Arashi - Summertime - Gen, Ohmiya
Title: Summertime
Fandom: Arashi
Pairing: Mainly gen, Nino/everyone friendship, a bit of Ohmiya
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some mentions of bullying.
Summary: In the last summer before High School graduation, Nino finds out he has to leave his hometown, his friends and his baseball team behind. So what has to happen? The last summer has to count.
Notes: Originally written for icecreamsuki for ninoexchange. Started as a fusion between Stand Up and Kisarazu Cat’s Eye then it kind of took on a life of it’s own. Some elements of both dramas appear. A little angst, a little romance, a lot of friendship.
At the beginning of summer vacation in the third year of high school, there are two things that Nino knows. One is that this is the last summer of his youth. The last summer to mindlessly play baseball with his friends under the beating Japanese summer sun.
The other thing he knows is that by the end of the summer, he won’t be here anymore.
The call came suddenly, just a week before when Nino and his parents were sitting down to dinner. Usually his mother would never answer in the middle of a meal, but maybe she had an idea that this time it was something she would really need to know. They’re being transferred. Without much warning. At the end of the summer his family has to move to Nagasaki and... do they have a say? No. Can Nino stay at his school and graduate from there? No. He can’t. The company pays school fees and they won’t pay out of the area of the company housing they’ll be sent to next.
“Then can I just not finish high school?” he asks, voice muffled from his face firmly planted against his pillow. He’s never imagined a world where he wasn’t with the guys, finishing off the year in the baseball club they’ve been in together since Junior high school. That world doesn’t exist to him. Can’t.
“If you want me to kill you,” his mother says, sweetly. “Then sure.”
Nino sighs.
The rest of the guys don’t know yet. Just a few days before they in the neighborhood cafe talking about how they’d all be there at graduation together, still playing baseball just the same as always. Sho is going to university but he could still pitch for them in his free time. They could play games at the local field in the summer, wasting the days away.
Maybe Ohno would even come back, Jun had said with his feet propped up on one of the ottomans of the cafe down the street from the school. “If he comes back,” Jun says. “Then we’ll have a perfect game.”
It’s been six years since Ohno left. His family moved away, much like Nino’s is about to do. And now knowing that he’s going to do the same there is a twinge in his chest when he thinks about what Jun said the other day. There is a picture in the corner of his bookshelf, framed and covered in dust, but he knows what’s there exactly. Five boys. Himself, Aiba-chan, Jun-kun, and Sho. And one more, Ohno. The best player on the team.
He doesn’t come down for dinner, even though his mother calls twice. He just lies in his bed, wondering how he’s going to tell them that they can’t be together after the summer holidays.
“If you’re not going to eat at least have a bath,” his mother says from the doorway. Nino doesn’t even know what time it is until peeks out from under the blankets and realizes that the room is dark and the sky outside is dark too.
He pads out of bed and to the bathroom and sinks down until the top of his head is under the surface of the water.
---
It’s Aiba’s fault that it gets to the point of a rally. Or so that’s what Jun tells Nino when they gather at the cafe. The same cafe as always.
He’s been gearing up all morning to tell the guys the bad news, but when he walks inside it’s like he’s come in the middle of a sermon.
“A promise...” Aiba says, hands spread out wide. “Or a pact! That sounds better hmm...”
Sho sips on his orange juice looking both skeptical and like he wants to join in with the enthusiasm. Nino sits down on a stool and puts his hands on his knees.
“We’re going to do it,” Aiba says.
“It?”
Jun looks down at the floor and grins.
“You know,” Aiba says. Outside the window a couple of girls from their class pass by. One of them, Chikako, Aiba has liked since the first grade. It’s something that everyone in the town, the city and possibly the prefecture knows.
Aiba watches her pass and puts up his hand, bending his fingers into the slightest wave. She smiles back at him.
“It,” Aiba finishes.
“Eh?” Nino says, feeling the flush in his cheeks before he has time to exhale. Of course he’s thought about that. He’s a healthy young man after all. But to say it like this.
Sho sucks all of the orange juice out of his glass in one gulp.
“By the end of high school,” Aiba nods.
There is still air pulling through Sho’s straw and Jun is leaning forward in his seat.
“I won’t be here,” Nino blurts out.
Aiba stops smiling all at once, his mouth taking the shape of a thin line.
“My family is moving,” he says, looking down at the carpet, at the tip of his shoe, at anything he can find in his line of sight. “So... after summer vacation I won’t be here anymore.”
There is a silence that seems to spread to every corner of the cafe.
“So yeah,” Nino says.
Jun sets his glass down on the table. The echo is almost as unbearable as the silence, but thankfully he breaks it quickly.
“Then we have to do it by the end of summer vacation,” Jun says.
He stretches his arm out so his hand is an arm’s length from all of them. Sho is looking down and Aiba’s looking at Nino like he’s about to burst.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Nino says.
“But...”
“I said don’t!” Nino shouts. He doesn’t want this kind of a goodbye. He doesn’t want crying and that other kind of stupid stuff he wants the kind of parting that goes with a bang.
He lays his hand on top of Jun’s and looks at Aiba sternly.
“I’m in,” Sho says, not looking up from the floor, but he lays his hand down on top of the two of them.
“Come on,” Nino says to Aiba. He looks shaken, almost like he’s going to dart out of here at any moment. “Come on!”
“Fine...” Aiba says, laying his hand down angrily on the top so it’s four hands together, between them, then when their hands break apart it feels like the summer has begun.
---
Even with everything that happened the day before, the first day of summer starts out as usual. Nino sleeps in late and his mother finally shoves him out of bed just before it turns noon. There are three messages on his phone from Jun. The game is starting and he’s going to be late.
He grabs a slice of bread on the way out the door and eats it while riding his bicycle down the long hill in front of his house. The breeze feels nice until he reaches the bottom where the muggy summer heat hits him all at once. His baseball glove is in his bag and he takes it out as he’s rounding the corner to where the field is, hopping off of the bike and letting it slide sideways into one of the parking spaces.
“Get over here!” Sho shouts. Nino grins while holding the brim of his hat over his eyes. Record time, he thinks.
Jun is up at bat and Nino is next in the batting order so he can easily slip in past the dugout and start warming up his swing. They won’t miss a beat. But it doesn’t stop Sho from sighing, exacerbated.
“Sho-chan,” Aiba says, slapping the back of Sho’s batting helmet. His way of telling Sho to calm down.
When they’re on the field, Nino takes to second base. Sho-chan pitches, J catches, Aiba’s to his right at shortstop. But it used to be that Oh-chan was on his left at first base and for Nino it’s never really felt the same without him there.
He was the best. The best of the best. He was the kind of guy who seemed a bit like he was sleepwalking through life, but when he stepped onto the field it was like a switch turned on and he was unstoppable. Nino remembers the feel of a runner approaching second and Ohno would throw light and effortlessly in a way that made it seem like the ball would just drift into his hand. But he was strong and fast and even that calm looking toss would leave a sting through the baseball glove to the palm of his hand. The first time, he put ice on it, and he remembers Ohno’s sheepish apology. What is that guy up to these days anyway?
