply to check in now when it used to be only when he needed something. But those things didn't involve the other members so why would Sho know?
"I can't believe you haven't noticed this," Sho chuckled, laughing out loud when he noticed the petulant look on Nino's face. "It's just, well lately, it seems like Ohno initiates more of the skinship than you do. I had always just thought it was a Nino thing but it's been all Leader lately."
Nino was silent, going through a catalogue in his mind of brushes, arms on shoulders, sideways whispers and bumping knees. Had Ohno been doing it more lately? Maybe he had...
"Just keep an eye open," Sho said into the contemplative silence. "Things might be different than you think."
Nino spent all night tossing and turning, unwarranted hope coloring his few dreams.
-------
When the offer had come to be in a Hollywood movie, Nino wasn't quite sure what to do. Of course, this was a huge deal, a compliment beyond any he'd been paid before, but could he really leave Arashi for three months to film it? That was a long time and America was far. It wasn't like he could take a day off and crash at Jun's or grab some food from Aiba's. This was a commitment that would be solely him, with emails and phone calls at most from the other four. It would be a long time away.
"You should go," Jun told him straight when he brought it up in dressing room. Aiba nodded from the couch.
"This is great opportunity," Sho spoke from behind Jun, shrugging on a vest. "You'd be silly not to take it. We can hold out for three months."
"You'll have to buy us lots of souvenirs, though," Aiba warned, a twinkle in his eye. "Do you think a real American hamburger would make it all the way back to Japan unharmed?"
"You're the one that does experiments, not me," Nino laughed, a weight lifting off his chest.
He turned to make eye contact with Ohno, who had said nothing yet. Nino didn't say a word but Ohno seemed to understand, giving him a warm smile and saying simply "Do your best."
And so, the decision was made.
-------
What are you doing tomorrow night?
The text came at six in the morning, managing to both wake and annoy Nino at the same time. True, he had to get up in five minutes anyway, an interview at eight but it was the principle of the thing. He had to leave in a week, anyway and who knew how much jet lag was going to get him?
The fact that the text was from Ohno only relieved some of the annoyance. He quickly typed back, "interview at seven and then nothing. why?" and rolled out of bed and into the shower.
Walking back into the room, towel drying his hair haphazardly, he was surprised to see a return message already blinking at him. He flipped the phone open, the towel dropping casually to the side of the bed.
You should come over after the interview~
Nino frowned at his phone. Come over? That was vague. Nino knew that Ohno must mean to meet him at some bar or something (Ohno had never invited a member of Arashi over in their seven years together) but if he wanted to meet Nino, he'd have to give a meeting place. Nino sent back "Where do you want me to meet you?" and threw on some clothes before running downstairs and grabbing a cab.
The phone buzzed in his pocket again as he drove towards the studio. He slid it out as he set his melon bun onto the seat next to him.
My house? I can send the address later.
Aiba, who was doing the interview with Nino, was very excited about this turn of events.
"You're the first one he's ever invited over!" Aiba's eyes shone with excitement, much more than he should be able to muster at eight in the morning. "That has to mean something. Maybe he's going to confess? Since you're going so far away!"
"Or maybe," Nino rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the butterflies that were waking to Aiba's words, "he forgot to give me something during rehearsal the other day and since our schedules won't match up before I leave, this was the only way he could do it."
"He'd come find you if that were the case, Nino, and you know it." Aiba smiled victoriously.
"I'm sure he's just being lazy," Nino replied, trying to drag the energetic man back towards the room where the magazine representatives were waiting. Aiba let himself be led, stopping right before they walked in the door and looking Nino right in the eye.
"This means something. Don't blow it off."
And with that, Aiba skipped into the room, leaving Nino to the hallway and his thoughts.
-------
Ohno's mother answered the door, something Nino hadn't been expecting.
"Ah, Nino! It's been so long," she smiled, ushering him in without a second thought. "How is your mother doing?"
"She's doing fine," Nino smiled back, a little unnerved at the ease of the conversation. "How are you?"
"Oh, fine, dear, fine." Ohno's mother had always been a flurry of activity and this time was no different. She was handing him a pair of slippers while dusting a bookshelf near the entrance way, a smile on her face as she regarded Nino. "Satoshi's upstairs in his room, second door on the right." And with one last smile, she was gone.
Nino climbed the stairs, taking in the sights and sounds of Ohno's house, knowing that Aiba would quiz him about it later. It was rather plain, definitely homey and felt like Ohno.
The second door on the right had a little name plate that read "Satoshi" in English, each letter a different color. Nino smiled before knocking lightly, pushing the door open when he heard a reply "Yes?" Ohno turned when Nino walked in, a smile brightening his face when he saw who it was.
"Nino," Ohno grinned, and Nino felt the tips of his ears grow hot. The older man motioned him over and Nino made his way across the spartan room, taking a seat on Ohno's bed.
"Your room is boring," Nino observed. Ohno shrugged.
"I'm not in here much. How was the interview?"
Nino sighed, forgetting the awkwardness to fall back on Ohno's bed and begin to complain about the way the interviewer had kept tapping her lip with her pencil, a really annoying habit that he had made a game out of halfway through. Every time she reached ten taps in a row, Nino mentioned something completely off-topic in his answer. Ohno thought that maybe he knew which person Nino was talking about and pretty soon the talk turned to bad interviews to awkward photo shoots to the worst outfits they'd ever had to wear to actually looking up footage of them on the internet.
Pretty soon a few hours had passed and neither had noticed. It was only when Nino's phone buzzed with a brief text from his manager (You have an early morning tomorrow...) that Nino actually looked at the time.
"I should probably get going pretty soon," Nino muttered, not really wanting to. He turned to Ohno, a small frown on his face, to see an unfathomable expression on the other man's.
"Can't leave yet," he told Nino, getting up and walking over towards his desk. Nino simply watched him, curiosity set in his expression. It wasn't until Ohno made his way back with a small box that the annoying feeling that liked to pool in his stomach at Ohno's smile began to make an appearance.
"What's this?" Nino asked as Ohno placed the box in Nino's hands, sitting back down on the bed next to him. Ohno shrugged and motioned for him to open it.
Lifting the lid, Nino found two sets of shaded eyes staring back up at him. He threw a quick glance at Ohno before setting the box down and lifting out the two figurines that were inside. Both were invariably black men, smiling back up at Nino excitedly, but with one marked difference: one was dressed as Taka and the other as Yuji.
"Ohmiya SK?" Nino asked weakly, not quite sure what to make of the figures. Ohno nodded, smiling. "And you're giving them to me?" Nino asked again, unsure of the whole situation. This was where Ohno's smile dropped, his face somewhat flustered as he reached forward and grabbed the Yuji figure.
"Well, you're going away soon, right?" he asked the figure in his hands, feeling Nino's gaze on his face. "I just thought, maybe you'd like to keep one and I could keep the other." His voice got really quiet. "Then, even though we're apart, it's kind of like we're together."
