of tomorrows, 1/2
Title: Of Tomorrows
Pairing(s): Sho/Nino, Ohno/Jun, implied Aiba/Jun
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~19,900
Summary: Sho's assignment for the month of August is simple enough: find Ninomiya Kazunari.
A/N: This was written for the 2010 je_ficgames challenge. I was on Team AU (and we won! yay us!) and wrote for the prompt 'tell me the news, baby.' This fic basically sapped me dry, and I wrote part of it on a plane and finished it in an airport, but all that aside I couldn't have done this without the help of my betas aeslis and toinkydoink. ♥
Sho's assignment for the month of August is simple enough: find Ninomiya Kazunari.
At least, it had sounded easy until Aiba explained that Ninomiya Kazunari was an expert at staying hidden and therefore no paparazzo had ever gotten close enough to find out any juicy details about the guy. He was an actor and had a laundry list of awards pinned next to his name, but everyone knew that already. The tabloid magazines wanted something else to latch their dirty little hands on. They wanted something, anything that would set the entire entertainment industry aflame with pointed fingers and random girls crying in shame and disbelief.
Most importantly they wanted something that would bring in the money.
It was always about the money. This is why Sho became a paparazzo in the first place. Aiba had shown him the checks with scribbled values of seventy, eighty, ninety thousand yen just for a single picture of some B-grade actress throwing up into the river or a famous model trying to hitchhike with the heel of her silver stiletto, and Sho had been so disgusted and intrigued at the same time that he couldn't help but say yes when Aiba invited him out one night, just to get a feel for the game. He'd leant Sho a camera, one of the heavy, professional ones that Aiba had lots of, and he'd given Sho a VIP pass direct from the tabloid Weekend.
And they went out. To sleazy, seedy bars with funky names like Sunday Monday and Leaky Monaco, to five-star restaurants that had reservations made for months into the future, to back alleys where drunken celebrities made out without a care in the world and also without a care for where their hands were wandering. Within a few hours Aiba had snapped hundreds of photos; Sho, about twenty.
Aiba had just smiled widely. "Don't you worry, Sho-chan," he'd said. "I'll teach you everything you need to know."
From that day on, Sho's name appeared in Weekend's paparazzi list. He started getting calls, too, and checks with small monetary values for his blurry, pixilated photos of celebrities doing the walk of shame at five AM. It was all convenience, really; Sho delivered groceries to residents all over Tokyo as a day job and started his runs around that time.
So August came and a letter showed up on Sho's desk with all the details of his new assignment. It required him to put down his camera and to change his grocery delivery route to include Ninomiya's apartment, which Weekend had struggled to find. But they'd figured out which one it was, finally, and they decided to send someone they could afford to lose to risk his life and dignity for a couple of random tidbits of information.
Sho wasn't the best photographer in the business. That was Aiba. But Sho was intelligent and could worm his way into things even if he had to beat back his morals and conscience to do them. He could take his camera and make it sound like he was a preppy photojournalist just wanting to take pictures of the restaurant; he could make it seem like he was actually invited to black-tie affairs when in reality Weekend had to pull fifty thousand strings to just get him into the building.
Even if the business made Sho want to vomit, he got used to it. He had to, because he and Aiba still lived in a crappy apartment with ridiculously high rent, and they were forced to pay bills and feed themselves and the kittens (they had two, a tabby and a black one).
If Sho decided to take on the Ninomiya assignment, he would get paid a lovely bonus, as would Aiba. They would get regular checks instead of getting paid whenever Weekend remembered that their legions of paparazzi had actual lives and weren't simply bats leaving their caves at night. They could buy new cameras, healthier cat food, new curtains to replace the fraying ones.
Sho signed on the dotted line.
-
Sometimes Sho wonders when this whole paparazzo thing started. It all began with Aiba, certainly, but it can't be as long as they've known each other because Sho didn't even know that there was anything beyond Aiba's photography major until they had passed the one-year mark as best friends. And even after that it had taken some time for Aiba to convince him that being a paparazzo wasn't all that bad--you just had to look beyond the fact that you were invading other people's lives, Aiba had explained offhandedly. You had to do it for a reason, money or recognition or something, anything that's more than just wanting to stalk celebrities for the hell of it.
Aiba has a reason. Aiba has a reason that walks runways and does his hair every morning with careful, practiced precision, a reason known as one of the best male models in the business, who used to be an actor when he was a kid but grew up and found that he could get paid for simply looking good.
Aiba has a reason named Matsumoto Jun.
If anyone asks Aiba how exactly he became a paparazzo, he'll just laugh for a moment and then shrug nonchalantly. There isn't really a story behind it, he'll say, the smile on his face one rich with nostalgia and a tinge of sadness. My dad had cameras and I lived next door to Matsumoto Jun.
We grew up together, he'll continue, and wistfully so. Before he got famous, you know? Jun-kun was my best friend. We did lots of things together.
Aiba's excitement will grow. And now Sho-chan and I do a lot of things together, he'll continue, and the feelings in him will bubble over as if he's reached some sort of boiling point. We met only a year ago, you know! But it's like we're best friends. No, we are best friends--we have an apartment together, and we're going to be living in it still when we finish college. It's so much fun, being with Sho-chan all the time.
But what, the other person will press on, about Matsumoto Jun?
If Aiba was at a boiling point one second before, something else in him will immediately freeze over. But the only way to know that change has happened is to find the new quiver in his voice, barely noticeable but there. It will be like someone has taken a pen and written in an accidental note on a once-perfect score of music, and even the most experienced musicians will have to squint.
