[1-shot] MSM
Title: Chinese whispers; a day in the life.
Rating: G, although Nabesho is naked.
Pairings: Many? Some blatant Sanazawa and general MSM love.
Notes: I wrote this in one of my more useless classes last term. It... makes no sense :| Just so you know.
Watanabe’s in love. That’s normal. Watanabe’s usually in love. No one really pays any attention to it.
Onodera’s the first one to pick up all the signs - the sighs, the compulsive giggling at boring jokes, the clumsiness and new-found habit of fumbling whatever he’s holding every time Miyadate touches him - and piece them together. Onodera is kind of a genius , at least, so far as most of M.A.D are concerned
After school, Watanabe and Miyadate have politics society. Nozawa and Onodera say goodbye and, when the other two are gone, Onodera drags Nozawa into an empty classroom. (Nozawa may have a couple - ok, several - centimetres on him, but he’s also a rake and unsurprisingly easy to push around).
“Yo,” Nozawa comments when they’re inside, either too used to being dragged around or too ready for sleep (Nozawa is ever ready for sleep) to bother acting annoyed.
“Yo,” Onodera returns and then - because he has started so he will darn well finish this - he spews out in one breath, “Say-have-you-noticed-that-Shota’s-in-love-with-Miyachan?”
When all Nozawa does is blink owlishly at him, Onodera wanders over to sit up on the teacher’s desk and gestures for the other boy to follow him. He bites his lip and kicks his legs a bit as he talks, nerves coming from he’s not sure where. Still, in a couple of minutes he’s outlined everything he’s been noticing - the glances, the odd bouts of nervousness and fidgeting and giggles, the strange flashes of awkwardness between two best friends. Nozawa stretches his legs out to rest his heels on the nearest student’s desk and listens quietly, hands in his lap. When Onodera’s done Nozawa nods, taking it all in, and purses his lips in thought. After some contemplation,
“Maa, but isn’t that just normal?” he remarks.
Onodera might have felt a little pissed off after all that, except that, on reflection, Nozawa’s reference point for what constitutes normal behaviour is a little skewed. Sure, Onodera’s moved on from MSM, but most of everyone knows why Nozawa’s notion of ‘normal’ is off-key.
“It… It might not be normal for Shota, ne,” he answers weakly before excusing himself to run for his bus.
~x~
The next day, when Nozawa arrives at work, Sanada wordlessly shoves a bag of caramel popcorn at him then strolls off down the corridor with Takada Sho. Nozawa likes caramel popcorn so he’s pretty ok with this turn of events and chooses to go about his business without thinking about it further.
He has been thinking about what Onodera said, despite dismissing it at the time. The more he thinks about it the more he wonders if it might be true. But he’s not sure so he has to ask someone. Fukasawa’s good for advice, but in this case, Nozawa can just picture him blurting something out in the middle of practice. Abe’s great for advice, but only if it’s work related. He doesn’t consider asking Sakuma because it’s Sakuma and the idea of asking Sanada something like this makes him feel nervous. That leaves Iwamoto.
“Uh… so…,” he starts. It’s a couple of hours later and Iwamoto’s helping him stretch while they watch Sanada, Watanabe, Abe and Sakuma being drilled.
“Hm?” Iwamoto prompts, only half-listening.
“Have you noticed anything about Shota recently?”
Iwamoto relaxes his pressure on Nozawa’s back a moment while he considers that.
“He’s wearing trousers. Has been wearing them all day. I noticed that,” he replies at last. He suddenly resumes the pressure on Nozawa’s back. Nozawa stifles a squeal as his head bumps the floorboards. It’s a while before he says anything else. Partly because he’s in pain, but also because he too had noticed that Watanabe’s wearing trousers and now he can’t help but think that it really might be significant.
“Something else,” he adds, gesturing (that is to say, flailing his hands around) for Iwamoto to let him sit back up, “It’s - Ok, you see, Ikki thinks Shota likes someone. I mean, someone close…” He stretches his arms behind his back as an excuse to look away. Talking about this is a whole new type of embarrassing.
“Close?” Iwamoto asks. His brow furrowed in thought makes his eyes disappear. “Do you mean…. Oh,” - wide eyed like Sakuma on a sugar high - , “He likes, um, that guy?” Iwamoto blinks at him, mouth a jar, mirroring Nozawa’s own reaction yesterday. Nozawa’s about to say something when -
“Hey. You’re up,” Sanada tells them.