Nino stared disbelieving at Ohno. The older man was still looking down at the small figure of Yuji, a half smile on his face. Nino didn't know what to think. What did this mean? He looked down at the Taka in front of him and bit his lip.
And then Ohno looked up. There was something in his eyes that had never been there before, some kind of hesitant promise in his smile that Nino felt his heart skip. Ohno leaned forward unconsciously and Nino followed his lead. 'Oh God,' Nino thought to himself, 'is this where we kiss?'
"Satoshi? Nino?" Ohno's mother called from the hallway. "Are you two hungry? I left some curry on low on the stove if you want any."
Nino blinked. Ohno followed his lead, calling out "Thanks, Mom!" before falling back slightly on his knees. There was an awkward stillness in the air and Nino didn't know what to do to dispel it.
"Thanks," he finally said, a thickness to his voice reminiscent of just waking up. Ohno nodded. Noticing that they were still leaning towards each other, Nino closed the gap to give Ohno a hug.
They'd hugged hundreds of times in the years that they'd known each other, so much so that the motion usually felt almost rehearsed and effortless, but there was something in the air, some emotion in the embrace that Nino was almost afraid to break it.
A minute passed, or maybe ten, and Ohno leaned back.
"Curry?"
Nino smiled. "Maybe a little bit before I go."
-------
As Nino unpacked his suitcase in the hotel room that was to be his home for the next few months, he frowned at his lack of closet space. Not that he had brought all that much but the room was kind of cramped. He stashed his DS and some games in one of the drawers under the television, hung up his shirts and pants in the closet, and flipped through the room service menu, grinning when he recognized the word "hamburger" on one of the pages.
The figurine of Taka smiled at him from the nightstand.
-------
Sho was waiting for him at the airport when he got back in. They'd been told it would attract too much attention to have all four of them waiting and so Sho had been chosen as representative through a vicious game of rock paper scissors. Nino didn't seem to care, launching himself on Sho the minute he saw him.
"I missed you, too," Sho laughed, patting Nino's back and ruffling (what remained of) his hair before pulling a hat out of his bag and smashing down over Nino's head. Nino grinned, pulling the hat down over his ears and swinging his carry on from side to side as he followed Sho (and a few managers) out the airport.
Sho began filling in Nino on all the important events he'd missed: the shoots, the performances, the time that Aiba thought he would be able to eat a habanero if he drank a glass of milk at the same time. Nino laughed until his stomach hurt, sharing a few stories of his own.
After the laughter died down and Sho and Nino sat curled up silently in the back of the car, Sho turned and poked Nino. Nino made a questioning noise.
"Just glad you're really here," Sho smiled. Nino nuzzled into Sho's shoulder.
"I'm glad I'm here, too." Nino could feel himself losing the battle to sleep, the excitement from seeing Sho after so long and being back in Japan wearing off with the comfort of Sho's side and the soft glide of the car's wheels. Right before he drifted off, he heard Sho mutter "...missed you." Whether it had been prefaced by a 'we' or a 'he,' Nino never knew.
-------
"Nino!" Aiba attacked him from the doorway of their dressing room, ribbons trailing behind him, apparently attached to his jacket. Nino didn't question, just let himself be enveloped in Aiba's embrace as the other man actually lifted him from the ground and hugged him all the way to the couch.
"Welcome back," Jun smiled, patting Nino on the back.
Ohno simply walked over and plopped down on the couch, leaning over so his head rested on Nino's shoulder. "Missed you."
"What'd you get us?" Aiba asked excitedly, reverting to a five year old. Nino sighed good-naturedly, reaching down to grab a bag he'd deposited at his feet. He pulled out a hamburger-shaped magnet and tossed it in Aiba's direction.
"There's your American hamburger," he laughed. Aiba seemed happy enough with it, though, smiling and dashing around the room, trying to find some place to stick it.
"Here, Jun," Nino handed over a tee shirt that read "I ♥ LA". Jun gave him a sideways look before grinning and thanking him. Sho liked his postcards, too. Nino apologized for being a cheap souvenir buyer but the others laughed, saying they expecting nothing less.
"I think I forgot yours at home," Nino turned to Ohno after a moment passed and he couldn't find the last gift.
"That's fine," Ohno shrugged, a sleepy smile on his face.
"Want to come over tonight and get it?"
The flurry of activity in the greenroom stopped with the question. There was a hidden meaning in the invitation, even if no one present was one hundred percent sure what that was. The blood pounded in Nino's ears as he watched Ohno think about it.
"Sure," Ohno finally nodded, leaning his head back on Nino's shoulder. "We can head over after the recording."
Aiba gave Nino a thumbs up from across the room and Jun hit him.
-------
"It's kind of messy," Nino warned as he switched the light on. "I know it shouldn't be, considering I was gone for so long but it is. I think elves broke in and used it."
"Don't care," Ohno replied from behind him, walking past Nino to sit down on his couch. This wasn't like before; Ohno had been over to Nino's apartment plenty of times. It was just usually either in groups or when he had been too drunk to make it home, the former annoying Nino with their lack of privacy and the latter alarming him by giving them way too much of it.
"Want some tea? A beer?" Nino asked, walking over towards the kitchen.
"I want my present," Ohno laughed from the couch. Nino frowned, not having expected to have to give it so quickly but disappeared into his bedroom just the same. He came back with a small album and sat down next to Ohno, setting it in his hands.
It was hard to watch as Ohno flipped the book open to the first picture, the Taka figurine sitting on a rock at the beach. He glanced over at Nino questioningly but Nino didn't make eye contact and Ohno returned to the book. He turned the page to find Taka next to a hamburger bigger than him, Taka on Rodeo Drive, Taka under the Hollywood sign. The pictures continued in that pattern until the very last page that found Nino, donning a pair of sunglasses and a blue sweatband, holding the Taka figurine and smiling on the terrace of his hotel room.
Ohno closed the book and didn't say anything for a moment. Nino fiddled with his hands, not daring to look up. Before Ohno could open his mouth, though, Nino found himself rambling.
"You said that having the figurine would be like being together, right? So I figured that, you know, if we were on vacation together, we'd take lots of pictures, to remember it and stuff. So, here it is. Here's our pictures from my location shooting in America."
It sounded lame, even to Nino's own ears and he regretted saying it immediately after it came out of his mouth but there it was. Nino's stupid idea of a stupid photo album. He continued to kick himself mentally until he felt a hand on his knee.
"Nino," a soft voice called and he turned to see Ohno, a smile playing at the edge of his lips. "Nino, I love it."
"You do?" Nino asked, not quite believing.
And then Ohno was leaning forward and there was a hand cupping his face, tilting it up ever so slightly and Ohno's lips met his. It took a second for it to sink in, that this was actually happening and Ohno broke the kiss, leaning back and frowning.
"I thought you'd be happier," he observed, noticing that there still wasn't really a response on Nino's face.
