Twisted Passions
Edited: 2012.11.29
Title: Twisted Passions (follow up to Twisted Lies)
Rating: R for theme
Feature/Pairing: Arashi, Jun/Nino, Ohno/Nino, Sho/Ohno, Ohno/OC, Sho/OC, Aiba/OC
Summary: Highschool AU. A glimpse into the life of Ninomiya Kazunari who is entangled in a web of secrets and emotions involving the people around him.
Beta: Thanks C, but criticism is also welcomed.
Nino heard a creak in the hall. He tightened the bed sheets around himself and squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the dimness of his room. His heart thudded erratically in his chest and he strained to catch the creaks coming closer. They reached his door. The knob turned and clicked. Locked. His father hadn't known Nino had bought a new lock and installed it that morning. The knob turned again, experimentally, as if his father was unconvinced. Then the creaks led down the hall and away.
Nino heaved a sigh in relief, though he knew that in a few days his father would change the lock again. In a few days, he would cry into his pillow as his father--his father touched...
I need to sleep, Nino thought. He forced the taut muscles of his body to relax.
"Where are you going!?" his mother's screech ripped through the house.
Nino shot into an upright position, his eyes trembling orbs of light in the darkness. Pounding feet led down the hall to the front door. The screen slammed shut. The resounding thud shook the frames of their house. His mother's cries pierced his ears despite the walls separating them.
"Don't come back you asshole! Don't you dare come back," she cursed between breaths and sobs.
Nino jumped out of bed and rushed to the window. He saw the hunched figure of his father pass under the streetlight. Briefly illuminated, the solid back of his father reminded him of Sakurai.
"You asshole," his mother gasped from outside the enclosure of his room.
Nino hoped his father wouldn't come back, even though his father always did.
In the beginning, before his mind and body had adapted to his living nightmare, Nino still believed in escape. He would steal away in the middle of the night and break into school. He'd sleep in the storage room. He'd shower in the locker rooms in the morning.
His senior walked in on him one day for morning practice.
"You're early," Sakurai commented and glanced at his watch. "Too early. And I know you're not in my club."
Nino's mind refused to think of a quick explanation. He had never counted on being caught. He pressed against the cold tiles and sought for a place to run. But Sakurai sauntered around to his locker.
"The others come in thirty minutes. You have plenty of time to finish."
"Aren't you going to ask why?" Nino questioned his upperclassman's broad back.
"No," Sakurai answered, swinging his locker open, the iron door slamming into its adjacent cell. "I'm not interested."
His mother went back to her room, but Nino continued to hear her pitiful moans through the thin walls.
He returned to bed, yet sleep was unwilling to come. He reached for his ipod and cranked up the music until the screams of a rock artist battered his ears and overwhelmed her voice. For a moment as he allowed the screaming to take over his senses, he thought about calling Ohno. Nino wondered if Ohno would pick up if he called in the middle of the night. But he remembered: Ohno had moved away and cut off any form of contact. Ohno was no longer available.
The lucky bastard, Nino briefly envied. Yet hadn't it been he, Nino, who had called Ohno a weakling for running away?
"Stupid bastard," Nino cursed in a whisper.
"I'm leaving," Ohno muttered into the silence of the deserted playground.
"Aren't you going to miss your graduation?" Nino asked.
Ohno said nothing and kept his eyes on the ground.
"Have you told Sakurai?" Nino wondered out loud.
Ohno planted his feet firmly and stopped the moving swing. He met Nino's gaze, his own empty. "If I leave now, maybe Sho-kun and I could still be friends. Maybe Kaori-chan will not hate me." His monotonous tone sounded unconvinced.
Nino destroyed the last dregs of childish hopes by laughing. "This is not a movie. You're running away from your problem."
And for once, Ohno smiled subtly in return, as if his lowerclassman's words could no longer hurt him. "You know Nino, in real life no one's really brave. We're just led by the rush of the moment."
Nino used lunch break the next day to make up the sleep he missed. A short nap would be enough to revive him and prepare him for the evening with his family. He did not count on another classmate approaching and calling for his attention. Nino pretended to not hear and faked a deep sleep, but she would not leave him alone. To the girl's persistence, he surrendered and sat up, blinking sleepily and not bothering to hide his frustration.
She offered him a sweet bun from the cafeteria.
"I'm not a charity case," he grumbled up at her, but she firmly shook her head and refused to leave until he took it.
"Fine. Thank you," he told her, because there was no use denying his hunger. And he knew as she skipped away to her group of friends, that she would report to Matsumoto Jun later. It was obvious. Only Matsumoto cared.