They don’t win the game and it’s easy to blame Jun’s full count miss but it doesn’t matter that much. Not like it does when they’re playing for real. The first real game of the season is next week and maybe it won’t even matter then. After the game the only thing that seems to matter is they’re together at the cafe remembering how Aiba missed that easy toss or Sho botched a stolen base. It’s not so bad in retrospect and those are the moments that make leaving feel like a tight knot in Nino’s chest.
It’s a couple of days later when Aiba does it again. First it was the pact, but now he shows up at the cafe tapping at the window instead of just entering through the door.
“Psst,” he says. Or that’s what it seems like he’s saying, Nino can’t hear him from inside. He keeps tapping frantically until Jun lets out a sigh and decides to be the one to take the plunge and find out what’s going on.
When he exits the cafe it’s just Sho and Nino. Sho doesn’t seem like he wants to meet Nino’s eyes right now. He’s always the one who takes it the hardest when he makes a mistake that somehow ends up in a lost game. But the atmosphere changes when Jun returns.
“Guys...” he says. “You have to see this.”
They all round the corner to find Aiba standing in front of a small crate. It isn’t until Nino gets a little closer that he realized what it is.
“How did you get beer?” Sho asks, eyes wide in wonder.
“Big brother,” Aiba says, proudly puffing out his chest. Something that none of them better ever tell Aiba’s mother about or they may never see Aiba or his brother again.
“I had it once before,” Nino says. “My mom let me try it.”
“Mine didn’t...” Sho says, looking at the crate in wonder. It’s just beer. Something their fathers drink every night after a long day of work. But somehow having it in reach makes it seem that much more forbidden.
Aiba gives a can to each of them in the alleyway behind the cafe. Once they’re satisfied that they’re hidden from view, each of them pops the top off of the can and they give a cheers in the middle, some foam sloshing out of the top when the cans meet.
Nino takes a drink and it’s more bitter than he remembers it. Sho’s face twists up in a way that suggests he can’t handle the taste, but both Aiba and Jun drink like pros. Nino’s impressed.
“I asked Chikako out today,” Aiba says, proudly.
“And she rejected you,” Jun says, quickly.
“But it was like she hesitated wasn’t it?” Aiba says, a faroff look in his eyes. Jun just laughs.
“Getting closer huh?” Nino says slapping Aiba on the back.
Then something happens. The last thing Nino could ever expect to happen.
Someone walks from the end of the street up to where they are in the alleyway. Which isn’t an unexpected thing in itself, but it’s when the person comes in to view, small frame, bad posture, feet a little to big for his body. It’s been a long time but Nino feels like he could recognize that shape anywhere.
“Oh-chan?” Jun says, and all of them turn around, Aiba shielding his eyes from the street light above.
It’s him. It’s Ohno with a long, dark shadow stretched out in front of him, putting his hand up casually. It’s as if he just saw them yesterday.
“Hey,” he says.
---
They can’t put Ohno back at first base right away. Arai-kun joined the club when they were in Junior High School and he’s been the first base player ever since. But even he knew about the old team. Everyone in the school did. He gives up his spot, partly out of reverence, partly out of curiosity. But he’s met with nothing but protests as Ohno claims he hasn’t played baseball since he moved away.
“You’re just being modest right?” Aiba says with a grin.
“Same Oh-chan as ever right?” Jun says, taking off Ohno’s cap just to ruffle his hair before jamming it back on his head and Sho practically shoves him to first base. Where Nino is standing at second, he can see Ohno out of the corner of his eye and something tightens in his chest. It’s the team again.
But after a beat his chest tightens for a different reason. The first batter up hits a grounder right down the first base line, and Arai-kun has to retrieve it from left field as the runner gets on base.
“It’s okay it’s okay,” Aiba says, waving his gloved hand in the air.
Two runners get on base, then the third one slams it out so far that Nino has to stop his knees from buckling when the first runner gets to the home plate. The score goes up one point in the opposing team’s favor and Arai-kun returns to his original spot at first.
They lose by one.
---
The next game, Ohno is invited, but as an alternate. For now it's only practice until the real thing next week. They go to the normal cafe and Ohno has to sit awkwardly in the corner of the booth as he doesn't really have a place there yet.
For Nino there has always been an empty space there due to his absence. But now that he's there it seems like he's grown to big to fill it. The space was left for the elementary school him, and now this high school him is too big, too much.
Aiba tells a particularly animated story and almost knocks over Ohno's juice glass. It happens a couple times more before Ohno finally excuses himself. When he leaves, Sho leans over on the table, whispering so that no one but them can hear.
“He wasn't like that before was he?" Sho asks.
Jun shrugs. “He was always quiet..."
“But like this..." Sho goes on.
“It's just him I guess," Nino says. The image doesn't match the guy, he knows as well as they do. But maybe it's just that the space has to get big enough so it's the right size for Ohno to fill.
---
Aiba asks Chikako out again and she says no, but this time she does hesitate and when she says no she smooths her hair back and gives Aiba a slight smile. It’s kind of fascinating, Nino thinks, and the way Aiba practically floats away from her probably means he’s reacting exactly the way she wants him to.
“I think you’re onto something there, man,” Nino says, slapping Aiba on the back. Aiba’s too dazed to react and when they meet Sho and Jun on the street a grin is already spreading across Jun’s face.
“Yo,” Jun says. As Aiba is incapacitated, Nino replies for the both of them.
Ohno rounds the corner then too and it’s like a wind blows through the hallway for how much the atmosphere changes in just that moment. It’s uncomfortable in what is becoming a familiar way.
“Hey Oh-chan,” Aiba says, finally snapping out of it.
“Hey,” Ohno says, nodding then looking down at his feet.
Two girls pass in and Nino feels a little like he’ll do anything to direct the conversation to something, anything that isn’t Ohno.
“Hey you should ask her out,” Nino says, grabbing Sho’s sleeve and pointing at Mohko, one of the most popular girls in the school (potentially for the wrong reasons, but Nino doesn’t really care about that).
“Are you crazy?” Aiba laughs. But it’s done what Nino needed it to do, get the focus off of Ohno. Like that, Ohno can just slip into the group quietly and it’s that, those quiet little moments that make things feel more like they used to be.
Sho tries to get Nino back later by telling Rina, one of their classmates, that Nino wanted to talk to her. She corners him besides the family restaurant down the street from the field and does the last thing he ever expected.
She confesses.
Sho’s jaw drops and Aiba can’t stop pointing and Nino looks around for someone, something. Is he happy? Is this good?
He opens his mouth to say something, not sure what, but nothing comes out anyway. Then when the words finally find their way to his mouth they come out as a choked “gotta go” and he runs down the street. Up the stairs to the tall shrine at the end of the road because that feels like the best place to go, but he can’t get there because on the stairs, Ohno is there, right in his path.
He stops running. Starts breathing again.
“Where are you going?” Ohno asks.
Everything that was threatening to spill out of him a moment ago calms down again. He doesn’t want to say no to her, but saying yes makes him want to run to the edge of the city.
To Nagasaki, he wants to say. To a place where he can’t say yes to Rina because he won’t even be there. Where he can’t make any promises because there isn’t enough time to keep them.
“Nowhere,” he says, simply, out of breath.
---
The next day they have a game against the team from the next town over, but Nino can’t concentrate. There are too many things going on right now. Ohno is back and they’re losing most of their games now. Arai is threatening to quit the team since he’s only playing half time at first base now. Rina is still waiting for an answer and while she waits Aiba and Jun and Sho are waiting for the answer to the question of: Has he done it yet? Has he become a man? Like he can without even being able to respond to a confession without wanting to run away... but try telling that to them.