It was kind of my dad's fault, Aiba will say, and that will be the end of the conversation--unless the other person is a certain Sakurai Sho, and the two of them are sitting in the dark of Sho's dorm room at two in the morning one lonely night, counting the stars as they sit together on the futon.
By the time Aiba reaches this point in the story, they have both counted twenty-seven stars each; enough to fill up one-third of a cup of the Milky Way (at least, according to Aiba's recipe).
At star twenty-eight Aiba continues his tale, but his voice will have thinned out. Sho has to lean in to listen.
Jun-kun was a child actor, right, Aiba says, and Sho nods. So my dad took lots of pictures of Jun's family through the window of our kitchen because you could see into Jun's house--he took pictures of them eating dinner and watching television. Just normal stuff, like the things you and I do together. But Jun's family, they…
Aiba trails off. Of course Sho can piece together the rest: the Matsumotos finding out about their prying neighbors and moving away, worlds away; forbidding their son from talking to Aiba ever again.
I don't think he remembers me, Aiba says after Sho has laid a hand on his shoulder. So maybe if I keep doing this I'll find him. Do you think so, Sho-chan? Maybe one day I'll get an assignment to photograph Matsumoto Jun, and we'll run into each other, and he'll remember everything we used to have!
Sho-chan, Aiba says after a long moment filled only with simple, even breaths. Do you think that's stupid?
No, Sho responds, and he means it very much. How could it be?
I don't know, Aiba breathes, and flops backwards on the bed. His outstretched legs dangle over the edge and Sho watches his toes wiggle in the semi-darkness. I just never thought I'd be doing this. When I was little I was supposed to take over the family restaurant, you know? And then my dad gave me a Polaroid camera and I liked taking pictures, so my brother started getting training instead of me.
And now we're here, he finishes, and laughs slightly. Two boys on a bed.
Um, Sho says, and Aiba laughs even more.
All I can say, Sho continues, is that I never thought I'd end up here, either.
Two boys on a bed? Aiba suggests.
You could say that, Sho says, and lies down next to Aiba, who has his eyes closed. Whether he's thinking or about to fall asleep Sho doesn't know, but he keeps on talking anyway.
What are we going to do with all these stars? he asks.
If you fill up one cup with the Milky Way your wish will come true, Aiba mumbles in response. His head finds Sho's shoulder. But that's a lot of stars.
And only one wish, says Sho. That's not the best deal.
Trust the economics major to point out things like that, Aiba yawns, and also to have really bad shoulders for people to sleep on. Do you know that your shoulders slope an awful lot, Sho-chan?
Sho would move away, but he figures that would be too cruel. Instead he lets Aiba fall asleep there on his bed, snuggled close and murmuring sleep-laced thoughts about Matsumoto Jun and stars and the galaxy. For the next hour until he falls asleep himself, Sho wishes on all twenty-eight stars that he has, and it's the same wish over and over again: please let everything just work out in the end.
-
The truth is that Sho never thought he would still be living in a hole-in-the-wall flat years after he graduated from college. Somewhere down the line he expected a call from his father offering him a job in the company or at least the number of some high-up friend who could give Sho a decent job opportunity. But soon after Sho's graduation his father was transferred to Bahrain, and there were no calls from him for a very, very long time--only brief one-liners sent through his mother that said things like, hope all is well son and make your mother and I proud.
"Tell him I'm doing well," was the only thing Sho could ever say back to his mother over the phone.
"Still working at the grocery, dear?" she would respond sweetly. "Why don't you try and work your way up to corporate management and go from there?"
"I'll be fine, mother." Sho got very good at lying from those phone calls. "The rent here is manageable, and Masaki works too. We don't starve."
"It's not your rent or your food intake I'm worried about, dear," Sho's mother would sigh, and Sho would hurriedly change the subject. There was no need for her to bring up the fact that Sho wasn't doing as well as the entire Sakurai family had hoped. He was comfortable, of course, and had a good amount of money in his savings account thanks to Weekend, but in the eyes of his parents he was still holed up in a teeny-tiny apartment with an odd roommate and a job that had little to do with his economics degree.
All of that is fine for Aiba, of course--he has someone to look for on the job, a face to dream about when he's running around the city with his camera. But there is nothing about being a paparazzo that Sho finds particularly satisfying. There is nothing that he's running after, except perhaps his next check to help pay the rent and buy groceries and feed the cats.
He's worried that this is all going to burn out for him too soon.
"It's not too late," Aiba says one night as Sho is preparing dinner for the cats. "You'll figure it out, Sho-chan."
"I just thought I'd have it all figured out by now," Sho says miserably as he pours dry cat food into two bowls. Near his ankles Sammi and Yujitaka are mewling piteously for their food. "I didn't start this job for a reason and I still don't have one, even after all this time."
Aiba hums and proceeds to stuff a handful of chips into his mouth (even though the bag is clearly marked with a note that says, 'please conserve our snack food; do not eat more than 10 at a time'). "Well, you can always become a housewife. You're good at that, aren't you?"
Sho chooses to ignore that comment. "How long will I have to keep doing this?" he wonders aloud before bending down to set two small bowls on the linoleum. The kittens crowd round Sho's hand and lick his fingers before stuffing their heads into piles of cat food. "Pretty soon I'll be old and…and inadequate."
"And wrinkly," Aiba laughs. "But I'm sure everything will fall into place by the time we need to buy you a wheelchair."