As Nino rubbed his eyes and bit into the sweet bun, he wondered again why someone like Matsumoto refused to give in and stop caring when Nino fought him every step of the way. They might both be too stubborn. But Nino knew that in the end, his determination would outlast Matsumoto's. Nino had been taught endurance under his father's hands. His current life was nothing but endurance. Ironically, he wished someone as pure as Matsumoto would never understand such a thing.
Nino stuffed the last bit of bread into his mouth in time to see Matsumoto poke his head through the door, as if Nino thinking about him had been a summons. Matsumoto saw the empty wrapper in Nino's hands, quickly suppressed a grin, and moved back into the hall. Embarrassed and irritated at being caught in an undesirable situation, Nino jumped to his feet and followed.
Matsumoto was heading towards the staircase when Nino declared, "Stalker. I'm going to report you one day."
Surprised, Matsumoto turned as the words sunk in. His demeanor darkened immediately. "Prove it."
Nino shrugged. "I don't have to. The teachers will warn you if I make enough of a fuss."
"I'm not a stalker," Matsumoto pleaded.
Nino crossed his arms. "Then why didn't you deny it in the first place?"
Unable to word a comprehensible answer, Matsumoto opened and closed his mouth.
A triumphant Nino paraded his victory by moving passed him to the staircase.
"Why do you hate me?" Matsumoto asked.
Nino ignored the question, even if they both knew he heard, and he climbed the stairs to the roof. The chasm behind, echoing only his footsteps, told him that Matsumoto dared not follow.
The door to the rooftop closed shut behind Nino. In the open air, his smirk disappeared. The spring wind stifled his murmured answer.
Like was such an overused word in his dictionary.
I like you senpai, Nino had said to Sakurai Sho on the same rooftop two years ago.
I'm not gay, Sakurai had replied in such a cold, emotionless tone that Nino knew it was hopeless. Sakurai had never been interested.
Nino refused to cry because of a rejection. He was not so pitiful. And the hot tears that burned down his face were only because he laughed at himself. His shoulders shook because he was containing the laughter. The muffled sighs behind his hands stopped the laughs from escaping. He was definitely not feeling sorry for being so stupid.
The bathroom stall creaked open and with a start, Nino realized he had forgotten to turn the lock. Matsumoto Jun stood in the doorway, surprised. "I'm sorry! I thought someone needed help..." Matsumoto started, but Nino's pants were not down and his hands had moved to cover his face instead.
"Don't look at me!" Nino screamed. He kicked the bathroom stall shut. He froze and realized his impulsiveness. Nino wanted the ground to fall away beneath him.
Matsumoto's voice carried clear and loud through the door separating them. "I'm sorry."
What do you have to be sorry for, Nino wanted to know. More urgent than ever, he held back the sobs erupting from his throat.
All the other places being crowded, Matsumoto Kaori had found the perfect place to hide: the gymnasium. She could watch the basketball club from the stands without being seen. Sometimes, her younger brother noticed her, but sometimes he didn't. And he didn't always come to practice during lunch. She could observe the other students like a shadow, like what she felt she was.
She didn't always see what went on around her though. Sometimes, she remembered her ex-boyfriend Ohno Satoshi who had moved away, Ohno Satoshi who she love and still care for so dearly, who she had hurt, who had hurt her in return, and whose friendship with Sakurai Sho she had ruined. He didn't have to tell her. She knew it was she who had driven him from them.
It was because of her selfish desires. Her indecisiveness. Her ugly heart.
"I'm cheating on you," Ohno had said to her in that hospital ward months ago, when she had worked up the courage to face him after his surgery. "The both of us...we can only hurt each other."
Matsumoto Kaori's vision blurred and she covered her eyes against the small running figures on the court. You lie, she told the Ohno in her memory. You lie, Ohno. It's because of me. She wished him lying were true. She hadn't apologized, and he hadn't either. Ohno had left a few weeks later.
Maybe one day, she could say it. And maybe one day, Ohno could say it too. But right then, the hand that squeezed the breath from her lungs seemed formidable, and she feared that it might never release her; or not before all her precious memories with Ohno rotted into nothingness.
"Senpai, you okay?"
Matsumoto Kaori looked down to the gym floor at the one who had asked. Peering up at her with a basketball in his hands was Aiba Masaki, Jun's friend. She hastily wiped at her tears and forced a laugh. "Dust got in my eye."
Aiba smiled up at her, beaming so bright Matsumoto Kaori understood why he was popular among both the boys and girls. "Matsujun said he could count on me to watch you if he's not here. He's worried."