"But you don't feel that way about me," Nino blurted out, still not able to make the connection in his mind. Yes, he'd hoped this would happen, dreamed of it (and more) for years but now that it was actually happening, he couldn't figure out.
"When was the last time I told you that?" Ohno asked, smiling as if this was actually somehow funny. It was annoying. Wait, how long had it been?
"...three years ago," Nino replied, realizing how long a period of time that was. Ohno must have noticed that epiphany on Nino's face as smiled and reached forward, squeezing Nino's hand.
"Things change, Kazu." And then he was kissing him again.
A warm feeling began coiling in Nino's stomach as he awoke to what was going on. His arms wrapped around Ohno's neck of their own accord as he tilted his head to the left and deepened the kiss. Ohno sighed into his mouth, his own hand tightening at Nino's lower back to bring them closer together. Nino heard something that sounded suspiciously like a purr escape his mouth; Ohno tipped them backward until Nino's back met the couch cushion. Nino didn't have the breath to complain.
-------
The two thousand, seven hundred and fifty third time Nino confessed, Ohno laughed, toweling his hair dry before letting Nino tug at his hand and pull him back into bed. They didn't have to be at the studio until ten and as Nino kissed a trail from Ohno's ear to his collarbone, he mused that there was no better way to welcome an eleventh year then with a confession, regardless of how many times Ohno had heard it before. The older man never seemed to mind.
~
I know this is a little different from my normal stuff but I really like how it turned out and I hope you do, too. See you for the finale of CoKoi on Saturday~ ♥
Rating: PG -13
Pairing: Ohmiya
Summary: Contrary to popular belief, life after realizing you were harboring feelings for your best friend was not either full of rainbows and smiley faces nor painful and unwieldy. It was pretty much the same life, with the added bonus of the room becoming a little brighter when Ohno entered it and a guiltily envious feeling every time he turned his attention to someone who wasn't Nino.
Notes: Title taken from the Gregory and the Hawk song of the same name. ♥
The first time Nino confessed, Ohno turned him down.
Nino hadn't planned on confessing that day or ever, to be honest. It had taken two years of being best friends before the day he realized that things had changed. They'd been sitting in the green room, waiting to be called out for some interview or photo shoot or something; Nino honestly didn't remember. All he remembered was sitting in a chair, playing his Gameboy, and looking up to see Aiba's head in Ohno's lap.
It wasn't like this was an unusual occurrence; at any given time, Aiba was molesting one of his fellow members. But for some reason, this particular time, Nino's hands clenched around his Gameboy and he felt a twist of something in his stomach. It wasn't until a few hours later, when he was laying in bed and staring at the ceiling that he came up with a name for that feeling and puzzled out exactly why he would feel jealousy at that specific time. The moment of realization was marked simply by a whispered "well, fuck."
Contrary to popular belief, life after realizing you were harboring feelings for your best friend was not either full of rainbows and smiley faces nor painful and unwieldy. It was pretty much the same life, with the added bonus of the room becoming a little brighter when Ohno entered it and a guiltily envious feeling every time he turned his attention to someone who wasn't Nino.
Nino was perfectly content to keep these feelings secret for the rest of their lives, pretty sure that Ohno didn't feel the same way and not wanting to ruin their friendship, let alone their careers, for something that was ignorable. Not that he was particularly good at hiding it, it turned out.
"So, you're in love with Captain," Aiba said point blank one evening when the two of them had gone out for dinner after a recording session. Nino choked on his ramen. Aiba just smiled pleasantly back, no indication of sympathy for Nino's near death experience.
"Excuse me?" he finally managed, still feeling the awkward throat soreness but more shocked than in pain.
"You're in love with Captain," Aiba repeated, as evenly as he could manage through his ridiculously huge grin. "Come on, we all know about it. Even Sho figured it out, although he kept trying to stay in denial by saying you just had the flu for a week or so." He paused and seemed to understand the unspoken question in Nino's eyes. "Oh, Ohno doesn't know, of course. He's as clueless as ever. At least, we're pretty sure he is. He's kind of hard to read sometimes."
"Gee, thanks," Nino muttered, taking a sip of his tea and trying to figure out his next response. Did he deny it? That was silly; they knew. Downplay it? That seemed like the best course of action and he opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by Aiba.
"We all approve, by the way," Aiba smiled, cutting off all logical thought processes from Nino's mind. "Truth be told, we've kind of been waiting for it to happen since a few months or so after the debut. I completely understand why you haven't done anything," a faraway look Nino didn't have the energy to dissect was in his eyes, "but, just in case, we wanted you to know we're on your side."
Which was all nice and good but all the friendly support in the world means nothing if the object of your desire isn't giving you any hints and one wrong move could threaten friendship and career in one fell swoop. Nino knew that he was reading much too much into every gesture, every smile, every text message but it was getting hard not to. He was headed on the path towards mental breakdown but there was nowhere else to go.
It happened one day, kind of out of the blue. They'd been eating lunch in the TBS cafeteria, Ohno enjoying a bowl of udon and Nino trying to ignore how hyperaware he was of Ohno's knee lightly knocking against his under the table. They'd been talking about something to do with the show, a location shoot coming up that Ohno didn't particularly want to go to.
"Why not?" Nino teased. "Tired of the wonderfully relaxing five hour bus ride?"
"As much as I love the bus," Ohno smiled ruefully, "I was actually supposed to have a date that night and now I'll have to cancel it."
Nino felt his stomach bottom out and the katsudon in front of him suddenly looked like the most unappetizing dish ever but he managed out a small "oh." Ohno frowned.
"Are you okay?" he asked, suspicious sympathy in his eyes. "You've been acting weird for awhile now."
"I'm fine," Nino responded automatically, eyes looking everywhere but Ohno's.
"Nino," the older man said again, focused on his steadily reddening face.
And that was it. Something in him broke and Nino felt words spilling out his mouth with a frightening speed, words that, with every passing syllable, he wished he could take back.
"You're right; I'm not okay. I haven't been okay for years now. Do you know how much it sucks to be in love with someone who loves you, too, but not in the same way? Do you know how much it sucks to be with your best friend but spend every second wondering if that hand on your shoulder is just a friendly gesture or more than that? To know if you even breathed a word of this, you might ruin both your career and the best friendship you've ever had? Because I'm pretty sure you don't, Satoshi, and that's why I'm not okay."
The speech was out and it wasn't coming back. Ohno's face reflected the pure shock that Nino had always dreaded, the reason he never said anything. This was stupid, stupid stupid.
"Do you mean..." Ohno trailed off, still connecting the ideas in his head. Nino wasn't about to help him. He'd already said enough.
"What do you think I mean, Oh-chan?" he asked wearily, feeling strength drain out of him with each passing second.
"You like me?" he finally asked, looking both shocked and slightly uneasy. This was the last thing Nino wanted and he felt his stomach churn anxiously.
