Worrywart
Title: Worrywart
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ninomiya Kazunari/Ohno Satoshi
Summary: Nights in Hawaii. Comfort that Nino didn’t necessarily ask for, but liked enough not to mind.
Notes/Warnings: Set post-Arashi Blast in Hawaii, it includes mention of Nino’s back injury. For ninoexchange.
He looks through the peephole and decides it’s not worth undoing the lock and opening the door.
“I’m on bed rest,” he protests, thumping the door with his fingers.
“I know.”
“Then go away.”
“No.”
He looks out again and is greeted with that ugliest of looks, the stubborn jaw sticking out and the pursed lips and defiant eyes. Nino sighs and pulls the chain, twists the lock beneath it. He doesn’t open the door himself, pulling his key card from the counter close by, dropping it to the carpet so he doesn’t have to bend. He pushes it under the door with his foot and walks away. By the time he gets back to the bed, gingerly easing himself onto the mattress with his eyes shut tight and teeth clenched, he hears the door open and close and lock again.
Nino pulls the blankets over himself and stays very deliberately in the center of the bed, hoping that in doing so he will be allowed to remain there by himself.
He smells the liquor before he even sees Ohno come around the corner. He’s usually a merry drunkard, and tonight he ought to be merriest of all. The concerts are complete, the fans have been entertained, and the rain cooled them all off before anyone passed out from the heat. Work remains, of course, but Nino’s fine with that because variety filming rarely involves singing and dancing in itchy costume fabric while simultaneously enduring unbearable humidity. Well, at least that’s what the ADs for their various programs have assured him.
He gestures to the sofa opposite the bed. “You go sit over there. You stink.”
Ohno ignores him, parking his ass at the foot of Nino’s bed. Nino just watches in exasperation as Ohno, usually the epitome of graceful movement, struggles to get himself seated with his legs crossed. Nino offers him no assistance.
“You could have come down for a while,” Ohno says.
“If you are unfamiliar with the phrase ‘bed rest,’ Ohno-san, let me provide you with a definition…”
“You were missed,” Ohno tells him, and the telling of it can’t exactly turn back the clock. It was a long drive back from the western part of the island to their current Waikiki hotel, and though the staff had provided him with extra cushions in the van, it hadn’t been ideal.
The official plan for Saturday evening involved a small celebration in a private banquet room of the hotel. Liquor and barbecue and pineapple-themed desserts that they’d all paid for, the five of them together, a gift for their managers and staff and everyone else who made their two shows at Ko Olina possible. As soon as they got back, four Arashi members had gone to the left and to the banquet while one had gone for the elevators and to his bed.
“You were missed,” Ohno says again, and Nino has a feeling Ohno isn’t actually mad about it. Maybe he’s upset that his usual mantra of “let’s get through this with no injuries” has been shattered.
Everyone knows what happened. Everyone’s been treating Nino like he’s so injured he ought to be in traction, not walking about on his own two feet. Aiba had made a joke earlier, during the rehearsal Nino had missed, about letting “Ninomi” ditch the helicopter ride in favor of having some hunky Hawaiian men bring him on stage in a sedan chair, but J hadn’t found the joke too amusing. He never finds those things funny, though Nino does.
“I paid for the food. My gratitude was expressed,” he replies.
“You were missed,” his drunken leader says for a third time, and Nino laughs at the pathetic sound of Ohno’s voice.
“I can’t drink tonight, not with the painkillers I’m on,” he reminds Ohno. “It wouldn’t have been that much fun for me.”
Ohno allows himself to topple forward, lying awkwardly on his stomach in the space between Nino’s leg and the edge of the bed. His own legs jut out over the end of the mattress. “Hard for me to talk to them without you.”
“Oh for goodness sake,” Nino complains, lifting a hand to pat Ohno’s messy hair. The rain at the concert had plastered it all to his head, and he’d barely made any adjustments after they departed. “You had Sho-chan with you. He talks enough for ten people.”
“They kept asking me about you,” Ohno groans, his voice half lost in Nino’s blankets. “Please give our best wishes to Ninomiya-san, will he have to go home early, is he going to be alright, that kind of stuff. I don’t know what to say when people ask me that.”