A pop fly goes straight past Nino nearly grazing his hat and they’re done for the inning.
Nino’s useless this game so Koichi-kun, their senior and default team manager, puts Arai in his position and he sits on the bench, hat over his eyes less shielding the sun and more shielding his eyes from meeting anyone else’s.
That’s when the next unexpected thing happens. First there was the confession, and maybe unexpected things like this don’t always happen twice in two days, but when it’s the end of the last summer of your high school life maybe things get a little crazy like this.
A little crazy like the batter hits and the ball comes barreling straight down the first base line only to pass between Ohno’s legs right behind him and goes so far that the runner makes it to second. But the unexpected thing is what happens next, when Arai goes right up to where Ohno is standing next to first base and throws a punch at him.
“Hey hey!” Jun shouts. Nino has already flown across the diamond before he even realizes he’s stood up.
At first he's trying to break it up, but then he's throwing punches too and all six of them are on the ground, a tangle of arms and legs. Koichi comes over and tries to break them up too but Nino's heart is beating, adrenaline pumping. He grabs Arai's arm and Arai breaks free. Someone grabs Nino’s arm and pins it behind his back and he doesn’t even know what they’re fighting about. Ohno’s miss? The fact that they’ve lost more games than they’ve won this summer? The fact that despite trying none of them have really gotten anywhere with a girl and wasn’t that supposed to be the point of this summer? Wasn’t it supposed to be last summer with all of them together, going out with a bang?
Nino catches Jun’s eye, dark and serious, but when he looks closer he sees that Jun is smiling. Sho is wrestling Ohno to the ground and Aiba’s locked against Arai and Nino’s just throwing punches wherever he can land them with his one free hand. He remembers now when they were boys who were too young to know any better and any problem was solved by a scuffle that kicked up so much dirt on the schoolyard a passerby might think there was a fire.
That time when Ohno was still there. When he belonged there and the space he filled was exactly the space that needed to be filled.
They’re all thrown out of the game due to fighting and the game has to be called because with all of them thrown out there aren’t enough players to keep going. Aiba stretches out his hand to help Arai up and Sho lets Jun lean against his shoulders. They walk off of the field while the other team chalks up a point and right now, in this moment, the loss doesn’t matter at all.
---
Mayu, another third year girl who has already been accepted to University in the spring kisses Jun behind the cafe on a Monday. He tells the rest of the guys but no one believes him until Mayu tells them herself. She’s the same height as Jun, strictly serious about studying and even though they’re not really boyfriend and girlfriend Nino can’t help but think they match.
They match so well it gives Nino a kind of tight feeling in his chest. Is this how it’s supposed to be? Is he supposed to say yes to Rina and kiss her behind the cafe too?
It’s been more than a week since her confession and Nino wonders if she’s still even waiting anymore. Maybe she’s totally forgotten about him by now. But she comes by the field and during practice she shares part of her lunch with him (while Aiba makes whistling sounds in the background, but Sho helpfully kicks his shin under the bench) so he supposes he still has to give her an answer.
Chikako rejects Aiba again, but from where Nino can see it’s all just a game. She likes him. Maybe, probably, he hopes for Aiba’s sake anyway. But this time when she tells him no and he walks the other way she watches him until he’s out of view, biting her thumb so maybe she won’t start smiling.
Rina leaves to sit with some other girls on the bleachers and Ohno takes her place on the bench next to Nino. They don’t have long before Koichi will call them back out to the field.
It feels like a long time passes between when Ohno sits down and when he speaks.
“Sho-chan told me that everyone’s going to grow up by the end of the summer,” Ohno says.
It’s the same reaction that Nino had at the first confession. Run away, he thinks, past the field, to somewhere far away that isn’t here. His legs twitch, but his feet stay planted and he nods slowly at Ohno’s words.
“And he told me that you won’t be here anymore.”
Nino’s heart pounds so loud he swears he can hear it echoing against the walls of the too narrow dugout. It just makes him want to run away even more. Maybe he can run to the next town with all of this pent up energy.
He tsks. “Why did he have to tell you that?”
Ohno shrugs.
“Say something else,” Nino says.
“I came back because of you.”
“Fuck what are you saying? Say something besides that.”
“When we were little...”
Nino rolls his eyes and falls back against the wall behind him.
“Remember when that kid Ryota punched me,” Ohno says. And this is what finally makes Nino want to run. He starts to take off but Ohno pulls on his sleeve.
Ryota was an older kid. When they were in Elementary school he was in the Junior High School down the street. Ohno was a small kid and Ryota would pick on him sometimes, but it escalated to the point of Ohno taking a punch and it wasn’t long after that when Ohno’s family moved away.
Maybe it was because of that, maybe it wasn’t. Nino was never really sure and he never really got to say a proper goodbye. But before that there was a time where Nino threw his first punch and Ohno took his second. He was young and maybe it made sense to him at the time, but because Ryota did that, left a fist sized welt on Ohno’s arm, it made Nino so mad he wanted to do something, wanted to get back at him somehow. But being only half Ryota’s size was no good, and calling the other guys to gang up on him was no good either so instead he reeled back and punched Ohno’s other arm.
“That’s what you do when you’re friends,” Nino had said. Somehow in the mind of a sixth grader it made sense. That instead of feeling bad or feeling sad that someone had hurt him, Nino would take what Ryota did, take the power away from it, and make it something he and Ohno could share.
“See?” Nino said while Ohno rubbed his arm, taking two steps forward where he’d stumbled two steps back.
“Now do it to me,” Nino said. “Come on.” He held his arm out too, a gesture, and Ohno had taken it.
When Aiba and Jun and Sho had found them like that, fighting in the street, the first instinct was to break it up, but Nino pulled them in so they were a just a pile of boys out there by the schoolyard, punching and kicking and laughing too because it was never about fighting.
After that, it was always like that with them. If anything went wrong it was nothing a good scuffle couldn’t take care of. But they grew out of it, like most kids do, until the week before when Arai unintentionally picked up where the rest of them had left off.
“It’s not that Ryota goes to my school,” Ohno says, holding tight to Nino’s sleeve. “But there’s a guy like him.”
Nino still wants to pull away. This is too much all at once.
“So I thought if I came back you’d be here and--”
“And now I’m going right?” Nino says. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. He’s not crying. This field is way too dusty.
“Let’s go!” Koichi says.
Finally Ohno lets go and Nino can go running out to the field.
---
They lose.
It begins to seem like they’ll never win again. Arai is playing full time again and Ohno has been sent back to the bench. But after the games he’s been practicing in the lot with Aiba, playing catchball until all hours of the night.
Nino sees them a couple of times on his way back home and he wants to join, but something feels weird in his chest when he thinks about it. The same way he feels weird when he thinks about Rina.
If Ohno came back because of him and he’s leaving, then what does that mean? Maybe he can just run away early so no one has to say goodbye. Just like the way Ohno did before.
It’s only one week until the end of the summer and there are only a handful of games left. As soon as the school opens again and the ceremony to welcome back the students begins, that’s when Nino will be gone.
