fic for augustfai
For: augustfai
From: ltgmars
Title: Soulful Strut
Pairing/Focus: Nino/Riisa, Jun/Aiba
Rating: PG for language
Warnings: cross-dressing
Summary: Aiba is newly single and epically unbearable, so Nino decides to take matters into his own hands. Kind of.
Notes: I am just one in a long list of writers who've decided to exploit the Nino/Riisa similarity factor. Think The Parent Trap, but with non-twins and non-parents. Please willingly suspend your disbelief for this. Thank you, of course, to you who betaed, for betaing. augustfai, I hope you enjoy it! ♥
He realizes a little late that he should have started by going to the doctor to get his head checked, but he's already in too deep when he's pressed an unfamiliar series of numbers into his phone and he's exerted enough energy to drain him for the rest of the evening. No going back now.
"Hello?" a bubbly voice says on the other end.
"Naka? This is Ninomiya from 3-A, and I have a proposition."
Naka makes an irritated noise, and Nino wants to take it all back. She sounds like too much trouble to deal with already. "I hope you don't think real life works like a drama," she says, and she drawls on about how Nino should properly introduce himself and he can't expect a girl to just say "yes" when she doesn't even know him and does he think she doesn't have her own life to lead and how did he get her number anyway? In Nino's head she's chewing bubble gum and painting her toenails and twirling her hair around her finger and petting a small dog that probably doesn't even belong to her, all at once. "But it's kind of interesting this way, so go on."
Nino smirks. He can appreciate a person who's willing to do interesting things. It's high school, after all, and sometimes you have to make your own fun. "So here's what's up."
.
What's up is that Matsumoto Jun, Class 3-C Student Council representative, and Aiba Masaki, Class 3-A resident idiot, have been going out for a good six months. A painful six months, as far as Nino's concerned, because once Jun finally gave in to Aiba's relentless tirade of affection (that's how it happens with everyone, Nino included), it's been nothing but springtime and flower petals and giant watery eyes and too-long limbs like the ones that Nino pretends he doesn't see in his sister's shounen-ai manga, starring Aiba and every single opportunity he has to bring up his gorgeous boyfriend, Jun.
It's a school-wide scandal, and then it becomes the school's token couple, because who would ever have thought that cool, untouchable Matsumoto Jun would fall for anyone, much less someone so completely unlike him as Aiba?
Nino gets it, though, and the first time he meets Jun in his capacity as Aiba's best friend, he sees what most people miss: the way Jun's much deeper than his looks suggest, the way he's pensive, self-critical, hard to get close to out of courtesy to others. He also sees the way Aiba brings Jun out, makes him feel comfortable and relaxed and secure in a way Jun's probably never experienced before, makes him like himself more because being chosen by Aiba makes him feel like he's probably not so bad to be around.
Nino understands those feelings, and he understands the pull Aiba has on people, gravitational, comforting like the smell of freshly-cooked monja in the kitchen downstairs after a long night of studying. So it's hard for him to understand what could possibly be going through Jun's mind when he decides, seemingly out of nowhere, to break up with Aiba.
It's exhausting at first, when Aiba floats to him one day on a wave of his own tears, and it makes Nino seasick with the way Aiba blubbers through words that rise and sway and pulsate endlessly. And then it's angering, frighteningly so, because Jun should know not to make Aiba sad, and not to leave him for Nino to deal with, because as considerate as Jun thinks he is, that's one of the most inconsiderate things he can ever do.
And then it's inspiring, in some sense of the word, because it lets Nino come up with a plan.
.
It's a pretty demented plan, he realizes as he tugs his skirt down a little lower in front of the Class 3-C door. He takes a deep breath in an attempt to keep his nausea to himself, clutching the strap of Naka's bag tighter within his newly manicured fingers. He's been debriefed earlier that morning on the characters in 3-C, the ones who'll call him "Riisa-chan" and "Riri" and "Nakarii", the ones who have their own stupid nicknames he almost doesn't want to say out loud.
He steels himself with one last huff, and then lets his body noodle into that of an attractive, confident 17-year-old girl. "Let's do this," he mutters to himself, and then he squeezes his vocal cords as he slides the door open and waits for his body to lift off the ground with the amount of dignity he's losing.
"Riisa-chan, good morning!" Yoshitaka chimes. Nino's met her before -- she's Toma's girlfriend, and the person who had Naka's number for Toma to pass along. She's also Naka's best friend, and one of the people most liable to recognize him.
"Good morning, Yuri-chan," Nino wheezes out with affected sweetness, swaying his hips as he heads toward Naka's seat. The next row over, Jun looks up from his book and stares for a terrifyingly long moment before returning his attention to the chamber of secrets that Nino can only wish he could throw himself into.
