Mannequin Ch. 10: Averted Eyes
Title: Mannequin
Pairings: Matsumoto Jun x Sakurai Sho, Ohno Satoshi x Ninomiya Kazunari (and more as the story progresses)
Rating: NC-17
When Sakurai's father sends him to manage a small costume shop, he doesn't understand why he's being punished. He doesn't belong there-- he belongs in the heart of the city, leading his department and working his way towards being company president. But somehow he finds the queer little shop more intriguing than he anticipated, and he's especially drawn to one of the shop's mannequins. Which is pathetic, he knows, because the thing is an inanimate object...
Or is it?
Sho was numb, sitting at an awkward angle on this lopsided pillow, watching the others from the floor of the back room. The others-- Ohno, Nino, Aiba...and Jun-- they decided not to open the shop at all that day, and, instead, favored celebrating Jun and Ohno’s return to flesh and blood by attending the summer festival. All Sho had to do was nod his head. And he did. Of course he did.
This was wonderful...
But the festival wasn’t going to be worthwhile until that night, and they had hours to wait before darkness fell… And it seemed like the others were all content to just hang out in the back room. Sho couldn’t seem to find any words to say, but the rest were just happy to talk, and Aiba seemed to have a thousand questions. Mostly, the questions were directed at Jun, but some went to Ohno and Nino.
Sho felt forgotten.
Which made sense. He didn’t have a history with the shop or the mannequins. He was newer to the situation-- an outsider, really.
At one point, towards noon, Ohno demanded food. He pointed out that he hadn’t eaten in a very long time and couldn’t wait one moment longer, so Aiba and Jun--Sho didn’t notice or care how quickly Jun offered to go too-- went over to the restaurant to get lunch for everyone.
While they were gone, Nino had asked Sho if he was alright, and Sakurai had nodded. He mumbled that he was fine, just tired. The fire had really worn him out. That’s what he told Nino, and the slim man took it from there, telling Ohno how frightened he’d been for him when Jun had caught fire. Jun and Aiba returned shortly after, touting bags of wonderful smelling Chinese takeout.
Jun was juggling his parcels, and Sakurai rose immediately to help him. As he took one of the bags, their hands brushed, and Jun recoiled. His swift retraction of his hand burned Sho in a way that bit sharply.. Sho stopped and looked at his hand, the one that had been seemingly good enough to touch Jun the previous night, and then back up at Jun’s face. Jun wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Aiba came over and took Jun’s newly freed hand, having set down his own bags, and that numbness that Sakurai had been feeling suddenly...snapped. His vision blackened at the edges, and all Sho could see was that Aiba could touch Jun but he couldn’t. He’d spent every single day over several weeks becoming close to Jun… He knew Jun’s favorite color, what his favorite poem was, where he’d learned to swim-- but now Jun couldn’t even abide their hands touching?
Sho snatched Jun’s hand back, and Jun made a strangled sound that had both Ohno and Nino’s heads snapping in their direction.
“Let go,” Jun whispered, fingers growing white as he pulled them back and Sho held tighter.
But Sho didn’t want to let go. He couldn’t let go. Everything inside of him was screaming that Jun was his. His. Not Aiba’s… It was like a dark, ugly possessive cloud had settled over him, and he couldn’t help but breathe it in. He just wanted to keep Jun. He just wanted to change fate.
“Sho.”
Sho jumped as a hand clamped on his shoulder, and he looked to see Ohno standing beside him. Sakurai couldn’t make out the expression in Captain’s dark eyes, but he knew he didn’t like it.
“You’re hurting him,” Ohno said, firmly, “Let go.”
Sho looked down at his grip and instantly released Jun. The slender man immediately pulled his hand into his chest and rubbed his fingers. He didn’t once look at Sho’s face, and the guilt just washed over him. Like ice, it stung as Sho realized what he’d done. How he’d behaved… He’d hurt Jun.
“Come here, Jun,” Aiba said, his voice suddenly bright, if not a little strange-- but who could blame him?--, “Let’s just eat. The food is getting cold.”
“Ah!” Ohno shouted, making an overly horrified face that even had Jun cracking a smile as he scrambled for the containers. Within seconds, Nino was helping the older man open every dish, so he could have some of each. Aiba served Jun and himself, and Jun, with just the faintest flush on his cheeks, started handing out utensils and plates. Sho waited until everyone else had their food before he got his own.