Nozawa turns to find Sanada standing by his shoulder, looking at him darkly. He nods and scrambles up, avoiding eye-contact as he goes to take his place with Iwamoto, Miyadate and Fukasawa. It’s been a while since Sanada looked at him like that. It’s been a while since Sanada looked at him at all.
~x~
During their longer break, Iwamoto heads to the cafeteria for a much needed think. Most of his group hang around their dressing room rather than bother walking all the way up the stairs to here. It’s not like there’s much in the cafeteria apart from an impressive huddle of vending machines. Plus, the concentrated chaos that erupts in their dressing room is probably one of MSM’s charm points, or something to that effect. However, today, Iwamoto needs to think and he does not need to re-enact Kamen Rider scenes with Miyadate.
Watanabe liking someone isn’t particularly interesting, it being Watanabe and all. Watanabe liking a guy isn’t particularly interesting either, it being Watanabe and all. But Watanabe liking that guy - and Nozawa being the one telling Iwamoto about it - now that’s notable. Iwamoto wishes he was better with this stuff, then maybe he’d have some clue about what to do with his new information.
“Earth to Hikaruuuuuuu,” Fukasawa calls into his ear, making Iwamoto jump three foot into the air.
“Don’t do that,” he glares, resisting the urge to clutch his poor heart. Fukasawa giggles at him and sits down opposite, placing a bowl of grey slop in front of him on the plastic table. Leaning over, Iwamoto scrutinises it cautiously.
“What is that?”
“Uh,” Fukasawa makes figure eights on the surface with his spoon and, for some reason, looks a little shy, “I don’t really know. Miyachan gave it to me and was like, “YOU, eat!” So I thought I should. Um, it might be celeriac.”
Iwamoto sits back, appeased.
“What’s celeriac?”
The older boy stares at him a moment.
“I don’t know. I just said it because it’s something Mum makes Granddad eat.”
“…Oh.”
They sit in companionable silence a while, Fukka dutifully swallowing whatever Miyadate’s feeding him.
“Oh yeah,” he splutters a little later around a mouthful of slop, “What were you thinking about?”
“Hm?” Iwamoto hums innocently. Fukka scoffs at him.
“When I came in. You looked totally deep in thought. You were all -” Iwamoto refuses to acknowledge that Fukka’s expression is supposed to be an impression of Iwamoto’s thinking face because it mostly consists of Fukka squinting and screwing up his lips. He cracks and starts blabbing mostly just to make the older boy quit it.
“It’s nothing. Probably. Well - Well, I guess I can tell you. But don’t you dare tell another soul.”
Sitting up straight, Fukasawa lays his spoon down and pushes his food to the side. Amongst the Juniors, gossip is invariably serious business.
Iwamoto twists his wristbands nervously. He’s definitely outside his comfort-zone here. Pretty soon, though, he’s related every little detail about his earlier conversation with Nozawa.
“Buh?” Fukka says.
Iwamoto nods.
“That was my first reaction too.”
“But… Like, are you sure he wasn’t pranking you?”
“Well, it’s Yuuki,” Iwamoto shrugs. And Fukka can’t help but take his point. Miyadate and Fukka pull pranks. Sometimes Sanada or Watanabe do too, though theirs always fail because they’re not able to keep from cracking up. Nozawa does not pull pranks and, if he did, this sort of thing doesn’t seem like it’d be his style.
Fukka flops back in his hard cafeteria chair and takes a very deep breath.
“Oh my god.”
Iwamoto just nods along again, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.
~x~
It’s not, Fukka realises, like he didn’t already know that Watanabe likes Sanada. But he knew it in the way that Watanabe likes anything with two legs. This is new. This is different. And now that he knows it’s different, he can’t help but look back at recent months, piecing together their love story - a sigh here, an R-rated joke there. He feels bad for not having figured it out sooner. Then a pang of worry hits him - Watanabe didn’t consider Fukka someone he could confide in? With that, Fukka’s convinced it’s serious. One of his dearest friends, a boy who’s usually such an open book, went to the trouble of keeping this from him. It must have been a terrible strain this past year. He wants to take Watanabe out for ramen. Tell him it’s ok. Let him get it all out and cry on Fukka’s shoulder.