Every click of Naka's heels on Nino's feet sounds like a mantra: "This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid." But he's here already, his face painted and everything. There's really no turning back.
"Good morning, Matsumoto-kun," Nino says, letting the greeting unravel toward Jun like a Swiss roll.
Jun blinks at his book, and Nino thinks it's all over then, because Jun actually knows Nino, knows him better than most people do. But Jun simply returns the greeting with a slight turn of his head. "Good morning."
Bad morning, the worst morning. The wig is itchy, and the bra even itchier, and Nino's filled with so much nervous energy that he's lost his concentration and his appetite and his motor skills. His notes in Naka's notebook come out looking like a cubist interpretation of his birth. He's here on a mission, though, and he's not leaving until he accomplishes it.
"Matsumoto-kun," Nino sing-songs at lunchtime. "It's strange to see you here during lunch. Don't you usually visit 3-A?"
Jun acts casual (and does a poor job of it, but if Nino were actually Naka, he wouldn't have noticed) as he swallows the bite of tamagoyaki he'd been working on. "Not anymore."
"Hmm," Nino hums, carefully forcing his throat up into his nose as the sound finishes. "Why not?" He flops his wrist back and forth, drawing a butterfly in the air with his chopsticks. Seems girly, maybe.
"Don't feel like it," Jun says simply, smiling, cold and distant and back to untouchable. Nino's not used to him this way, and he fights down the urge to rip his shirt open and show Jun the socks he's stuffed inside Naka's bra and roar his demands for a better reason as to why he decided to hurt someone they both care so much about. But he wins that fight, and he decides that he's done what he can. It makes sense that Jun wouldn't talk to him about Aiba, after all, because he's Naka, and Jun has nothing to say to Naka.
Yet.
.
"Yeah, it was the worst experience of my life."
Naka rolls her eyes at Nino and doesn't say anything, leaning in close to wipe the concealer off the spot on his chin.
"I hope you had better luck with Aiba-kun, at least."
Naka lets out the most pained sigh Nino's ever heard, open and exaggerated, and Nino's almost sure she's unleashed the bitter ghosts of her ancestors now filling the space in Nino's bedroom and readying themselves to haunt him for the rest of his days. "I don't know how you deal with him. He has way too much energy, and the only way he gets rid of it is by talking or crying or breaking things."
Nino laughs, because he knows how she feels, and Naka clicks her tongue and grabs his chin to hold him in place, dragging a washcloth over Nino's face none too gently. "Ow, ow, stop that."
Naka steps back and nods, satisfied. "You're all done," she lies, because Nino can see his reflection in his mirror, and he looks like the saddest clown he's ever seen. "Let me borrow your bathroom, yeah? I need to let the girls out." She gestures at her chest, bound flat, and Nino spins her around and leads her by the shoulders in a march to the bathroom.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Naka says through the bathroom door, accompanied by the sound of shifting fabric. "How are you going to get him to explain why he broke up with Aiba-kun when it takes him a while to open up anyway?"
Nino leans against the wall and crosses his arms, staring at his feet. He wiggles his toes a little. "He knows me, and he won't want to talk to me if he knows I'm asking for Aiba-kun's sake. I had to find another way to talk to him." Nino wouldn't be doing what he's doing if he thought there was another way to get Jun to talk. (Nino also knows he wouldn't be doing what he's doing if Aiba hadn't rubbed off on him as much as he had, but he happily ignores that thought.)
"You really care about Aiba-kun, don't you? You're willing to do a lot for him." She sounds vaguely affectionate.
Nino scrunches his face sourly. "Shut up."
.
"Riisa-chan, are you sure you're okay? You've been a little weird this week."
Naka's friends crowd around her desk, peering anxiously, and Nino feels like he's surrounded by ravenous hounds, slobbering fashion magazines and rhinestones as they gnash their teeth in waiting. He shakes his head like a bobblehead and leans forward, chest first, lips second. "I think I might be sick." Blink blink, blink blink.
"I think you might be," Jun mutters, thumbing around on his phone in the next seat over, and Naka's friends graciously turn to him to chide him with venomous glares. Jun looks up and smirks at Nino, and Nino's heart rips through Naka's bra as it jumps straight to the blackboard and back. He knows. He knows.
"Just kidding," Jun says, his face softening into a smile. Maybe he doesn't know after all. "I have some medicine in my bag. I'll grab it for you during lunch."
"A-Ah, thank you," Nino responds gently, ducking his head as Naka's friends push teasingly at his shoulder. The stutter isn't real, but the astonishment is, because even Nino's still surprised sometimes at how kind Jun can be to people he doesn't even know.
And then the anger is back, indignation on behalf of a still sniffling best friend, because Jun should know how much Aiba deserves his kindness.
.
"No switch tomorrow," Nino says to Riisa over the phone that night, smearing the makeup off himself now that he's learned how. "I want to see how Aiba-kun's doing."
