50 je-prompts: #040. outside
rating/genre: PG, supernatural au, slice of life, romance
pairing(s): Ohmiya, slight Sakuraiba
words: 2423
summary: Ohno sneaks Nino outside.
disclaimer: fiction.
notes: Direct continuation of this part of the Ink AU. An inkling of drama.
we tasted summer in the afternoon
Ohno takes Nino’s hand and pulls him up from the floor. He tugs him along behind him into the corridor and along the wall. Nino obediently follows, wryly smiling.
He whispers as he peers around the corner. “My parents will find it odd that you’re here. We’ll sneak out.”
Ohno slides the front door slowly, the friction of wood against wood making only the slightest of rumbles. After he’s opened it to a size suitable for a young child he motions for Nino to go through. Nino gives him an incredulous glare but sucks his stomach in and slips out into the street with little difficulty.
The neighborhood has woken up. Housewives are out idly watering plants while having a chat with their next door neighbour. A few men pass by on rusty bicycles with heavy loads on their back, and in the distance a baby wails. Nino’s attention is perked when a mew sounds near his shoulder; a cat is lying on the bamboo fencing and looking down on them with sleepy contempt.
Nino isn’t quite sure when they reach the market as the scenery around them gradually changes; the smattering of people on the road grows to become a chattering crowd pushing for space, the houses disappear leaving stalls upon stalls in their wake. The gentle awakening of the neighbourhood is gone, replaced by the bustle of the market, and Nino feels wide awake, skin prickling in his alertness. People constantly flow around them and it feels as if he is being pulled along by the current.
Ohno makes a motion to Nino, who is open-mouthed from a sleight-of-hand practitioner alongside the road, and points to the building they’ve arrived at.
“This is where I learn dance.”
Ohno slides the door open unceremoniously, kicking his geta off in the entrance and silently alighting onto the main floor. Nino observes this bemusedly and slips off his own shoes, lining them and Ohno’s shoes up with the other geta. He hops up onto the elevated flooring with a quiet “pardon my intrusion.”
The dance class had been beating a rhythm out on the wooden flooring when they had entered, the high notes of two koto piercing the muddy air of the overly warm studio, but all the students have now stopped to swarm around Ohno. There are students who look barely twelve with bowl cuts and rosy cheeks, but most of them appear to be in their late teens; muscles lean but strong and voices just beginning to truly deepen. An older woman leaning on a walking stick sighs and motions the koto players to stop playing. Ohno puts on the air of a sage and a sweep of his arm parts the sea of youths. His arm stops to gesture at Nino, who had decided to keep out of the ruckus by lurking along the wall where bags and lunch boxes have been haphazardly piled. Nino silently raises an eyebrow.
“This is Nino. He will be joining the class today,” Ohno says.
Before Nino can say anything, the instructor interrupts. “I am not accepting any more students for the year,” she says dryly, staring Ohno’s blank expression down. “Please do not give me that dead-fish look, it does nothing but ruin what good looks you retain. Do you know how long you have not come to your lessons?”
The way that Ohno actually pauses to think has the instructor tapping an irritated beat on the floor with her stick. Students are quickly dispersing like woodland animals that can sense a pre-eminent disaster.
It is Nino’s turn to interrupt, Ohno’s frustrated instructor opening her mouth to give Ohno a verbal beating for wasting his parent’s tuition money and allowing his skills to rust.
“Just long enough to reach a golden-brown, Madam,” he calls out from his wall. The instructor’s sharp eyes flick to Nino, a small smile now playing on her lips.
“I see the new student is good with words. I wonder if your body is as agile as your mouth? All new students require an audition first.” She takes one look at his slim, unmuscular form and waves him to take the center of the dance floor with a wry grin. The koto players obediently resume playing.
Nino is unmoving. Above the twangs of the music he protests glumly, “I have never danced in my entire existence. Which, by the way, has not been a very long one.” As he stares down the dance instructor with a poisonous glare, Ohno comes over and taps him on the shoulder.
“It’s okay, Nino. I’ll handle this.”
“Good, because you started it,” Nino retorts, ears still red from being the unwanted center of attention.