"Get the man a prize," he sighed, dropping his head to bury it in his folded arms on the table, not wanting to look at the impending disappointment written in Ohno's face.
"Nino," Ohno said awkwardly and Nino knew what was coming, had always known what was coming. This is why he never wanted him to know. And now he'd fucked it up. "You know that you're my best friend, right?"
Nino grunted from the table. Ohno continued in the same unsure way.
"I don't---" he paused, "--I don't really feel that way about you. I'm--I'm sorry."
And there it was. It was what he'd always expected, almost waited for ever since that awful evening when his heart had jumped into his throat for the first time. But if he'd been so prepared, why did it hurt so much?
Apparently, though, Ohno wasn't done.
"You're still my best friend, though," he continued, something like sympathy (or was it pity?) in his voice. "I don't want to lose you."
"Where am I going?" Nino's voice was muffled, considering he was talking into the table at this point, but he didn't really care. Nothing really mattered too much at this point.
"I don't know," he heard the frown in Ohno's voice. "But the thing is, I don't want to hurt you either. It--" Ohno paused again and Nino heard him swallow. "It's probably pretty hard to be around me, huh? So, if, you know, it helps, I can, I don't know, make myself scare for awhile."
That Nino had not been expecting and looked up to see Ohno's nervously self-concious expression. It kind of pissed him off.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, a little more angry than he had intended.
"Well," Ohno frowned, "I just thought that I might be, I don't know, a distraction?" Ohno opened his mouth to continue speaking but Nino cut him off.
"Don't be an arrogant ass, Ohno," Nino's voice was poisonous, even to his own ears. "I got on fine before this announcement or had you forgotten? I may like you but my world does not revolve around you. I can continue living in your presence so don't go and inconvenience Arashi by trying to make yourself disappear anywhere. I'm fine."
Nino didn't usually like to make scenes by storming out of places, it seemed like such a girly thing to do, but he didn't want to look at Ohno's guilty face one second longer. He felt Ohno's eyes on his back, watching him leave but he couldn't bring himself to care.
-------
Nino wasn't entirely sure what he expected to find when he came to work the next Monday. He had had an unprecedented two days off after his scene with Ohno, which had both worked for and against him. The good thing was that he didn't have to see either Ohno, which would kill him a little bit, or the others, which would kill him with the waves of attempted sympathy he knew they would radiate. The bad thing was that this left him to stew, alone, in his apartment for two days. Convinced that thinking too much was what got him into this trouble in the first place, Nino threw himself into video games, actually beating one Final Fantasy and getting halfway through another before he had to show up to work on Monday.
"You look like shit," Jun greeted him when he walked into dressing room. The younger man was getting fitted in something that looked vaguely like a sparkly pink bubble jacket. Nino wished he had the energy to come up with a remark but he really didn't.
"Thanks," he responded sarcastically, hearing how tired he was come out in his voice. Jun winced and so did he. When was the last time he had slept? Jun didn't say anything else that morning but Nino felt his eyes on him and he wasn't sure he liked the pity they held.
Ohno didn't come in until five minutes before they started recording and Nino was grateful. He wasn't exactly mad at Ohno, it wasn't any fault of his to not return his feelings, but he felt awkward around him, knowing that Ohno knew. When the cameras were on, Nino played his normal role but if anyone noticed that he sat next to Sho today and didn't pay Ohno much attention, they didn't mention it. It wasn't until the cameras were off, a few hours later, that things got uncomfortable.
"Did you hear?" Aiba smiled, bouncing off the set with more energy than Nino thought should be endowed in a normal human. "Ohno got a new stageplay!" Mumbles of congratulations were heard and Ohno nodded absently but that, apparently, wasn't enough for Aiba.
"Isn't it great, Nino?" Aiba asked and Nino felt, not for the first time, that sometimes life would be easier if he could just punch Aiba in the face every once in awhile. "Shouldn't you congratulate him?"
"I did," Nino replied, trying to give Aiba a death glare that the older man was either ignoring or not picking up on.
"Not very well," Aiba laughed and, with a swift hip bump that Nino wasn't expecting, knocked Nino into Ohno's arms.
Nino froze. Great. This was just what he needed. He looked up hesitantly to catch Ohno's eye and was surprised to find that he didn't looked disgusted, just tired.
"Congratulations," Nino breathed. Ohno smiled awkwardly and nodded.
There was a beat of silence before Nino scurried out of the weak hold Ohno had on him and, feeling out of place, grabbed his things before rushing home, ears burning and questions he didn't have the answers to on his lips.
Nino's phone buzzed as he got to the steps outside the station. Reluctantly, he pulled it out to look at the message.
I want to be okay. Can we be okay?
A sigh of relief and a quick reply before he dashed down to almost miss his train.
Of course we're okay. See you tomorrow.
-------
The second time Nino confessed, he wasn't even entirely sure it was a confession.
A year or so had passed since the first awkward speech and things were completely normal, like nothing had ever happened. At least, it seemed that way, as far as Ohno was concerned. Things pretty much still sucked on Nino's end.
It was all well and good to agree that things were normal, okay or whatever word you wanted to put on it. It was another to actually manage to get over feelings, something Nino wasn't able to do on the spot like that. In fact, no matter how hard he worked, he was pretty sure he just loved Ohno more than he had originally, despite how much he wished to the contrary.
He was aware Sho, if none of the others, knew what was going on because he had begun receiving care packages. Of course, Sho would never call them that, saying that he heard that Nino needed new socks or one of their managers had sent this new soap sample or the program they were appearing in had gifted them some snack food. It was always a lie and everyone always saw through it but Nino appreciated the intention, at the very least.
It was a few weeks before the Countdown when it happened. Nino wasn't really looking forward to the New Year. Nothing personal, it was just that he knew that Ohno's family was going to be taking a trip at the beginning of the year, while they still had some time off, and Nino wasn't particularly looking forward to two weeks without Ohno. Not that he would ever share that embarrassing thought but as long as it remained solely in his head, it was okay. Or so he thought.
"Nino, are you sick?" Ohno asked out of the blue during a break in rehearsal. He had thought he'd escaped to the safety of the hallway but Ohno must have followed him because there he was, blocking the way back to the studio. Nino sighed, part weariness and part frustration.
"I'm not sick," he replied, giving Ohno an eyebrow that apparently did nothing. "Why do you ask?"
"You just haven't really been yourself lately," Ohno replied and there was that goddamn suspicion in his gaze again. Nino hated that look. "You've seemed rather down."
"I'm just frustrated with this dance," Nino responded automatically, thanking his brain silently for having an excuse he hadn't been aware of. "I keep flubbing the bridge."
"No," Ohno countered, his face falsely confident, "I don't think that's it."
"Oh, you don't?" Nino asked incredulously, hoping against hope that Ohno wasn't going to say anything.
"Nope," Ohno shook his head. "In fact, I think we both know what's going on."
"Leave it be," Nino warned, trying to give Ohno a dangerous look but probably only managing to look tired.