"He's doing fine, you know. He's stronger than you think he is."
Nino scoffs. "You don't know him the way I do. He's ready to break any minute now. And it's not going to be good enough if you're the one there with him."
Naka is silent for a long time, and Nino wonders suddenly if he's said too much. "You know," she says quietly, and Nino listens, trying to be more respectful this time. "If you're in love with him, you should just tell him."
Nino bursts like a dam, making a noise that's half between a laugh and a howl. "That's not it, stupid!"
.
Aiba breaks during third-period English the next day, and Nino knows it when he gets the crumpled note on his desk that says, I have a plan.
"Here's what we're going to do," Aiba says around a mouthful of gyoza, oil glistening at the corner of his mouth. "You know that girl in his class? Naka Riisa-chan." Nino's heard of her before, yes. "She looks just like you, right? Why don't you switch places with her and convince him to go out with me again? All right, perfect plan!" He pumps a victory fist and puts another dumpling in his mouth even though there's no room for it, and Nino wants to cry because as it turns out, he'd somehow come up with an Aiba-brained plan all on his own.
.
"Ohmygod, yes," Naka squeals later in Nino's room, her enthusiasm tickling the pages of their textbooks laid out on his table, her eyes a fine imitation of an overstuffed mind glistening with dreadful ideas. "That way I can pretend to be you pretending to be m--"
"No."
.
"Naka," Jun says some afternoons later (Nino's kept count, but he doesn't want to think about how used to skirts and bras he's become) when most of the students have flitted away to their afterschool activities.
Nino looks up from Naka's desk, where he's carelessly stuffing his notes into her bag, and smiles coyly at Jun, blink blink, blink blink. "What is it, Matsumoto-kun?"
Jun goes for cool, but Nino can tell he's nervous. "Are you... free right now? Do you want to grab something to eat?"
Nino blink blinks for real. Jun falling in love with Naka was not in the plan. "Yeah, sure," he says, nodding cutely. It may not be what was supposed to happen, but he'll use this to his advantage. Maybe Jun is comfortable enough now that he'll want to talk about Aiba.
Jun smiles widely, and he looks so sincerely happy and relieved that Nino's heart breaks for Aiba. "We can get hamburgers. I'll pay."
It only takes a moment for Nino's excitement at free hamburgers to drip into a scummy kind of feeling, like red hot betrayal, because this is exactly the opposite of what he had in mind.
.
Naka, Nino texts as soon as he's returned home, melting lifelessly into the sofa. Come over. We need to regroup.
It'll end that weekend. "Nino" will take Aiba out to help him forget about Jun, and "Naka" will go with Jun on a date, where they'll conveniently run into each other and remind Aiba and Jun how much they care about each other, and how they're perfect for each other and how they should just talk things out and figure out what went wrong and go back to being happy together. And then Nino and Naka will explain what they've up to all along, and Aiba's glee at Nino having actually followed through on something Aiba retroactively came up with will be nullified by Nino's glee that he got a free hamburger out of Jun. And Jun and Aiba will be back together, and everyone will be happy, and Nino will never have to wear a bra again.
That's the plan, at least. Naka rubs Nino's back softly as he emotionally readies himself for a mix-up, or a screw-up, or for something a lot sadder than he wants to come out of it all. He knows better now than to hope for the best.
.
Jun is a gentleman, and Nino can't stand the sight of him because he was never this nice to Aiba. But Naka wouldn't know that, and Nino tries not to let it show as he slinks his arm through Jun's and lets him lead them around the amusement park.
"This is unexpected," Nino purrs, careful to keep his steps small. "You seem so aloof in class."
Jun ducks his head and scratches at his nose. "I'd like to think that I'm nice once you get to know me."
Nino nods earnestly. "That's true. I'm actually surprised you warmed up to me this quickly."
Jun looks at Nino and grins, so close and present that Nino is amazed that he hasn't been found out yet. "I'm surprised, too. I guess it's that you remind me of a friend of mine."
You mean me? "Aiba-kun's friend, right?" Nino rolls his head around as if the marbles in his mind need some knocking before he can remember his own name. "That Ninomiya guy."
Jun chuckles. "Yeah, that guy. He's comfortable to be around, and lately I've been needing comfort. Something like that."
Nino wants to chase this conversation, but Naka probably wouldn't. He sticks his lip out and eyes Jun in mock hurt. "How horrible, talking about someone else when we're here on a date."
"Ah, yeah." Jun shakes his head. "Sorry about that." He looks up and sees a monstrosity of a ride, towering over them, its shadows painting the walkway in broad strokes. Nino watches as Jun's expression becomes animated, almost cartoonish. "Hey, this one! This is a great place to start!" And he shakes his arm loose and rushes forward, securing a coveted spot in line.