“I have to show everyone I can still dance, anyway. Ma will get mad if I’m expelled,” Ohno murmurs as he steps forward.
Ohno moves with grace and purpose. Not dressed like the other students in robes made to accommodate leg movement he purposely loosens his yukata slightly, exposing his thigh as he extends into his starting position. In his concentration, Nino’s rapt attention to his bare skin is left unnoticed. Disregarded by both of them, the students who had taken cover peek out from the main entrance and creep back in, lining up along the walls and watching Ohno carefully.
While Nino finds himself unable to look away, intoxicated by the unbreaking series of intricate movements, Ohno shuts his eyes and drowns in the reverberations of the koto. Fishing is one of his greatest pleasures and indulgences, and he would never be able to put down his ink brush for good, but dancing is different. Dancing engulfs him. It sinks deep into his skin and stains him only to overflow; every flick of a wrist or kick of a leg seeming to scatter droplets of colour in their path. It swallows and spits him out and all he is left with is the unwavering beat taunting him to try and follow along. Dancing gives him life.
As if Ohno had been diligently attending classes all year, he and the musicians are in perfect synchronisation; he stills into a final pose just as the sound stops. The boys watching clap loudly and a couple whistle. Ohno opens his eyes just in time to see Nino glance away, ears red and mouth pursed.
The instructor applauds slowly, if not reluctantly. “A relief to see lying on the river bank all day hasn’t done too much damage,” she says.
“Actually, I go deep-sea fishing,” Ohno murmurs. She simply gives him a strong look in return and calls for class to be dismissed. The mild chatter turns into a loud ruckus as students jostle to talk to Ohno, and to a lesser extent, Nino.
At the back door the instructor gives one last look at the students milling around, a small smile inching across her mouth. “I’ll be expecting you next week, Ohno-kun. It’s good to have you back.”
____
Nino is suffocating. There are a lot of people crowding around and coming towards him, and the dance studio was already warm to begin with. The fresh morning air from outside can’t be felt at all through the pulse of excitement from seeing a new face, especially one introduced by the Ohno Satoshi, who is trapped in his own personal crowd. Despite the students surrounding him eagerly asking him questions, all he can do is close his eyes and focus on breathing.
He suddenly feels someone fill the palm of his hand with their own. Nino’s eyes snap open to look up into a young man’s calm eyes. “Let’s go. Don’t worry, we’re collecting Ohno-kun too.”
Anything is better than the situation he’s in, so Nino lets himself be pulled along by the muscular arm that he notices is coated in a sheen of sweat. In the boy’s other hand he’s holding two pairs of geta. The sturdy back and purposeful stride is pretty comforting to look at, so Nino focuses on the way the fabric across his shoulder blades folds and stretches with every movement. In his concentration the sudden burst of cool air hits him like a bucket of water splashed on his face. His rescuer looks back and laughs abruptly and loudly at his face.
“You looked like you were having some trouble,” he says as he sets down the geta and motions to step off the engawa and make their way along a pebbled footpath. Nino tries to scoff, only a strangled cough coming out.
“Didn’t mean I needed a prince to come along. And these are too big.”
“Right. Oh, sorry, those are Aiba-chan’s. I didn’t know which were yours.”
Nino sniffs but slips into them anyway, the heels clip-clopping against the pebbles with every step he takes.
They reach a part of the garden where it is shaded and they are able to sit on a large patch of grass. The boy settles down with a sigh, untying his makeshift bandanna and running a hand through his dark hair. He bows his head slightly, which Nino returns.
“I’m Sakurai Sho. And I hear you are Nino?” Sho smiles gently, though his front teeth still peek out from between his full lips.
“You can call me that, yes,” he replies, looking around. “Will Ohno-san be here soon?”
“In a minute. It was probably harder to get to him through the crowd.” Then they are silent; Nino simply relishing the open air and quiet that the garden provided. After a minute Sho pipes up.
“So you’re a friend of Ohno-kun?”
“You could say that,” Nino replies.
“And you’re joining our dance classes?”
“Now that’s something you can’t say without becoming a filthy liar.”