Although - he thinks about Nozawa, of all people, being the one to spill the beans to Iwamoto - he can’t blame Watanabe for keeping it secret. There were things going on there that nobody should try getting involved in. And that really makes it hit home. Fukka feels his eyes start to sting and blinks it away. In a love triangle all these years with no one to talk to about it. No one to tell his troubles to. No one to -
Sakuma hits him in the head with his water bottle. Sakuma has re-decoed his water bottle lately with a few dozen multi-colour, glue-on crystals. It snags quite a few of Fukka’s hairs.
“You are so not in the zone,” he informs Fukka.
The older boy hangs his head, unable to deny the allegation. He and Sakuma have been separated from the rest of the group. Yara taught them all a new flip then ended up sending Fukka and Sakuma off to work on it alone so at least they’d have it down well enough for the next Shokura and he wouldn’t have to alter his original choreography much. All of which makes this some very important work and Fukka’s feeling quite guilty for getting distracted.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, “I’m kind of distracted.”
“What by?” Sakuma enquires, taking a lush of his drink now that he’s removed most of Fukka’s hair from the bottle. The question’s a bit blunt he realises as soon as he’s voiced it. But he’s genuinely confused. They have a hall all to themselves and a cool move to practise - one that, according to Yara, Yamamoto perfected in less than a day. Sakuma’s motivation is at full throttle. He doesn’t see what there could possibly be to get distracted by.
“Well. It’s nothing. I can’t tell you. It’s not really anything,” Fukka babbles in response.
“Ok,” Sakuma shrugs, putting his water bottle back in his bag, “Then do you want to spot me again? But pay attention or one of us might fall and die.”
Humming agreement, Fukka takes his place at the side. He bets Sanada’s bride would be super pretty. Of course she would. And Watanabe… Actually, Watanabe would suck as the best man. But then his speech would be the most heart-wrenching thing ever -
“Look. If I were to tell you, could you keep it to yourself?”
Sakuma, having been just about to take off, manages to stumble and fall, smacking his chin off the mats. This is not the kind of thing that often happens to Sakuma. He takes a moment to grumble at gravity before he can reply.
“I thought you said you couldn’t tell me.” He picks himself up, throwing a fearsome(-ish) glare at the mat as he strolls over to where Fukka’s already sunk into a sprawl.
“Forget about that,” the older boy blusters, flapping his hands as if to shoo away any objections, “If I don’t tell someone this, I may literally explode.”
With that, Sakuma hurriedly takes a seat on the floor beside Fukka and doesn’t protest to listening to him ramble anymore. After all, explosions would be pretty severe.
~x~
When Sanada arrives outside the hall where Sakuma and Fukka have been sent to practise, it’s so oddly quiet that he can’t help but overhear some of their conversation. He doesn’t catch much, just enough to confirm his suspicions from accidentally interrupting Nozawa earlier. Watanabe likes Nozawa and, from the sounds of it, Nozawa’s thinking of acknowledging him. He hears his own name mentioned too. That makes sense. They’re probably making fun of him for not noticing what was between Watanabe and Nozawa earlier. Sanada can’t blame them - he hasn’t done a great job of hiding the way he’s been feeling lately. Although, Nozawa does a good job of seemingly not realising.
Sanada steels his nerves. If people are going to be making fun of him, he decides the least he needs to do is to find out how things really are. He’s going to have to ask Nozawa. And with that, he strides into the hall to tell Fukka and Sakuma it’s time to rejoin the rest of the group.
~x~
If asked later, Abe would swear that the awkward atmosphere could be felt half-way down the hall, radiating from MSM’s dressing room. When he peeks inside he finds out why and train wreck syndrome kicks in.
The room is empty except for Sanada loitering by his locker and Nozawa either loitering or just plain half-asleep by his. Their lockers used to be side by side. But then Nozawa got to change lockers with Sakuma by beating him at beyblades (one of the only games he could ever beat any of his group mates at). Then Sakuma and Fukka decided they wanted to swop. Then everyone ended up shuffling and Nozawa and Sanada happened to end up about as far away from each other as it was possible to be.
“Um, hey, so… Yuuki?” Sanada stammers.
