(no subject)
Title: Kingyo
Fandom: Arashi
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sho/Jun, Ohno/Sho, implied Ohno/Jun, Aiba/Nino, implied Aiba/Jun
Summary: Sho, the son of a civil servant in the Edo period, can't be true to who he is until he meets a certain oiran, a prostitute from the pleasure quarters.
Notes: Written for astrangerenters for kitto_slutparty 2014. There's some pronoun futzing but it's not genderswap. Also posted to AO3. Thousands of thanks to lover_youshould for the beta!
Yoshiwara was a pleasure city of colors. The red makeup, the rainbow-painted doors, the glittering gold hair accessories - the cacophony of hues overwhelmed the eye, and at the center of it all were the oiran. They were clad in silks dyed every color that existed, surrounded by the red slats through which the salivating men stared at them and crooned their names. The Yoshiwara oiran women used their long lashes and sidelong gazes to lure men away from their wives, who in turn picked up the oiran’s fashion and makeup styles in order to become just like them. Their names were known throughout cities. The girls at a certain brothel were especially famous around Edo and all down through the Tokaido highway reaching even Naniwa, but their fame was spread only through whispered secrets and knowing looks.
The crown jewel of this pleasure house was the oiran named Jun. A simple name, rare for the area, but it was easy to whisper and pass on slips of paper to those who were of a certain group. The girls in this brothel wore thicker makeup than those of the other houses in the pleasure quarters, their skin painted stark white with red smudged on their eyelids. It gave them a hint of mystery, their ghost-like skin beckoning even behind the thick clouds of tobacco and incense.
Jun was known from Edo to Naniwa as the one to go to for men who had the most secret of desires. Her price was high for a girl who never participated in the oiran-dochu, the procession the women had every night to welcome their clients.
Sho had never been to Yoshiwara before. It wasn’t something that he’d ever expected to enjoy - women held no interest for him, and he fully expected to be matched into a loveless marriage of convenience to appease his father, a civil servant. But then his friend, Aiba, came to him telling him stories of Yoshiwara and of Jun, specifically - Aiba, to whom Sho had never confessed his true self but who seemed to know anyway.
Jun was pricey but Sho was born rich, so it was with nervousness that he sat in her quarters drinking perfectly brewed tea. Her quarters were decorated in gaudy silks and furniture made of dark wood with gold inlay, and frankly, Sho hated it. Sho hated everything he could see of Yoshiwara: the show of wealth, the bright colors upon bright colors, the cheap-looking metallic details. Sho preferred books and gardens, not this artificial world that seemed more like misery than pleasure.
The door slid open and the person that Sho could only assume was Jun walked in. Her silver obi was, as was the custom, tied into a huge knot in front of her dark purple kimono, but even though it was firmly in place the neckline of her kimono fell loosely over her shoulders, showing off her collarbones. “Good evening,” she said with a small bow of her head, and Sho could only stare at her. He had never seen anything like her in his life, and he swallowed around the lump in his throat before croaking out a small, embarrassing greeting.
Jun quirked her lips up in a smile and sat across from him, her legs folding beneath her in seiza position. “This is your first time here.”
It wasn’t a question, but Sho nodded anyway. “Yoshiwara is…certainly an experience.” He thanked the gods that his voice had dropped back to normal.
“You know what they say,” Jun said with a smirk, her elaborate hair pieces chiming gently as she moved. “A real man visits both Ise and Yoshiwara once in his life.”
“Then today I am a real man,” Sho replied with a grin as he played along, but his cheeks burned bright red when he realized his inadvertent admission.
Jun put a finger under Sho’s chin to make him meet her eyes. “Yes, you are.”
Before Jun kissed him, Sho was thinking about how soft her hands were, and then suddenly her mouth was on his. Sho had only been kissed twice before, by a girl his own age when they were 8 and then by Aiba one night when he was so drunk he thought Sho was someone else. Jun’s kiss was soft but insistent, her eyelashes fluttering against his face as she moved.
Sho couldn’t help but lift his trembling arms to hold her, and he marveled at how well she fit in his arms. Girls had always seemed like they’d be too small, too bony to hold properly, but Jun fit like she was made to be there against him. Jun sighed softly against him and everything that Sho had always thought he didn’t have bubbled up inside of him.
He kissed her even as he tipped her over onto her back, ignoring the bedding that was laid out on the other side of the room. Her obi went first, untied with just a few tugs on the correct end. Sho didn’t stop kissing her until he had pushed the kimono open and off of her body.
Sho sat up on his haunches as he looked at Jun, unwrapped before him like a gift. “You’re…you’re a man?”
Jun raised an eyebrow, propping himself on his eyebrows. “It’s a surprise?”
“No, I - ” Sho had known. Sho had known the whole time that the girls in this house were really just painted men, but he had hoped against hope that he was wrong. He wanted to enjoy women’s bodies as all the other men did, but as he looked at Jun, beautiful in his nakedness and visibly eager, Sho knew that he never would. He also doubted that he would ever get another chance like this.
Sho kissed Jun again, but now with a desperation and a hunger born of guilt. Sho couldn’t get enough of the feeling of Jun’s smooth muscles beneath his hands, of tracing the veins running through his strong shoulders and arms. Jun slid his arms around Sho to make quick work of his obi, his kimono falling open, and Sho blushed at the appreciative noise Jun made as he ran his hands over Sho’s tight stomach.
Jun sat up, the ornaments still in his hair clinging as he moved, and he traced the lines of Sho’s neck with his tongue as he slid Sho’s kimono off of him. Sho tried to stop himself from trembling, closing his eyes and tilting his head to the side so Jun could make his way down. Jun kept going, marking a trail down Sho’s chest and his stomach. “Lie back,” Jun instructed, and Sho closed his eyes as he slowly lay down, exhaling out his nervousness.
He jerked upwards unconsciously at the feeling of Jun’s mouth on him. Jun held his hips down firmly and Sho’s hips stuttered as Jun sucked at the head of Sho’s cock like it was candy. “I - ” Sho groaned desperately, his arms thrashing at his side and clawing at the tatami beneath him as he struggled to keep his composure. From his angle, he could only see Jun’s elaborate hairstyle, and he could pretend that Jun was a woman - but when Jun broke away from his cock with a smirk, Sho moaned, long and low.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you finish so soon,” Jun said, moving completely away from Sho. Sho struggled to gain his composure back, his throbbing cock making it difficult for him to concentrate on anything, much less watching Jun.
“Hey,” Jun said, trying to get Sho’s attention. “Over here.”
Sho finally sat up and nearly fainted when he saw Jun.
Jun was laying back on his red bedding a little ways away, a finger working his hole. His legs were spread wide so Sho could see everything: his cock, standing proud against his stomach and gleaming at the tip, his fingers in between his legs. Sho wanted to kiss the smirk on his face until it disappeared, leaving him just as gasping and vulnerable as Sho was.
“Come on,” Jun urged, adding another finger. “Don’t you want to do this?”
“I…?” Sho stared at Jun, his eyes darting from the moles on Jun’s face to the ones on his chest as though they were a map of the stars leading him home.