“Oh really,” Sho says, raising an eyebrow. “Ohno-kun seemed pretty sure about it.”
Nino snorts. “Well he didn’t really ask me first, so I don’t know where his confidence came from.” Maybe from the fact that he was created by him, he quickly realises.
Tickled by Nino’s lack of enthusiasm, Sho laughs. “You should join, it’s fun. There are even a few who are aiming to go professional.”
Nino thinks back to the dance studio that filled with Ohno’s presence the moment he began dancing; the way his eyes closed but his body knew exactly where to go.
“Like Ohno-san,” he finishes. Sho nods.
“He’s amazing,” he says, looking at Nino with a knowing smile.
“He’s just better than one would expect,” Nino replies.
“It helps that his teacher knows how to tame him,” Sho went on, plucking at the grass. “If she didn’t he probably wouldn’t come at all.”
Nino frowns and he can feel his brow furrowing. “He hasn’t. He’s been too busy fishing off a boat.”
“Sometimes he needs to get on a boat and fish for a while, and she knows that. But she also knows how to get him to come back.”
“So he wanders off a lot?” Nino asks slowly.
“He can’t help it, it’s in his nature,” Sho shrugs. Before Nino can ask how often he decides to disappear and how exactly one gets Ohno to come back, a trampling of pebbles and high-pitched laughter catches his attention.
“Sho-chan! You made it!” A young man all long limbs and white teeth leads the pack which includes Ohno, looking disheveled and dazed, followed by a boy holding a lunch box five tiers high.
“Of course I did, what took you so long?” Nino’s ears pick up on the change of tone in his voice. While Sho was like warm honey with Nino, gentle as if handling a lost child, the way he talks to the boy who immediately sits down between them is almost brusque, lacking the boundaries of politeness that buffered their own conversation moments earlier.
Ohno settles on the other side of Nino, sighing deeply on the way down. “This is Aiba-chan, and this is Jun-kun.”
The way that Aiba looks at Nino is curious, if not downright exploratory. “I’m wearing your shoes,” he announces, unabashedly looking him up and down.
“I believe I’m wearing yours too,” Nino says back, examining Aiba just as thoroughly. The smile he receives is blinding.
____
“Nino’s here because I wanted him to be,” Ohno says from his position lying flat on his back, feet pointing outwards, so matter-of-factly as if he actually understands how the lines of ink on his paper came to life in a perfect recreation of the skinny, moody boy he thought of in his sleep. His answer to the question of where Nino came from is overly simple, but Aiba nods thoughtfully anyway.
“Ohno-san, it may be hard for you but don’t be stupid.” Nino smile is a little distant, but he reaches for his hand nonetheless.
“You’re a dream come true, Nino,” Ohno beams sleepily.
“Don’t make me throw up.”
Jun huffs and offers around some more rice balls and Sho chuckles and accepts his third. Aiba’s own half-eaten rice ball is held limply in his hand, forgotten. He watches, almost hypnotised by the paths Nino is tracing along the lines on Ohno’s palm with his thumb, and wonders if it means he has a chance for his dream to come true too.
____
The afternoon sun is burning brightly, and Nino can feel the back of his neck prickling from the heat. Sho and Aiba had made their goodbyes soon after finishing their meals; Sho moaning about the arithmetic homework that was still not completed and Aiba deciding to follow for sheer entertainment. From the reactions of Ohno and Jun, it appeared to be a common occurrence. Jun had excused himself shortly afterwards as soon as the lunch boxes had been gathered up.
They pass vendors who shout for their attention; all of Nino’s focus is on the way Ohno brushes arms with him as they both walk jagged paths. He forces himself to concentrate.
Nino doesn’t do build-up. “Are you going to wander off again?”
Ohno does do large spans of silence.
“...Probably. Eventually.”
“You made me. Don’t just leave whenever you want.”
“I do come back.” The pout Ohno makes is both adorable and infuriatingly stubborn.
“That’s not the point.” Nino knows he’s sounding needy, but he shrugs it off because that is how Ohno imagined him to be, filled with emotional self-preservational tendencies that may manifest as selfishness, and he’s not going to bother fighting that.
Beautiful things don’t last forever.