For a second the only sounds in the kitchen are the bowls scraping against the floor.
"What are you going to do if you don't find Matsumoto Jun?" Sho asks suddenly.
Aiba reaches into the bag of chips, but doesn't come out with anything in his hand but crumbs and smudges of oil. The look on his face is calculating and a bit confused--Sho doesn't blame him. Nobody would ever want to wonder what would happen if they never found the person they were looking for the most.
"Keep trying," Aiba says, and smiles. "Just like you are."
"Who says I'm trying?"
"You get up in the morning, don't you?"
Aiba is still smiling, and Sho realizes: maybe this is the reason why Sho hasn't simply packed his bags and left this crummy little apartment and these less-than-desirable jobs behind--because in this life, failure isn't ever considered. It's not allowed. You get up in the morning and you breathe and you deliver groceries and carry around a camera, and you're trying. And that matters.
"I don't think you need to worry," Aiba continues. "Something good will happen, and things will change."
-
A few days after that conversation, Sho gets a call from Weekend telling him that he can start delivering to Ninomiya's house whenever he's ready.
Sho decides that he's not ready, mainly because he doesn't really know who Ninomiya Kazunari is.
"This is why I told you to watch Telegrams from Nagasaki with me!" Aiba exclaims once Sho admits that he's clueless. "If you'd just turned off your computer and stopped working on your thesis paper that one night, you would know who Ninomiya is."
Sho grunts. "Hey, I got an A on that term paper. And how do you remember all the way back to sophomore year anyway?"
Aiba gives Sho a withering look. "How do you not remember all the way back to sophomore year? College was pretty great, Sho-chan, despite the whole tests thing." Sho opens his mouth, but Aiba plows on. "Anyway, the point is that you should know who Ninomiya is because he's a famous actor. And I don't just mean like regular famous, like he's only been in a few movies. He's ridiculously famous."
"And?" Sho isn't really getting it. Everyone they photograph is 'ridiculously famous.' Even Matsumoto Jun is 'ridiculously famous,' even though Sho doesn't really see how a simple male model can garner the amount of attention that Jun does. Lately he's been doing an ad campaign for a cell phone company, and Sho feels like he's being followed by signs of lithe figures dressed in purple leather with sleek, wavy haircuts. "I'm not sure I understand why Weekend is making such a big deal out of this. Can't we just follow him around when he goes out like we do everyone else?"
"Because," Aiba says. "He doesn't go out."
"Oh come on," Sho scoffs, "that's what you told all our other friends every year during finals time, but I left my room sometimes, didn't I? That's just an exaggeration."
"No, no, no!" Suddenly Aiba bolts off the couch and runs into the kitchen to grab something. "I'm serious, Sho-chan. Look, here, here's proof."
He comes back with an armful of Weekend magazines. Usually it's Sho that brings them home from the grocery store, but it's Aiba who takes them into the bathroom to read and lets him pile up on the windowsill, organized neatly by month.
Sho tries not to touch them for sanitary reasons and also because he doesn't like to look at his pictures after he's sent them into the offices at Weekend to be developed and reviewed. It's his own little golden rule of being a paparazzo and he hasn't broken it since the very first issue his photographs appeared in (issue 46, volume 10--a series of mostly clear shots detailing an hour in veteran tycoon and notorious sleaze Johnny Kitagawa's daily routine; Sho doesn't really think there's anything valuable to see in the photographs but then again there are some people who consider Johnny drinking coffee a larger-than-life event).
But here is Aiba, breaking that rule so hard it's like Sho never made it in the first place. He's opening certain issues to specific pages and laying them out on the table until the entire surface is covered with newspaper in varying degrees of distress. The older issues especially have torn corners and entire paragraphs smudged out.
"So do you see?" Aiba says proudly as he motions to his monstrous creation.
"I see that you've made a mess." Sho is mostly focused on the fact that Aiba has just spread an entire country of bacteria into the living room. "And I also see my photographs, none of which are of this mysterious Ninomiya person--."
"Ah, Sho-chan, don't look at your pictures," Aiba snaps, and waves his hands in the air as if he's trying to rid Sho of all incorrect thoughts. "That's just a coincidence that they're on the same page. Focus on the text, the text!"
Oh. This explains why Sho isn't getting it: he never reads the articles in Weekend. Even if he technically works for the magazine, celebrity gossip isn't really the type of news Sho looks for in the morning with his morning coffee. Come to think of it, he's not sure if he's ever seen Aiba read any of the articles.
Then again, all of the Weekends in the house always seem to gravitate toward the bathroom.
Suppressing a gag, Sho leans forward to skim the articles in front of him. Most of them are short and made entirely of quotes from supposed, probably unreliable sources rather than actual reporting (then again, Sho doesn't expect proper journalism from a tabloid magazine).
But they're all about Ninomiya Kazunari and how he's practically a shut-in.
The articles gloss over Ninomiya's achievements and go straight to the dirty rumors about how he never, ever seems to leave his apartment. Sho reads that Weekend has been trying to tail Ninomiya since the beginning of his acting career six years ago, but no paparazzi have ever managed to snap his picture, let alone see him in public. And while Weekend prides itself on having nosy readers who send in texts whenever they see a famous person out on the street at any time of the day, no one has ever claimed to have seen Ninomiya.
"Good for him," Sho says when he's finished. He turns to his left to see Aiba with a kitten on each shoulder, meowing for their tiny, dear lives as they try to stay on by clinging to his sweater. "He must be pretty smart if no one's managed to see him in six years. And you'll have holes in your sweater if you don't let them go."