Nozawa’s ears turn red. (With reason - as far as Abe could tell, there had been a period of about two months during which Nozawa was ‘Yuuki’ to Sanada before somehow he abruptly went straight back to being ‘Nozawa-kun’). They turn to face each other at about the same time - Nozawa avoiding eye contact by arranging and re-arranging his wrist accessories and Sanada avoiding eye contact through practice and sheer force of will.
“Like, I - Ok, so -” Sanada scrapes his fingers through his hair for the fifth time in something like 30 seconds and wipes his hands down his jeans before blurting out, “Do you like Shota?”
“Huh?!” Nozawa is shocked enough to momentarily forget about avoiding eye contact. “No! No, why would -”
“Oh man. You do, don’t you?” Sanada leans back against his locker, “You’re blushing and everything.”
Muttering inaudibly, Nozawa rubs at his cheeks.
“It’s fine,” Sanada goes on, relatively relaxed now that the revelation is out in the open, “It’s good.”
Nozawa freezes.
“It is?”
“Shota’s… Shota’ll definitely be good for you. It’s easy to be relaxed around him. You talk more around him.”
And now Nozawa’s too stunned to protest coherently. (Though, really, it’s unclear if Sanada’s even listening to him still).
“You… I mean - It’s obvious. It’s been obvious, right?” Here he catches Nozawa’s eye with this strange far-off look which Nozawa can’t interpret. And that last might be because that’s twice today that Sanada’s purposefully caught his eye, making that twice more today than in the last fortnight at least. The skewed equilibrium that Nozawa has trained himself to think of as just normal is having trouble dealing with all this.
“Yuuma, I -” Now that catches the older boy’s attention. It’s been a while since Nozawa called Sanada that outside the privacy of his own head. “Yuuma, I swear I don’t -”
Nozawa doesn’t know why, but Sanada laughs then, low and tired. He picks himself up and crosses the distance to Nozawa.
“He totally likes you too, ne. So you shouldn’t be all… like you always are. You should tell him.”
“Well, fine. Ok then. Right. In that case, Yuuma, I li-”
“Uwah! I’ll leave you two alone,” Sanada cuts him off, spotting Watanabe finally padding out of the showers. Then he breezes from the room, too embroiled in his own thoughts to notice Nozawa’s wide-eyed confusion or Abe hiding around the corner banging his head against a wall.
~x~
Abe catches up to Sanada as he’s leaving. The thing about Abe is that he really would do anything for his group. Most often , he expresses that by being their choreography database and by not grumbling when they steal all his snacks. He feels, however, that today requires a bigger gesture.
“Shota doesn’t like Yuuki,” he declares emphatically as he tugs Sanada back down the corridor towards their dressing room, “And I don’t think you should be so sure that Yuuki’s feelings for Shota are, um, what you think they are.”
The older boy starts to protest so Abe shuts him up before he can get going.
“I’ll prove it, ok? Shota doesn’t like Yuuki because he likes me.”
They pause outside the dressing room. Abe offers a quick prayer to whatever deity covers these sorts of dilemmas. Sanada fidgets constantly behind him. Watanabe and Nozawa’s conversation can be heard muffled through the door.
“Something’s definitely wrong.”
“…”
“Yuuki should tell me what.”
“… Are you going to get dressed?”
“Tell me first. I sympathise better without clothes.”
With one last deep breath, Abe marches inside, takes Watanabe’s face in his hands and summarily kisses him on the mouth. He hears Nozawa squeak and dart up. This being Watanabe, it doesn’t take long before the other boy’s getting into the kiss. Really getting into it. Abe has to gently pry Watanabe’s hands from his waist, hoping to maintain the lie just long enough for Sanada to leave the building.
“Score?” Watanabe mumbles as Abe pulls back.
“Totally,” Miyadate responds from the doorway, “Are you coming for coffee? I’ve been waiting for ages.”
Watanabe grins. Finally, he starts to yanks his clothes on in a flurry, cooing about Miyachan being his Best Girl.
“Awesome. I don’t get what just happened, but that was awesome, Manager-kun.”
Abe spins around to find himself face to face with Sakuma’s videophone. Resolutely, he ignores it and strides out the door, straight past where Sanada and Nozawa are having a hushed Conversation.
(Iwamoto and Fukasawa have already left. But a series of text messages from their group mates later that night will leave them both helplessly confused).
~x~
On Monday morning, Miyadate rather forcefully plucks Onodera out of class before home room.
“Right then,” he says once they’ve slipped into an empty science lab, “You need to tell me exactly what you did.”