“You’re the leader. Status updates fall to you.”
“That’s dumb,” Ohno grumbles. “If you’d come down, you could have told them yourself that you’re fine.”
Nino’s not exactly “fine,” but he’s feeling a hell of a lot better than he had last night. And maybe tomorrow he’ll be able to dress himself without wanting to scream.
Much as he just wants to be left alone, to let the aircon and his pain pills lull him back to sleep, he allows Ohno to wriggle his way up the mattress. Though he doesn’t move aside to make it easier for him, he allows Ohno and his stinky whiskey breath to get close. Nino’s never known why, but Ohno always takes these things the hardest. It’s Nino’s back that hurts, but it’s Ohno who feels the pain of it most acutely.
When Aiba had to sit out most of their last visit to Hawaii, over ten years ago, Ohno had blamed himself. “It’s mean, making him sit on the side while we dance without him,” he’d said back then. “I want to go sit with him.” What had happened to Aiba had not been Ohno’s fault.
When Sho hurt himself in Nagoya years earlier, when he’d broken his thumb, Ohno had blamed himself. Nino had ridden in the ambulance with Sho, squeezing his non-injured hand and making jokes, because Ohno had been too upset to even move. What had happened to Sho had not been Ohno’s fault.
And this, of course, is not Ohno’s fault either. It’s not the first time Nino’s back has acted up during a live and he doubts it will be the last. All he can do is grit his teeth and get through it, do his job, entertain, then follow the doctor’s orders and rest. In their line of work, with all the opportunities for disaster via twisted ankles and funny landings, this shouldn’t be a big deal.
“You can’t sleep here,” Nino says uselessly, because Ohno has already started to snore beside him, his arm draped around Nino’s middle.
-
He looks through the peephole and decides that no amount of complaining will dissuade him.
He undoes the locks without protest, shoves the key card under the door like he did last night, walks back to bed to the sound of Ohno letting himself in again. It’s nearly 3:00 in the morning, and Nino knows Ohno and Jun are competing amongst themselves for who can drink the most on American soil. He suspects that his beloved J is going to lose this battle.
Before Ohno can join him on the bed, Nino shakes his head. “YOU,” he says in his best Johnny-san approximation. “YOU, shower.”
Ohno thankfully obeys, and Nino is half asleep when he hears the water shut off. Ohno emerges completely naked, having left his bar-stinking clothes behind in the bathroom. Nino knows this without even opening his eyes, gesturing wildly in the lamp light at one of his duffel bags. “I expect anything you borrow to be well laundered and returned to me.”
He listens to the rustling in his bag as Ohno selects a pair of underwear for himself and a t-shirt, because when Ohno gets into bed with him, under the blankets this time because Nino is feeling kind tonight, he can feel the fabric against him.
“You smell much better than you did yesterday,” he mumbles.
Ohno’s asleep before he is.
-
Ohno keeps appearing at his door every night of their considerably lengthy Hawaiian excursion, as the staff moves them up and down the hotels of Waikiki, as they’re forced to pack up and get acquainted time and time again with new mattresses, new TV remotes, new showers that never seem to turn on the same way. Ohno has a room of his own in each of these hotels, his own large mattress and minibar and veranda.
As the week has gone on, Nino has felt much better. He gets a massage before each night is through, but aside from that and the much lower dose of medication he’s on, last Friday night’s incident is a memory and not painful reality.
At first, he thought that Ohno’s continued presence was some strange sort of penance, his way of apologizing needlessly for an injury he couldn’t have prevented. “I’m sorry, Nino, sorry you were in pain” was what his repeated appearances meant. Comfort that Nino didn’t necessarily ask for, but liked enough not to mind. But he’s back in the swing of things now, delighting in a cold beer and making playful complaints to the staff about not wanting to leave his room if he doesn’t have to. Even his manager has stopped fussing around him.
So what is Ohno’s deal?
-
On their final night in Honolulu, he looks through the peephole around 10:30 PM and decides that he’s been rude for too long.
He undoes the locks and opens the door himself to find Ohno, perfectly sober and smelling more like the beach, like salt water and sand, than the human receptacle for way too many tequila shots.