Aiba yelps as Yujitaka's claws dig past his clothes and into his skin. "Ow, ow, Yuji! Fine, fine," he says, and shakes the kittens off. They fall with little thuds onto the couch and amble over to Sho's lap, where they begin burrowing with fluffy determination. "And yeah, isn't that crazy? I heard he gets all of his groceries delivered to him. And I don't think he has a car, either, so he can't be followed all that easily. I think he gets picked up by a different van each time he needs to get to the studio."
"So he wouldn't do interviews or anything, right?" Sho wonders aloud. "That's fascinating, don't you think?"
"Weekend thinks so too," Aiba says, and tilts his head. Sho looks at him strangely. "I mean, that's exactly why they asked you to do this."
Sho frowns. He knows this, of course--he knew it from the moment he picked the envelope out of the rest of their usual mail, the envelope addressed to Sakurai Sho from Weekend. But there's still that nagging emotion in the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach that can't help but wonder what the hell he's supposed to get out of all of this. What could he tell his bosses, after all, besides what kind of peppers Ninomiya preferred and whether he liked skim milk instead of whole, or even if he liked milk at all? Maybe he was lactose-intolerant. Now that would cause a ruckus in the gossip industry.
"But I have a degree in economics," Sho mumbles, suddenly downtrodden. "Not psychiatry."
"I know, Sho-chan," Aiba says wearily, and Sho knows exactly where the rest of this sentence is going. He's heard it before, from Aiba and the demons in his own head and heart. "But you're not an economist."
This is the truth. Sho is not an economist--he's a college graduate, a grocery deliveryman and a paparazzo for one of the fastest-selling tabloid magazines on the market.
He might as well make the best of it. After all, something good might come from this, and everything might change.
-
It begins on a Tuesday. Sho gets up at five in the morning just as he usually does, only this time Aiba wakes up in the next room at the same time (and with a lot of noise. Sho always wonders how Aiba manages to be so loud and energetic in the morning; it's like his batteries suddenly jumpstart with the sound of the alarm and while other people take their time to get back into the swing of things, Aiba's swinging never stopped).
Sho had asked Aiba to come with him, and of course he'd agreed. He had nothing to do anyway, but Sho suspected that even if he had a full workday at some odd-end job he'd taken up--construction site worker or one of those people that handed out flyers on the street--he'd go anyway. They had been together long enough, breathing the same air and sharing the same towels for too many years to not understand when one of them needed the other without having to say so.
The kittens want to come too, but Sho pats both of their heads and tells them that he'll return home with half a heart and more money in his pocket.
"Daddy is being dramatic," Aiba whispers to the confused cats after Sho opens the door and has one foot in the hallway.
"Daddy will be late," Sho shoots back miserably. "Come on."
When they reach the warehouse in the company truck, Aiba helps him load packages into the back. They're both wearing uniforms that say Maruyama on the front in big orange letters, and it makes Sho believe harder in his little fantasy that they have normal jobs and live normal lives. Here they are, roommates who load delivery trucks with groceries, and in a bit they'll be driving the empty early-morning streets to drop off their wares. It's not much of a life, Sho thinks, but it'll do in place of the one they have now.
"Maybe we should just do this instead," Sho says as he drives. At five in the morning Tokyo is a strange color of blue and everything, everything is awash in that certain light. "We can sell our cameras and just deliver groceries all the time."
Aiba hums. Sho knows exactly what that means, and he stays silent for the rest of the route.
Finally comes the last turn, a swerve Sho has never made before but will today and from all days now on until his contract with Weekend expires. After saying hello to all the of the sleepy families and old pensioners that dot Sho's journey, after passing all of their pretty, well-painted homes with flowerpots in the front, Sho finds himself parked in front of a decaying, greenish-colored apartment building that doesn't look any better than his own complex.
There are even potholes in the parking lot.
"The stray cats don't even look friendly!" Aiba exclaims, as if this is the most upsetting thing about the place. "Look, they're all hissy! They're probably scared of people, you know, Sho-chan. We should take them home and give Yuji and Sammi new friends--."
"No," Sho says firmly, and unlocks the door of his car. "Unless you want to scavenge for their food."
It's a damp, overcast day for August, and the clouds carry a chill leftover from the night before. As he steps to the back of the truck to unload the last package of groceries Sho only half-listens to Aiba's argument about how all the cats can share their food and learn to live harmoniously (though he trips over the word, mainly because he's trying to say it in English).
The carton is light. Sho peeks inside to find only a meager assortment of groceries: two eggplants, a carton of whole milk and a stick of unsalted butter. Either Ninomiya doesn't do a lot of cooking, or he doesn't need much to sustain himself.
Sho has a sudden mental image of a thin, frail young man opening the door to his apartment.
But no, that wouldn't happen. Sho has seen Ninomiya's promotional photographs; the guy is skinny, but not malnourished. Just slim--the body of a seventeen-year-old boy forever stuck to an aging brain, a brain that is now in his late twenties and is gifted with the charm of a good actor, but obsessed with keeping the shades drawn on his private life.
Nothing wrong with that, Sho thinks, and has to force himself to shut the gate of the truck, to get moving.
"I'll stay here," Aiba says. He has his head stuck out of the passenger window. "I'll watch the truck for you."
Sho stares. "Aiba-chan," he starts, but doesn't really know what to say. "Are you sure?"
