(no subject)
Title: Magic, Cherry Blossoms, and Law School, oh my!
Fandom: Arashi
Characters: Ohno Satoshi, Ninomiya Kazunari, Aiba Masaki, Sakurai Sho, Matsumoto Jun, Naka Riisa, Yokoyama Yuu (cameo)
Pairing: N/A -- Gen fic.
Rating: G
Summary: AU. Three AUs, in fact! Written in the style of (x number) arashi (thing that happened). So it's "3 AUs arashi didn't star in".
Notes: First and foremost...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DARLING AUGUSTFAI"! This is your birthday present, though it's not very well written but has driven me nuts for weeks (if not more, I started this way before Thanksgiving :|a;). ♥ I love you to bits and pieces, though you know that. TTGTT forever.
So, I originally wanted to do five fandoms, but it wasn't working for me so you only get three. Sorry. :( It turned out to be Aiba-centric, mainly because I am somehow Aiba-deprived and believe the world should be all-Aiba-all-the-time.
ALSO I took many liberties with the third AU. If you're familiar with the game, you'll notice I screwed all sorts of things up with the plotline, but that's on purpose. :D; (Also, it's a Nintendo Nitro and not a DS because I wanted to continue with the "this game plays with everything ever" thing -- Nitro was the original codename for the DS. Or something like that. LOOK AT ALL THIS RESEARCH I DID)
Aiba Masaki ran through the halls of Hogwarts, trying to straighten his yellow and black tie as his robes flapped around his ankles. He had overslept and was trying to comb his hair and tie his shoes at the same time in order to get to class. Being late was okay when the first class of the day was Divination or something equally as useless, but unfortunately today was Tuesday. Today his first class was Potions. Potions was Aiba's favorite class, but the professor had a short fuse and was terrifying when he was angry. He did not tolerate tardiness, but Aiba figured getting to class late was better than not showing up at all if he didn't have a proper excuse to be out (and Aiba had discovered the first week of being a first year that they weren't fooled by the “stand near a candle and lick your palms so they're clammy” trick).
Luckily, when Aiba sneaked in, the professor's back was to the door and he was able to slide into his seat in the front next to his cauldron partner. Jun gave him a nasty side-eye look, but pointed to the page number of the Potions book sitting in front of him. They were working on Sleeping Draughts today, and Jun was handling his container of flobberworm mucus as though it actually contained something poisonous. Aiba grinned gratefully at him and glanced backwards to see who the professor was yelling at before pulling out his own stoppered bottles haphazardly out of his bag. Maybe if he worked fast, the professor wouldn't notice his tardiness at all since he seemed to be distracted with turning a bright purple from rage.
Professor Nakai could be perfectly nice when he wanted to, but Ohno, a fellow Hufflepuff, always managed in his sleepy way to set off Nakai's fuse. Aiba wasn't sure what the problem was today, but Nakai was waving around a handful of dazed flobberworms he was squeezing to death. (Aiba thought the flobberworms looked a lot like how Ohno did right now - Ohno was barely registering what was happening, his eyes mostly closed and a very serene look on his face.) Behind Aiba, Nino was collecting a Galleon from a resigned Sho. Nino looked triumphant, threading the Galleon through his fingers with smugness. Aiba had learned not to make bets with Nino if he wanted to have any money left over for Hogsmeade, but Sho still hadn't understood that fact yet.
“What'd you bet on?” Aiba whispered to Nino, his eyes flicking from the still screaming professor to the Slytherin. “And why are you even here?” he turned to Sho, his brows furrowing. This year Hufflepuff was taking Potions with Slytherin, which was why Jun and Nino were in the class, but Sho was a Ravenclaw. They normally didn't meet up with Sho until lunch, not that he noticed them until he finished scouring through that day's edition of the Daily Prophet.
“Got special permission to attend your classes for a few days in order to write on Hufflepuff-Slytherin relations for the Ravenclaw newsletter Nino stop laughing at me it's an important job,” Sho replied through gritted teeth, “And we bet that Satoshi could last ten minutes without making Nakai mad. It's been five minutes since the class started.”