“Oh,” he says, somehow surprised that Nino is actually greeting him at the door.
“Don’t you want to sleep in your own bed for once?”
“You don’t want me to come in?”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Ohno shrugs. Nino taps his fingers on the doorframe, sighing.
“You can stop worrying. I’m fine now.”
“I worry about you. All four of you.” Ohno won’t look away. “All the time.”
It’s one of those confessions that would sound overdramatic coming from anyone else, but there’s always a simplicity of purpose in the things Ohno Satoshi says. He worries, and he’s not planning to apologize for it. And Nino has to accept that.
Fifteen years is a very long time to worry, though. It warms him unexpectedly to hear it said aloud.
“Thank you, then.”
He turns to head back inside. He’s been watching TV, in between his half-assed attempts at packing. Ohno shuts the door quietly, locks it, and when Nino’s back by the bed, packing away some shorts, he feels Ohno standing behind him, waiting. He’s so close he can feel Ohno’s breath on the back of his neck.
“You said you worry about all four of us,” Nino says, continuing his packing without turning around. “But wouldn’t you agree that you worry about me the most?”
Where he expects Ohno to tease him for saying something so selfish, he instead feels the gentlest brush of Ohno’s fingers along his spine, across his back. He follows up with a soft kiss to Nino’s shoulder. The only answer he’s likely to receive. He grins, bashful from Ohno’s silent admission.
Ohno allows him to finish packing, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching some incomprehensible American cop show with lots of beautiful actors and fast-paced dialogue. When he’s finished, zipping his bag shut, Nino brushes his teeth and gets ready for bed. This time, Ohno’s already waiting for him, under the covers and hogging the center of the bed.
There’s no longer a sharp twinge when he sleeps on his side, so he shuts off the lights and curls up comfortably, letting Ohno’s arm come around him. It’ll be hard to sleep when he gets home, when his bed is his own once again. So he decides to enjoy this as much as he can, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Ohno squeezes back.
“Thank you,” he says again, sometime later.
He’s not surprised to receive a quiet snore in reply.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ninomiya Kazunari/Ohno Satoshi
Summary: Nights in Hawaii. Comfort that Nino didn’t necessarily ask for, but liked enough not to mind.
Notes/Warnings: Set post-Arashi Blast in Hawaii, it includes mention of Nino’s back injury. For ninoexchange.
He looks through the peephole and decides it’s not worth undoing the lock and opening the door.
“I’m on bed rest,” he protests, thumping the door with his fingers.
“I know.”
“Then go away.”
“No.”
He looks out again and is greeted with that ugliest of looks, the stubborn jaw sticking out and the pursed lips and defiant eyes. Nino sighs and pulls the chain, twists the lock beneath it. He doesn’t open the door himself, pulling his key card from the counter close by, dropping it to the carpet so he doesn’t have to bend. He pushes it under the door with his foot and walks away. By the time he gets back to the bed, gingerly easing himself onto the mattress with his eyes shut tight and teeth clenched, he hears the door open and close and lock again.
Nino pulls the blankets over himself and stays very deliberately in the center of the bed, hoping that in doing so he will be allowed to remain there by himself.
He smells the liquor before he even sees Ohno come around the corner. He’s usually a merry drunkard, and tonight he ought to be merriest of all. The concerts are complete, the fans have been entertained, and the rain cooled them all off before anyone passed out from the heat. Work remains, of course, but Nino’s fine with that because variety filming rarely involves singing and dancing in itchy costume fabric while simultaneously enduring unbearable humidity. Well, at least that’s what the ADs for their various programs have assured him.
He gestures to the sofa opposite the bed. “You go sit over there. You stink.”
Ohno ignores him, parking his ass at the foot of Nino’s bed. Nino just watches in exasperation as Ohno, usually the epitome of graceful movement, struggles to get himself seated with his legs crossed. Nino offers him no assistance.
“You could have come down for a while,” Ohno says.
“If you are unfamiliar with the phrase ‘bed rest,’ Ohno-san, let me provide you with a definition…”
“You were missed,” Ohno tells him, and the telling of it can’t exactly turn back the clock. It was a long drive back from the western part of the island to their current Waikiki hotel, and though the staff had provided him with extra cushions in the van, it hadn’t been ideal.