"It's not like you're marching to your death or anything," Aiba says, and laughs brightly. Out of the corner of Sho's eye he sees a couple of unfriendly cats scatter, probably startled by the sudden noise.
"Anyway," Aiba continues. "We can get breakfast when you're done."
It's a small promise and an even bigger comfort, and somehow it--along with the first rays of sunlight beginning to highlight the tops of the buildings surrounding them--makes Sho feel a little better about this. He walks to the entranceway of the apartment, bundle of groceries balanced neatly in his arms, and presses the buzzer.
Time passes, and nothing happens. Sho is about to press the buzzer again, even if he knows how annoying that is--maybe Ninomiya is just in the bathroom. Or what if he wasn't even awake yet? What if his old grocers had come at night, or at other times, certain coded times that would signify to Ninomiya that there was a safe person there who only wanted to give him food? In fact, what if there was a code word or something that Sho needed to know? It had taken Weekend this long to find out where Ninomiya lived, after all. There could be other things they didn't know about.
"You're really early," something says, and Sho squints at the speaker next to the buzzer. "Didn't my people tell you that I only accept groceries after six AM?"
"Um," Sho says. "I'm sorry, should I come again later?"
"No thanks. I don't want to be bothered again," says the voice. "No one else is with you?"
"No one," Sho says, and wonders if the word of a deliveryman is really all that trustworthy, especially to someone who never leaves his house. Sho could be lying right now, straight through his teeth, and have an entire camera crew with him. Or his own camera, for that matter.
But it's just him and some veggies and dairy products. Nothing all that threatening.
"Okay. Come up, then. Fourth floor. I'll meet you on the stairs."
The door clicks open, and somehow the sound is uninviting, almost annoyed. But Sho pushes the door open with the tip of his foot and slips inside.
He tries not to look around too much--the more information he retains, the more he'll feel obligated to tell Weekend, after all--and finds his way to the stairwell while looking straight ahead at all times. All he sees in his forced view is concrete, concrete, and more concrete; this is obviously not a luxurious apartment building, and neither is it a welcoming one. It's no wonder why the cats are as hissy as Aiba described.
Sho stops at the bottom of the fourth floor stairwell.
Someone is standing at the top of it.
"You're--?" Sho begins, just to make sure. "Ninomiya-san?"
Ninomiya shrugs. "So they say," he replies, and Sho doesn't really know what to make of that, but he climbs the stairs anyway and follows Ninomiya down another concrete hallway. Again Sho looks straight ahead of him, but he can't help but notice the way the apartment complex is closed to the outside. There aren't even windows lining the corridor, so Sho has no idea whether or not the sun has fully come out yet. And there are no lights, either.
"It's not very well-lit in here, is it?" Sho mumbles, more to himself than to Ninomiya.
"You forget that's a good thing for some of us."
Sho clamps his mouth shut.
Soon enough they reach a door, though Sho can't really tell the number on it, or even if there's a doorbell or not. It is that dark where they are, and it unnerves Sho to the point where he's absolutely itching to suggest that Ninomiya have a light installed. But no, but no--he's a celebrity. He wouldn't want that, Sho has to remind himself over and over again.
He hands the package over instead.
"Please check to make sure you have everything," he says. "If you don't, I can go back to the truck and see if anything fell--."
"Not necessary," Ninomiya cuts Sho off. "I have everything. Thank you."
Neither of them makes a move.
"That means you can leave now," Ninomiya continues, but his voice carries a hint of hidden laughter. "I'm not going to invite you in, if you're hoping for that."
"No!" Sho waves his hands frantically. He can feel his face growing warmer, even in the dampness of the hallway. "That wasn't--I mean, I'll go now."
"But you'll be back tomorrow," Ninomiya says. He still sounds like he wants to throw his head back and laugh at any second, and it just makes Sho feel even more embarrassed. Clearly he's done something humiliating, but he can't even tell what that might have been. "With more groceries, right?"
"If that's what you want," Sho says.
Ninomiya shrugs. "Why not?"
The words stick with Sho long after he's climbed back into the truck. Why not? Why not come back and bring me more groceries? It's a long shot from what Sho expected of Ninomiya--he'd been prepared to face some sort of mole person-like recluse, not to meet a complete stranger on the stairwell and have a conversation with him.
He had seemed very normal, like the sort of man you would meet on the crosswalk on a rainy night with a look on his face that would clearly tell you to get out of his way. But he'd still have a smile on, a smile that would almost be a smirk, and you'd feel compelled to obey with no questions asked.
Usually Sho keeps a clear head about things. He never thinks too much about the celebrities he photographs and he never tries to talk to them either; if they say more than two words to him Sho won't remember what they are a minute later. There's no reason for him to recall what Celebrity A said, after all, since he gets paid to take photographs and not to make small talk with people who wear too many expensive things and hate his profession.
But for some reason, Ninomiya is hard to shake off.
"You're coming back tomorrow already?" Aiba is shocked after Sho tells him what happened. "And he asked you to? As in, he wanted you to come back?"
"It wasn't exactly like that," Sho says as he carefully maneuvers the truck out of the parking lot. Instead of taking a left turn back in the direction of their apartment, he goes right toward the nearest breakfast place. "Maybe he was joking. I couldn't see his face, after all."
"Yeah," Aiba agrees, and then grins to himself. "Hey, maybe he's part of some cult that doesn't allow sunlight and that's why he never goes outdoors!"
Sho chokes. "Maybe not."