---
It happens in front of the cafe this time. Nino doesn’t really see much of Sho in the days before, but when he finally runs into him the first thing he does is knock him to the ground. Something about Ohno being back makes it acceptable to do that again. Sho fights back in response, wrapping his legs around Nino’s waist and they roll a little ways toward the sidewalk before the cafe’s manager comes outside and shouts at them to break it up.
“Why did you tell him?” Nino says, trying desperately to get any piece of Sho that he can, but Sho basically has him pinned.
“Were you going to?” Sho says through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” Nino says
“I don’t know why you’re leaving anyway!” Sho says, angrily. “We were supposed to finish out the year together.”
“Shut up,” Jun says, pulling back on Sho’s shoulders. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. They’re supposed to fight when it feels good, not when it feels bad, and maybe that’s why neither of them have landed a clear shot, because this is coming from somewhere else.
Aiba comes running from the directly of the field and when he sees what’s going on he darts for Nino, pulling him away so that Jun has Sho and Aiba has Nino. He tries desperately to kick Sho but Aiba wraps his leg around so he can’t move at all.
“Why are you leaving anyway?” Sho says again.
Nino breaks free and finally runs for it, the way he’s been holding back from doing all week.
He runs past the school, past the city center and past the old park with the old playground equipment that looks like it could have been used by his great grandparents. He runs some places he didn’t even know existed in this town and it just makes his chest tighten up even more. He has to say goodbye to places he doesn’t even know, that he didn’t even bother to find. Is this what he leaves behind? A big fight with his friends and a handful of buildings he didn’t even know existed here...
One looks like a sushi restaurant, but it’s long since closed. There’s a factory at the edge of the town and he can see smoke billowing from a distance. An elementary school that some of his friends went to. He finally slows down his pace and he’s at the top of a hill, letting gravity pull him down and at the bottom there he finds the other side of the ballpark. He kicks the lightpole next to him.
Of course he wold go in a big circle. And of course he would end up back here.
But he can soon see that he’s not alone here. Under the street light next to the ballpark he can see a figure. The shape is unmistakably Ohno, but why is he here? Why didn’t he come with Aiba to the cafe? He’s by himself under the light, tossing a ball up into the air and catching it again with his glove. Nino comes up behind him quietly, but Ohno hears him and turns around.
“Practicing,” Ohno says.
“What if Koichi-kun doesn’t let you play tomorrow?”
Ohno shrugs.
Nino comes up to where the lightpole is and leans against it. The closer he gets to Ohno, the less he can feel the knot in his chest. Ohno tosse the ball up and catches it in a steady rhythm again and again and it’s soothing somehow.
“I’ll leave too,” Ohno says.
“What? Why?”
“Because I can go back now. I just wanted to see you guys,” Ohno says. “After I got a little stronger...”
“You have great timing...” Nino scoffs. He wants to go back and change everything about the last month now.
Ohno looks down and stops throwing his ball.
“You never said goodbye,” Nino whispers. When the words come out of him it’s like he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding them in all this time. The truth was all of them were scared of Ryota back in those days, but after they found a way to get stronger together it felt like they could take on anything in the world. It was never the same after Ohno left.
Ohno goes to the lightpole and leans beside Nino. It’s not that late, but not a single car or pedestrian passes by. The whole town is as quiet as a ghost town in just that moment. So when Ohno’s glove drops to the ground it sounds like a brick hitting the concrete. Nino feels Ohno’s hand, sweaty from the summer heat, and he almost jumps back but then he can’t because Ohno’s holding his hand and jumping back would mean he’d have to let go.
“This girl...” Nino says almost in a whisper. “Rina... she said she likes me. But that’s no good right? I’m leaving so even if I liked her it’s not like I can say I’ll be there for her...”
“If you liked her?”
“I mean...” Nino says, intensely aware of Ohno’s hand in his. “I don’t not like her. I like her. She’s nice I guess but...”
But I can’t stop thinking about you, is what Nino would say if he could ever get those words out of his mouth. It’s not even like he’s thinking about Ohno the way Aiba thinks about Chikako. But just thinking about them, the team, the time when Nino thought they’d always be together and then he had to find a way to be satisfied with goodbye.
“Aiba-chan said I couldn’t be part of the pact,” Ohno says.
“What?” Nino.
“Because you all had a head start and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”
Now Nino just lets go and laughs, for what might be the first time all summer. His laugh bounces down the ghost town streets and comes back to him in an echo.
He holds Ohno’s hand a little tighter, a little closer, and it doesn’t register at first that it’s a kiss, but it is all the same. The first time he’s ever done that with anyone, just lips barely touching and still holding hands. Is this what it was like when Mayu kissed Jun? He breathes shakily against Ohno’s lips and doesn’t dare move a single muscle.
Tomorrow is the last game. The day after that is the last day of summer.
---
Arai starts out playing first base but he twists his ankle in the third inning and Ohno is sent out to cover for him. Aiba pats him on the back when he goes out to take the base, nodding to him in understanding that their practicing must pay off now.
It’s hard to remember what happens after that.
Even one year later, no one remembers if they won or lost that last game. Because the only thing that really mattered was that Aiba got another case of beer somehow and they all lit fireworks in the alley behind the cafe until the neighboring shop owner chased them away.
The last part of the summer that Nino can remember is running up and down the same hills, this time with everyone, fireworks streaming behind them until they got lost and found a new part of the town that none of them had ever seen together. That was when Aiba decided that they were disbanded.
“I’m officially disbanding the team,” Aiba says, with his chest puffed out. To which Sho snickers.
“And?” Jun says, because it kind of feels like there’s an and.
“And officially extending the pact,” Aiba says.
“Yeah because you never got anywhere with Chikako,” Nino grins.
“Hey shut up!” Aiba says, kicking Nino’s shoe. “I’m getting there okay?”
Behind Jun, Ohno’s fingers are touching the tips of Nino’s.
“The pact is officially extended to the next time we all meet,” Aiba says, nodding. “We’ll all be men then.”
“Yeah okay,” Jun grins, putting his hand in the center.
Aiba lays his on top and Sho on top of that. Nino has to let go of Ohno to do the same, but it’s easier to do that while making a pact that they’re going to meet again.
It’s one year later that it finally happens. Nino hasn’t entered University yet but Sho and Jun have already been studying six months. Ohno went back to his school and graduated and it wasn’t that Nino didn’t want to communicate, but it was awkward. He didn’t know what to say and every time he started to write an email it felt like a stiff New Year’s card.
But it’s a warm day in August when four emails reach him all at once.
Aiba’s email is only one line. “She finally went out with me!” Nino smiles a little. Good, he thinks.
Sho’s email is longer and gives a detailed report about his University life, studies, basically the New Year’s card that Nino was always afraid to write. Then at the end a tagline. “And Aiba told me Chikako finally went out with him.”
Jun’s email starts out: “If Aiba tells you he’s going out with Chikako, he’s lying.” But then he goes on to say that he and Mayu are thinking of getting married after Univeristy which makes Nino smile maybe even more than it should. Makes him want to punch Jun a little bit too. Just because.
But it’s the last email that comes that makes Nino’s heart stop.
“I’m coming to Nagasaki.”
Nino feels all of the blood rushing to his head and his fingers shake so much he can barely reply.
“When?”
“Can you pick me up at the station in five minutes?”
Because Ohno just isn’t Ohno if he doesn’t come and go like that, Nino supposes, grabbing his cap and flying down the stairs.