Nino's stomach turns, and as he shuffles forward in his frilled flats to catch up, he forces a smile, like he's baring his teeth at the world and at Naka for thinking an amusement park was a good idea. "Matsumoto-kun, I just remembered how much I love roller coasters."
.
The roller coaster returns Nino's love with a giant "Fuck you, too, Ninomiya", and Nino spends the next couple of hours nestled into Jun's neck, alternating between trying not to puke and trying to puke specifically on Jun's shoes. At least they don't have to run around "experiencing the fun", and it's nearing the time when they're supposed to accidentally on purpose run into "Nino" and Aiba.
"Sorry again, Matsumoto-kun," Nino says with a practiced high sigh.
Jun just pats Nino's shoulder soothingly. "I already told you, it's okay. Though I'm surprised you asked me to go to an amusement park when you have motion sickness."
"It's usually not like this," Nino explains. Usually he avoids the rides altogether. "It's been a while, though, and it seemed like something you would have enjoyed..." Nino trails off, hoping Jun picks up on the tentative lilt in his voice.
"Ah," Jun says with a nod, as if he just realized, as if it hasn't been hanging over them the entire day. "Aiba-kun does enjoy this kind of thing."
From his spot on Jun's shoulder, Nino watches Jun's fingers pinch and fuss at the fabric of his pants, and Nino gets angry at Jun all over again, for breaking up with Aiba even though he still cared about him, and for going on a date with his classmate even though his feelings aren't in it. Jun's careful enough to keep most people from catching on, but Nino can tell -- he's a mess and a jerk without Aiba.
The park clock rings like an alarm, and Nino steadies himself against the bench before he stands up, readjusting the strap of Naka's purse and nodding brightly. "Enough of that! Let's start a new adventure."
Jun grins as he stands. "Lame."
.
It's clichéd, but it works. The Tunnel of Love is where dreams come true, Nino's decided, and Nino's dream is to never have to deal with Aiba's wailing again. He leads Jun there by hand, and Jun spots it and says in response that it's definitely, super impossible, you can't be serious, I'm leaving now. But Nino digs his nails in, sharper today in case he had persuading to do, and Jun squints in pain before he gives in and stands in line.
Right on time, Aiba and Naka come rushing at them, oblivious as can be as Aiba chases Naka down for something Nino probably would have done to him. Nino pushes Jun forward, and Aiba knocks straight into him.
Aiba bows like a hyperactive drinking bird before he peeks up to see Jun watching him, alarmed. "MatsuJun? What are you doing here?"
"How about you? Why are you here?"
"Nino took me out," he says, jerking his thumb at Naka while he runs his eyes up Nino. "Naka Riisa-chan? Why are you here with MatsuJun?"
"I'm not," Naka says innocently from behind him. Aiba screws his head around like it's being turned by a drill, and Nino can't help but laugh at the ridiculous faces that Aiba and Jun are both throwing at them, at each other, at the wind.
"The next boat's ready," Nino says with a broad grin, pushing Jun and Aiba forward. "Now get in there and make up so that we can all move on with our lives."
.
Naka convinces Nino to go on the ride in the next boat, saying it'll soothe his stomach because it's secretly on a path and doesn't wiggle as much as usual boats do. Nino thinks he deserves a soothed stomach and then some, after all the trouble he's been through.
"I went on a roller coaster for them," he says dramatically into the tunnel, bubbly pink with love along the sides. He looks at Naka, who's smiling at him, and maybe it's the lighting and the water, but it looks like she has love all over her face, too, and he's not sure he dislikes it.
"You really care about them, don't you?"
Nino turns away and watches a fat little Cupid shoot an arrow across the path to the other side, where two animatronic puppets turn toward each other and kiss. "This is a really stupid ride."
Naka laughs and slips her arm into Nino's, and Nino blink blinks. "I always knew you were nicer than you let on."
"Have you fallen in love with me?" It's a joke, but he's almost serious about it.
"That's okay, right? You've already seen my underwear."
Nino giggles. Yeah, she's kind of all right.
.
The real plan, the original one, apparently involved a plea from a girl in 3-C who wanted to get to know a guy in 3-A. There's something about a fake breakup, and a second plan to get them fake back together, and tricking someone into cross-dressing, and people knowing the entire time, and conniving friends who should be crapped on by every bird in the park.
It's all in the past, though. As soon as Nino sees Jun and Aiba at the exit, hand-in-hand, gloatingly cheerful as they wave, he realizes he's been hanging out with the wrong crowd the entire time. He throws his wig to the ground and attempts to stomp away like a rampaging dinosaur, but three friends -- well, maybe two friends and one more-than-friend -- grab him and drag him away to the next ride.
Naka tugs at his hand, and Nino lets his fingers squeeze around hers as he threatens to puke on all of their shoes.