Rating: G, although Nabesho is naked.
Pairings: Many? Some blatant Sanazawa and general MSM love.
Notes: I wrote this in one of my more useless classes last term. It... makes no sense :| Just so you know.
Watanabe’s in love. That’s normal. Watanabe’s usually in love. No one really pays any attention to it.
Onodera’s the first one to pick up all the signs - the sighs, the compulsive giggling at boring jokes, the clumsiness and new-found habit of fumbling whatever he’s holding every time Miyadate touches him - and piece them together. Onodera is kind of a genius , at least, so far as most of M.A.D are concerned
After school, Watanabe and Miyadate have politics society. Nozawa and Onodera say goodbye and, when the other two are gone, Onodera drags Nozawa into an empty classroom. (Nozawa may have a couple - ok, several - centimetres on him, but he’s also a rake and unsurprisingly easy to push around).
“Yo,” Nozawa comments when they’re inside, either too used to being dragged around or too ready for sleep (Nozawa is ever ready for sleep) to bother acting annoyed.
“Yo,” Onodera returns and then - because he has started so he will darn well finish this - he spews out in one breath, “Say-have-you-noticed-that-Shota’s-in-love-with-Miyachan?”
When all Nozawa does is blink owlishly at him, Onodera wanders over to sit up on the teacher’s desk and gestures for the other boy to follow him. He bites his lip and kicks his legs a bit as he talks, nerves coming from he’s not sure where. Still, in a couple of minutes he’s outlined everything he’s been noticing - the glances, the odd bouts of nervousness and fidgeting and giggles, the strange flashes of awkwardness between two best friends. Nozawa stretches his legs out to rest his heels on the nearest student’s desk and listens quietly, hands in his lap. When Onodera’s done Nozawa nods, taking it all in, and purses his lips in thought. After some contemplation,
“Maa, but isn’t that just normal?” he remarks.
Onodera might have felt a little pissed off after all that, except that, on reflection, Nozawa’s reference point for what constitutes normal behaviour is a little skewed. Sure, Onodera’s moved on from MSM, but most of everyone knows why Nozawa’s notion of ‘normal’ is off-key.
“It… It might not be normal for Shota, ne,” he answers weakly before excusing himself to run for his bus.
~x~
The next day, when Nozawa arrives at work, Sanada wordlessly shoves a bag of caramel popcorn at him then strolls off down the corridor with Takada Sho. Nozawa likes caramel popcorn so he’s pretty ok with this turn of events and chooses to go about his business without thinking about it further.
He has been thinking about what Onodera said, despite dismissing it at the time. The more he thinks about it the more he wonders if it might be true. But he’s not sure so he has to ask someone. Fukasawa’s good for advice, but in this case, Nozawa can just picture him blurting something out in the middle of practice. Abe’s great for advice, but only if it’s work related. He doesn’t consider asking Sakuma because it’s Sakuma and the idea of asking Sanada something like this makes him feel nervous. That leaves Iwamoto.
“Uh… so…,” he starts. It’s a couple of hours later and Iwamoto’s helping him stretch while they watch Sanada, Watanabe, Abe and Sakuma being drilled.
“Hm?” Iwamoto prompts, only half-listening.
“Have you noticed anything about Shota recently?”
Iwamoto relaxes his pressure on Nozawa’s back a moment while he considers that.
“He’s wearing trousers. Has been wearing them all day. I noticed that,” he replies at last. He suddenly resumes the pressure on Nozawa’s back. Nozawa stifles a squeal as his head bumps the floorboards. It’s a while before he says anything else. Partly because he’s in pain, but also because he too had noticed that Watanabe’s wearing trousers and now he can’t help but think that it really might be significant.
“Something else,” he adds, gesturing (that is to say, flailing his hands around) for Iwamoto to let him sit back up, “It’s - Ok, you see, Ikki thinks Shota likes someone. I mean, someone close…” He stretches his arms behind his back as an excuse to look away. Talking about this is a whole new type of embarrassing.
“Close?” Iwamoto asks. His brow furrowed in thought makes his eyes disappear. “Do you mean…. Oh,” - wide eyed like Sakuma on a sugar high - , “He likes, um, that guy?” Iwamoto blinks at him, mouth a jar, mirroring Nozawa’s own reaction yesterday. Nozawa’s about to say something when -
“Hey. You’re up,” Sanada tells them.