Jun moaned, his hips canting, but Sho could hear the calculated pointedness in the tone and it made him chuckle. He moved closer to Jun, fascinated by the way his fingers pistoned in and out and the slow rocking motions his hips were making.
“Finally,” Jun said when Sho got close enough to pull him down to kiss him. His hand was still working between them, his wrist brushing against Sho’s leaking cock, and Sho moaned against Jun’s mouth.
Jun stopped fingering himself and stretched his arm out to reach a small jar sitting on the side of the bedding. There was a sweet-smelling, sticky liquid in there, and Jun rubbed it on Sho’s cock even as they continued to kiss.
“There,” Jun breathed against Sho’s skin as he positioned Sho against him. “Just like that.” Sho gripped Jun’s waist as he pushed into him, Jun’s heels against his ass urging him further. Sho was no stranger to masturbation, but he’d never felt anything the way Jun felt around him, and it took almost no time at all for him to fall against Jun, completely spent. He lay there panting, his eyes closing, but Jun shoved at him. “Finish the job or get off,” Jun said with a tch.
Sho turned red and pulled out of Jun with a mumbled apology. He hesitantly wrapped his hand around Jun’s cock, working at him until Jun came all over his hand.
“Good.” Jun leaned over for a cloth that was next to the jar, then began to clean himself off with it. “That was good.”
“Thank you,” Sho said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jun said with a laugh. Sho tugged at Jun until he faced him on the bedding, then kissed him again.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of your mouth,” Sho murmured and Jun laughed.
“I should say the same to you,” Jun replied, brushing his fingertips against Sho’s lips. “Though it’s all red and white now.”
Jun’s makeup was smeared and Sho could feel streaks of it on his skin. “Don’t wear it next time,” Sho said, rubbing his white fingertips together.
“You couldn’t pay me enough not to,” Jun replied, rolling his eyes and rolling away from Sho. “You know it’s extra to stay the night?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I-I know,” Sho replied, his voice small. He felt defeated.
-----
Sho had always enjoyed going to Ohno’s sushi shop. It was a tiny place, barely seating five, tucked away in an alley surrounded by other equally ftiny shops covered in creeping plants. If you weren’t looking for it, you would miss the small hand-painted sign that said “O-to-to.”
The inside of the shop was decorated with fish prints, most of which Ohno had made himself using fish he had caught. His pride and joy was a print of a huge tuna that hung over the entrance to the backroom where he kept the fresh ingredients.
On the weekends, O-to-to was popular enough to have a small line of people waiting outside. It was a calm, quiet place to eat, and sometimes on particularly nice nights, Ohno would hum melodically as he made the sushi by hand.
Despite the nice atmosphere the shop held at night when it was lit by lanterns with the breeze coming through the open window, Sho preferred to go during the day, after the lunch rush, so he could have Ohno to himself.
He discovered this place on accident, having intended to go to a nearby ramen place that one of his neighbors had recommended to him. But he had poked his head into this tiny establishment instead, and upon hearing Ohno’s sleepy “welcome” he couldn’t help but stay. Ohno had beautiful hands, his nails kept just a little long, and Sho tried hard not to stare at them as he sliced sashimi and pressed rolls.
“Fishing is life,” Ohno had eventually said to Sho after some chatting about the fish prints. “I don’t have a choice. I have to go out and do it.”
Somewhere along the line of Sho becoming a regular at the restaurant, he had fallen helplessly in love with Ohno. It had to be Ohno of all people, Ohno who probably had a nice wife with some rambunctious kids running around waiting for their dad to come home from his long fishing trips. Ohno, who would never love Sho back.
“Jun-chan told me you went to see him,” Aiba said suddenly one day when he was over in Sho’s house, lounging all over Sho’s tatami.
“You talk to him?” Sho questioned, looking up at Aiba from where he sat at his writing desk. When Aiba visited, he visited for hours, so Sho usually continued working, enjoying Aiba’s chatter as he managed the books for his father’s household.
“Yeah, we’re friends.” Aiba rolled onto his stomach, propping his head up with his hands. “I used to partake in his services but Nino doesn’t like that so I don’t go anymore. But they get along really well, so sometimes he comes over for dinner.”
Nino - Aiba’s beloved, who the entire town believed was simply Aiba’s cousin from Kyoto. They had met when Aiba had gone south on some business once and he came back with Nino in tow, happier than Sho had ever seen him before. Sho envied him.
“Did he say anything about me…?” Sho stared at the elegant characters written on the sheets in front of him, gripping his writing brush.
“Jun doesn’t talk about his patrons that way,” Aiba said gently, then scooted himself over to sit next to Sho, placing a hand on his arm. “I asked him if you had gone and he said yes, then he asked how we knew each other.”
Sho groaned, placing his brush on its rest before he buried his face in his hands. “I must have looked an utter fool in front of him.”
Aiba hummed, leaning his head on Sho’s shoulder. “I don’t think so. I think he liked you. You know, a lot of Jun-chan’s customers make really weird demands of him. You didn’t. He appreciated that.”
“I think that’s more than I want to know,” Sho said with a slight smile, but he sighed as he leaned his head against Aiba’s. “Thanks, Aiba-chan.”
“No problem, Sho-chan,” Aiba said with an affectionate squeeze of Sho’s arm before letting go. “We should all get dinner one day. At Ohno-kun’s place!”
Sho thought of Jun in all his regalia and Ohno with his beautiful hands and his sleepy smile in the same place and he put his head right on top of the papers he had been working on. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Why not?” Aiba picked one of Sho’s clean brushes from the cup he kept them in and ran it over Sho’s arms.
“Jun’s a male prostitute who dresses up as a woman and Ohno-san is a happily married man, that’s why,” Sho said into his papers.
“Uh…Sho-chan? Ohno-kun’s not married,” Aiba said.
Sho looked up at him, unaware that some of the ink had rubbed off onto his forehead. “He isn’t?”
“No, says having a family would cut too much into his fishing time,” Aiba shrugged, then used the brush in his hand to smudge the ink on Sho’s face over his skin. “I think he thinks courting women is too much trouble. Maybe he goes to Yoshiwara.”
“Maybe he has a lady there,” Sho replied, the misery in his voice growing. He didn’t see a reason in hiding it from Aiba; Aiba could read him like a children’s picture story no matter what.
“Okay!” Aiba dropped the brush back onto the table with a clatter. “Time to enact Get Sho-chan a Boyfriend Part 2!”
“Part 2?” Sho blinked, the confusion written on his face just as stark as the ink sitting on his cheeks. “What was part 1?”
“Introducing you to Jun so you would stop moping about liking men.” Aiba stood up and Sho could only stare helplessly at the back of his sepia-colored yukata as he headed towards the door. “Don’t worry, Sho-chan! I’ll help you find happiness!”
The shogi door had already slammed shut behind him before Sho even had a chance to tell him no.
-----
Sho couldn’t relax after Aiba’s proclamation about ‘part 2.’ Aiba had a tendency of getting carried away with his ideas, resulting in events like the time where he bought 200 pinwheels because he thought he could build one big one by putting them all together. The contraption had cracked and broken under its own weight.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” he asked Jun one night after he visited. It had been a particularly educational night for Sho; he had never tasted a man before, and though some time had already passed since he and Jun had finished, not even the tea and manjuu Jun had served was shadowing the memory of the feel of Jun in his mouth.