And, until Ohno was about to topple over, they ate.
It had been delicious. Everyone said so, and the look of pure joy on Ohno’s face was priceless. Nino almost cried again because of it, which embarrassed him terribly because he “wasn’t a crier.” Sakurai didn’t eat much, but that was because Ohno was trying gorge himself, and not because he didn’t feel well. Sho didn’t think he saw Jun even take a bite. He just saw the other stir the fried noodles Aiba had given him aimlessly... but it wasn’t like Sho was watching Jun anymore. He really wasn’t. In fact, he was trying his best not to look at Jun. Aiba fell into the same category, so Sho didn’t really look at him either. Nino and Ohno kept giving him these pathetic, “understanding” looks, so Sakurai didn’t feel much like meeting their eyes, which left him with no one. Instead, he chose random objects around the room to look at. No one seemed to care if he talked to any of them or not.
Suddenly, the conversation fell silent, and Sho looked away from the tassel on the pillow he’d been staring at to see why… and then he wished he’d hadn’t. Jun and Aiba were kissing, again.
Sakurai felt his hands itch to touch; to grip their shoulders and rip them apart. His legs ached to rise from their seated position, but he couldn’t move… Their lips were brushing against one another’s, Aiba more confident while Jun was hesitant, and Sho couldn’t tear his eyes away… It was surreal. It felt like he was outside of his body; a fly on the wall, while the slender, beautiful pair across from him kissed. He had never seen anything that looked so wrong but also so very perfect. They looked pictorial together, as if they’d been torn from a glossy magazine, and Sho knew he wasn’t like that. He wasn’t modelesque. Not like those two. He was just rich, and Jun had been right… His money couldn’t break the spell. And Sho hadn’t had anything else to offer.
Not anything Jun needed…. or wanted.
The ugly, black possessiveness that clouded his vision before was still running hot through his veins, but Sho pushed it back. What right had he to ever feel that Jun belonged to him? Jun had never been his, not even when they lain together. Jun had already belonged to someone else… and as Sho sat there, eyes fixed on another man’s lips caressing Jun’s; another man’s hands running up and down Jun’s arms, Sho couldn’t even hate him.
He couldn’t even say Jun was making a mistake.
Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t a mistake to fall in love with Aiba. It wasn’t a mistake to love that man more. Aiba was fucking nice, damn it. Aiba deserved someone like Jun...and for all Jun’s suffering, he had definitely earned Aiba’s kindness. Aiba would never grow cold to him. He’d never take his frustrations out on him. Sho was willing to bet that Aiba had never raised his voice in anger at all, let alone lashed out at a loved one.
All in all, Aiba was the better man. And as Sho decided this, he forced his legs to support his weight as he stood up. Somewhere, distant from the sound of his blood beating in his ears, Sho heard Nino ask where he was going, and as he reached the door, he might have heard a soft voice in his head say his name, reaching out with telepathy Sho had almost forgotten he could use, except his name sounded like an apology...and Sho didn’t want one of those.
There was absolutely nothing to apologize for.
Sho’s feet carried him numbly to his car, and he swore under his breath as he realized his hands were shaking while he tried to unlock the door. It took more of an effort than usual to get his thumb to hit the tiny button on the keychain, and when he finally heard the click and was able to collapse into the driver’s seat, he just sat there. For ten minutes… or maybe thirty, he sat in the Mitsubishi. It was hot, and he had already felt like he was suffocating, so he’d turned the ignition and the air on almost immediately… but then he didn’t move. Sho just sat there and let the engine run, trying to breathe...trying to stop shaking. His eyes kept flickering, of their own accord, to the review mirror and view of the shop’s door within it.
His breath kept catching, every time he thought it might be opening...
It never did open. And the words “forgotten” and “outsider” plagued Sho… The conversations that the others had carried on in the shop were memories spanning from over a decade ago to a few months ago to today...and Sho had been jarringly reminded that he had only been present for a few weeks of their lives...not years. Somehow, he’d almost felt like his position at the corporation and his own high-rise apartment were from a different lifetime, some long ago and distant memory-- but they weren’t. It was the people who’d sat around him, all reminiscing and forming long-awaited bonds, whose lives were separate from his. It was with them that he didn’t belong… He didn’t have a life there, and once Sho could actually hear the song on the radio over the rush of blood in his ears, he threw the car into reverse and pealed out of the parking lot.