Nozawa turns to find Sanada standing by his shoulder, looking at him darkly. He nods and scrambles up, avoiding eye-contact as he goes to take his place with Iwamoto, Miyadate and Fukasawa. It’s been a while since Sanada looked at him like that. It’s been a while since Sanada looked at him at all.
~x~
During their longer break, Iwamoto heads to the cafeteria for a much needed think. Most of his group hang around their dressing room rather than bother walking all the way up the stairs to here. It’s not like there’s much in the cafeteria apart from an impressive huddle of vending machines. Plus, the concentrated chaos that erupts in their dressing room is probably one of MSM’s charm points, or something to that effect. However, today, Iwamoto needs to think and he does not need to re-enact Kamen Rider scenes with Miyadate.
Watanabe liking someone isn’t particularly interesting, it being Watanabe and all. Watanabe liking a guy isn’t particularly interesting either, it being Watanabe and all. But Watanabe liking that guy - and Nozawa being the one telling Iwamoto about it - now that’s notable. Iwamoto wishes he was better with this stuff, then maybe he’d have some clue about what to do with his new information.
“Earth to Hikaruuuuuuu,” Fukasawa calls into his ear, making Iwamoto jump three foot into the air.
“Don’t do that,” he glares, resisting the urge to clutch his poor heart. Fukasawa giggles at him and sits down opposite, placing a bowl of grey slop in front of him on the plastic table. Leaning over, Iwamoto scrutinises it cautiously.
“What is that?”
“Uh,” Fukasawa makes figure eights on the surface with his spoon and, for some reason, looks a little shy, “I don’t really know. Miyachan gave it to me and was like, “YOU, eat!” So I thought I should. Um, it might be celeriac.”
Iwamoto sits back, appeased.
“What’s celeriac?”
The older boy stares at him a moment.
“I don’t know. I just said it because it’s something Mum makes Granddad eat.”
“…Oh.”
They sit in companionable silence a while, Fukka dutifully swallowing whatever Miyadate’s feeding him.
“Oh yeah,” he splutters a little later around a mouthful of slop, “What were you thinking about?”
“Hm?” Iwamoto hums innocently. Fukka scoffs at him.
“When I came in. You looked totally deep in thought. You were all -” Iwamoto refuses to acknowledge that Fukka’s expression is supposed to be an impression of Iwamoto’s thinking face because it mostly consists of Fukka squinting and screwing up his lips. He cracks and starts blabbing mostly just to make the older boy quit it.
“It’s nothing. Probably. Well - Well, I guess I can tell you. But don’t you dare tell another soul.”
Sitting up straight, Fukasawa lays his spoon down and pushes his food to the side. Amongst the Juniors, gossip is invariably serious business.
Iwamoto twists his wristbands nervously. He’s definitely outside his comfort-zone here. Pretty soon, though, he’s related every little detail about his earlier conversation with Nozawa.
“Buh?” Fukka says.
Iwamoto nods.
“That was my first reaction too.”
“But… Like, are you sure he wasn’t pranking you?”
“Well, it’s Yuuki,” Iwamoto shrugs. And Fukka can’t help but take his point. Miyadate and Fukka pull pranks. Sometimes Sanada or Watanabe do too, though theirs always fail because they’re not able to keep from cracking up. Nozawa does not pull pranks and, if he did, this sort of thing doesn’t seem like it’d be his style.
Fukka flops back in his hard cafeteria chair and takes a very deep breath.
“Oh my god.”
Iwamoto just nods along again, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.
~x~
It’s not, Fukka realises, like he didn’t already know that Watanabe likes Sanada. But he knew it in the way that Watanabe likes anything with two legs. This is new. This is different. And now that he knows it’s different, he can’t help but look back at recent months, piecing together their love story - a sigh here, an R-rated joke there. He feels bad for not having figured it out sooner. Then a pang of worry hits him - Watanabe didn’t consider Fukka someone he could confide in? With that, Fukka’s convinced it’s serious. One of his dearest friends, a boy who’s usually such an open book, went to the trouble of keeping this from him. It must have been a terrible strain this past year. He wants to take Watanabe out for ramen. Tell him it’s ok. Let him get it all out and cry on Fukka’s shoulder.