“What'd he do?” Aiba wasn't sure exactly how much mischief Ohno could do in five minutes using flobberworms, of all things. If it were Nino, Aiba wouldn't have been surprised at some elaborate, slimy prank, but all Ohno ever thought of when he saw flobberworms was fishing.
“He didn't really do anything,” Jun murmured, meticulously slicing ingredients. “More like Taka gave him ten Sickles to ask the professor if he ever did anything except in his spare time except use flobberworm mucus as hair gel. I think if the professor could have he would've just punched Ohno in the face instead of yelling, but he's already gotten into trouble for trying to kill Ohno before, remember?”
Aiba remembered. It was a particularly nasty incident (caused by Taka, again, a rather innocent looking Slytherin who was actually incredibly evil when it came to getting idiots like Ohno into trouble) that involved a convoluted insult about Nakai's talent at mixing potions and something about a dog - at any rate, Ohno almost got strung up by his ankle from the ceiling before Professor Nagase walked in and broke up the situation.
“Thirty points from Hufflepuff!” Nakai finally raged, storming back to the front of the dungeon, his face bright red and the bandanna he always wore slipping down in front of his eyes. He slammed the textbook open on the table, upsetting flobberworm mucus all over his hands.
Ohno scratched the side of his nose and blinked.
-----
Aiba stared at the penguin slide from where he stood on the bridge over the koi lake, his eyebrows furrowed as he absentmindedly licked his ice cream. He scratched the back of his ankle with one foot, his tongue poking out to catch a drip of vanilla that fell from the corner of his mouth. Somewhere next to him, his friend Riisa was rummaging through her bookbag.
“Here we go!” Riisa said triumphantly, pulling out a furry, zebra striped hat with a two foot long tail from her bag. She also produced a matching, miniature version that sat neatly in her hand. Aiba sighed when he saw the things, swallowing the bite of waffle cone he had just taken.
“Riisa-chan, Nino's never going to wear that,” he pointed out, eying the hat warily. He didn't have a choice in what he was going to wear - Riisa would punch him if he dared to ever deny her wardrobe choices, but Nino was rather ornery. He wasn't quite sure why a Guardian of the Clow Cards was so cranky about, well, everything, but Aiba also wasn't sure how long Nino had been stuck in that book. Maybe Aiba would be cranky too, if he'd spent years cramped up in such a tiny, dusty spot. Then again, Nino was sleeping the whole time, which couldn't be all that bad really, so Aiba was pretty sure that Nino was just a brat.
“He's going to wear it,” she said determinedly. “You already told me you're going to try and catch that new Card that's on the loose tonight, right? You'll have to take this now because what I have for you later was too big to bring to school.”
“What could be too big to bring to school, Riisa-chan?” Aiba demanded. He wasn't sure why he asked, because the last time he went out to catch a Clow Card she had dressed him in head to toe neon blue giraffe print with giraffe teddy bears strapped to his legs. She'd been really into animal print lately.
“You'll see tonight,” she said with that evil smirk she had learned from her mother. Aiba suppressed a shudder. He loved her to bits and pieces, but when Riisa plotted Aiba knew he had no choice but to be dragged along in whatever she wanted. It was usually a terrible outfit.
There wasn't much else Aiba could do but sigh and take the hat. He did, however, prance down the back streets wearing it on his way home because the way that tail swung behind him turned out to be really fun.
(The next day, a rather serious transfer student joined the class. Aiba smiled at the new boy who introduced himself as Sakurai Sho, but Sho didn't smile back and just marched down the aisle to the seat behind Aiba.
Aiba wondered if he still had chocolate on his face from the croissant he had for breakfast.
At lunch he discovered that Sho was after the Clow Cards, but because Sho decided to confront Aiba in a not very nice manner right next to the partition between the elementary and the high schools, Sho managed to become mortal enemies with Aiba's older brother, Yoko.
When Aiba told Riisa about his exciting lunch period, she merely laughed knowingly and patted the top of his head. Aiba decided he was going to ask Nino exactly when his life would stop being so weird, because he had important things like English class to worry about, too.)