“It’s one of Aiba-chan’s plans so no one who thinks normally will be able to guess at it,” Jun pointed out, his lips lightly dusted with the powder from the manjuu. “It might be better to relax.”
“If I relax, I’ll find myself in Kiyosu surrounded by nothing but trees and maybe some angry samurai,” Sho groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Knowing Aiba-chan, maybe with multiple cats hanging from my arms just because.”
Jun laughed and draped himself over Sho’s bare chest, lightly tapping at Sho’s mouth with a manjuu. “Shut up and eat this.”
Sho kept his eyes covered but ate the manjuu slowly, savoring the flavor of the mochi and the red bean. Jun’s skin was warm against his and the accessories in his hair chimed gently as he moved, presumably to grab another treat.
“Would you ever leave Yoshiwara?” Sho asked Jun after he finished eating his manjuu, raising his arms to drape them around Jun’s back. Jun was strong but lean and Sho danced his fingers on his shoulder blades and spine.
“For the right price,” Jun said, leaning his head so that his cheek was pressed against Sho’s chest. “Obviously, I’m not going to get married, especially not to a woman, so the chances of me leaving are pretty slim, I think. I’ll probably end up becoming the owner of this brothel once I get too old to be desired anymore.”
“Is that what you want?” Sho looked down at Jun, taking in the planes of his face. While he still did his makeup to look like a woman, when he heard that Sho was going to be his patron for the evening, he had foregone the white face paint. He had uneven, scarred skin that Sho had kissed over and over again.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Jun’s breath was warm on Sho’s skin. “This is the path I walk.”
Sho didn’t know how to respond, so he stayed quiet, Jun’s weight on his chest a physical reminder of the path he had chosen.
-----
Jun was not a courtesan who needed to beg his customers to come back, so when Sho received a beautifully written letter from him, he was suspicious.
“Is this your letter?” he demanded from Nino, moments after he had stormed his way into the house Nino and Aiba shared. It was small and on the older side, with paper animals patching the holes in the shogi doors, but Sho could feel the love that nestled in every nook and cranny of the foundation. Nino had clearly woken up not long before Sho came in, judging by his still-bleary eyes and bedhead.
“What are you talking about?” Nino asked as he set a kettle to boil on the stove that was inlaid on the floor. The day was pretty warm, but Nino loved drinking a cup of hot tea first thing in the morning to invigorate himself.
“Jun would never write a letter inviting someone to his chambers,” Sho replied, sitting down by the stove. He liked their home; it was comfortable, and he felt more at home there than in his own sometimes.
“Your point?” Nino let his hands hover over the fire; he was easily prone to being cold, and Sho had never seen anyone who gravitated to warm spaces more than Nino did. Nino had always reminded Sho of a cat, lazy and languid with a special prickly affection reserved for the special people in his life.
“I got one,” Sho replied patiently, pulling the document out. He couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy at the calligraphy presented on the sheets of paper, rivers of ink that formed characters so delicately written it made him feel as though his own hand, cultivated through years of practice guided by the sternest of teachers, was chicken scratches in the dirt.
“You should ask him about it, Sho-chan,” Nino said, beginning to prepare two cups of green tea. “I have nothing to do with it.”
“Really?” Sho’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “So this really is from Jun?”
“Maybe it’s someone else pretending to be Jun-kun. I really don’t know.” Sho watched Nino’s hands as he prepared the tea; his hands were small but quick and dexterous and the tea was fragrantly steaming in front of Sho in less time than Sho took just to boil water.
“Why would anyone pretend to be Jun unless it was you pulling a prank on me?” Sho asked, and Nino poked him in the cheek with a finger.
“Maybe someone else realized how cute you are when you’re flustered,” Nino said with a shrug. “This one’s not me.”
Sho didn’t drink his tea, engrossed in the thick and thin curves of the writing. Aiba’s handwriting was too rushed for such precision and Sho couldn’t think of anyone else who knew about his relationship with Jun.
“What does the letter say?” Nino asked from where he was curled up by the stove. He was wearing a happi coat that must have been Aiba’s because it was far too big for him; he had folded up the edges of the sleeves in order to free his hands enough to hold the cup. He looked small but cute in his warm huddle.
“I’m supposed to meet him tonight in his chambers,” Sho said with a shrug, folding the letter back and tucking it away.
“Maybe he’s going to convince you to commit double suicide with him, like in Shinagawa Shinjuu,” Nino laughed. “You know, the story where the courtesan wants to die so she tries to get any client she has to die with her but it doesn’t work.”
“Yes, Nino, I’m up-to-date with my rakugo classics.” Sho rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure Jun’s not the double suicide type.”
Nino made a noise of agreement. “Too messy for him, I think.”
“I’ll let you know what the deal is,” Sho finally said, getting to his feet. “Thanks for the tea.”
“Don’t let him push you into suicide,” Nino called after him. “Avoid looking at him directly! He’ll trick you with his pretty face!”
Sho lifted a hand up in acknowledgement but he didn’t turn back to look at Nino as he left the house.
-----
Sho felt more nervous entering Yoshiwara that night than the first day he stepped foot inside the gates. He had spent all day wondering what on earth Jun could want and every possibility had run through his mind. Maybe Nino was right, and Jun wanted to recreate Shinagawa Shinjuu. Maybe Jun had run into some money trouble and needed a loan. Maybe Jun was in love with him -- ?
Sho dismissed the last thought.
When Sho was ushered into the room, the first thing he noticed was that Jun was back to wearing his full face of makeup. His robes were more elaborate than Sho had ever seen before, gold and silver brocade running through the rich purple fabric like streams at the mouth of a river.
“Jun…?” Sho sounded uneasy as he took his usual spot on the floor.
“Wait,” Jun said, his voice prim.
So Sho waited. The room was quiet with the exception of the small water noises coming from the myriad goldfish kept in bowls around the room. He could faintly hear the sound of a shamisen being played, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from inside of the building or somewhere outside.
It wasn’t long before the door slid open again. “Hi,” a quiet, familiar voice said.
There were many things Sho didn’t understand about the world. He loved to read and study as part of his quest for knowledge, but when it came to human relationships and emotions, sometimes he felt woefully unprepared and unqualified.
He had never in his lifetime imagined that he would see Ohno standing in Jun’s chambers. What’s more was that Ohno was clearly comfortable there, sitting down at once by Sho with a lazy smile on his face as he looked between Sho and Jun.
“I didn’t know you knew Jun,” Ohno said, his voice relaxed. Sho simply couldn’t comprehend how Ohno wasn’t surprised to see him there, or how he knew Jun, or anything about this entire situation.
“Hello, Ohno-kun,” Jun said, finally beginning to move across the room, his robes rustling softly against the tatami. When he finally knelt by the other two, he came equipped with a ceramic sake set that included three small cups. “A little bird told me that the two of you knew each other.”
“Was it Aiba-chan?” Sho finally managed to ask, his eyes darting between Ohno and Jun. Sho felt like the odd man out and it was the first time he had ever wished he hadn’t gone to see Jun.