Although - he thinks about Nozawa, of all people, being the one to spill the beans to Iwamoto - he can’t blame Watanabe for keeping it secret. There were things going on there that nobody should try getting involved in. And that really makes it hit home. Fukka feels his eyes start to sting and blinks it away. In a love triangle all these years with no one to talk to about it. No one to tell his troubles to. No one to -
Sakuma hits him in the head with his water bottle. Sakuma has re-decoed his water bottle lately with a few dozen multi-colour, glue-on crystals. It snags quite a few of Fukka’s hairs.
“You are so not in the zone,” he informs Fukka.
The older boy hangs his head, unable to deny the allegation. He and Sakuma have been separated from the rest of the group. Yara taught them all a new flip then ended up sending Fukka and Sakuma off to work on it alone so at least they’d have it down well enough for the next Shokura and he wouldn’t have to alter his original choreography much. All of which makes this some very important work and Fukka’s feeling quite guilty for getting distracted.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, “I’m kind of distracted.”
“What by?” Sakuma enquires, taking a lush of his drink now that he’s removed most of Fukka’s hair from the bottle. The question’s a bit blunt he realises as soon as he’s voiced it. But he’s genuinely confused. They have a hall all to themselves and a cool move to practise - one that, according to Yara, Yamamoto perfected in less than a day. Sakuma’s motivation is at full throttle. He doesn’t see what there could possibly be to get distracted by.
“Well. It’s nothing. I can’t tell you. It’s not really anything,” Fukka babbles in response.
“Ok,” Sakuma shrugs, putting his water bottle back in his bag, “Then do you want to spot me again? But pay attention or one of us might fall and die.”
Humming agreement, Fukka takes his place at the side. He bets Sanada’s bride would be super pretty. Of course she would. And Watanabe… Actually, Watanabe would suck as the best man. But then his speech would be the most heart-wrenching thing ever -
“Look. If I were to tell you, could you keep it to yourself?”
Sakuma, having been just about to take off, manages to stumble and fall, smacking his chin off the mats. This is not the kind of thing that often happens to Sakuma. He takes a moment to grumble at gravity before he can reply.
“I thought you said you couldn’t tell me.” He picks himself up, throwing a fearsome(-ish) glare at the mat as he strolls over to where Fukka’s already sunk into a sprawl.
“Forget about that,” the older boy blusters, flapping his hands as if to shoo away any objections, “If I don’t tell someone this, I may literally explode.”
With that, Sakuma hurriedly takes a seat on the floor beside Fukka and doesn’t protest to listening to him ramble anymore. After all, explosions would be pretty severe.
~x~
When Sanada arrives outside the hall where Sakuma and Fukka have been sent to practise, it’s so oddly quiet that he can’t help but overhear some of their conversation. He doesn’t catch much, just enough to confirm his suspicions from accidentally interrupting Nozawa earlier. Watanabe likes Nozawa and, from the sounds of it, Nozawa’s thinking of acknowledging him. He hears his own name mentioned too. That makes sense. They’re probably making fun of him for not noticing what was between Watanabe and Nozawa earlier. Sanada can’t blame them - he hasn’t done a great job of hiding the way he’s been feeling lately. Although, Nozawa does a good job of seemingly not realising.
Sanada steels his nerves. If people are going to be making fun of him, he decides the least he needs to do is to find out how things really are. He’s going to have to ask Nozawa. And with that, he strides into the hall to tell Fukka and Sakuma it’s time to rejoin the rest of the group.
~x~
If asked later, Abe would swear that the awkward atmosphere could be felt half-way down the hall, radiating from MSM’s dressing room. When he peeks inside he finds out why and train wreck syndrome kicks in.
The room is empty except for Sanada loitering by his locker and Nozawa either loitering or just plain half-asleep by his. Their lockers used to be side by side. But then Nozawa got to change lockers with Sakuma by beating him at beyblades (one of the only games he could ever beat any of his group mates at). Then Sakuma and Fukka decided they wanted to swop. Then everyone ended up shuffling and Nozawa and Sanada happened to end up about as far away from each other as it was possible to be.
“Um, hey, so… Yuuki?” Sanada stammers.
Nozawa’s ears turn red. (With reason - as far as Abe could tell, there had been a period of about two months during which Nozawa was ‘Yuuki’ to Sanada before somehow he abruptly went straight back to being ‘Nozawa-kun’). They turn to face each other at about the same time - Nozawa avoiding eye contact by arranging and re-arranging his wrist accessories and Sanada avoiding eye contact through practice and sheer force of will.