"I think you're still not over me," Ohno continued, a question on his face despite the confidence in his tone. "I think you're upset about our New Year's trip."
"I didn't say that, Ohno," Nino sighed.
"But it's true, isn't it?"
Nino didn't know what to do anymore. How was he supposed to "get over" Ohno if the man kept bring it up?
"What do you want me to say?" Nino asked honestly. "What do you want me to do?"
Ohno seemed to contemplate this question for a second, eyes gazing up and to the right as if an answer resided there. Nino just wanted to get back to rehearsal.
"Do your best," Ohno finally responded. Nino blinked.
"Do my best at what?"
"At getting over me," Ohno replied with sad smile. He turned and disappeared back to the dance studio, gone before he could see Nino crumple.
Didn't Ohno know he was already doing that?
-------
Nino always knew when Ohno was dating someone. Ohno liked to be secretive about his relationships, never even telling the other members unless something supremely important came up and even then, only if it were strictly necessary. He was intensely concerned with keeping his private life private and Nino could respect that.
For someone who was trying so hard to be secretive, though, Nino really wished that Ohno would learn to cover it up better from his best friend. It really wasn't hard to tell.
The first thing that would go would be replies to text messages. A few days with a lack of reply wasn't cause for alarm; Ohno frequently forgot to charge his cell phone and would only realize a few days later. It was when it got to be a week and Nino's simple "Still alive?" hadn't been responded to that Nino would know something was up.
Pretty soon, Ohno would start coming late to work. Never anything strict, like interviews or photo shoots but things that could be shuffled around, rearranged were game. He'd make up some excuse about the trains running late or oversleeping or his mother telling him to run an errand and since they were so common and so Ohno, everyone would laugh it off. But Nino knew. Nino could always tell.
The worst is when it got serious enough that Ohno would start canceling plans they had. Never anything huge, just quick messages that said things like "Can't come today after all. Sorry!" and Nino's heart would sink a little lower in his chest as he stopped at the bento shop on his way home for a quick dinner.
It usually was something little like that but one time, Ohno crossed a line. He and Nino had made plans to spend a weekend at an onsen in Hakone. It was more of a trip than they normally planned and Nino was honestly kind of surprised that Ohno had agreed to it, as cautious as the older man could be about things around Nino. Ohno had said his back hurt, though, and they were the only two that had the upcoming weekend off so they had called in a reservation after work and made plans to head up after Nino's interview on Friday.
Nino waited for four hours at Shibuya before he realized that Ohno wasn't coming. Their train had left hours earlier but Nino didn't want to give up hope, sure that every idiot in a trucker hat and mask was Ohno, about to apologize that he was late and he was so sorry but he was halfway there before he realized he had forgotten his toothbrush or some sort of foolish thing at home and had rushed home to get it and why didn't they take the next train?
The last train pulled out of the station when Nino finally texted Ohno. They still could have taken Nino's car if they really wanted to go but Nino doubted it. He could imagine what Ohno was up to and it pained him as much as it pissed him off.
Ohno showed up to work on Monday looking like a typhoon had blown through his soul. His hair was disheveled, he wore a ratty tee shirt and baggy shorts that Nino hadn't seen in years and he obviously hadn't slept in days. So, she'd broken up with him. That much was obvious. And yet, despite the deep love and adoration Nino had for Ohno, he couldn't bring himself to care.
Ohno didn't try to talk to Nino until the following week, taking awhile to break out of the funk the breakup had put him in. The others covered for him, saying he had a bad case of the flu but everyone knew what was really up. Nino didn't even say good morning anymore.
"Nino," Ohno grabbed his arm as he was turning the corner in an NTV hallway. Nino hadn't even been aware Ohno was in the studio that day, thinking he and Sho were only shooting VTRs. He was so busy wondering what Ohno was doing there that he didn't even question when Ohno pulled him into an empty meeting room.
"Can I help you?" Nino finally asked, sitting in a chair by the door and crossing his arms, not willing to give Ohno any leeway. The older man sighed, looking weary with the world and sunk into a chair across the table from him. Nino didn't give an inch.
"So, Yuka broke up with me on Friday," Ohno started, giving Nino an uneasy look, like he wasn't sure how he was going to react.
"You don't say?" Nino asked dryly.
"I took it pretty hard. We'd been going out since --"
"--November. I know." Ohno gave Nino a surprised look and Nino just laughed mirthlessly. "You're not sneaky, you know. I've known since the beginning."
Now it was Ohno's turn. "Oh."
"And so?" Nino asked, not feeling anything like sympathy. "What do you want me to do about it? I don't think she'll listen to me if you want me to beg her to come back."
"No, no," Ohno shook his head, obviously still trying to understand that Nino had always known. "I just wanted to say that that was the reason I couldn't go to the onsen that weekend."
An awkward silence.
"...that's all you have to say?" Nino asked finally. Ohno blinked.
"Well, yeah."
Nino couldn't handle his idiocy anymore. He jumped out of his chair and made to leave the room, stopping only when he heard Ohno let out a strangled yelp of his name from behind. Nino whirled around, fixing the older man with a death glare.
"This isn't working, Satoshi. If you still want to be my best friend, you need to make an effort. I don't care who you're fucking but if you're going to fuck me over, at least have the decency to send me a fucking text message so I don't wait at the station for you. I don't care how depressed or shocked or whatever you were; that's what friends do. They let each other know. Who knows? Maybe I would have taken you out for drinks, my treat for once. But we'll never know because I spent that evening with the station employees.
And beyond that, Oh-chan, maybe you could try not being a nonentity when you're in a relationship. You may be able to fool the others with your little excuses but i know better. It's one thing to be a little lax with your work duties when you're dating someone. It's another to completely stop texting your friends, so we don't even know if you're still alive. This is a two way street and I've been going it alone. If you still want to do this, you have to try."
Nino let out a huge sigh he hadn't been aware was in him, amazed that all of that came out at once. Ohno looked shell shocked but Nino didn't care; the man needed a wake up call. Neither said anything for a moment, Nino still getting over the fact that he actually said it and Ohno processing the information. Finally, Ohno cleared his throat.
"You're right."
Nino blinked. "I'm what?"
"You're right," Ohno repeated, looking more serious than he had in a long time. "You're right, Nino. I've been a horrible friend. I shouldn't have done the things I've done."
"You forgot about me."
He heard the words come out of his mouth and he wanted to kick himself. Where did the strong guy that had just chewed out Ohno go? Nino felt the tiny crack in his armor widen, though, when Ohno responded lightly, looking down at his hands.
"I didn't forget about you. But I didn't let you know that I was thinking of you, either, which is the most important part."
Nino was beginning to wonder if they were going to hug or something when Ohno looked up at him with tired eyes and Nino felt his knees buckle, just a little bit.
"Are we okay?"
Always the same question. Always the same answer.
"Of course we're okay."
And Nino snuck out of the room and down the hall before he could think too much about it.