-----
Aiba Masaki was nervous. Today was his first real day in court since earning his law license. He'd spent years in university and law school training for this day, but he couldn't stop playing with his lawyer badge and fidgeting with the lint in his pockets. His mentor, Sakurai Sho, was waiting for him at the courthouse and he smiled when he saw Aiba bounding up the stairs.
“Are you ready? There's been a change.” Sho's expression was reassuring, but his eyes were serious. Aiba gulped. “Matsumoto Jun is doing the prosecution now. We're going to have to stay on our toes, but I know we can win this.” Sho squeezed Aiba's shoulder even as Aiba felt his stomach drop to his toes. Matsumoto Jun was the youngest, toughest prosecutor in the system, and he had never lost a case. Aiba had utmost faith in Sho, but up against Matsumoto? On Aiba's first case? Aiba hoped beginner's luck was on his side.
Aiba had been in courtrooms before, but only as an observer. Walking into the courtroom as an actual lawyer, badge and all, was petrifying. Matsumoto Jun was already there, rings shining and not a hair out of place. Aiba was wearing his best blue suit (the one that went so well with his red tie) but he still felt a little shabby compared to Matsumoto; the man was wearing an ascot.
Matsumoto wasn't one for smiling, it seemed. His face was smooth and unlined, unlike Aiba who already at the age of 26 had earned deep smile lines and the beginnings of crow's feet from his easy laughter. His hair was long and black, gently curling around his face, and Aiba found his attention caught by an errant curl wisping away from the others near Matsumoto's ear. Matsumoto caught him staring and smirked at Aiba, who turned pink and looked up at the judge, who was playing with a fishing rod.
It was a murder trial, one made confusing by names written on receipts in blood, shady witnesses, and a murder weapon that had been used to kill someone else in an earlier trial that Sho had worked on. Aiba stuttered and stumbled over his words every time Matsumoto smirked and wagged his finger in an infuriatingly smug way, somehow trumping Aiba's defense every time Aiba came out with something new.
The judge called a recess and Aiba quickly moved to the lobby, sitting on one of the benches hard with his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands. “What are we going to do,” he moaned as Sho sat next to him, flipping through some of his papers. “I know she's innocent, but he has so many tricks up his sleeve...”
“We'll get it,” Sho replied and Aiba recognized the glint in his eye. It was the same glint that Sho got when Aiba threw away the newspapers before Sho had gotten a chance to read them (Aiba had made that mistake only once.)
Aiba understood moments later when Detective Ninomiya slunk into the courthouse, a crabby look on his face. “You couldn't have picked this up earlier?” was his greeting as he shoved a manila envelope at them. “I was in the middle of Princesses and Plumbers XVI when you called. No save point until the end of the level, either. Both of you owe me dinner for this.”
Sho started to bow in thanks but Ninomiya turned to slink back out of the courtroom without another word, already pulling his Nintendo Nitro out of his pocket. Aiba winced as Ninomiya's sneakers squeaked against the marble of the floor, echoing throughout the lobby as Ninomiya slowly made his way out the door. Aiba knew he was making those noises on purpose.
He turned to Sho, pointing to the envelope. “What is that?”
Sho grinned, holding up the envelope. “Our saving grace.”
It turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence: floor plans of the office where the murder took place that contradicted the witnesses' story; they claimed to have been watching the murder from the hotel next door, but the floor plan showed that many of the details they gave about the office couldn't be seen from the hotel window.
It was Matsumoto's first loss in court in his history as a prosecutor.
Aiba watched Matsumoto angrily gather up his things and storm out of court, his jaw clenched and his eyebrows furrowed, and felt a little sad. He wasn't sure why he felt like he owed Matsumoto something, and he would never let someone that he knew was innocent be jailed for a crime just because of a debt owed to the prosecution, but watching Matsumoto leave in a flurry of velvet and silk made Aiba feel a little sick to his stomach.
Then Sho grabbed him in a giant bear hug and Aiba forgot all about Matsumoto for the moment, caught up in talks about a victory drinking party until sunrise.