“Like, I - Ok, so -” Sanada scrapes his fingers through his hair for the fifth time in something like 30 seconds and wipes his hands down his jeans before blurting out, “Do you like Shota?”
“Huh?!” Nozawa is shocked enough to momentarily forget about avoiding eye contact. “No! No, why would -”
“Oh man. You do, don’t you?” Sanada leans back against his locker, “You’re blushing and everything.”
Muttering inaudibly, Nozawa rubs at his cheeks.
“It’s fine,” Sanada goes on, relatively relaxed now that the revelation is out in the open, “It’s good.”
Nozawa freezes.
“It is?”
“Shota’s… Shota’ll definitely be good for you. It’s easy to be relaxed around him. You talk more around him.”
And now Nozawa’s too stunned to protest coherently. (Though, really, it’s unclear if Sanada’s even listening to him still).
“You… I mean - It’s obvious. It’s been obvious, right?” Here he catches Nozawa’s eye with this strange far-off look which Nozawa can’t interpret. And that last might be because that’s twice today that Sanada’s purposefully caught his eye, making that twice more today than in the last fortnight at least. The skewed equilibrium that Nozawa has trained himself to think of as just normal is having trouble dealing with all this.
“Yuuma, I -” Now that catches the older boy’s attention. It’s been a while since Nozawa called Sanada that outside the privacy of his own head. “Yuuma, I swear I don’t -”
Nozawa doesn’t know why, but Sanada laughs then, low and tired. He picks himself up and crosses the distance to Nozawa.
“He totally likes you too, ne. So you shouldn’t be all… like you always are. You should tell him.”
“Well, fine. Ok then. Right. In that case, Yuuma, I li-”
“Uwah! I’ll leave you two alone,” Sanada cuts him off, spotting Watanabe finally padding out of the showers. Then he breezes from the room, too embroiled in his own thoughts to notice Nozawa’s wide-eyed confusion or Abe hiding around the corner banging his head against a wall.
~x~
Abe catches up to Sanada as he’s leaving. The thing about Abe is that he really would do anything for his group. Most often , he expresses that by being their choreography database and by not grumbling when they steal all his snacks. He feels, however, that today requires a bigger gesture.
“Shota doesn’t like Yuuki,” he declares emphatically as he tugs Sanada back down the corridor towards their dressing room, “And I don’t think you should be so sure that Yuuki’s feelings for Shota are, um, what you think they are.”
The older boy starts to protest so Abe shuts him up before he can get going.
“I’ll prove it, ok? Shota doesn’t like Yuuki because he likes me.”
They pause outside the dressing room. Abe offers a quick prayer to whatever deity covers these sorts of dilemmas. Sanada fidgets constantly behind him. Watanabe and Nozawa’s conversation can be heard muffled through the door.
“Something’s definitely wrong.”
“…”
“Yuuki should tell me what.”
“… Are you going to get dressed?”
“Tell me first. I sympathise better without clothes.”
With one last deep breath, Abe marches inside, takes Watanabe’s face in his hands and summarily kisses him on the mouth. He hears Nozawa squeak and dart up. This being Watanabe, it doesn’t take long before the other boy’s getting into the kiss. Really getting into it. Abe has to gently pry Watanabe’s hands from his waist, hoping to maintain the lie just long enough for Sanada to leave the building.
“Score?” Watanabe mumbles as Abe pulls back.
“Totally,” Miyadate responds from the doorway, “Are you coming for coffee? I’ve been waiting for ages.”
Watanabe grins. Finally, he starts to yanks his clothes on in a flurry, cooing about Miyachan being his Best Girl.
“Awesome. I don’t get what just happened, but that was awesome, Manager-kun.”
Abe spins around to find himself face to face with Sakuma’s videophone. Resolutely, he ignores it and strides out the door, straight past where Sanada and Nozawa are having a hushed Conversation.
(Iwamoto and Fukasawa have already left. But a series of text messages from their group mates later that night will leave them both helplessly confused).
~x~
On Monday morning, Miyadate rather forcefully plucks Onodera out of class before home room.
“Right then,” he says once they’ve slipped into an empty science lab, “You need to tell me exactly what you did.”