-------
It took Nino getting a serious girlfriend to change the game.
Nino hadn't ever really been that interested in women, worrying at points in his teen years that he was Ohno-sexual but Masami was nice and pretty and funny and best of all, she liked him. When she asked him out for drinks after shooting one night, he accepted and pretty soon, it had become a regular thing.
He was aware it had become serious only after a few months, when every other text message was from her and it became clear that the others had figured out where he snuck off to after rehearsal.
"What happened with Ohno?" Jun finally asked one day, when they found themselves alone in the recording studio.
"I don't know?" Nino frowned. "What do you mean, what happened?"
"You're dating that Masami girl, right?" Jun asked. Nino nodded. "Well then, have you given up on Ohno?"
"I gave up on Ohno a long time ago, Jun," Nino tried to end the conversation. Jun just gave him a look.
"I'm only going to say one more thing and then I'll let you make your own mistakes. Nino, do you actually like this girl or is she just a placeholder?"
Nino didn't have an answer to that.
After a few months of a somewhat blissful relationship, Nino began to notice something that the other members had noticed much earlier, namely that this new distraction wasn't hindering Nino's work so much as Ohno's. It was subtle, a completely different kind of annoyance than Nino's had been at much the same situation but it was unmistakably in the same family of feelings. The older man was much more irritable than he normal was, actually snapping at the other members when things went wrong. Not that anyone could read Ohno normally but it seemed like suddenly, his heart wasn't in it like it had been.
During one dance rehearsal, Aiba flubbed a step for the twenty third time when Ohno turned around, something almost resembling a snarl on his face.
"How many times do we have to do this, Aiba?" he asked, frustration eating through his tone. Sho winced and Aiba hiccuped, apologizing with every other breath.
After practice was over, Nino sat in the greenroom, checking his phone before heading out when he felt more than saw Ohno enter. Nino did his best to ignore the other man as he came over and collapsed on the other end of the couch.
"Text from the girl?" Ohno asked, picking up his baseball hat from the nearby table and plopping it onto his face. The tone hadn't been harsh but it hadn't been normal, either and after the scene earlier, Nino was done.
"What's your problem?" he asked, eyes still trained on his phone. He saw Ohno peek one eye out from under the cap in his peripheral vision but made no show of seeing.
"Don't have one," Ohno's voice was gruff. Nino chuckled humorlessly.
"Then what was that with Aiba out there?"
"Just frustrated. Tired. You know."
At this, Nino finally snapped his phone shut, shoved it in his pocket and turned so that he was facing Ohno, nudging him with his sneaker.
"No, I really don't know. You've been tired and frustrated before but you never take it out on Aiba. Something else is up. What is it?" Ohno seemed reluctant but a few more nudges from Nino made him sigh, pushing the baseball cap farther up onto his head and turning back to face Nino, sneaker to sneaker on the couch.
"You don't like her more than me, right?"
Ohno's voice was quiet and he was looking at him all uncertainty and hesitancy. Nino felt his breath catch in his throat. This was dangerous.
"What do you mean?" The words were cautious, soft. Nino was walking on thin ice and worried he might enjoy the drowning.
"Well, we're best friends, right?" Ohno asked, gaining some sort of strength from the encouragement in Nino's eyes and the way the younger man nodded. "But I feel like I'm losing you. You always sneak off to meet her or text her or go out drinking with her. I haven't gotten to make plans with you in two months." Ohno paused. He spoke next to his hands rather than Nino. "I don't want a girl to come between us."
If Nino had had the nerve, he would have laughed at how ridiculous this whole situation was. Ohno, king of the fourteen night stand, was worried about a girl coming in the middle of their friendship? But there was real anxiety in Ohno's gaze and Nino watched as his hand moved to rest on his shoulder.
"Oh-chan," he smiled, soft and genuine, "no one is ever going to get in the middle of our friendship, be they man, woman or otherwise. I mean, we're Ohmiya SK. There's no room for a third person."
Ohno smiled, accepting the answer with a nod and a ruffle of Nino's hair; Nino cursed the blood he could feel rushing to his cheeks. He made eye contact with Ohno and the other man read the unspoken question in the gaze and nodded.
"We're okay."
-------
Nino broke up with Masami two weeks later, a week away from their nine month anniversary. When she asked him why, he simply said that he felt they'd grown apart.
-------
Nino continued his charade of being over Ohno, an act that no one really believed but everyone indulged. He ignored the way his heart fluttered when Ohno smiled at him mid-concert or the flip flop of his stomach when the incoming text message read "Oh-chan ♥."
Most of all, he never called Ohno out again on his girlfriends. Part of it was that he knew he wouldn't be able to handle another conversation like that but the other part was, honestly, he hadn't noticed any of the typical behavior in the past few years. It seemed odd that Ohno, who had seemed to be with someone within a week of breaking up with the previous girl for years, was suddenly in a dry spell but Nino didn't question it. He'd take what he could get.
"Whatever happened between you and Ohno?" Sho asked one day, driving Nino home after work. Sho rarely asked about things like this and Nino frowned, pausing his game.
"What do you mean? Nothing. Nothing's happened with us."
"Really?" Sho asked, disbelief in his voice. "Cause that guy's changed in the past year or so and I honestly thought it must be because of you."
"Changed?" Nino asked, curious. He couldn't think of anything that different, other than the girlfriend thing. Maybe he invited him out to ramen a little more often than he used to. And okay, he did tend to call ever other day simply to check in now when it used to be only when he needed something. But those things didn't involve the other members so why would Sho know?
"I can't believe you haven't noticed this," Sho chuckled, laughing out loud when he noticed the petulant look on Nino's face. "It's just, well lately, it seems like Ohno initiates more of the skinship than you do. I had always just thought it was a Nino thing but it's been all Leader lately."
Nino was silent, going through a catalogue in his mind of brushes, arms on shoulders, sideways whispers and bumping knees. Had Ohno been doing it more lately? Maybe he had...
"Just keep an eye open," Sho said into the contemplative silence. "Things might be different than you think."
Nino spent all night tossing and turning, unwarranted hope coloring his few dreams.
-------
When the offer had come to be in a Hollywood movie, Nino wasn't quite sure what to do. Of course, this was a huge deal, a compliment beyond any he'd been paid before, but could he really leave Arashi for three months to film it? That was a long time and America was far. It wasn't like he could take a day off and crash at Jun's or grab some food from Aiba's. This was a commitment that would be solely him, with emails and phone calls at most from the other four. It would be a long time away.
"You should go," Jun told him straight when he brought it up in dressing room. Aiba nodded from the couch.
"This is great opportunity," Sho spoke from behind Jun, shrugging on a vest. "You'd be silly not to take it. We can hold out for three months."
"You'll have to buy us lots of souvenirs, though," Aiba warned, a twinkle in his eye. "Do you think a real American hamburger would make it all the way back to Japan unharmed?"
"You're the one that does experiments, not me," Nino laughed, a weight lifting off his chest.