Her brother did? Matsumoto's hand gripped the balcony and her expression must have alarmed him, because Aiba immediately started.
"Ah! I wasn't supposed to say that. Don't tell him." Aiba looked around guiltily as if Jun would appear out of thin air. Relieved, he raised an arm in farewell and returned to the game. " I should go. I'll see you around."
She watched him pass the ball to his friends and decided the gymnasium was not the perfect place after all. She'd have to find a new place to spend her lunch time, away from watching eyes, before graduation.
He'd only been discharged for a week, but Ohno and Nino were meeting again as if the revelation of Sakurai and Matsumoto Kaori's affair meant nothing to their own complicated relationship. They sat on the staircase and Nino was writing inappropriate words on Ohno's cast when Ohno confessed, "I told them about us." Nino looked up in surprise and fear. His fingers stayed on the hard band around Ohno's arm.
"I wanted to hurt them," Ohno murmured, looking down to refrain from meeting Nino's questioning gaze. "As much as they had hurt me. I realized I only had to say the truth." He laughed and pulled his arm from Nino's grasp. He ran his hand through his hair, hiding behind his arm. "Nino, I think I'm going crazy."
"What a coincidence," Nino declared, sighting his upperclassman around the corner. Sitting against the fence of the roof's perimeters, Sakurai saw him the moment he spoke. His expression hardened as Nino approached teasing, "You're lonely without your best friend, aren't you?"
Sakurai stood and brushed dirt off his pants. He made sure to look elsewhere as he walked around to the exit.
"Oh-chan called me, you know," Nino told him as he passed by.
Sakurai stopped, holding his breath. Nino watched his tense, motionless figure, and he remembered that same broad back from his past. Before he had become the person he was today. The back he had followed so desperately, the only remnant of his innocence.
"I'm just kidding, senpai," Nino laughed. "Oh-ch--" The next second, he was shoved against the metal fence, a hand at his throat choking him. Sakurai's cold, hard eyes glared into his own. The same hard eyes that had rejected him.
"Don't let me hear you say his name again," Sakurai threatened quietly into his ear as Nino gagged. "A rotten mouth like yours shouldn't say his name." He flung Nino aside like a ragged toy, the smaller boy falling onto the hard cement gasping and coughing. Sakurai turned for the exit, but Nino's voice stopped him.
"You're just like me. You're dirty and ugly."
Sakurai moved towards the door without faltering, each step carrying him further away.
Nino's eyes bore into his back that was growing smaller by the second. He gasped and pushed onto his feet unsteadily. "You pretend! But you're just as disgusting! You knew, that's why you never touched him." He forced himself to laugh, even when the effort hurt and his chest clenched painfully. "So I did it for you. Your precious buddy is no longer spotless!"
Sakurai turned the corner.
Nino lost him. Lost the only person he knew would understand the disgusting beast beneath the layer of human skin. Once again, the hot tears burning down his face was not because he pitied himself. Nino reached for the metal fence and knew that he would've jumped if the fence was not there to stop him. "I'm sorry," he cried as the sight of the green trees waving in the breeze greeted his lone figure. I'm sorry, Oh-chan.
That was the same reason he promised he'd never touch Matsumoto Jun.
"In real life no one's really brave," Ohno had said.
Nino smirked. "You're calling the rest of humanity cowards."
His house looked so normal from the outside, beside all the other houses. No one would have guessed.
Before he walked through the door, he could already hear his mother. Her screaming and weeping drowned out all other thoughts. Nino entered and saw the familiar ruined kitchen. The table flipped over. Rice grains scattered across the floor. Pots, pans, and dishes broken. The contents of their refrigerator were strewn everywhere. Not much anyway. There had never been much to begin with. And his mother. His mother sat in the midst of it all crying.
He knew his father must have left her like that. His father would probably not return until morning, or night, or even until the day after.
"Kazu," his mother called, looking up through her tears at him standing in the open doorway. "Y-your father... your father..." She broke into another fit of sobs.
Nino approached and wondered what could have been different if he was stronger; if only he could protect her. His mother would not beg his father every other day. He would not cry into his pillow every other night. Their family might have been normal. Maybe he could've been a true friend to Ohno. And maybe he would've reached to meet Matsumoto's hand.
Even if he regretted, he couldn't change who his father was.
"Maybe it's true. We are all cowards," Ohno replied.
Nino knew he and Ohno were wrong. Even this much would take him and his mother all the courage they had. He crouched beside his mother and reached for her hand. His breath hitched and he had to force out his words. "Mom, let's leave this place."
-----
Twisted Joy