“Never mind that,” Jun said briskly as he served the sake. “How do you know each other?”
“Sho-chan is a friend who comes to my restaurant a lot,” Ohno said, closing his eyes with a smile as he savored the warm liquor.
Sho couldn’t even bring himself to pick up his cup. “A friend? Ohno-san, I’m honored.” Sho, of course, was horribly in love with Ohno, but he never thought that Ohno considered him anything more than a regular customer. They’d never gone out together, never met outside the restaurant, but there it was - Sho was Ohno’s friend. No matter what else happened tonight, Sho had that to tuck quietly into the pockets of his heart.
“So neither of you knew you were both my customers?” Jun was watching them both, an expression on his face that Sho couldn’t read.
“Customers?” Sho squeaked. “Ohno-san, you…?”
“I’ve been seeing Jun for…” Ohno made some quiet musing noises. “Three years now? Four?”
“Six,” Jun replied with exasperation, leaning over to gently hit him over the head.
“Six? Really? Huh.” Ohno laughed a little, a sound Sho usually enjoyed hearing, but his heart was pounding in his ears and it didn’t register at all.
Ohno had been going to Jun for the past six years. Ohno wasn’t married. Sho had managed to spend the past few years of his life thinking that he would never be loved because of who he was and what he couldn’t change, but everything was turning on its head and he didn’t know which way was up anymore.
“This little bird told me that Sho-san has been interested in you for quite some time, Ohno-kun,” Jun said with a small smirk. “But he is simply too shy to say anything.”
“Jun, you -- !” Sho buried his face in his hands, trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. A few moments later, a hand landed on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Sho-chan.” Ohno’s voice was warm and gentle. “I don’t mind.”
“This is not the way any of this was supposed to be,” Sho finally managed to say, straightening up. “I’m going home.”
“Sho-chan, I’ll go with you,” Ohno offered, getting up in tandem with him. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
Sho nodded silently, his insides churning at the idea of Ohno knowing how he felt. Jun simply bowed his head elegantly. “Get home safely.”
The streets of Yoshiwara were rowdy with catcalling men and the chatter of the prostitutes, but all Sho could hear were Ohno’s footsteps in line with his. They didn’t speak until they were far out of the district and in Ohno’s restaurant.
“I don’t think Aiba-chan told Jun to tell me,” Ohno finally said once they were inside. Sho was seated at the counter with his head in his hands and Ohno was already rummaging through his stores. “Because Aiba-chan told me himself.”
“Of course he did,” Sho said tiredly, letting go of his head and letting it hit the wood with a clunk. “I should have never told him anything.”
“It’s okay,” Ohno said, his voice soothing. “He told me because I asked.”
“You asked? What?”
“Sho-chan came in here by accident, right?” Ohno made an affirmative noise to his own question. “Then you kept coming and coming and you stayed longer and longer, and then I kind of figured. But you never said anything, so I asked Aiba-chan.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Sho said. He was exhausted by everything that had happened, and he wanted to crawl into his futon and sleep for the next two weeks. Maybe by then everything would have blown over and he could pretend nothing had happened and he was, in fact, normal.
“It wasn’t bothersome. Sho-chan is very handsome.” Ohno smiled a little. “I was very happy when Aiba-chan told me, but then you never said anything. I didn’t think you were shy, so I thought maybe he was wrong. But then Jun said something about it to me, and Jun is never wrong. So, Sho-chan…you can have me, if you want.”
Sho gaped at Ohno for a long minute, long enough for Ohno to begin fidgeting.
“I…Ohno-san, I don’t know what to say,” Sho finally stammered out. “I can’t be like Nino and Aiba because of my family, but I’ve liked you for such a long time…I…”
Ohno came out from behind the counter, still wearing his apron, and sat down next to Sho. “It’s okay. I like living at home. My mom cooks better than I do. I wouldn’t want to move out, anyway.”
“You live at home?”
Ohno smiled again, that soft smile that Sho loved so much, and then leaned in to kiss Sho.
Kissing Ohno was nothing like kissing Jun. Ohno’s lips were rough and chapped, and he smelled a little like sweat and the sun, his hair cut short like a fisherman’s so there was nothing for Sho to grip. But Ohno was smaller than Jun was, and he fit into Sho’s arms the way a key fit into a lock, their edges coming together snugly.
“How long have you been seeing Jun?” Ohno asked breathlessly when they broke apart.
“Not very long,” Sho admitted, already missing the feel of Ohno’s mouth on his. “A few weeks?”
“Good,” Ohno said as he broke into a huge smile, “then I have a lot to teach you.”
-----
When Sho had first heard that Aiba had told Ohno his feelings, Sho had wanted to murder Aiba and destroy any memory anyone might’ve had of him. But after spending that first night with Ohno, his resolve softened quite a bit.
Ohno had left early to go fishing; he always started the day that way, he said, in order to get the food for that day’s meals at the restaurant. The futon was lonely without him, so Sho made his way to Aiba’s house instead of lazing around waiting for Ohno to get back.
“Aiba-chan!” Sho demanded when he opened the door without knocking. Aiba and Nino were eating breakfast at the table with a guest.
“Ah…I’m sorry for intruding…” Sho bowed his head, cheeks burning.
“Come on in, Sho-san,” the guest said, and when Sho squinted up, the smirk on his face looked familiar. It took Sho a moment - between the hair tied simply behind him and the lack of makeup, Jun simply didn’t look like the Jun Sho knew.
“Jun-kun told us all about it,” Nino said, sipping at his miso soup. “Congratulations on your happiness.”
Aiba went over and hugged Sho so hard the air was knocked out of his lungs. “I knew it’d happen! Ohno always said you were cute and anyway who wouldn’t love you, Sho-chan, you’re so nice!”
“Jun?” Sho managed to say, looking at him over Aiba’s shoulder.
Jun shrugged, a graceful one-shoulder shrug that Sho envied. “Caught me.”
Aiba manhandled Sho to the table before bustling over to the kitchen. “Lucky for you, I made extra fish for breakfast! I was going to have it for lunch, but you never come over, so you have to eat it.”
“Is it safe to assume neither of you will be coming to see me anymore?” Jun asked, finishing the few bites of rice left in his bowl as he looked at Sho.
“Well, actually…” Jun was more beautiful this way, casual and manly, than when he was in his drag. Sho couldn’t give his beauty up so soon. “Do you mind having both of us?”
Nino hooted from his seat across the table. “Dirty, all of you!”
“My doors are always open,” Jun said.
“And his legs,” Nino added, earning a shove from Jun as Aiba began to place dishes in front of Sho.
Sho watched Nino and Jun bicker as warmth spread through his body at the idea of being able to always go home to Ohno but still have Jun welcoming him in. Ohno didn’t want Sho to parade him around to prove his love, and Jun would always be tucked away in Yoshiwara, his business private and behind closed doors. The three of them could be together whenever they wanted in ways that left them open to lead their lives with each other’s private support.
For the first time in his life, Sho felt like he knew what happiness was.