Fandom: Arashi
Characters: Ohno Satoshi, Ninomiya Kazunari, Aiba Masaki, Sakurai Sho, Matsumoto Jun, Naka Riisa, Yokoyama Yuu (cameo)
Pairing: N/A -- Gen fic.
Rating: G
Summary: AU. Three AUs, in fact! Written in the style of (x number) arashi (thing that happened). So it's "3 AUs arashi didn't star in".
Notes: First and foremost...HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DARLING AUGUSTFAI"! This is your birthday present, though it's not very well written but has driven me nuts for weeks (if not more, I started this way before Thanksgiving :|a;). ♥ I love you to bits and pieces, though you know that. TTGTT forever.
So, I originally wanted to do five fandoms, but it wasn't working for me so you only get three. Sorry. :( It turned out to be Aiba-centric, mainly because I am somehow Aiba-deprived and believe the world should be all-Aiba-all-the-time.
ALSO I took many liberties with the third AU. If you're familiar with the game, you'll notice I screwed all sorts of things up with the plotline, but that's on purpose. :D; (Also, it's a Nintendo Nitro and not a DS because I wanted to continue with the "this game plays with everything ever" thing -- Nitro was the original codename for the DS. Or something like that. LOOK AT ALL THIS RESEARCH I DID)
Aiba Masaki ran through the halls of Hogwarts, trying to straighten his yellow and black tie as his robes flapped around his ankles. He had overslept and was trying to comb his hair and tie his shoes at the same time in order to get to class. Being late was okay when the first class of the day was Divination or something equally as useless, but unfortunately today was Tuesday. Today his first class was Potions. Potions was Aiba's favorite class, but the professor had a short fuse and was terrifying when he was angry. He did not tolerate tardiness, but Aiba figured getting to class late was better than not showing up at all if he didn't have a proper excuse to be out (and Aiba had discovered the first week of being a first year that they weren't fooled by the “stand near a candle and lick your palms so they're clammy” trick).
Luckily, when Aiba sneaked in, the professor's back was to the door and he was able to slide into his seat in the front next to his cauldron partner. Jun gave him a nasty side-eye look, but pointed to the page number of the Potions book sitting in front of him. They were working on Sleeping Draughts today, and Jun was handling his container of flobberworm mucus as though it actually contained something poisonous. Aiba grinned gratefully at him and glanced backwards to see who the professor was yelling at before pulling out his own stoppered bottles haphazardly out of his bag. Maybe if he worked fast, the professor wouldn't notice his tardiness at all since he seemed to be distracted with turning a bright purple from rage.
Professor Nakai could be perfectly nice when he wanted to, but Ohno, a fellow Hufflepuff, always managed in his sleepy way to set off Nakai's fuse. Aiba wasn't sure what the problem was today, but Nakai was waving around a handful of dazed flobberworms he was squeezing to death. (Aiba thought the flobberworms looked a lot like how Ohno did right now - Ohno was barely registering what was happening, his eyes mostly closed and a very serene look on his face.) Behind Aiba, Nino was collecting a Galleon from a resigned Sho. Nino looked triumphant, threading the Galleon through his fingers with smugness. Aiba had learned not to make bets with Nino if he wanted to have any money left over for Hogsmeade, but Sho still hadn't understood that fact yet.
“What'd you bet on?” Aiba whispered to Nino, his eyes flicking from the still screaming professor to the Slytherin. “And why are you even here?” he turned to Sho, his brows furrowing. This year Hufflepuff was taking Potions with Slytherin, which was why Jun and Nino were in the class, but Sho was a Ravenclaw. They normally didn't meet up with Sho until lunch, not that he noticed them until he finished scouring through that day's edition of the Daily Prophet.
“Got special permission to attend your classes for a few days in order to write on Hufflepuff-Slytherin relations for the Ravenclaw newsletter Nino stop laughing at me it's an important job,” Sho replied through gritted teeth, “And we bet that Satoshi could last ten minutes without making Nakai mad. It's been five minutes since the class started.”