From: ltgmars
Title: Soulful Strut
Pairing/Focus: Nino/Riisa, Jun/Aiba
Rating: PG for language
Warnings: cross-dressing
Summary: Aiba is newly single and epically unbearable, so Nino decides to take matters into his own hands. Kind of.
Notes: I am just one in a long list of writers who've decided to exploit the Nino/Riisa similarity factor. Think The Parent Trap, but with non-twins and non-parents. Please willingly suspend your disbelief for this. Thank you, of course, to you who betaed, for betaing. augustfai, I hope you enjoy it! ♥
He realizes a little late that he should have started by going to the doctor to get his head checked, but he's already in too deep when he's pressed an unfamiliar series of numbers into his phone and he's exerted enough energy to drain him for the rest of the evening. No going back now.
"Hello?" a bubbly voice says on the other end.
"Naka? This is Ninomiya from 3-A, and I have a proposition."
Naka makes an irritated noise, and Nino wants to take it all back. She sounds like too much trouble to deal with already. "I hope you don't think real life works like a drama," she says, and she drawls on about how Nino should properly introduce himself and he can't expect a girl to just say "yes" when she doesn't even know him and does he think she doesn't have her own life to lead and how did he get her number anyway? In Nino's head she's chewing bubble gum and painting her toenails and twirling her hair around her finger and petting a small dog that probably doesn't even belong to her, all at once. "But it's kind of interesting this way, so go on."
Nino smirks. He can appreciate a person who's willing to do interesting things. It's high school, after all, and sometimes you have to make your own fun. "So here's what's up."
.
What's up is that Matsumoto Jun, Class 3-C Student Council representative, and Aiba Masaki, Class 3-A resident idiot, have been going out for a good six months. A painful six months, as far as Nino's concerned, because once Jun finally gave in to Aiba's relentless tirade of affection (that's how it happens with everyone, Nino included), it's been nothing but springtime and flower petals and giant watery eyes and too-long limbs like the ones that Nino pretends he doesn't see in his sister's shounen-ai manga, starring Aiba and every single opportunity he has to bring up his gorgeous boyfriend, Jun.
It's a school-wide scandal, and then it becomes the school's token couple, because who would ever have thought that cool, untouchable Matsumoto Jun would fall for anyone, much less someone so completely unlike him as Aiba?
Nino gets it, though, and the first time he meets Jun in his capacity as Aiba's best friend, he sees what most people miss: the way Jun's much deeper than his looks suggest, the way he's pensive, self-critical, hard to get close to out of courtesy to others. He also sees the way Aiba brings Jun out, makes him feel comfortable and relaxed and secure in a way Jun's probably never experienced before, makes him like himself more because being chosen by Aiba makes him feel like he's probably not so bad to be around.
Nino understands those feelings, and he understands the pull Aiba has on people, gravitational, comforting like the smell of freshly-cooked monja in the kitchen downstairs after a long night of studying. So it's hard for him to understand what could possibly be going through Jun's mind when he decides, seemingly out of nowhere, to break up with Aiba.
It's exhausting at first, when Aiba floats to him one day on a wave of his own tears, and it makes Nino seasick with the way Aiba blubbers through words that rise and sway and pulsate endlessly. And then it's angering, frighteningly so, because Jun should know not to make Aiba sad, and not to leave him for Nino to deal with, because as considerate as Jun thinks he is, that's one of the most inconsiderate things he can ever do.
And then it's inspiring, in some sense of the word, because it lets Nino come up with a plan.
.
It's a pretty demented plan, he realizes as he tugs his skirt down a little lower in front of the Class 3-C door. He takes a deep breath in an attempt to keep his nausea to himself, clutching the strap of Naka's bag tighter within his newly manicured fingers. He's been debriefed earlier that morning on the characters in 3-C, the ones who'll call him "Riisa-chan" and "Riri" and "Nakarii", the ones who have their own stupid nicknames he almost doesn't want to say out loud.
He steels himself with one last huff, and then lets his body noodle into that of an attractive, confident 17-year-old girl. "Let's do this," he mutters to himself, and then he squeezes his vocal cords as he slides the door open and waits for his body to lift off the ground with the amount of dignity he's losing.
"Riisa-chan, good morning!" Yoshitaka chimes. Nino's met her before -- she's Toma's girlfriend, and the person who had Naka's number for Toma to pass along. She's also Naka's best friend, and one of the people most liable to recognize him.
"Good morning, Yuri-chan," Nino wheezes out with affected sweetness, swaying his hips as he heads toward Naka's seat. The next row over, Jun looks up from his book and stares for a terrifyingly long moment before returning his attention to the chamber of secrets that Nino can only wish he could throw himself into.
Every click of Naka's heels on Nino's feet sounds like a mantra: "This is stupid, this is stupid, this is stupid." But he's here already, his face painted and everything. There's really no turning back.