Fandom: Arashi
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Sho/Jun, Ohno/Sho, implied Ohno/Jun, Aiba/Nino, implied Aiba/Jun
Summary: Sho, the son of a civil servant in the Edo period, can't be true to who he is until he meets a certain oiran, a prostitute from the pleasure quarters.
Notes: Written for astrangerenters for kitto_slutparty 2014. There's some pronoun futzing but it's not genderswap. Also posted to AO3. Thousands of thanks to lover_youshould for the beta!
Yoshiwara was a pleasure city of colors. The red makeup, the rainbow-painted doors, the glittering gold hair accessories - the cacophony of hues overwhelmed the eye, and at the center of it all were the oiran. They were clad in silks dyed every color that existed, surrounded by the red slats through which the salivating men stared at them and crooned their names. The Yoshiwara oiran women used their long lashes and sidelong gazes to lure men away from their wives, who in turn picked up the oiran’s fashion and makeup styles in order to become just like them. Their names were known throughout cities. The girls at a certain brothel were especially famous around Edo and all down through the Tokaido highway reaching even Naniwa, but their fame was spread only through whispered secrets and knowing looks.
The crown jewel of this pleasure house was the oiran named Jun. A simple name, rare for the area, but it was easy to whisper and pass on slips of paper to those who were of a certain group. The girls in this brothel wore thicker makeup than those of the other houses in the pleasure quarters, their skin painted stark white with red smudged on their eyelids. It gave them a hint of mystery, their ghost-like skin beckoning even behind the thick clouds of tobacco and incense.
Jun was known from Edo to Naniwa as the one to go to for men who had the most secret of desires. Her price was high for a girl who never participated in the oiran-dochu, the procession the women had every night to welcome their clients.
Sho had never been to Yoshiwara before. It wasn’t something that he’d ever expected to enjoy - women held no interest for him, and he fully expected to be matched into a loveless marriage of convenience to appease his father, a civil servant. But then his friend, Aiba, came to him telling him stories of Yoshiwara and of Jun, specifically - Aiba, to whom Sho had never confessed his true self but who seemed to know anyway.
Jun was pricey but Sho was born rich, so it was with nervousness that he sat in her quarters drinking perfectly brewed tea. Her quarters were decorated in gaudy silks and furniture made of dark wood with gold inlay, and frankly, Sho hated it. Sho hated everything he could see of Yoshiwara: the show of wealth, the bright colors upon bright colors, the cheap-looking metallic details. Sho preferred books and gardens, not this artificial world that seemed more like misery than pleasure.
The door slid open and the person that Sho could only assume was Jun walked in. Her silver obi was, as was the custom, tied into a huge knot in front of her dark purple kimono, but even though it was firmly in place the neckline of her kimono fell loosely over her shoulders, showing off her collarbones. “Good evening,” she said with a small bow of her head, and Sho could only stare at her. He had never seen anything like her in his life, and he swallowed around the lump in his throat before croaking out a small, embarrassing greeting.
Jun quirked her lips up in a smile and sat across from him, her legs folding beneath her in seiza position. “This is your first time here.”
It wasn’t a question, but Sho nodded anyway. “Yoshiwara is…certainly an experience.” He thanked the gods that his voice had dropped back to normal.
“You know what they say,” Jun said with a smirk, her elaborate hair pieces chiming gently as she moved. “A real man visits both Ise and Yoshiwara once in his life.”
“Then today I am a real man,” Sho replied with a grin as he played along, but his cheeks burned bright red when he realized his inadvertent admission.
Jun put a finger under Sho’s chin to make him meet her eyes. “Yes, you are.”
Before Jun kissed him, Sho was thinking about how soft her hands were, and then suddenly her mouth was on his. Sho had only been kissed twice before, by a girl his own age when they were 8 and then by Aiba one night when he was so drunk he thought Sho was someone else. Jun’s kiss was soft but insistent, her eyelashes fluttering against his face as she moved.
Sho couldn’t help but lift his trembling arms to hold her, and he marveled at how well she fit in his arms. Girls had always seemed like they’d be too small, too bony to hold properly, but Jun fit like she was made to be there against him. Jun sighed softly against him and everything that Sho had always thought he didn’t have bubbled up inside of him.
He kissed her even as he tipped her over onto her back, ignoring the bedding that was laid out on the other side of the room. Her obi went first, untied with just a few tugs on the correct end. Sho didn’t stop kissing her until he had pushed the kimono open and off of her body.
Sho sat up on his haunches as he looked at Jun, unwrapped before him like a gift. “You’re…you’re a man?”
Jun raised an eyebrow, propping himself on his eyebrows. “It’s a surprise?”
“No, I - ” Sho had known. Sho had known the whole time that the girls in this house were really just painted men, but he had hoped against hope that he was wrong. He wanted to enjoy women’s bodies as all the other men did, but as he looked at Jun, beautiful in his nakedness and visibly eager, Sho knew that he never would. He also doubted that he would ever get another chance like this.
Sho kissed Jun again, but now with a desperation and a hunger born of guilt. Sho couldn’t get enough of the feeling of Jun’s smooth muscles beneath his hands, of tracing the veins running through his strong shoulders and arms. Jun slid his arms around Sho to make quick work of his obi, his kimono falling open, and Sho blushed at the appreciative noise Jun made as he ran his hands over Sho’s tight stomach.
Jun sat up, the ornaments still in his hair clinging as he moved, and he traced the lines of Sho’s neck with his tongue as he slid Sho’s kimono off of him. Sho tried to stop himself from trembling, closing his eyes and tilting his head to the side so Jun could make his way down. Jun kept going, marking a trail down Sho’s chest and his stomach. “Lie back,” Jun instructed, and Sho closed his eyes as he slowly lay down, exhaling out his nervousness.
He jerked upwards unconsciously at the feeling of Jun’s mouth on him. Jun held his hips down firmly and Sho’s hips stuttered as Jun sucked at the head of Sho’s cock like it was candy. “I - ” Sho groaned desperately, his arms thrashing at his side and clawing at the tatami beneath him as he struggled to keep his composure. From his angle, he could only see Jun’s elaborate hairstyle, and he could pretend that Jun was a woman - but when Jun broke away from his cock with a smirk, Sho moaned, long and low.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let you finish so soon,” Jun said, moving completely away from Sho. Sho struggled to gain his composure back, his throbbing cock making it difficult for him to concentrate on anything, much less watching Jun.
“Hey,” Jun said, trying to get Sho’s attention. “Over here.”
Sho finally sat up and nearly fainted when he saw Jun.
Jun was laying back on his red bedding a little ways away, a finger working his hole. His legs were spread wide so Sho could see everything: his cock, standing proud against his stomach and gleaming at the tip, his fingers in between his legs. Sho wanted to kiss the smirk on his face until it disappeared, leaving him just as gasping and vulnerable as Sho was.
“Come on,” Jun urged, adding another finger. “Don’t you want to do this?”
“I…?” Sho stared at Jun, his eyes darting from the moles on Jun’s face to the ones on his chest as though they were a map of the stars leading him home.
Jun moaned, his hips canting, but Sho could hear the calculated pointedness in the tone and it made him chuckle. He moved closer to Jun, fascinated by the way his fingers pistoned in and out and the slow rocking motions his hips were making.