“What'd he do?” Aiba wasn't sure exactly how much mischief Ohno could do in five minutes using flobberworms, of all things. If it were Nino, Aiba wouldn't have been surprised at some elaborate, slimy prank, but all Ohno ever thought of when he saw flobberworms was fishing.
“He didn't really do anything,” Jun murmured, meticulously slicing ingredients. “More like Taka gave him ten Sickles to ask the professor if he ever did anything except in his spare time except use flobberworm mucus as hair gel. I think if the professor could have he would've just punched Ohno in the face instead of yelling, but he's already gotten into trouble for trying to kill Ohno before, remember?”
Aiba remembered. It was a particularly nasty incident (caused by Taka, again, a rather innocent looking Slytherin who was actually incredibly evil when it came to getting idiots like Ohno into trouble) that involved a convoluted insult about Nakai's talent at mixing potions and something about a dog - at any rate, Ohno almost got strung up by his ankle from the ceiling before Professor Nagase walked in and broke up the situation.
“Thirty points from Hufflepuff!” Nakai finally raged, storming back to the front of the dungeon, his face bright red and the bandanna he always wore slipping down in front of his eyes. He slammed the textbook open on the table, upsetting flobberworm mucus all over his hands.
Ohno scratched the side of his nose and blinked.
-----
Aiba stared at the penguin slide from where he stood on the bridge over the koi lake, his eyebrows furrowed as he absentmindedly licked his ice cream. He scratched the back of his ankle with one foot, his tongue poking out to catch a drip of vanilla that fell from the corner of his mouth. Somewhere next to him, his friend Riisa was rummaging through her bookbag.
“Here we go!” Riisa said triumphantly, pulling out a furry, zebra striped hat with a two foot long tail from her bag. She also produced a matching, miniature version that sat neatly in her hand. Aiba sighed when he saw the things, swallowing the bite of waffle cone he had just taken.
“Riisa-chan, Nino's never going to wear that,” he pointed out, eying the hat warily. He didn't have a choice in what he was going to wear - Riisa would punch him if he dared to ever deny her wardrobe choices, but Nino was rather ornery. He wasn't quite sure why a Guardian of the Clow Cards was so cranky about, well, everything, but Aiba also wasn't sure how long Nino had been stuck in that book. Maybe Aiba would be cranky too, if he'd spent years cramped up in such a tiny, dusty spot. Then again, Nino was sleeping the whole time, which couldn't be all that bad really, so Aiba was pretty sure that Nino was just a brat.
“He's going to wear it,” she said determinedly. “You already told me you're going to try and catch that new Card that's on the loose tonight, right? You'll have to take this now because what I have for you later was too big to bring to school.”
“What could be too big to bring to school, Riisa-chan?” Aiba demanded. He wasn't sure why he asked, because the last time he went out to catch a Clow Card she had dressed him in head to toe neon blue giraffe print with giraffe teddy bears strapped to his legs. She'd been really into animal print lately.
“You'll see tonight,” she said with that evil smirk she had learned from her mother. Aiba suppressed a shudder. He loved her to bits and pieces, but when Riisa plotted Aiba knew he had no choice but to be dragged along in whatever she wanted. It was usually a terrible outfit.
There wasn't much else Aiba could do but sigh and take the hat. He did, however, prance down the back streets wearing it on his way home because the way that tail swung behind him turned out to be really fun.
(The next day, a rather serious transfer student joined the class. Aiba smiled at the new boy who introduced himself as Sakurai Sho, but Sho didn't smile back and just marched down the aisle to the seat behind Aiba.
Aiba wondered if he still had chocolate on his face from the croissant he had for breakfast.
At lunch he discovered that Sho was after the Clow Cards, but because Sho decided to confront Aiba in a not very nice manner right next to the partition between the elementary and the high schools, Sho managed to become mortal enemies with Aiba's older brother, Yoko.
When Aiba told Riisa about his exciting lunch period, she merely laughed knowingly and patted the top of his head. Aiba decided he was going to ask Nino exactly when his life would stop being so weird, because he had important things like English class to worry about, too.)