Fandom: Arashi
Pairing: Mainly gen, Nino/everyone friendship, a bit of Ohmiya
Rating: PG
Warnings: Some mentions of bullying.
Summary: In the last summer before High School graduation, Nino finds out he has to leave his hometown, his friends and his baseball team behind. So what has to happen? The last summer has to count.
Notes: Originally written for icecreamsuki for ninoexchange. Started as a fusion between Stand Up and Kisarazu Cat’s Eye then it kind of took on a life of it’s own. Some elements of both dramas appear. A little angst, a little romance, a lot of friendship.
At the beginning of summer vacation in the third year of high school, there are two things that Nino knows. One is that this is the last summer of his youth. The last summer to mindlessly play baseball with his friends under the beating Japanese summer sun.
The other thing he knows is that by the end of the summer, he won’t be here anymore.
The call came suddenly, just a week before when Nino and his parents were sitting down to dinner. Usually his mother would never answer in the middle of a meal, but maybe she had an idea that this time it was something she would really need to know. They’re being transferred. Without much warning. At the end of the summer his family has to move to Nagasaki and... do they have a say? No. Can Nino stay at his school and graduate from there? No. He can’t. The company pays school fees and they won’t pay out of the area of the company housing they’ll be sent to next.
“Then can I just not finish high school?” he asks, voice muffled from his face firmly planted against his pillow. He’s never imagined a world where he wasn’t with the guys, finishing off the year in the baseball club they’ve been in together since Junior high school. That world doesn’t exist to him. Can’t.
“If you want me to kill you,” his mother says, sweetly. “Then sure.”
Nino sighs.
The rest of the guys don’t know yet. Just a few days before they in the neighborhood cafe talking about how they’d all be there at graduation together, still playing baseball just the same as always. Sho is going to university but he could still pitch for them in his free time. They could play games at the local field in the summer, wasting the days away.
Maybe Ohno would even come back, Jun had said with his feet propped up on one of the ottomans of the cafe down the street from the school. “If he comes back,” Jun says. “Then we’ll have a perfect game.”
It’s been six years since Ohno left. His family moved away, much like Nino’s is about to do. And now knowing that he’s going to do the same there is a twinge in his chest when he thinks about what Jun said the other day. There is a picture in the corner of his bookshelf, framed and covered in dust, but he knows what’s there exactly. Five boys. Himself, Aiba-chan, Jun-kun, and Sho. And one more, Ohno. The best player on the team.
He doesn’t come down for dinner, even though his mother calls twice. He just lies in his bed, wondering how he’s going to tell them that they can’t be together after the summer holidays.
“If you’re not going to eat at least have a bath,” his mother says from the doorway. Nino doesn’t even know what time it is until peeks out from under the blankets and realizes that the room is dark and the sky outside is dark too.
He pads out of bed and to the bathroom and sinks down until the top of his head is under the surface of the water.
---
It’s Aiba’s fault that it gets to the point of a rally. Or so that’s what Jun tells Nino when they gather at the cafe. The same cafe as always.
He’s been gearing up all morning to tell the guys the bad news, but when he walks inside it’s like he’s come in the middle of a sermon.
“A promise...” Aiba says, hands spread out wide. “Or a pact! That sounds better hmm...”
Sho sips on his orange juice looking both skeptical and like he wants to join in with the enthusiasm. Nino sits down on a stool and puts his hands on his knees.
“We’re going to do it,” Aiba says.
“It?”
Jun looks down at the floor and grins.
“You know,” Aiba says. Outside the window a couple of girls from their class pass by. One of them, Chikako, Aiba has liked since the first grade. It’s something that everyone in the town, the city and possibly the prefecture knows.
Aiba watches her pass and puts up his hand, bending his fingers into the slightest wave. She smiles back at him.
“It,” Aiba finishes.
“Eh?” Nino says, feeling the flush in his cheeks before he has time to exhale. Of course he’s thought about that. He’s a healthy young man after all. But to say it like this.
Sho sucks all of the orange juice out of his glass in one gulp.
“By the end of high school,” Aiba nods.
There is still air pulling through Sho’s straw and Jun is leaning forward in his seat.
“I won’t be here,” Nino blurts out.
Aiba stops smiling all at once, his mouth taking the shape of a thin line.
“My family is moving,” he says, looking down at the carpet, at the tip of his shoe, at anything he can find in his line of sight. “So... after summer vacation I won’t be here anymore.”
There is a silence that seems to spread to every corner of the cafe.
“So yeah,” Nino says.
Jun sets his glass down on the table. The echo is almost as unbearable as the silence, but thankfully he breaks it quickly.
“Then we have to do it by the end of summer vacation,” Jun says.
He stretches his arm out so his hand is an arm’s length from all of them. Sho is looking down and Aiba’s looking at Nino like he’s about to burst.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Nino says.
“But...”
“I said don’t!” Nino shouts. He doesn’t want this kind of a goodbye. He doesn’t want crying and that other kind of stupid stuff he wants the kind of parting that goes with a bang.
He lays his hand on top of Jun’s and looks at Aiba sternly.
“I’m in,” Sho says, not looking up from the floor, but he lays his hand down on top of the two of them.
“Come on,” Nino says to Aiba. He looks shaken, almost like he’s going to dart out of here at any moment. “Come on!”
“Fine...” Aiba says, laying his hand down angrily on the top so it’s four hands together, between them, then when their hands break apart it feels like the summer has begun.
---
Even with everything that happened the day before, the first day of summer starts out as usual. Nino sleeps in late and his mother finally shoves him out of bed just before it turns noon. There are three messages on his phone from Jun. The game is starting and he’s going to be late.
He grabs a slice of bread on the way out the door and eats it while riding his bicycle down the long hill in front of his house. The breeze feels nice until he reaches the bottom where the muggy summer heat hits him all at once. His baseball glove is in his bag and he takes it out as he’s rounding the corner to where the field is, hopping off of the bike and letting it slide sideways into one of the parking spaces.
“Get over here!” Sho shouts. Nino grins while holding the brim of his hat over his eyes. Record time, he thinks.
Jun is up at bat and Nino is next in the batting order so he can easily slip in past the dugout and start warming up his swing. They won’t miss a beat. But it doesn’t stop Sho from sighing, exacerbated.
“Sho-chan,” Aiba says, slapping the back of Sho’s batting helmet. His way of telling Sho to calm down.
When they’re on the field, Nino takes to second base. Sho-chan pitches, J catches, Aiba’s to his right at shortstop. But it used to be that Oh-chan was on his left at first base and for Nino it’s never really felt the same without him there.
He was the best. The best of the best. He was the kind of guy who seemed a bit like he was sleepwalking through life, but when he stepped onto the field it was like a switch turned on and he was unstoppable. Nino remembers the feel of a runner approaching second and Ohno would throw light and effortlessly in a way that made it seem like the ball would just drift into his hand. But he was strong and fast and even that calm looking toss would leave a sting through the baseball glove to the palm of his hand. The first time, he put ice on it, and he remembers Ohno’s sheepish apology. What is that guy up to these days anyway?
They don’t win the game and it’s easy to blame Jun’s full count miss but it doesn’t matter that much. Not like it does when they’re playing for real. The first real game of the season is next week and maybe it won’t even matter then. After the game the only thing that seems to matter is they’re together at the cafe remembering how Aiba missed that easy toss or Sho botched a stolen base. It’s not so bad in retrospect and those are the moments that make leaving feel like a tight knot in Nino’s chest.