"But just maybe," Aiba insists, and Sho mumbles something about how maybe they won't be getting any breakfast if Aiba continues to say things that don't make sense. After that, Aiba is quiet, and the only sounds to fill the cramped inside of the company truck are radio static and the low, uneven thrum of the tires against asphalt.
As he drives Sho notices that the sun has finally risen fully over Tokyo, and he thinks back to the dark apartment he was just in and how it's all such a shame that Ninomiya is hidden from the world in his cold, closed-in space. Would you even be able to tell if it was raining? Sho remembers walls thick with concrete and decides that no, you wouldn't be able to hear the rain falling on the roof, no matter how hard it came down.
"I can't come with you tomorrow morning," Aiba says over breakfast. They place they chose is one right on the edge of downtown, but in the early morning like this even the city is hush-hush with yawns and shots of caffeine that have yet to kick in. As it is, Sho is waiting for his huge mug of coffee so he doesn't fall asleep at the wheel on the drive back. "I'll be going home."
Aiba goes back to Chiba every so often to visit his parents, usually at the urging of his mother, an ex-delinquent who is the sweetest person Sho has ever met. She comes over a couple of times a month to bring take-out boxes of frozen spring rolls and gyoza from their family restaurant, and sometimes she stays for a little bit to clean up.
"Oh yeah?" Sho says, and leans back heavily in his seat. "Are you staying overnight?"
Aiba has a huge forkful of eggs in his mouth. "I gueth," he says, and when he swallows it looks almost painful. "I told Weekend I wouldn't be able to shoot for a day and they told me it was okay. I'll just need to get a few good pictures tonight."
Weekend sends their paparazzi photo assignments during the day and expects digital copies of all photos taken by the next morning. This is why 'tonight' always feels like a whole other world to Sho--while everyone else is asleep, he pulls on bags of equipment worth almost a third of his college tuition and runs out the door.
"What do they want this time?"
"This guy," Aiba mumbles around more eggs. "Ohno Satoshi?"
"That sounds familiar."
"It's a very familiar name in our household," Aiba replies, and his smile is bitter. "Try and remember, Sho-chan."
-
It hits Sho on the way home: Ohno Satoshi only dates models. Male or female, it doesn't matter--he's been sighted with both in varying stages of intimacy, from simple hand-holding to drunken, full-on making out with his dates in supposedly empty alleyways.
Currently, he's rumored to be in a steady relationship with one very popular male model that every tabloid suspects is Matsumoto Jun.
The only reason Sho remembers this is because Ohno seemed the least likely celebrity to be wanted by the prying eyes of the media, and yet Weekend ran an entire special issue on him once. It wasn't as thick as their usual specials were, but it was practically overflowing with information--that Ohno is a professional fisherman willing to spend days on a boat but still manages to find time to date the most sought-after female and male models in the fashion industry.
Lately, there had been talk of him and Matsumoto Jun being seen together. Aiba hadn't said much about it, but Sho had noticed that the Weekend Ohno special had disappeared from the bathroom windowsill. He suspects it's in Aiba's bedside drawer, gathering dust but safe and there right beside him just as Sho knows Aiba wants Jun to be.
Sho won't ask Aiba about it. He knows that if he tries he won't get a straight answer, and it's best for him to just go along with the whole thing lest he get left behind. And when you're somebody's roommate and also a large part of their life, it's never good to be left behind.
Aiba must feel the same way. As he and Sho walk to the stretch of stores next to the station that night, he's bringing Sho up to date on everything he knows about this sushi place--including why he intends to work while they're eating.
"Ohno Satoshi owns the place," Aiba says distractedly. He's taken his phone out of his pocket and is fiddling with the buttons, trying to set the camera to maximum megapixels without draining his battery. "And he's going to be there tonight to take over the head chef job for a few hours before he heads back to his boat."
In the beginning Sho was surprised just how much information Weekend managed to squeeze out of Tokyo's back alleys and bored residents, but he's since gotten used to how scarily detailed his assignments are.
"What are you going to do? Sneak in the back?" Sho says.
Aiba throws him a thumbs-up.
When they reach the restaurant Sho isn't surprised to see that the dining room is almost over capacity. The place is tiny as it is and before they've even reached the entrance he can already see a line of people grouped outside the door, waiting and talking and surrounded by smoke and blue light.
But they're ushered in right away and shown to a table right by the kitchens. Sho slinks past groups of people clucking their tongues at being placed so low on the waiting list and walks into a cooler space filled with even more noise--the clinking of glasses, of plates, of long fake nails against ceramic surfaces.
"How--?" Sho begins.
"Weekend," Aiba says. "You should know that by now, Sho-chan!"
He should, but it still gets him every time they show up someplace and already have seats or drinks on the table or tickets to shows that most people have to wait months for. Even now there's already a plate of sashimi on the table, so thinly sliced that when Sho holds a piece of tuna up to the light he can see Aiba's face through the fish.
And there's already someone in the kitchen Aiba knows well enough to let him in the back. But this is all Aiba's doing, and not Weekend's fault that Aiba loves people, loves to make friends.
"Becky!" He calls her over with a wave of his hand, and even if Sho was raised to be a polite boy in every situation he can't help but stare. Aiba's talked about this Becky girl before, how he met her at the fish market one early morning as he was on the job and she was buying ingredients for the day, but Sho has never seen her.
She's cute--very cute. But she looks a little annoyed when she realizes it's Aiba who's calling her name.