The official plan for Saturday evening involved a small celebration in a private banquet room of the hotel. Liquor and barbecue and pineapple-themed desserts that they’d all paid for, the five of them together, a gift for their managers and staff and everyone else who made their two shows at Ko Olina possible. As soon as they got back, four Arashi members had gone to the left and to the banquet while one had gone for the elevators and to his bed.
“You were missed,” Ohno says again, and Nino has a feeling Ohno isn’t actually mad about it. Maybe he’s upset that his usual mantra of “let’s get through this with no injuries” has been shattered.
Everyone knows what happened. Everyone’s been treating Nino like he’s so injured he ought to be in traction, not walking about on his own two feet. Aiba had made a joke earlier, during the rehearsal Nino had missed, about letting “Ninomi” ditch the helicopter ride in favor of having some hunky Hawaiian men bring him on stage in a sedan chair, but J hadn’t found the joke too amusing. He never finds those things funny, though Nino does.
“I paid for the food. My gratitude was expressed,” he replies.
“You were missed,” his drunken leader says for a third time, and Nino laughs at the pathetic sound of Ohno’s voice.
“I can’t drink tonight, not with the painkillers I’m on,” he reminds Ohno. “It wouldn’t have been that much fun for me.”
Ohno allows himself to topple forward, lying awkwardly on his stomach in the space between Nino’s leg and the edge of the bed. His own legs jut out over the end of the mattress. “Hard for me to talk to them without you.”
“Oh for goodness sake,” Nino complains, lifting a hand to pat Ohno’s messy hair. The rain at the concert had plastered it all to his head, and he’d barely made any adjustments after they departed. “You had Sho-chan with you. He talks enough for ten people.”
“They kept asking me about you,” Ohno groans, his voice half lost in Nino’s blankets. “Please give our best wishes to Ninomiya-san, will he have to go home early, is he going to be alright, that kind of stuff. I don’t know what to say when people ask me that.”
“You’re the leader. Status updates fall to you.”
“That’s dumb,” Ohno grumbles. “If you’d come down, you could have told them yourself that you’re fine.”
Nino’s not exactly “fine,” but he’s feeling a hell of a lot better than he had last night. And maybe tomorrow he’ll be able to dress himself without wanting to scream.
Much as he just wants to be left alone, to let the aircon and his pain pills lull him back to sleep, he allows Ohno to wriggle his way up the mattress. Though he doesn’t move aside to make it easier for him, he allows Ohno and his stinky whiskey breath to get close. Nino’s never known why, but Ohno always takes these things the hardest. It’s Nino’s back that hurts, but it’s Ohno who feels the pain of it most acutely.
When Aiba had to sit out most of their last visit to Hawaii, over ten years ago, Ohno had blamed himself. “It’s mean, making him sit on the side while we dance without him,” he’d said back then. “I want to go sit with him.” What had happened to Aiba had not been Ohno’s fault.
When Sho hurt himself in Nagoya years earlier, when he’d broken his thumb, Ohno had blamed himself. Nino had ridden in the ambulance with Sho, squeezing his non-injured hand and making jokes, because Ohno had been too upset to even move. What had happened to Sho had not been Ohno’s fault.
And this, of course, is not Ohno’s fault either. It’s not the first time Nino’s back has acted up during a live and he doubts it will be the last. All he can do is grit his teeth and get through it, do his job, entertain, then follow the doctor’s orders and rest. In their line of work, with all the opportunities for disaster via twisted ankles and funny landings, this shouldn’t be a big deal.
“You can’t sleep here,” Nino says uselessly, because Ohno has already started to snore beside him, his arm draped around Nino’s middle.
-
He looks through the peephole and decides that no amount of complaining will dissuade him.
He undoes the locks without protest, shoves the key card under the door like he did last night, walks back to bed to the sound of Ohno letting himself in again. It’s nearly 3:00 in the morning, and Nino knows Ohno and Jun are competing amongst themselves for who can drink the most on American soil. He suspects that his beloved J is going to lose this battle.