It’s a couple of days later when Aiba does it again. First it was the pact, but now he shows up at the cafe tapping at the window instead of just entering through the door.
“Psst,” he says. Or that’s what it seems like he’s saying, Nino can’t hear him from inside. He keeps tapping frantically until Jun lets out a sigh and decides to be the one to take the plunge and find out what’s going on.
When he exits the cafe it’s just Sho and Nino. Sho doesn’t seem like he wants to meet Nino’s eyes right now. He’s always the one who takes it the hardest when he makes a mistake that somehow ends up in a lost game. But the atmosphere changes when Jun returns.
“Guys...” he says. “You have to see this.”
They all round the corner to find Aiba standing in front of a small crate. It isn’t until Nino gets a little closer that he realized what it is.
“How did you get beer?” Sho asks, eyes wide in wonder.
“Big brother,” Aiba says, proudly puffing out his chest. Something that none of them better ever tell Aiba’s mother about or they may never see Aiba or his brother again.
“I had it once before,” Nino says. “My mom let me try it.”
“Mine didn’t...” Sho says, looking at the crate in wonder. It’s just beer. Something their fathers drink every night after a long day of work. But somehow having it in reach makes it seem that much more forbidden.
Aiba gives a can to each of them in the alleyway behind the cafe. Once they’re satisfied that they’re hidden from view, each of them pops the top off of the can and they give a cheers in the middle, some foam sloshing out of the top when the cans meet.
Nino takes a drink and it’s more bitter than he remembers it. Sho’s face twists up in a way that suggests he can’t handle the taste, but both Aiba and Jun drink like pros. Nino’s impressed.
“I asked Chikako out today,” Aiba says, proudly.
“And she rejected you,” Jun says, quickly.
“But it was like she hesitated wasn’t it?” Aiba says, a faroff look in his eyes. Jun just laughs.
“Getting closer huh?” Nino says slapping Aiba on the back.
Then something happens. The last thing Nino could ever expect to happen.
Someone walks from the end of the street up to where they are in the alleyway. Which isn’t an unexpected thing in itself, but it’s when the person comes in to view, small frame, bad posture, feet a little to big for his body. It’s been a long time but Nino feels like he could recognize that shape anywhere.
“Oh-chan?” Jun says, and all of them turn around, Aiba shielding his eyes from the street light above.
It’s him. It’s Ohno with a long, dark shadow stretched out in front of him, putting his hand up casually. It’s as if he just saw them yesterday.
“Hey,” he says.
---
They can’t put Ohno back at first base right away. Arai-kun joined the club when they were in Junior High School and he’s been the first base player ever since. But even he knew about the old team. Everyone in the school did. He gives up his spot, partly out of reverence, partly out of curiosity. But he’s met with nothing but protests as Ohno claims he hasn’t played baseball since he moved away.
“You’re just being modest right?” Aiba says with a grin.
“Same Oh-chan as ever right?” Jun says, taking off Ohno’s cap just to ruffle his hair before jamming it back on his head and Sho practically shoves him to first base. Where Nino is standing at second, he can see Ohno out of the corner of his eye and something tightens in his chest. It’s the team again.
But after a beat his chest tightens for a different reason. The first batter up hits a grounder right down the first base line, and Arai-kun has to retrieve it from left field as the runner gets on base.
“It’s okay it’s okay,” Aiba says, waving his gloved hand in the air.
Two runners get on base, then the third one slams it out so far that Nino has to stop his knees from buckling when the first runner gets to the home plate. The score goes up one point in the opposing team’s favor and Arai-kun returns to his original spot at first.
They lose by one.
---
The next game, Ohno is invited, but as an alternate. For now it's only practice until the real thing next week. They go to the normal cafe and Ohno has to sit awkwardly in the corner of the booth as he doesn't really have a place there yet.
For Nino there has always been an empty space there due to his absence. But now that he's there it seems like he's grown to big to fill it. The space was left for the elementary school him, and now this high school him is too big, too much.
Aiba tells a particularly animated story and almost knocks over Ohno's juice glass. It happens a couple times more before Ohno finally excuses himself. When he leaves, Sho leans over on the table, whispering so that no one but them can hear.
“He wasn't like that before was he?" Sho asks.
Jun shrugs. “He was always quiet..."
“But like this..." Sho goes on.
“It's just him I guess," Nino says. The image doesn't match the guy, he knows as well as they do. But maybe it's just that the space has to get big enough so it's the right size for Ohno to fill.
---
Aiba asks Chikako out again and she says no, but this time she does hesitate and when she says no she smooths her hair back and gives Aiba a slight smile. It’s kind of fascinating, Nino thinks, and the way Aiba practically floats away from her probably means he’s reacting exactly the way she wants him to.
“I think you’re onto something there, man,” Nino says, slapping Aiba on the back. Aiba’s too dazed to react and when they meet Sho and Jun on the street a grin is already spreading across Jun’s face.
“Yo,” Jun says. As Aiba is incapacitated, Nino replies for the both of them.
Ohno rounds the corner then too and it’s like a wind blows through the hallway for how much the atmosphere changes in just that moment. It’s uncomfortable in what is becoming a familiar way.
“Hey Oh-chan,” Aiba says, finally snapping out of it.
“Hey,” Ohno says, nodding then looking down at his feet.
Two girls pass in and Nino feels a little like he’ll do anything to direct the conversation to something, anything that isn’t Ohno.
“Hey you should ask her out,” Nino says, grabbing Sho’s sleeve and pointing at Mohko, one of the most popular girls in the school (potentially for the wrong reasons, but Nino doesn’t really care about that).
“Are you crazy?” Aiba laughs. But it’s done what Nino needed it to do, get the focus off of Ohno. Like that, Ohno can just slip into the group quietly and it’s that, those quiet little moments that make things feel more like they used to be.
Sho tries to get Nino back later by telling Rina, one of their classmates, that Nino wanted to talk to her. She corners him besides the family restaurant down the street from the field and does the last thing he ever expected.
She confesses.
Sho’s jaw drops and Aiba can’t stop pointing and Nino looks around for someone, something. Is he happy? Is this good?
He opens his mouth to say something, not sure what, but nothing comes out anyway. Then when the words finally find their way to his mouth they come out as a choked “gotta go” and he runs down the street. Up the stairs to the tall shrine at the end of the road because that feels like the best place to go, but he can’t get there because on the stairs, Ohno is there, right in his path.
He stops running. Starts breathing again.
“Where are you going?” Ohno asks.
Everything that was threatening to spill out of him a moment ago calms down again. He doesn’t want to say no to her, but saying yes makes him want to run to the edge of the city.
To Nagasaki, he wants to say. To a place where he can’t say yes to Rina because he won’t even be there. Where he can’t make any promises because there isn’t enough time to keep them.
“Nowhere,” he says, simply, out of breath.
---
The next day they have a game against the team from the next town over, but Nino can’t concentrate. There are too many things going on right now. Ohno is back and they’re losing most of their games now. Arai is threatening to quit the team since he’s only playing half time at first base now. Rina is still waiting for an answer and while she waits Aiba and Jun and Sho are waiting for the answer to the question of: Has he done it yet? Has he become a man? Like he can without even being able to respond to a confession without wanting to run away... but try telling that to them.