"Good morning, Matsumoto-kun," Nino says, letting the greeting unravel toward Jun like a Swiss roll.
Jun blinks at his book, and Nino thinks it's all over then, because Jun actually knows Nino, knows him better than most people do. But Jun simply returns the greeting with a slight turn of his head. "Good morning."
Bad morning, the worst morning. The wig is itchy, and the bra even itchier, and Nino's filled with so much nervous energy that he's lost his concentration and his appetite and his motor skills. His notes in Naka's notebook come out looking like a cubist interpretation of his birth. He's here on a mission, though, and he's not leaving until he accomplishes it.
"Matsumoto-kun," Nino sing-songs at lunchtime. "It's strange to see you here during lunch. Don't you usually visit 3-A?"
Jun acts casual (and does a poor job of it, but if Nino were actually Naka, he wouldn't have noticed) as he swallows the bite of tamagoyaki he'd been working on. "Not anymore."
"Hmm," Nino hums, carefully forcing his throat up into his nose as the sound finishes. "Why not?" He flops his wrist back and forth, drawing a butterfly in the air with his chopsticks. Seems girly, maybe.
"Don't feel like it," Jun says simply, smiling, cold and distant and back to untouchable. Nino's not used to him this way, and he fights down the urge to rip his shirt open and show Jun the socks he's stuffed inside Naka's bra and roar his demands for a better reason as to why he decided to hurt someone they both care so much about. But he wins that fight, and he decides that he's done what he can. It makes sense that Jun wouldn't talk to him about Aiba, after all, because he's Naka, and Jun has nothing to say to Naka.
Yet.
.
"Yeah, it was the worst experience of my life."
Naka rolls her eyes at Nino and doesn't say anything, leaning in close to wipe the concealer off the spot on his chin.
"I hope you had better luck with Aiba-kun, at least."
Naka lets out the most pained sigh Nino's ever heard, open and exaggerated, and Nino's almost sure she's unleashed the bitter ghosts of her ancestors now filling the space in Nino's bedroom and readying themselves to haunt him for the rest of his days. "I don't know how you deal with him. He has way too much energy, and the only way he gets rid of it is by talking or crying or breaking things."
Nino laughs, because he knows how she feels, and Naka clicks her tongue and grabs his chin to hold him in place, dragging a washcloth over Nino's face none too gently. "Ow, ow, stop that."
Naka steps back and nods, satisfied. "You're all done," she lies, because Nino can see his reflection in his mirror, and he looks like the saddest clown he's ever seen. "Let me borrow your bathroom, yeah? I need to let the girls out." She gestures at her chest, bound flat, and Nino spins her around and leads her by the shoulders in a march to the bathroom.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Naka says through the bathroom door, accompanied by the sound of shifting fabric. "How are you going to get him to explain why he broke up with Aiba-kun when it takes him a while to open up anyway?"
Nino leans against the wall and crosses his arms, staring at his feet. He wiggles his toes a little. "He knows me, and he won't want to talk to me if he knows I'm asking for Aiba-kun's sake. I had to find another way to talk to him." Nino wouldn't be doing what he's doing if he thought there was another way to get Jun to talk. (Nino also knows he wouldn't be doing what he's doing if Aiba hadn't rubbed off on him as much as he had, but he happily ignores that thought.)
"You really care about Aiba-kun, don't you? You're willing to do a lot for him." She sounds vaguely affectionate.
Nino scrunches his face sourly. "Shut up."
.
"Riisa-chan, are you sure you're okay? You've been a little weird this week."
Naka's friends crowd around her desk, peering anxiously, and Nino feels like he's surrounded by ravenous hounds, slobbering fashion magazines and rhinestones as they gnash their teeth in waiting. He shakes his head like a bobblehead and leans forward, chest first, lips second. "I think I might be sick." Blink blink, blink blink.
"I think you might be," Jun mutters, thumbing around on his phone in the next seat over, and Naka's friends graciously turn to him to chide him with venomous glares. Jun looks up and smirks at Nino, and Nino's heart rips through Naka's bra as it jumps straight to the blackboard and back. He knows. He knows.
"Just kidding," Jun says, his face softening into a smile. Maybe he doesn't know after all. "I have some medicine in my bag. I'll grab it for you during lunch."
"A-Ah, thank you," Nino responds gently, ducking his head as Naka's friends push teasingly at his shoulder. The stutter isn't real, but the astonishment is, because even Nino's still surprised sometimes at how kind Jun can be to people he doesn't even know.
And then the anger is back, indignation on behalf of a still sniffling best friend, because Jun should know how much Aiba deserves his kindness.
.
"No switch tomorrow," Nino says to Riisa over the phone that night, smearing the makeup off himself now that he's learned how. "I want to see how Aiba-kun's doing."