"Aiba," she snaps. "Next time you want to be a nuisance, how about you give me a call instead of showing up with VIP treatment like you think I'm going to let you whisk me off my feet?"
Sho likes her already.
"Aw, Becky," Aiba says, and Sho watches his fingers reach out to rest on the bone of her wrist. She doesn't move away. "I try to call you sometimes, but you're always working."
Becky's eyes roll with a force that Sho has never seen before; the sarcasm in her expression nearly chides him into cowering in the corner. "Leave a message," she says, not so viciously this time. "Anyway, do you guys need anything?"
She's looking at Sho.
"I'm Aiba's roommate," he says.
"It's Sho-chan!" Aiba exclaims just as Becky gasps in delight. "Oh, you're that Sakurai!" she says, and claps her hands giddily. "Sorry, I should have known!"
Sho shakes his head and tells her no, it's okay, he doesn't usually live up to the stories that others tell about him.
Becky smiles. "But you're just as cute as Aiba said you were."
In the next moment as Sho splutters, Aiba motions Becky downward and whispers in her ear that he needs to go in the back.
She grins--a witty, sidelong curve. "So you heard?"
Aiba nods. He pats his pocket, checking for his cell phone.
"It was supposed to be a secret," Becky sighs, but she opens the kitchen curtains anyway. "Come on, then, get in here."
"If you're not back soon, all of this will be gone," Sho warns as his chopsticks dive into the bowl for another two pieces of sashimi. "And then we'll have to actually spend money."
"We'll have more money soon," Aiba says, and winks. "Right, Sho-chan?"
He promises he'll be back in ten minutes.
-
Instead of getting Aiba back, Sho gets a text after ten minutes have passed.
RUNNING. U can go home w/out me. SRYSRYSRY! Also pls leave door unlocked. 4got keys.
"I don't know what happened to him," Becky says when Sho asks about it. She has another plate of sashimi for him--salmon, his favorite--and insists that it's on the house bill when he tries to pay. "I let him in the back and he found Ohno-san straightaway. They liked each other, I think. Then after that…I don't know."
"They liked each other?" Sho says incredulously."You mean, they talked?"
"Yeah," Becky says. "Funny, right? Ohno-san isn't even the type to talk to many people. But he and Aiba, they hit it off really well."
Becky's words hang between them for a moment, gathering dust in the light from the lamps hanging above the tables as Sho stares blankly at her. Sometimes he finds that he has too many thoughts in his head to keep track of and he brushes each of them away too quickly to really keep them together in an organized fashion. When they pile up, he has to go through each of them one by one.
Right now, he's thinking about Aiba running (but why he is, and where to, is the question) and Becky's eyes (which look like sunflowers) and this Ohno person and why he's slicing fish and not stowing himself away in an expensive penthouse in Roppongi Hills.
"Can I talk to Ohno?" Sho finally asks.
Becky raises her eyebrows. "I gave you free sushi. Don't push it," she says, but just as Sho is about to completely balk and apologize for his rude behavior, she grins slyly and holds the curtains open for him with one hand.
"He won't mind," is her whispered explanation. "Nobody knows he's here but you two, anyway." And she winks.
"Won't you get fired for this?" Sho asks her as he stands and steps into the kitchen. Becky just purses her lips and shakes her head no; clearly this is not the kind of Tokyo establishment that Sho and Aiba often invade for photos at two in the morning--the sort of places that expect, but don't take kindly to, paparazzi and their meddling ways. You wouldn't expect any famous people in those places to have a friendly conversation with someone who only wanted to take their picture for a couple ten thousand yen.
Then again, Sho realizes later, none of those people are Ohno Satoshi.
"Hello?" Sho calls. Once he let the curtain fall behind him, the kitchen opened up in full view--a fairly small-sized space with large sinks and counters piled high with fish that are almost as wide as the shuttered windows that cover one wall. There are only a few fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling, and it takes Sho a moment to figure out that there's only one other person in the room. "Excuse me, are you--?"
Politeness fails Sho when Ohno looks up and smiles slightly. In fact, all words suddenly escape into the musky kitchen air; there is something about Ohno that suggests Sho doesn't have to say anything to explain himself. "Are you Aiba-san's friend? He mentioned you might come looking for him."
Sho clears his throat. "Well, I'm not sure where he went."
"He took off running down the alleyway behind the restaurant," Ohno says, and points vaguely behind him. Sho finds that he's too busy staring at Ohno's fish gut-splattered apron and sandaled feet to notice, but he tries hard not to be so distracted by this unorthodox brand of famous and listens hard to Ohno's voice (which is a cross between a mumble and a yawn). "I think he saw someone?"
Ohno hums through the same smile he's been harboring on his face for their entire conversation.
"Ah," he says. "Jun likes to smoke outside."
"Jun," Sho echoes, voice barely there. "Matsumoto Jun."
"Aiba-san saw him, I'm sure," Ohno says calmly, and for the first time Sho spots several knives in the pockets of Ohno's apron, all shining brilliantly against the naked lights. Some are spotted with drops of blood and others glisten with fish oil. Even though Sho knows they're only there because Ohno is a chef and a fisherman and would inevitably have to know how to gut and slice fish, he still can't help but shiver. "We were talking about how nice his camera phone was. Then he just ran out the back door."
"You don't mind?" This is the only thing Sho can think of to say, even though of course his mind is a wreck of realizations. "It doesn't matter to you that you've got a paparazzo in your restaurant, and now he's off chasing someone else?"