“Finally,” Jun said when Sho got close enough to pull him down to kiss him. His hand was still working between them, his wrist brushing against Sho’s leaking cock, and Sho moaned against Jun’s mouth.
Jun stopped fingering himself and stretched his arm out to reach a small jar sitting on the side of the bedding. There was a sweet-smelling, sticky liquid in there, and Jun rubbed it on Sho’s cock even as they continued to kiss.
“There,” Jun breathed against Sho’s skin as he positioned Sho against him. “Just like that.” Sho gripped Jun’s waist as he pushed into him, Jun’s heels against his ass urging him further. Sho was no stranger to masturbation, but he’d never felt anything the way Jun felt around him, and it took almost no time at all for him to fall against Jun, completely spent. He lay there panting, his eyes closing, but Jun shoved at him. “Finish the job or get off,” Jun said with a tch.
Sho turned red and pulled out of Jun with a mumbled apology. He hesitantly wrapped his hand around Jun’s cock, working at him until Jun came all over his hand.
“Good.” Jun leaned over for a cloth that was next to the jar, then began to clean himself off with it. “That was good.”
“Thank you,” Sho said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion.
“I didn’t do anything,” Jun said with a laugh. Sho tugged at Jun until he faced him on the bedding, then kissed him again.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of your mouth,” Sho murmured and Jun laughed.
“I should say the same to you,” Jun replied, brushing his fingertips against Sho’s lips. “Though it’s all red and white now.”
Jun’s makeup was smeared and Sho could feel streaks of it on his skin. “Don’t wear it next time,” Sho said, rubbing his white fingertips together.
“You couldn’t pay me enough not to,” Jun replied, rolling his eyes and rolling away from Sho. “You know it’s extra to stay the night?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I-I know,” Sho replied, his voice small. He felt defeated.
-----
Sho had always enjoyed going to Ohno’s sushi shop. It was a tiny place, barely seating five, tucked away in an alley surrounded by other equally ftiny shops covered in creeping plants. If you weren’t looking for it, you would miss the small hand-painted sign that said “O-to-to.”
The inside of the shop was decorated with fish prints, most of which Ohno had made himself using fish he had caught. His pride and joy was a print of a huge tuna that hung over the entrance to the backroom where he kept the fresh ingredients.
On the weekends, O-to-to was popular enough to have a small line of people waiting outside. It was a calm, quiet place to eat, and sometimes on particularly nice nights, Ohno would hum melodically as he made the sushi by hand.
Despite the nice atmosphere the shop held at night when it was lit by lanterns with the breeze coming through the open window, Sho preferred to go during the day, after the lunch rush, so he could have Ohno to himself.
He discovered this place on accident, having intended to go to a nearby ramen place that one of his neighbors had recommended to him. But he had poked his head into this tiny establishment instead, and upon hearing Ohno’s sleepy “welcome” he couldn’t help but stay. Ohno had beautiful hands, his nails kept just a little long, and Sho tried hard not to stare at them as he sliced sashimi and pressed rolls.
“Fishing is life,” Ohno had eventually said to Sho after some chatting about the fish prints. “I don’t have a choice. I have to go out and do it.”
Somewhere along the line of Sho becoming a regular at the restaurant, he had fallen helplessly in love with Ohno. It had to be Ohno of all people, Ohno who probably had a nice wife with some rambunctious kids running around waiting for their dad to come home from his long fishing trips. Ohno, who would never love Sho back.
“Jun-chan told me you went to see him,” Aiba said suddenly one day when he was over in Sho’s house, lounging all over Sho’s tatami.
“You talk to him?” Sho questioned, looking up at Aiba from where he sat at his writing desk. When Aiba visited, he visited for hours, so Sho usually continued working, enjoying Aiba’s chatter as he managed the books for his father’s household.
“Yeah, we’re friends.” Aiba rolled onto his stomach, propping his head up with his hands. “I used to partake in his services but Nino doesn’t like that so I don’t go anymore. But they get along really well, so sometimes he comes over for dinner.”
Nino - Aiba’s beloved, who the entire town believed was simply Aiba’s cousin from Kyoto. They had met when Aiba had gone south on some business once and he came back with Nino in tow, happier than Sho had ever seen him before. Sho envied him.
“Did he say anything about me…?” Sho stared at the elegant characters written on the sheets in front of him, gripping his writing brush.
“Jun doesn’t talk about his patrons that way,” Aiba said gently, then scooted himself over to sit next to Sho, placing a hand on his arm. “I asked him if you had gone and he said yes, then he asked how we knew each other.”
Sho groaned, placing his brush on its rest before he buried his face in his hands. “I must have looked an utter fool in front of him.”
Aiba hummed, leaning his head on Sho’s shoulder. “I don’t think so. I think he liked you. You know, a lot of Jun-chan’s customers make really weird demands of him. You didn’t. He appreciated that.”
“I think that’s more than I want to know,” Sho said with a slight smile, but he sighed as he leaned his head against Aiba’s. “Thanks, Aiba-chan.”
“No problem, Sho-chan,” Aiba said with an affectionate squeeze of Sho’s arm before letting go. “We should all get dinner one day. At Ohno-kun’s place!”
Sho thought of Jun in all his regalia and Ohno with his beautiful hands and his sleepy smile in the same place and he put his head right on top of the papers he had been working on. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Why not?” Aiba picked one of Sho’s clean brushes from the cup he kept them in and ran it over Sho’s arms.
“Jun’s a male prostitute who dresses up as a woman and Ohno-san is a happily married man, that’s why,” Sho said into his papers.
“Uh…Sho-chan? Ohno-kun’s not married,” Aiba said.
Sho looked up at him, unaware that some of the ink had rubbed off onto his forehead. “He isn’t?”
“No, says having a family would cut too much into his fishing time,” Aiba shrugged, then used the brush in his hand to smudge the ink on Sho’s face over his skin. “I think he thinks courting women is too much trouble. Maybe he goes to Yoshiwara.”
“Maybe he has a lady there,” Sho replied, the misery in his voice growing. He didn’t see a reason in hiding it from Aiba; Aiba could read him like a children’s picture story no matter what.
“Okay!” Aiba dropped the brush back onto the table with a clatter. “Time to enact Get Sho-chan a Boyfriend Part 2!”
“Part 2?” Sho blinked, the confusion written on his face just as stark as the ink sitting on his cheeks. “What was part 1?”
“Introducing you to Jun so you would stop moping about liking men.” Aiba stood up and Sho could only stare helplessly at the back of his sepia-colored yukata as he headed towards the door. “Don’t worry, Sho-chan! I’ll help you find happiness!”
The shogi door had already slammed shut behind him before Sho even had a chance to tell him no.
-----
Sho couldn’t relax after Aiba’s proclamation about ‘part 2.’ Aiba had a tendency of getting carried away with his ideas, resulting in events like the time where he bought 200 pinwheels because he thought he could build one big one by putting them all together. The contraption had cracked and broken under its own weight.