"He's doing fine, you know. He's stronger than you think he is."
Nino scoffs. "You don't know him the way I do. He's ready to break any minute now. And it's not going to be good enough if you're the one there with him."
Naka is silent for a long time, and Nino wonders suddenly if he's said too much. "You know," she says quietly, and Nino listens, trying to be more respectful this time. "If you're in love with him, you should just tell him."
Nino bursts like a dam, making a noise that's half between a laugh and a howl. "That's not it, stupid!"
.
Aiba breaks during third-period English the next day, and Nino knows it when he gets the crumpled note on his desk that says, I have a plan.
"Here's what we're going to do," Aiba says around a mouthful of gyoza, oil glistening at the corner of his mouth. "You know that girl in his class? Naka Riisa-chan." Nino's heard of her before, yes. "She looks just like you, right? Why don't you switch places with her and convince him to go out with me again? All right, perfect plan!" He pumps a victory fist and puts another dumpling in his mouth even though there's no room for it, and Nino wants to cry because as it turns out, he'd somehow come up with an Aiba-brained plan all on his own.
.
"Ohmygod, yes," Naka squeals later in Nino's room, her enthusiasm tickling the pages of their textbooks laid out on his table, her eyes a fine imitation of an overstuffed mind glistening with dreadful ideas. "That way I can pretend to be you pretending to be m--"
"No."
.
"Naka," Jun says some afternoons later (Nino's kept count, but he doesn't want to think about how used to skirts and bras he's become) when most of the students have flitted away to their afterschool activities.
Nino looks up from Naka's desk, where he's carelessly stuffing his notes into her bag, and smiles coyly at Jun, blink blink, blink blink. "What is it, Matsumoto-kun?"
Jun goes for cool, but Nino can tell he's nervous. "Are you... free right now? Do you want to grab something to eat?"
Nino blink blinks for real. Jun falling in love with Naka was not in the plan. "Yeah, sure," he says, nodding cutely. It may not be what was supposed to happen, but he'll use this to his advantage. Maybe Jun is comfortable enough now that he'll want to talk about Aiba.
Jun smiles widely, and he looks so sincerely happy and relieved that Nino's heart breaks for Aiba. "We can get hamburgers. I'll pay."
It only takes a moment for Nino's excitement at free hamburgers to drip into a scummy kind of feeling, like red hot betrayal, because this is exactly the opposite of what he had in mind.
.
Naka, Nino texts as soon as he's returned home, melting lifelessly into the sofa. Come over. We need to regroup.
It'll end that weekend. "Nino" will take Aiba out to help him forget about Jun, and "Naka" will go with Jun on a date, where they'll conveniently run into each other and remind Aiba and Jun how much they care about each other, and how they're perfect for each other and how they should just talk things out and figure out what went wrong and go back to being happy together. And then Nino and Naka will explain what they've up to all along, and Aiba's glee at Nino having actually followed through on something Aiba retroactively came up with will be nullified by Nino's glee that he got a free hamburger out of Jun. And Jun and Aiba will be back together, and everyone will be happy, and Nino will never have to wear a bra again.
That's the plan, at least. Naka rubs Nino's back softly as he emotionally readies himself for a mix-up, or a screw-up, or for something a lot sadder than he wants to come out of it all. He knows better now than to hope for the best.
.
Jun is a gentleman, and Nino can't stand the sight of him because he was never this nice to Aiba. But Naka wouldn't know that, and Nino tries not to let it show as he slinks his arm through Jun's and lets him lead them around the amusement park.
"This is unexpected," Nino purrs, careful to keep his steps small. "You seem so aloof in class."
Jun ducks his head and scratches at his nose. "I'd like to think that I'm nice once you get to know me."
Nino nods earnestly. "That's true. I'm actually surprised you warmed up to me this quickly."
Jun looks at Nino and grins, so close and present that Nino is amazed that he hasn't been found out yet. "I'm surprised, too. I guess it's that you remind me of a friend of mine."
You mean me? "Aiba-kun's friend, right?" Nino rolls his head around as if the marbles in his mind need some knocking before he can remember his own name. "That Ninomiya guy."
Jun chuckles. "Yeah, that guy. He's comfortable to be around, and lately I've been needing comfort. Something like that."
Nino wants to chase this conversation, but Naka probably wouldn't. He sticks his lip out and eyes Jun in mock hurt. "How horrible, talking about someone else when we're here on a date."
"Ah, yeah." Jun shakes his head. "Sorry about that." He looks up and sees a monstrosity of a ride, towering over them, its shadows painting the walkway in broad strokes. Nino watches as Jun's expression becomes animated, almost cartoonish. "Hey, this one! This is a great place to start!" And he shakes his arm loose and rushes forward, securing a coveted spot in line.