A pop fly goes straight past Nino nearly grazing his hat and they’re done for the inning.
Nino’s useless this game so Koichi-kun, their senior and default team manager, puts Arai in his position and he sits on the bench, hat over his eyes less shielding the sun and more shielding his eyes from meeting anyone else’s.
That’s when the next unexpected thing happens. First there was the confession, and maybe unexpected things like this don’t always happen twice in two days, but when it’s the end of the last summer of your high school life maybe things get a little crazy like this.
A little crazy like the batter hits and the ball comes barreling straight down the first base line only to pass between Ohno’s legs right behind him and goes so far that the runner makes it to second. But the unexpected thing is what happens next, when Arai goes right up to where Ohno is standing next to first base and throws a punch at him.
“Hey hey!” Jun shouts. Nino has already flown across the diamond before he even realizes he’s stood up.
At first he's trying to break it up, but then he's throwing punches too and all six of them are on the ground, a tangle of arms and legs. Koichi comes over and tries to break them up too but Nino's heart is beating, adrenaline pumping. He grabs Arai's arm and Arai breaks free. Someone grabs Nino’s arm and pins it behind his back and he doesn’t even know what they’re fighting about. Ohno’s miss? The fact that they’ve lost more games than they’ve won this summer? The fact that despite trying none of them have really gotten anywhere with a girl and wasn’t that supposed to be the point of this summer? Wasn’t it supposed to be last summer with all of them together, going out with a bang?
Nino catches Jun’s eye, dark and serious, but when he looks closer he sees that Jun is smiling. Sho is wrestling Ohno to the ground and Aiba’s locked against Arai and Nino’s just throwing punches wherever he can land them with his one free hand. He remembers now when they were boys who were too young to know any better and any problem was solved by a scuffle that kicked up so much dirt on the schoolyard a passerby might think there was a fire.
That time when Ohno was still there. When he belonged there and the space he filled was exactly the space that needed to be filled.
They’re all thrown out of the game due to fighting and the game has to be called because with all of them thrown out there aren’t enough players to keep going. Aiba stretches out his hand to help Arai up and Sho lets Jun lean against his shoulders. They walk off of the field while the other team chalks up a point and right now, in this moment, the loss doesn’t matter at all.
---
Mayu, another third year girl who has already been accepted to University in the spring kisses Jun behind the cafe on a Monday. He tells the rest of the guys but no one believes him until Mayu tells them herself. She’s the same height as Jun, strictly serious about studying and even though they’re not really boyfriend and girlfriend Nino can’t help but think they match.
They match so well it gives Nino a kind of tight feeling in his chest. Is this how it’s supposed to be? Is he supposed to say yes to Rina and kiss her behind the cafe too?
It’s been more than a week since her confession and Nino wonders if she’s still even waiting anymore. Maybe she’s totally forgotten about him by now. But she comes by the field and during practice she shares part of her lunch with him (while Aiba makes whistling sounds in the background, but Sho helpfully kicks his shin under the bench) so he supposes he still has to give her an answer.
Chikako rejects Aiba again, but from where Nino can see it’s all just a game. She likes him. Maybe, probably, he hopes for Aiba’s sake anyway. But this time when she tells him no and he walks the other way she watches him until he’s out of view, biting her thumb so maybe she won’t start smiling.
Rina leaves to sit with some other girls on the bleachers and Ohno takes her place on the bench next to Nino. They don’t have long before Koichi will call them back out to the field.
It feels like a long time passes between when Ohno sits down and when he speaks.
“Sho-chan told me that everyone’s going to grow up by the end of the summer,” Ohno says.
It’s the same reaction that Nino had at the first confession. Run away, he thinks, past the field, to somewhere far away that isn’t here. His legs twitch, but his feet stay planted and he nods slowly at Ohno’s words.
“And he told me that you won’t be here anymore.”
Nino’s heart pounds so loud he swears he can hear it echoing against the walls of the too narrow dugout. It just makes him want to run away even more. Maybe he can run to the next town with all of this pent up energy.
He tsks. “Why did he have to tell you that?”
Ohno shrugs.
“Say something else,” Nino says.
“I came back because of you.”
“Fuck what are you saying? Say something besides that.”
“When we were little...”
Nino rolls his eyes and falls back against the wall behind him.
“Remember when that kid Ryota punched me,” Ohno says. And this is what finally makes Nino want to run. He starts to take off but Ohno pulls on his sleeve.
Ryota was an older kid. When they were in Elementary school he was in the Junior High School down the street. Ohno was a small kid and Ryota would pick on him sometimes, but it escalated to the point of Ohno taking a punch and it wasn’t long after that when Ohno’s family moved away.
Maybe it was because of that, maybe it wasn’t. Nino was never really sure and he never really got to say a proper goodbye. But before that there was a time where Nino threw his first punch and Ohno took his second. He was young and maybe it made sense to him at the time, but because Ryota did that, left a fist sized welt on Ohno’s arm, it made Nino so mad he wanted to do something, wanted to get back at him somehow. But being only half Ryota’s size was no good, and calling the other guys to gang up on him was no good either so instead he reeled back and punched Ohno’s other arm.
“That’s what you do when you’re friends,” Nino had said. Somehow in the mind of a sixth grader it made sense. That instead of feeling bad or feeling sad that someone had hurt him, Nino would take what Ryota did, take the power away from it, and make it something he and Ohno could share.
“See?” Nino said while Ohno rubbed his arm, taking two steps forward where he’d stumbled two steps back.
“Now do it to me,” Nino said. “Come on.” He held his arm out too, a gesture, and Ohno had taken it.
When Aiba and Jun and Sho had found them like that, fighting in the street, the first instinct was to break it up, but Nino pulled them in so they were a just a pile of boys out there by the schoolyard, punching and kicking and laughing too because it was never about fighting.
After that, it was always like that with them. If anything went wrong it was nothing a good scuffle couldn’t take care of. But they grew out of it, like most kids do, until the week before when Arai unintentionally picked up where the rest of them had left off.
“It’s not that Ryota goes to my school,” Ohno says, holding tight to Nino’s sleeve. “But there’s a guy like him.”
Nino still wants to pull away. This is too much all at once.
“So I thought if I came back you’d be here and--”
“And now I’m going right?” Nino says. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. He’s not crying. This field is way too dusty.
“Let’s go!” Koichi says.
Finally Ohno lets go and Nino can go running out to the field.
---
They lose.
It begins to seem like they’ll never win again. Arai is playing full time again and Ohno has been sent back to the bench. But after the games he’s been practicing in the lot with Aiba, playing catchball until all hours of the night.
Nino sees them a couple of times on his way back home and he wants to join, but something feels weird in his chest when he thinks about it. The same way he feels weird when he thinks about Rina.
If Ohno came back because of him and he’s leaving, then what does that mean? Maybe he can just run away early so no one has to say goodbye. Just like the way Ohno did before.
It’s only one week until the end of the summer and there are only a handful of games left. As soon as the school opens again and the ceremony to welcome back the students begins, that’s when Nino will be gone.