“What do you think he’s going to do?” he asked Jun one night after he visited. It had been a particularly educational night for Sho; he had never tasted a man before, and though some time had already passed since he and Jun had finished, not even the tea and manjuu Jun had served was shadowing the memory of the feel of Jun in his mouth.
“It’s one of Aiba-chan’s plans so no one who thinks normally will be able to guess at it,” Jun pointed out, his lips lightly dusted with the powder from the manjuu. “It might be better to relax.”
“If I relax, I’ll find myself in Kiyosu surrounded by nothing but trees and maybe some angry samurai,” Sho groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes. “Knowing Aiba-chan, maybe with multiple cats hanging from my arms just because.”
Jun laughed and draped himself over Sho’s bare chest, lightly tapping at Sho’s mouth with a manjuu. “Shut up and eat this.”
Sho kept his eyes covered but ate the manjuu slowly, savoring the flavor of the mochi and the red bean. Jun’s skin was warm against his and the accessories in his hair chimed gently as he moved, presumably to grab another treat.
“Would you ever leave Yoshiwara?” Sho asked Jun after he finished eating his manjuu, raising his arms to drape them around Jun’s back. Jun was strong but lean and Sho danced his fingers on his shoulder blades and spine.
“For the right price,” Jun said, leaning his head so that his cheek was pressed against Sho’s chest. “Obviously, I’m not going to get married, especially not to a woman, so the chances of me leaving are pretty slim, I think. I’ll probably end up becoming the owner of this brothel once I get too old to be desired anymore.”
“Is that what you want?” Sho looked down at Jun, taking in the planes of his face. While he still did his makeup to look like a woman, when he heard that Sho was going to be his patron for the evening, he had foregone the white face paint. He had uneven, scarred skin that Sho had kissed over and over again.
“It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Jun’s breath was warm on Sho’s skin. “This is the path I walk.”
Sho didn’t know how to respond, so he stayed quiet, Jun’s weight on his chest a physical reminder of the path he had chosen.
-----
Jun was not a courtesan who needed to beg his customers to come back, so when Sho received a beautifully written letter from him, he was suspicious.
“Is this your letter?” he demanded from Nino, moments after he had stormed his way into the house Nino and Aiba shared. It was small and on the older side, with paper animals patching the holes in the shogi doors, but Sho could feel the love that nestled in every nook and cranny of the foundation. Nino had clearly woken up not long before Sho came in, judging by his still-bleary eyes and bedhead.
“What are you talking about?” Nino asked as he set a kettle to boil on the stove that was inlaid on the floor. The day was pretty warm, but Nino loved drinking a cup of hot tea first thing in the morning to invigorate himself.
“Jun would never write a letter inviting someone to his chambers,” Sho replied, sitting down by the stove. He liked their home; it was comfortable, and he felt more at home there than in his own sometimes.
“Your point?” Nino let his hands hover over the fire; he was easily prone to being cold, and Sho had never seen anyone who gravitated to warm spaces more than Nino did. Nino had always reminded Sho of a cat, lazy and languid with a special prickly affection reserved for the special people in his life.
“I got one,” Sho replied patiently, pulling the document out. He couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy at the calligraphy presented on the sheets of paper, rivers of ink that formed characters so delicately written it made him feel as though his own hand, cultivated through years of practice guided by the sternest of teachers, was chicken scratches in the dirt.
“You should ask him about it, Sho-chan,” Nino said, beginning to prepare two cups of green tea. “I have nothing to do with it.”
“Really?” Sho’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. “So this really is from Jun?”
“Maybe it’s someone else pretending to be Jun-kun. I really don’t know.” Sho watched Nino’s hands as he prepared the tea; his hands were small but quick and dexterous and the tea was fragrantly steaming in front of Sho in less time than Sho took just to boil water.
“Why would anyone pretend to be Jun unless it was you pulling a prank on me?” Sho asked, and Nino poked him in the cheek with a finger.
“Maybe someone else realized how cute you are when you’re flustered,” Nino said with a shrug. “This one’s not me.”
Sho didn’t drink his tea, engrossed in the thick and thin curves of the writing. Aiba’s handwriting was too rushed for such precision and Sho couldn’t think of anyone else who knew about his relationship with Jun.
“What does the letter say?” Nino asked from where he was curled up by the stove. He was wearing a happi coat that must have been Aiba’s because it was far too big for him; he had folded up the edges of the sleeves in order to free his hands enough to hold the cup. He looked small but cute in his warm huddle.
“I’m supposed to meet him tonight in his chambers,” Sho said with a shrug, folding the letter back and tucking it away.
“Maybe he’s going to convince you to commit double suicide with him, like in Shinagawa Shinjuu,” Nino laughed. “You know, the story where the courtesan wants to die so she tries to get any client she has to die with her but it doesn’t work.”
“Yes, Nino, I’m up-to-date with my rakugo classics.” Sho rolled his eyes. “I’m pretty sure Jun’s not the double suicide type.”
Nino made a noise of agreement. “Too messy for him, I think.”
“I’ll let you know what the deal is,” Sho finally said, getting to his feet. “Thanks for the tea.”
“Don’t let him push you into suicide,” Nino called after him. “Avoid looking at him directly! He’ll trick you with his pretty face!”
Sho lifted a hand up in acknowledgement but he didn’t turn back to look at Nino as he left the house.
-----
Sho felt more nervous entering Yoshiwara that night than the first day he stepped foot inside the gates. He had spent all day wondering what on earth Jun could want and every possibility had run through his mind. Maybe Nino was right, and Jun wanted to recreate Shinagawa Shinjuu. Maybe Jun had run into some money trouble and needed a loan. Maybe Jun was in love with him -- ?
Sho dismissed the last thought.
When Sho was ushered into the room, the first thing he noticed was that Jun was back to wearing his full face of makeup. His robes were more elaborate than Sho had ever seen before, gold and silver brocade running through the rich purple fabric like streams at the mouth of a river.
“Jun…?” Sho sounded uneasy as he took his usual spot on the floor.
“Wait,” Jun said, his voice prim.
So Sho waited. The room was quiet with the exception of the small water noises coming from the myriad goldfish kept in bowls around the room. He could faintly hear the sound of a shamisen being played, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from inside of the building or somewhere outside.
It wasn’t long before the door slid open again. “Hi,” a quiet, familiar voice said.
There were many things Sho didn’t understand about the world. He loved to read and study as part of his quest for knowledge, but when it came to human relationships and emotions, sometimes he felt woefully unprepared and unqualified.
He had never in his lifetime imagined that he would see Ohno standing in Jun’s chambers. What’s more was that Ohno was clearly comfortable there, sitting down at once by Sho with a lazy smile on his face as he looked between Sho and Jun.
“I didn’t know you knew Jun,” Ohno said, his voice relaxed. Sho simply couldn’t comprehend how Ohno wasn’t surprised to see him there, or how he knew Jun, or anything about this entire situation.
“Hello, Ohno-kun,” Jun said, finally beginning to move across the room, his robes rustling softly against the tatami. When he finally knelt by the other two, he came equipped with a ceramic sake set that included three small cups. “A little bird told me that the two of you knew each other.”
“Was it Aiba-chan?” Sho finally managed to ask, his eyes darting between Ohno and Jun. Sho felt like the odd man out and it was the first time he had ever wished he hadn’t gone to see Jun.