He turned to make eye contact with Ohno, who had said nothing yet. Nino didn't say a word but Ohno seemed to understand, giving him a warm smile and saying simply "Do your best."
And so, the decision was made.
-------
What are you doing tomorrow night?
The text came at six in the morning, managing to both wake and annoy Nino at the same time. True, he had to get up in five minutes anyway, an interview at eight but it was the principle of the thing. He had to leave in a week, anyway and who knew how much jet lag was going to get him?
The fact that the text was from Ohno only relieved some of the annoyance. He quickly typed back, "interview at seven and then nothing. why?" and rolled out of bed and into the shower.
Walking back into the room, towel drying his hair haphazardly, he was surprised to see a return message already blinking at him. He flipped the phone open, the towel dropping casually to the side of the bed.
You should come over after the interview~
Nino frowned at his phone. Come over? That was vague. Nino knew that Ohno must mean to meet him at some bar or something (Ohno had never invited a member of Arashi over in their seven years together) but if he wanted to meet Nino, he'd have to give a meeting place. Nino sent back "Where do you want me to meet you?" and threw on some clothes before running downstairs and grabbing a cab.
The phone buzzed in his pocket again as he drove towards the studio. He slid it out as he set his melon bun onto the seat next to him.
My house? I can send the address later.
Aiba, who was doing the interview with Nino, was very excited about this turn of events.
"You're the first one he's ever invited over!" Aiba's eyes shone with excitement, much more than he should be able to muster at eight in the morning. "That has to mean something. Maybe he's going to confess? Since you're going so far away!"
"Or maybe," Nino rolled his eyes, trying to ignore the butterflies that were waking to Aiba's words, "he forgot to give me something during rehearsal the other day and since our schedules won't match up before I leave, this was the only way he could do it."
"He'd come find you if that were the case, Nino, and you know it." Aiba smiled victoriously.
"I'm sure he's just being lazy," Nino replied, trying to drag the energetic man back towards the room where the magazine representatives were waiting. Aiba let himself be led, stopping right before they walked in the door and looking Nino right in the eye.
"This means something. Don't blow it off."
And with that, Aiba skipped into the room, leaving Nino to the hallway and his thoughts.
-------
Ohno's mother answered the door, something Nino hadn't been expecting.
"Ah, Nino! It's been so long," she smiled, ushering him in without a second thought. "How is your mother doing?"
"She's doing fine," Nino smiled back, a little unnerved at the ease of the conversation. "How are you?"
"Oh, fine, dear, fine." Ohno's mother had always been a flurry of activity and this time was no different. She was handing him a pair of slippers while dusting a bookshelf near the entrance way, a smile on her face as she regarded Nino. "Satoshi's upstairs in his room, second door on the right." And with one last smile, she was gone.
Nino climbed the stairs, taking in the sights and sounds of Ohno's house, knowing that Aiba would quiz him about it later. It was rather plain, definitely homey and felt like Ohno.
The second door on the right had a little name plate that read "Satoshi" in English, each letter a different color. Nino smiled before knocking lightly, pushing the door open when he heard a reply "Yes?" Ohno turned when Nino walked in, a smile brightening his face when he saw who it was.
"Nino," Ohno grinned, and Nino felt the tips of his ears grow hot. The older man motioned him over and Nino made his way across the spartan room, taking a seat on Ohno's bed.
"Your room is boring," Nino observed. Ohno shrugged.
"I'm not in here much. How was the interview?"
Nino sighed, forgetting the awkwardness to fall back on Ohno's bed and begin to complain about the way the interviewer had kept tapping her lip with her pencil, a really annoying habit that he had made a game out of halfway through. Every time she reached ten taps in a row, Nino mentioned something completely off-topic in his answer. Ohno thought that maybe he knew which person Nino was talking about and pretty soon the talk turned to bad interviews to awkward photo shoots to the worst outfits they'd ever had to wear to actually looking up footage of them on the internet.
Pretty soon a few hours had passed and neither had noticed. It was only when Nino's phone buzzed with a brief text from his manager (You have an early morning tomorrow...) that Nino actually looked at the time.
"I should probably get going pretty soon," Nino muttered, not really wanting to. He turned to Ohno, a small frown on his face, to see an unfathomable expression on the other man's.
"Can't leave yet," he told Nino, getting up and walking over towards his desk. Nino simply watched him, curiosity set in his expression. It wasn't until Ohno made his way back with a small box that the annoying feeling that liked to pool in his stomach at Ohno's smile began to make an appearance.
"What's this?" Nino asked as Ohno placed the box in Nino's hands, sitting back down on the bed next to him. Ohno shrugged and motioned for him to open it.
Lifting the lid, Nino found two sets of shaded eyes staring back up at him. He threw a quick glance at Ohno before setting the box down and lifting out the two figurines that were inside. Both were invariably black men, smiling back up at Nino excitedly, but with one marked difference: one was dressed as Taka and the other as Yuji.
"Ohmiya SK?" Nino asked weakly, not quite sure what to make of the figures. Ohno nodded, smiling. "And you're giving them to me?" Nino asked again, unsure of the whole situation. This was where Ohno's smile dropped, his face somewhat flustered as he reached forward and grabbed the Yuji figure.
"Well, you're going away soon, right?" he asked the figure in his hands, feeling Nino's gaze on his face. "I just thought, maybe you'd like to keep one and I could keep the other." His voice got really quiet. "Then, even though we're apart, it's kind of like we're together."
Nino stared disbelieving at Ohno. The older man was still looking down at the small figure of Yuji, a half smile on his face. Nino didn't know what to think. What did this mean? He looked down at the Taka in front of him and bit his lip.
And then Ohno looked up. There was something in his eyes that had never been there before, some kind of hesitant promise in his smile that Nino felt his heart skip. Ohno leaned forward unconsciously and Nino followed his lead. 'Oh God,' Nino thought to himself, 'is this where we kiss?'
"Satoshi? Nino?" Ohno's mother called from the hallway. "Are you two hungry? I left some curry on low on the stove if you want any."
Nino blinked. Ohno followed his lead, calling out "Thanks, Mom!" before falling back slightly on his knees. There was an awkward stillness in the air and Nino didn't know what to do to dispel it.
"Thanks," he finally said, a thickness to his voice reminiscent of just waking up. Ohno nodded. Noticing that they were still leaning towards each other, Nino closed the gap to give Ohno a hug.
They'd hugged hundreds of times in the years that they'd known each other, so much so that the motion usually felt almost rehearsed and effortless, but there was something in the air, some emotion in the embrace that Nino was almost afraid to break it.
A minute passed, or maybe ten, and Ohno leaned back.
"Curry?"
Nino smiled. "Maybe a little bit before I go."
-------
As Nino unpacked his suitcase in the hotel room that was to be his home for the next few months, he frowned at his lack of closet space. Not that he had brought all that much but the room was kind of cramped. He stashed his DS and some games in one of the drawers under the television, hung up his shirts and pants in the closet, and flipped through the room service menu, grinning when he recognized the word "hamburger" on one of the pages.