---
It happens in front of the cafe this time. Nino doesn’t really see much of Sho in the days before, but when he finally runs into him the first thing he does is knock him to the ground. Something about Ohno being back makes it acceptable to do that again. Sho fights back in response, wrapping his legs around Nino’s waist and they roll a little ways toward the sidewalk before the cafe’s manager comes outside and shouts at them to break it up.
“Why did you tell him?” Nino says, trying desperately to get any piece of Sho that he can, but Sho basically has him pinned.
“Were you going to?” Sho says through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” Nino says
“I don’t know why you’re leaving anyway!” Sho says, angrily. “We were supposed to finish out the year together.”
“Shut up,” Jun says, pulling back on Sho’s shoulders. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. They’re supposed to fight when it feels good, not when it feels bad, and maybe that’s why neither of them have landed a clear shot, because this is coming from somewhere else.
Aiba comes running from the directly of the field and when he sees what’s going on he darts for Nino, pulling him away so that Jun has Sho and Aiba has Nino. He tries desperately to kick Sho but Aiba wraps his leg around so he can’t move at all.
“Why are you leaving anyway?” Sho says again.
Nino breaks free and finally runs for it, the way he’s been holding back from doing all week.
He runs past the school, past the city center and past the old park with the old playground equipment that looks like it could have been used by his great grandparents. He runs some places he didn’t even know existed in this town and it just makes his chest tighten up even more. He has to say goodbye to places he doesn’t even know, that he didn’t even bother to find. Is this what he leaves behind? A big fight with his friends and a handful of buildings he didn’t even know existed here...
One looks like a sushi restaurant, but it’s long since closed. There’s a factory at the edge of the town and he can see smoke billowing from a distance. An elementary school that some of his friends went to. He finally slows down his pace and he’s at the top of a hill, letting gravity pull him down and at the bottom there he finds the other side of the ballpark. He kicks the lightpole next to him.
Of course he wold go in a big circle. And of course he would end up back here.
But he can soon see that he’s not alone here. Under the street light next to the ballpark he can see a figure. The shape is unmistakably Ohno, but why is he here? Why didn’t he come with Aiba to the cafe? He’s by himself under the light, tossing a ball up into the air and catching it again with his glove. Nino comes up behind him quietly, but Ohno hears him and turns around.
“Practicing,” Ohno says.
“What if Koichi-kun doesn’t let you play tomorrow?”
Ohno shrugs.
Nino comes up to where the lightpole is and leans against it. The closer he gets to Ohno, the less he can feel the knot in his chest. Ohno tosse the ball up and catches it in a steady rhythm again and again and it’s soothing somehow.
“I’ll leave too,” Ohno says.
“What? Why?”
“Because I can go back now. I just wanted to see you guys,” Ohno says. “After I got a little stronger...”
“You have great timing...” Nino scoffs. He wants to go back and change everything about the last month now.
Ohno looks down and stops throwing his ball.
“You never said goodbye,” Nino whispers. When the words come out of him it’s like he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding them in all this time. The truth was all of them were scared of Ryota back in those days, but after they found a way to get stronger together it felt like they could take on anything in the world. It was never the same after Ohno left.
Ohno goes to the lightpole and leans beside Nino. It’s not that late, but not a single car or pedestrian passes by. The whole town is as quiet as a ghost town in just that moment. So when Ohno’s glove drops to the ground it sounds like a brick hitting the concrete. Nino feels Ohno’s hand, sweaty from the summer heat, and he almost jumps back but then he can’t because Ohno’s holding his hand and jumping back would mean he’d have to let go.
“This girl...” Nino says almost in a whisper. “Rina... she said she likes me. But that’s no good right? I’m leaving so even if I liked her it’s not like I can say I’ll be there for her...”
“If you liked her?”
“I mean...” Nino says, intensely aware of Ohno’s hand in his. “I don’t not like her. I like her. She’s nice I guess but...”
But I can’t stop thinking about you, is what Nino would say if he could ever get those words out of his mouth. It’s not even like he’s thinking about Ohno the way Aiba thinks about Chikako. But just thinking about them, the team, the time when Nino thought they’d always be together and then he had to find a way to be satisfied with goodbye.
“Aiba-chan said I couldn’t be part of the pact,” Ohno says.
“What?” Nino.
“Because you all had a head start and it wouldn’t be fair to me.”
Now Nino just lets go and laughs, for what might be the first time all summer. His laugh bounces down the ghost town streets and comes back to him in an echo.
He holds Ohno’s hand a little tighter, a little closer, and it doesn’t register at first that it’s a kiss, but it is all the same. The first time he’s ever done that with anyone, just lips barely touching and still holding hands. Is this what it was like when Mayu kissed Jun? He breathes shakily against Ohno’s lips and doesn’t dare move a single muscle.
Tomorrow is the last game. The day after that is the last day of summer.
---
Arai starts out playing first base but he twists his ankle in the third inning and Ohno is sent out to cover for him. Aiba pats him on the back when he goes out to take the base, nodding to him in understanding that their practicing must pay off now.
It’s hard to remember what happens after that.
Even one year later, no one remembers if they won or lost that last game. Because the only thing that really mattered was that Aiba got another case of beer somehow and they all lit fireworks in the alley behind the cafe until the neighboring shop owner chased them away.
The last part of the summer that Nino can remember is running up and down the same hills, this time with everyone, fireworks streaming behind them until they got lost and found a new part of the town that none of them had ever seen together. That was when Aiba decided that they were disbanded.
“I’m officially disbanding the team,” Aiba says, with his chest puffed out. To which Sho snickers.
“And?” Jun says, because it kind of feels like there’s an and.
“And officially extending the pact,” Aiba says.
“Yeah because you never got anywhere with Chikako,” Nino grins.
“Hey shut up!” Aiba says, kicking Nino’s shoe. “I’m getting there okay?”
Behind Jun, Ohno’s fingers are touching the tips of Nino’s.
“The pact is officially extended to the next time we all meet,” Aiba says, nodding. “We’ll all be men then.”
“Yeah okay,” Jun grins, putting his hand in the center.
Aiba lays his on top and Sho on top of that. Nino has to let go of Ohno to do the same, but it’s easier to do that while making a pact that they’re going to meet again.
It’s one year later that it finally happens. Nino hasn’t entered University yet but Sho and Jun have already been studying six months. Ohno went back to his school and graduated and it wasn’t that Nino didn’t want to communicate, but it was awkward. He didn’t know what to say and every time he started to write an email it felt like a stiff New Year’s card.
But it’s a warm day in August when four emails reach him all at once.
Aiba’s email is only one line. “She finally went out with me!” Nino smiles a little. Good, he thinks.
Sho’s email is longer and gives a detailed report about his University life, studies, basically the New Year’s card that Nino was always afraid to write. Then at the end a tagline. “And Aiba told me Chikako finally went out with him.”
Jun’s email starts out: “If Aiba tells you he’s going out with Chikako, he’s lying.” But then he goes on to say that he and Mayu are thinking of getting married after Univeristy which makes Nino smile maybe even more than it should. Makes him want to punch Jun a little bit too. Just because.
But it’s the last email that comes that makes Nino’s heart stop.
“I’m coming to Nagasaki.”
Nino feels all of the blood rushing to his head and his fingers shake so much he can barely reply.
“When?”
“Can you pick me up at the station in five minutes?”
Because Ohno just isn’t Ohno if he doesn’t come and go like that, Nino supposes, grabbing his cap and flying down the stairs.