He drove at breakneck speeds, swerving to pass any car that dared to drive in front of him, straight for the inner city. There, hitting the traffic, Sho took his first deep breath in hours… This was his world. This is where he belonged. He slipped on his Ray Bans and turned up the satellite radio.
Within half an hour, he was home. Sho made a mental note to call his father the next morning, from his office, to let him know that he wouldn’t be returning to the shop. Nino was there. He could carry out the plans Sho had put into place. He would ensure that the shop met the projected quota. Sho was not going back.
His apartment smelled crisp and clean, faintly like the chemicals the house cleaning ladies used, and Sho started lighting his scented candles as the sun started to set outside his window. He’d left his main laptop, plus just about all of his other electronics, at the shop apartment, so he settled down in front of the television to watch the news while checking the market standings on his phone. Sho would have an assistant drive down the following day to pick up his things. He’d hire a moving company to get the furniture that was his. Nino could keep the rest of it, including the apartment. Or maybe Aiba would want it….
Sho was woken from that train of thought when his screen switched from the DOW to “Call Incoming”, and he groaned when he saw the number.
“Hello Subaru,” he muttered into the phone.
“WHERE ARE YOU?” the voice on the other end shouted back, and Sho pulled the phone a little further away from his ear, “I’m at the shop and you are not. What’s going on? WAS THERE A FIRE?! There looks like there was a FIRE! I told you to call me if something happened! A FIRE falls under the lines of SOMETHING HAPPENING.”
“Calm down Shibutani,” Sho replied, voice edged in irritation, “And check your voicemail. We did call. A lot.”
“Where are you?” Subaru snapped.
“I’m….out,” Sho muttered, running his free hand through his hair as he stood up and started walking towards the kitchen, “Look, just ask the others what happened. You must have noticed Jun and Captain-- or should I say Ohno?”
“None of them are here. This place is empty. Is Jun not with you?”
The last question caused an uncomfortable lurch in Sho’s chest, and his throat was tight when he answered, “No. Jun is not with me. They’re not mannequins now, and they’re probably at the festival.”
“....”
Sho could hear as Subaru spoke to someone else in a hushed, agitated voice, “No, he says Jun and Ohno aren’t mannequins-- yes, I know we already knew that-- and is at the festival with the others. He says they aren’t together.”
There was a soft voice responding, but he couldn’t make out the words, and while Sho didn’t recognize it, he realized it must be Yasuda. He didn’t miss that they both already knew about Jun and Ohno turning back into men, either.
He was about to tell Shibutani he had to go, but then Subaru was back speaking into the receiver, “Others who, exactly?”
“Uh, Ohno, Nino...Aiba.”
“Aiba?! You let Aiba see them?”
Well, Sho guessed they didn’t know everything.
“Yeah, he…..He broke Jun’s spell. So they’re together now, and I’m not with them” Sho told him, the words spilling quick and jagged from his lips. He didn’t want to be thinking about this.
More hushed whispers and then Subaru’s voice was loud when he asked, “What do you mean he broke Jun’s spell?”
Oh dear God, he was going to make Sho say it…
“He kissed him and the circle on Jun’s arm disappeared,” Sho spit the words out.
The voice in the background, the one he couldn’t understand before, suddenly rose, and Sho easily heard the word, “Impossible!”
Subaru reiterated it, not a second later, into the phone, “That’s impossible. Sho, where are you?!”
The urgency in Subaru’s voice was starting to get to Sho, and he responded, “In my apartment. In the city.”
“For the love of-- What are you doing the whole way out there?!”
“I--”
“ Nevermind. Sho, Yasuda says we’re coming for you. Don’t move.”
“Wha--- Why?”
“Jun’s in danger.”
The line went dead before Sho could respond, and his thumb had the slightest tremor to it as he tapped off the screen. The state of the economy completely forgotten, Sho let his phone drop onto his dining room table with a clack. He walked over to his chair by the television, sat, and waited. The news had moved on to entertainment, and he didn’t even bother to change it. In fact, he didn’t really hear it. All he kept hearing was the fear in Subaru’s voice when he said Jun was in danger.