The figurine of Taka smiled at him from the nightstand.
-------
Sho was waiting for him at the airport when he got back in. They'd been told it would attract too much attention to have all four of them waiting and so Sho had been chosen as representative through a vicious game of rock paper scissors. Nino didn't seem to care, launching himself on Sho the minute he saw him.
"I missed you, too," Sho laughed, patting Nino's back and ruffling (what remained of) his hair before pulling a hat out of his bag and smashing down over Nino's head. Nino grinned, pulling the hat down over his ears and swinging his carry on from side to side as he followed Sho (and a few managers) out the airport.
Sho began filling in Nino on all the important events he'd missed: the shoots, the performances, the time that Aiba thought he would be able to eat a habanero if he drank a glass of milk at the same time. Nino laughed until his stomach hurt, sharing a few stories of his own.
After the laughter died down and Sho and Nino sat curled up silently in the back of the car, Sho turned and poked Nino. Nino made a questioning noise.
"Just glad you're really here," Sho smiled. Nino nuzzled into Sho's shoulder.
"I'm glad I'm here, too." Nino could feel himself losing the battle to sleep, the excitement from seeing Sho after so long and being back in Japan wearing off with the comfort of Sho's side and the soft glide of the car's wheels. Right before he drifted off, he heard Sho mutter "...missed you." Whether it had been prefaced by a 'we' or a 'he,' Nino never knew.
-------
"Nino!" Aiba attacked him from the doorway of their dressing room, ribbons trailing behind him, apparently attached to his jacket. Nino didn't question, just let himself be enveloped in Aiba's embrace as the other man actually lifted him from the ground and hugged him all the way to the couch.
"Welcome back," Jun smiled, patting Nino on the back.
Ohno simply walked over and plopped down on the couch, leaning over so his head rested on Nino's shoulder. "Missed you."
"What'd you get us?" Aiba asked excitedly, reverting to a five year old. Nino sighed good-naturedly, reaching down to grab a bag he'd deposited at his feet. He pulled out a hamburger-shaped magnet and tossed it in Aiba's direction.
"There's your American hamburger," he laughed. Aiba seemed happy enough with it, though, smiling and dashing around the room, trying to find some place to stick it.
"Here, Jun," Nino handed over a tee shirt that read "I ♥ LA". Jun gave him a sideways look before grinning and thanking him. Sho liked his postcards, too. Nino apologized for being a cheap souvenir buyer but the others laughed, saying they expecting nothing less.
"I think I forgot yours at home," Nino turned to Ohno after a moment passed and he couldn't find the last gift.
"That's fine," Ohno shrugged, a sleepy smile on his face.
"Want to come over tonight and get it?"
The flurry of activity in the greenroom stopped with the question. There was a hidden meaning in the invitation, even if no one present was one hundred percent sure what that was. The blood pounded in Nino's ears as he watched Ohno think about it.
"Sure," Ohno finally nodded, leaning his head back on Nino's shoulder. "We can head over after the recording."
Aiba gave Nino a thumbs up from across the room and Jun hit him.
-------
"It's kind of messy," Nino warned as he switched the light on. "I know it shouldn't be, considering I was gone for so long but it is. I think elves broke in and used it."
"Don't care," Ohno replied from behind him, walking past Nino to sit down on his couch. This wasn't like before; Ohno had been over to Nino's apartment plenty of times. It was just usually either in groups or when he had been too drunk to make it home, the former annoying Nino with their lack of privacy and the latter alarming him by giving them way too much of it.
"Want some tea? A beer?" Nino asked, walking over towards the kitchen.
"I want my present," Ohno laughed from the couch. Nino frowned, not having expected to have to give it so quickly but disappeared into his bedroom just the same. He came back with a small album and sat down next to Ohno, setting it in his hands.
It was hard to watch as Ohno flipped the book open to the first picture, the Taka figurine sitting on a rock at the beach. He glanced over at Nino questioningly but Nino didn't make eye contact and Ohno returned to the book. He turned the page to find Taka next to a hamburger bigger than him, Taka on Rodeo Drive, Taka under the Hollywood sign. The pictures continued in that pattern until the very last page that found Nino, donning a pair of sunglasses and a blue sweatband, holding the Taka figurine and smiling on the terrace of his hotel room.
Ohno closed the book and didn't say anything for a moment. Nino fiddled with his hands, not daring to look up. Before Ohno could open his mouth, though, Nino found himself rambling.
"You said that having the figurine would be like being together, right? So I figured that, you know, if we were on vacation together, we'd take lots of pictures, to remember it and stuff. So, here it is. Here's our pictures from my location shooting in America."
It sounded lame, even to Nino's own ears and he regretted saying it immediately after it came out of his mouth but there it was. Nino's stupid idea of a stupid photo album. He continued to kick himself mentally until he felt a hand on his knee.
"Nino," a soft voice called and he turned to see Ohno, a smile playing at the edge of his lips. "Nino, I love it."
"You do?" Nino asked, not quite believing.
And then Ohno was leaning forward and there was a hand cupping his face, tilting it up ever so slightly and Ohno's lips met his. It took a second for it to sink in, that this was actually happening and Ohno broke the kiss, leaning back and frowning.
"I thought you'd be happier," he observed, noticing that there still wasn't really a response on Nino's face.
"But you don't feel that way about me," Nino blurted out, still not able to make the connection in his mind. Yes, he'd hoped this would happen, dreamed of it (and more) for years but now that it was actually happening, he couldn't figure out.
"When was the last time I told you that?" Ohno asked, smiling as if this was actually somehow funny. It was annoying. Wait, how long had it been?
"...three years ago," Nino replied, realizing how long a period of time that was. Ohno must have noticed that epiphany on Nino's face as smiled and reached forward, squeezing Nino's hand.
"Things change, Kazu." And then he was kissing him again.
A warm feeling began coiling in Nino's stomach as he awoke to what was going on. His arms wrapped around Ohno's neck of their own accord as he tilted his head to the left and deepened the kiss. Ohno sighed into his mouth, his own hand tightening at Nino's lower back to bring them closer together. Nino heard something that sounded suspiciously like a purr escape his mouth; Ohno tipped them backward until Nino's back met the couch cushion. Nino didn't have the breath to complain.
-------
The two thousand, seven hundred and fifty third time Nino confessed, Ohno laughed, toweling his hair dry before letting Nino tug at his hand and pull him back into bed. They didn't have to be at the studio until ten and as Nino kissed a trail from Ohno's ear to his collarbone, he mused that there was no better way to welcome an eleventh year then with a confession, regardless of how many times Ohno had heard it before. The older man never seemed to mind.
~
I know this is a little different from my normal stuff but I really like how it turned out and I hope you do, too. See you for the finale of CoKoi on Saturday~ ♥