-----
Aiba Masaki was nervous. Today was his first real day in court since earning his law license. He'd spent years in university and law school training for this day, but he couldn't stop playing with his lawyer badge and fidgeting with the lint in his pockets. His mentor, Sakurai Sho, was waiting for him at the courthouse and he smiled when he saw Aiba bounding up the stairs.
“Are you ready? There's been a change.” Sho's expression was reassuring, but his eyes were serious. Aiba gulped. “Matsumoto Jun is doing the prosecution now. We're going to have to stay on our toes, but I know we can win this.” Sho squeezed Aiba's shoulder even as Aiba felt his stomach drop to his toes. Matsumoto Jun was the youngest, toughest prosecutor in the system, and he had never lost a case. Aiba had utmost faith in Sho, but up against Matsumoto? On Aiba's first case? Aiba hoped beginner's luck was on his side.
Aiba had been in courtrooms before, but only as an observer. Walking into the courtroom as an actual lawyer, badge and all, was petrifying. Matsumoto Jun was already there, rings shining and not a hair out of place. Aiba was wearing his best blue suit (the one that went so well with his red tie) but he still felt a little shabby compared to Matsumoto; the man was wearing an ascot.
Matsumoto wasn't one for smiling, it seemed. His face was smooth and unlined, unlike Aiba who already at the age of 26 had earned deep smile lines and the beginnings of crow's feet from his easy laughter. His hair was long and black, gently curling around his face, and Aiba found his attention caught by an errant curl wisping away from the others near Matsumoto's ear. Matsumoto caught him staring and smirked at Aiba, who turned pink and looked up at the judge, who was playing with a fishing rod.
It was a murder trial, one made confusing by names written on receipts in blood, shady witnesses, and a murder weapon that had been used to kill someone else in an earlier trial that Sho had worked on. Aiba stuttered and stumbled over his words every time Matsumoto smirked and wagged his finger in an infuriatingly smug way, somehow trumping Aiba's defense every time Aiba came out with something new.
The judge called a recess and Aiba quickly moved to the lobby, sitting on one of the benches hard with his shoulders slumped and his head in his hands. “What are we going to do,” he moaned as Sho sat next to him, flipping through some of his papers. “I know she's innocent, but he has so many tricks up his sleeve...”
“We'll get it,” Sho replied and Aiba recognized the glint in his eye. It was the same glint that Sho got when Aiba threw away the newspapers before Sho had gotten a chance to read them (Aiba had made that mistake only once.)
Aiba understood moments later when Detective Ninomiya slunk into the courthouse, a crabby look on his face. “You couldn't have picked this up earlier?” was his greeting as he shoved a manila envelope at them. “I was in the middle of Princesses and Plumbers XVI when you called. No save point until the end of the level, either. Both of you owe me dinner for this.”
Sho started to bow in thanks but Ninomiya turned to slink back out of the courtroom without another word, already pulling his Nintendo Nitro out of his pocket. Aiba winced as Ninomiya's sneakers squeaked against the marble of the floor, echoing throughout the lobby as Ninomiya slowly made his way out the door. Aiba knew he was making those noises on purpose.
He turned to Sho, pointing to the envelope. “What is that?”
Sho grinned, holding up the envelope. “Our saving grace.”
It turned out to be a crucial piece of evidence: floor plans of the office where the murder took place that contradicted the witnesses' story; they claimed to have been watching the murder from the hotel next door, but the floor plan showed that many of the details they gave about the office couldn't be seen from the hotel window.
It was Matsumoto's first loss in court in his history as a prosecutor.
Aiba watched Matsumoto angrily gather up his things and storm out of court, his jaw clenched and his eyebrows furrowed, and felt a little sad. He wasn't sure why he felt like he owed Matsumoto something, and he would never let someone that he knew was innocent be jailed for a crime just because of a debt owed to the prosecution, but watching Matsumoto leave in a flurry of velvet and silk made Aiba feel a little sick to his stomach.
Then Sho grabbed him in a giant bear hug and Aiba forgot all about Matsumoto for the moment, caught up in talks about a victory drinking party until sunrise.