Nino's stomach turns, and as he shuffles forward in his frilled flats to catch up, he forces a smile, like he's baring his teeth at the world and at Naka for thinking an amusement park was a good idea. "Matsumoto-kun, I just remembered how much I love roller coasters."
.
The roller coaster returns Nino's love with a giant "Fuck you, too, Ninomiya", and Nino spends the next couple of hours nestled into Jun's neck, alternating between trying not to puke and trying to puke specifically on Jun's shoes. At least they don't have to run around "experiencing the fun", and it's nearing the time when they're supposed to accidentally on purpose run into "Nino" and Aiba.
"Sorry again, Matsumoto-kun," Nino says with a practiced high sigh.
Jun just pats Nino's shoulder soothingly. "I already told you, it's okay. Though I'm surprised you asked me to go to an amusement park when you have motion sickness."
"It's usually not like this," Nino explains. Usually he avoids the rides altogether. "It's been a while, though, and it seemed like something you would have enjoyed..." Nino trails off, hoping Jun picks up on the tentative lilt in his voice.
"Ah," Jun says with a nod, as if he just realized, as if it hasn't been hanging over them the entire day. "Aiba-kun does enjoy this kind of thing."
From his spot on Jun's shoulder, Nino watches Jun's fingers pinch and fuss at the fabric of his pants, and Nino gets angry at Jun all over again, for breaking up with Aiba even though he still cared about him, and for going on a date with his classmate even though his feelings aren't in it. Jun's careful enough to keep most people from catching on, but Nino can tell -- he's a mess and a jerk without Aiba.
The park clock rings like an alarm, and Nino steadies himself against the bench before he stands up, readjusting the strap of Naka's purse and nodding brightly. "Enough of that! Let's start a new adventure."
Jun grins as he stands. "Lame."
.
It's clichéd, but it works. The Tunnel of Love is where dreams come true, Nino's decided, and Nino's dream is to never have to deal with Aiba's wailing again. He leads Jun there by hand, and Jun spots it and says in response that it's definitely, super impossible, you can't be serious, I'm leaving now. But Nino digs his nails in, sharper today in case he had persuading to do, and Jun squints in pain before he gives in and stands in line.
Right on time, Aiba and Naka come rushing at them, oblivious as can be as Aiba chases Naka down for something Nino probably would have done to him. Nino pushes Jun forward, and Aiba knocks straight into him.
Aiba bows like a hyperactive drinking bird before he peeks up to see Jun watching him, alarmed. "MatsuJun? What are you doing here?"
"How about you? Why are you here?"
"Nino took me out," he says, jerking his thumb at Naka while he runs his eyes up Nino. "Naka Riisa-chan? Why are you here with MatsuJun?"
"I'm not," Naka says innocently from behind him. Aiba screws his head around like it's being turned by a drill, and Nino can't help but laugh at the ridiculous faces that Aiba and Jun are both throwing at them, at each other, at the wind.
"The next boat's ready," Nino says with a broad grin, pushing Jun and Aiba forward. "Now get in there and make up so that we can all move on with our lives."
.
Naka convinces Nino to go on the ride in the next boat, saying it'll soothe his stomach because it's secretly on a path and doesn't wiggle as much as usual boats do. Nino thinks he deserves a soothed stomach and then some, after all the trouble he's been through.
"I went on a roller coaster for them," he says dramatically into the tunnel, bubbly pink with love along the sides. He looks at Naka, who's smiling at him, and maybe it's the lighting and the water, but it looks like she has love all over her face, too, and he's not sure he dislikes it.
"You really care about them, don't you?"
Nino turns away and watches a fat little Cupid shoot an arrow across the path to the other side, where two animatronic puppets turn toward each other and kiss. "This is a really stupid ride."
Naka laughs and slips her arm into Nino's, and Nino blink blinks. "I always knew you were nicer than you let on."
"Have you fallen in love with me?" It's a joke, but he's almost serious about it.
"That's okay, right? You've already seen my underwear."
Nino giggles. Yeah, she's kind of all right.
.
The real plan, the original one, apparently involved a plea from a girl in 3-C who wanted to get to know a guy in 3-A. There's something about a fake breakup, and a second plan to get them fake back together, and tricking someone into cross-dressing, and people knowing the entire time, and conniving friends who should be crapped on by every bird in the park.
It's all in the past, though. As soon as Nino sees Jun and Aiba at the exit, hand-in-hand, gloatingly cheerful as they wave, he realizes he's been hanging out with the wrong crowd the entire time. He throws his wig to the ground and attempts to stomp away like a rampaging dinosaur, but three friends -- well, maybe two friends and one more-than-friend -- grab him and drag him away to the next ride.
Naka tugs at his hand, and Nino lets his fingers squeeze around hers as he threatens to puke on all of their shoes.