“Never mind that,” Jun said briskly as he served the sake. “How do you know each other?”
“Sho-chan is a friend who comes to my restaurant a lot,” Ohno said, closing his eyes with a smile as he savored the warm liquor.
Sho couldn’t even bring himself to pick up his cup. “A friend? Ohno-san, I’m honored.” Sho, of course, was horribly in love with Ohno, but he never thought that Ohno considered him anything more than a regular customer. They’d never gone out together, never met outside the restaurant, but there it was - Sho was Ohno’s friend. No matter what else happened tonight, Sho had that to tuck quietly into the pockets of his heart.
“So neither of you knew you were both my customers?” Jun was watching them both, an expression on his face that Sho couldn’t read.
“Customers?” Sho squeaked. “Ohno-san, you…?”
“I’ve been seeing Jun for…” Ohno made some quiet musing noises. “Three years now? Four?”
“Six,” Jun replied with exasperation, leaning over to gently hit him over the head.
“Six? Really? Huh.” Ohno laughed a little, a sound Sho usually enjoyed hearing, but his heart was pounding in his ears and it didn’t register at all.
Ohno had been going to Jun for the past six years. Ohno wasn’t married. Sho had managed to spend the past few years of his life thinking that he would never be loved because of who he was and what he couldn’t change, but everything was turning on its head and he didn’t know which way was up anymore.
“This little bird told me that Sho-san has been interested in you for quite some time, Ohno-kun,” Jun said with a small smirk. “But he is simply too shy to say anything.”
“Jun, you -- !” Sho buried his face in his hands, trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. A few moments later, a hand landed on his shoulder.
“It’s okay, Sho-chan.” Ohno’s voice was warm and gentle. “I don’t mind.”
“This is not the way any of this was supposed to be,” Sho finally managed to say, straightening up. “I’m going home.”
“Sho-chan, I’ll go with you,” Ohno offered, getting up in tandem with him. “I’ll make you something to eat.”
Sho nodded silently, his insides churning at the idea of Ohno knowing how he felt. Jun simply bowed his head elegantly. “Get home safely.”
The streets of Yoshiwara were rowdy with catcalling men and the chatter of the prostitutes, but all Sho could hear were Ohno’s footsteps in line with his. They didn’t speak until they were far out of the district and in Ohno’s restaurant.
“I don’t think Aiba-chan told Jun to tell me,” Ohno finally said once they were inside. Sho was seated at the counter with his head in his hands and Ohno was already rummaging through his stores. “Because Aiba-chan told me himself.”
“Of course he did,” Sho said tiredly, letting go of his head and letting it hit the wood with a clunk. “I should have never told him anything.”
“It’s okay,” Ohno said, his voice soothing. “He told me because I asked.”
“You asked? What?”
“Sho-chan came in here by accident, right?” Ohno made an affirmative noise to his own question. “Then you kept coming and coming and you stayed longer and longer, and then I kind of figured. But you never said anything, so I asked Aiba-chan.”
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Sho said. He was exhausted by everything that had happened, and he wanted to crawl into his futon and sleep for the next two weeks. Maybe by then everything would have blown over and he could pretend nothing had happened and he was, in fact, normal.
“It wasn’t bothersome. Sho-chan is very handsome.” Ohno smiled a little. “I was very happy when Aiba-chan told me, but then you never said anything. I didn’t think you were shy, so I thought maybe he was wrong. But then Jun said something about it to me, and Jun is never wrong. So, Sho-chan…you can have me, if you want.”
Sho gaped at Ohno for a long minute, long enough for Ohno to begin fidgeting.
“I…Ohno-san, I don’t know what to say,” Sho finally stammered out. “I can’t be like Nino and Aiba because of my family, but I’ve liked you for such a long time…I…”
Ohno came out from behind the counter, still wearing his apron, and sat down next to Sho. “It’s okay. I like living at home. My mom cooks better than I do. I wouldn’t want to move out, anyway.”
“You live at home?”
Ohno smiled again, that soft smile that Sho loved so much, and then leaned in to kiss Sho.
Kissing Ohno was nothing like kissing Jun. Ohno’s lips were rough and chapped, and he smelled a little like sweat and the sun, his hair cut short like a fisherman’s so there was nothing for Sho to grip. But Ohno was smaller than Jun was, and he fit into Sho’s arms the way a key fit into a lock, their edges coming together snugly.
“How long have you been seeing Jun?” Ohno asked breathlessly when they broke apart.
“Not very long,” Sho admitted, already missing the feel of Ohno’s mouth on his. “A few weeks?”
“Good,” Ohno said as he broke into a huge smile, “then I have a lot to teach you.”
-----
When Sho had first heard that Aiba had told Ohno his feelings, Sho had wanted to murder Aiba and destroy any memory anyone might’ve had of him. But after spending that first night with Ohno, his resolve softened quite a bit.
Ohno had left early to go fishing; he always started the day that way, he said, in order to get the food for that day’s meals at the restaurant. The futon was lonely without him, so Sho made his way to Aiba’s house instead of lazing around waiting for Ohno to get back.
“Aiba-chan!” Sho demanded when he opened the door without knocking. Aiba and Nino were eating breakfast at the table with a guest.
“Ah…I’m sorry for intruding…” Sho bowed his head, cheeks burning.
“Come on in, Sho-san,” the guest said, and when Sho squinted up, the smirk on his face looked familiar. It took Sho a moment - between the hair tied simply behind him and the lack of makeup, Jun simply didn’t look like the Jun Sho knew.
“Jun-kun told us all about it,” Nino said, sipping at his miso soup. “Congratulations on your happiness.”
Aiba went over and hugged Sho so hard the air was knocked out of his lungs. “I knew it’d happen! Ohno always said you were cute and anyway who wouldn’t love you, Sho-chan, you’re so nice!”
“Jun?” Sho managed to say, looking at him over Aiba’s shoulder.
Jun shrugged, a graceful one-shoulder shrug that Sho envied. “Caught me.”
Aiba manhandled Sho to the table before bustling over to the kitchen. “Lucky for you, I made extra fish for breakfast! I was going to have it for lunch, but you never come over, so you have to eat it.”
“Is it safe to assume neither of you will be coming to see me anymore?” Jun asked, finishing the few bites of rice left in his bowl as he looked at Sho.
“Well, actually…” Jun was more beautiful this way, casual and manly, than when he was in his drag. Sho couldn’t give his beauty up so soon. “Do you mind having both of us?”
Nino hooted from his seat across the table. “Dirty, all of you!”
“My doors are always open,” Jun said.
“And his legs,” Nino added, earning a shove from Jun as Aiba began to place dishes in front of Sho.
Sho watched Nino and Jun bicker as warmth spread through his body at the idea of being able to always go home to Ohno but still have Jun welcoming him in. Ohno didn’t want Sho to parade him around to prove his love, and Jun would always be tucked away in Yoshiwara, his business private and behind closed doors. The three of them could be together whenever they wanted in ways that left them open to lead their lives with each other’s private support.
For the first time in his life, Sho felt like he knew what happiness was.