Before Ohno can join him on the bed, Nino shakes his head. “YOU,” he says in his best Johnny-san approximation. “YOU, shower.”
Ohno thankfully obeys, and Nino is half asleep when he hears the water shut off. Ohno emerges completely naked, having left his bar-stinking clothes behind in the bathroom. Nino knows this without even opening his eyes, gesturing wildly in the lamp light at one of his duffel bags. “I expect anything you borrow to be well laundered and returned to me.”
He listens to the rustling in his bag as Ohno selects a pair of underwear for himself and a t-shirt, because when Ohno gets into bed with him, under the blankets this time because Nino is feeling kind tonight, he can feel the fabric against him.
“You smell much better than you did yesterday,” he mumbles.
Ohno’s asleep before he is.
-
Ohno keeps appearing at his door every night of their considerably lengthy Hawaiian excursion, as the staff moves them up and down the hotels of Waikiki, as they’re forced to pack up and get acquainted time and time again with new mattresses, new TV remotes, new showers that never seem to turn on the same way. Ohno has a room of his own in each of these hotels, his own large mattress and minibar and veranda.
As the week has gone on, Nino has felt much better. He gets a massage before each night is through, but aside from that and the much lower dose of medication he’s on, last Friday night’s incident is a memory and not painful reality.
At first, he thought that Ohno’s continued presence was some strange sort of penance, his way of apologizing needlessly for an injury he couldn’t have prevented. “I’m sorry, Nino, sorry you were in pain” was what his repeated appearances meant. Comfort that Nino didn’t necessarily ask for, but liked enough not to mind. But he’s back in the swing of things now, delighting in a cold beer and making playful complaints to the staff about not wanting to leave his room if he doesn’t have to. Even his manager has stopped fussing around him.
So what is Ohno’s deal?
-
On their final night in Honolulu, he looks through the peephole around 10:30 PM and decides that he’s been rude for too long.
He undoes the locks and opens the door himself to find Ohno, perfectly sober and smelling more like the beach, like salt water and sand, than the human receptacle for way too many tequila shots.
“Oh,” he says, somehow surprised that Nino is actually greeting him at the door.
“Don’t you want to sleep in your own bed for once?”
“You don’t want me to come in?”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Ohno shrugs. Nino taps his fingers on the doorframe, sighing.
“You can stop worrying. I’m fine now.”
“I worry about you. All four of you.” Ohno won’t look away. “All the time.”
It’s one of those confessions that would sound overdramatic coming from anyone else, but there’s always a simplicity of purpose in the things Ohno Satoshi says. He worries, and he’s not planning to apologize for it. And Nino has to accept that.
Fifteen years is a very long time to worry, though. It warms him unexpectedly to hear it said aloud.
“Thank you, then.”
He turns to head back inside. He’s been watching TV, in between his half-assed attempts at packing. Ohno shuts the door quietly, locks it, and when Nino’s back by the bed, packing away some shorts, he feels Ohno standing behind him, waiting. He’s so close he can feel Ohno’s breath on the back of his neck.
“You said you worry about all four of us,” Nino says, continuing his packing without turning around. “But wouldn’t you agree that you worry about me the most?”
Where he expects Ohno to tease him for saying something so selfish, he instead feels the gentlest brush of Ohno’s fingers along his spine, across his back. He follows up with a soft kiss to Nino’s shoulder. The only answer he’s likely to receive. He grins, bashful from Ohno’s silent admission.
Ohno allows him to finish packing, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching some incomprehensible American cop show with lots of beautiful actors and fast-paced dialogue. When he’s finished, zipping his bag shut, Nino brushes his teeth and gets ready for bed. This time, Ohno’s already waiting for him, under the covers and hogging the center of the bed.
There’s no longer a sharp twinge when he sleeps on his side, so he shuts off the lights and curls up comfortably, letting Ohno’s arm come around him. It’ll be hard to sleep when he gets home, when his bed is his own once again. So he decides to enjoy this as much as he can, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. Ohno squeezes back.
“Thank you,” he says again, sometime later.
He’s not surprised to receive a quiet snore in reply.