Ohno's eyebrows knot in the middle of his forehead.
"I don't mind if Jun doesn't," he says.
"How do you know he's okay with it?"
"They know each other, don't they?" Ohno points out. "Jun-kun mentions Aiba-san sometimes. He says they used to be best friends."
-
Two more texts from Aiba arrive as Sho finds his way out of the restaurant with a couple of paparazzi photos taken on his own camera phone (Ohno hadn't minded. "Stand in the doorway of the back alley so it looks like you were sneaking around," he'd said).
The first one reads, ULL NVR GUESS WHO IS AW . MAT JUN! CANT TYPE SRY, STILL RUNIN, TRYN TO CAVHTC HIM.
Sho already knows what the second one says before he opens it. It's a little more subdued, and if Aiba were talking to Sho he'd be saying the words softly, as if saying them that way made the whole thing a little more bearable.
He got away. But I watched his back for 5 min. 5 whole min!
"Like when we'd play chase when we were kids," Aiba says later, continuing where his text left off. Sho found Aiba sitting on a bench in the park by their home, out of breath and sweaty but full of words and hope and amazement. "He runs the same, Sho-chan. His feet still sound the same when they hit the ground."
Sho hums one long monotonous note in reply. He's busy thinking of Ohno Satoshi and how odd that entire thing had been, from the knives to Ohno being so willing to speak to someone he knew was a paparazzo to letting him take pictures. Then of course there was the Jun thing, and how Aiba had found him again after all this time the way you'd find a new penny heads-up on the sidewalk--so unexpectedly and with the thought, oh how lucky. Only Aiba had tried to pick it up and the penny had slipped and rolled down streets and turned corners until it disappeared into a gutter.
"Where'd he go?" Sho asks.
"In there." Aiba points to a small apartment building to their left. "Someone opened the door for him and closed it before I could get close enough to slip through."
"An accomplice," Sho says, like he knows.
"In what crime?" Aiba laughs. "I just want to see him again. That's not illegal or anything."
Sho grins sheepishly. "An assault of the heart."
Aiba's laugh booms throughout every neighborhood in their vicinity, and they have to stop and wait until he's caught his breath and the giggles have subsided into the nighttime air to join the fireflies.
"You're so silly," Aiba breathes when he is finally finished. "You know that, right, Sho-chan? Even though no one expects you to be."
"I try," Sho says. He's not so keen on expectations nowadays.
The next morning Aiba is already gone by the time Sho has managed to find his way to the bathroom. It's barely four in the morning, but Aiba has always left for home at ungodly hours like this. It's calming, was his reply when Sho asked him about it. He likes to drive to Chiba, to take the only car he and Sho have (that doesn't get used often, thanks to the rising cost of gas) and speed out onto the highway before anything is lit and the stars are fading quickly. By the time he gets to his home and the restaurant, the sun is up and his mom is in the kitchen getting started with breakfast.
But today it's pouring. As Sho brushes his teeth he stares out of the bathroom window, taking in the water-muddled view of the city, which lies miles out beyond this apartment complex. From here the buildings are like fat grey toothpicks; in the thick rain they look blurred out and Sho can imagine in his half-asleep state that the city of Tokyo doesn't exist. The skyscrapers and subway stations have been erased by a downpour and a wish.
Still, Sho gets dressed and eats three pieces of bread, all toasted. It's his usual breakfast and he has it at the kitchen table while he watches the still fast-asleep kittens in their tiny shared bed.
Then he's out the door, moving slowly, yawning fast.
In the truck the windshield wipers don't move fast enough to clear all the rain away and so Sho drives more carefully than usual. It's a good thing there's no one else on the road so early in the morning, otherwise he would probably have horns going off every second and a long, long line of cars behind him, waiting for him to take an exit or simply get off the road and let everyone else pass. Right now, though, he can drive however he wants to.
And the slower he drives, the later he'll make it to Ninomiya's apartment after dawn.
Sho isn't sure what difference that will make exactly, but he's willing to try it out. So he's extra-careful with the cartons of eggs he brings into the other families, and he unpacks packages from the back of the truck with more care than he normally would. Nobody says anything about it, mainly because they're all too tired and depressed at the weather to mention that Sho is moving at a snail's pace. When he arrives at the door, he apologizes for taking his time, blaming it all on the heavy umbrella he has to carry and because he doesn't want to drop anything.
"Make sure you have everything," Sho says--has to yell. The rain isn't giving up on its steady tirade. "I can go back and look if something's missing from your package."
"Don't worry about it, Sakurai-san," the mothers say. The old pensioners usually call him dear, or kid. "If we're missing anything we're not going to blame it on you. Stay safe. Drive slowly."
They go back into their warm houses, safe from the humidity and torrential downpour. Sho drives on.
It's six-ten when he reaches Ninomiya's apartment, and today there is no sun. It must be even colder, then, inside the building, inside that jail-like hallway where Ninomiya lives. In there it can't be August--it must be October. Ninomiya might be wearing a sweater.
And Weekend will want you to tell them that, Sho's mind suddenly says. Weekend will want to know everything.
Sho pushes those thoughts out of his head. He might technically be working right now, but the muted excitement running through his veins is something he's never felt before while on the job--usually when he goes out with his huge camera and tons of equipment he just feels sick.
The only reason he feels slightly sick now is because he's nervous. When he presses the buzzer he expects another long silence, only this time the speakers snap into static action almost immediately.
"It's after six," Ninomiya says. "You're a good listener. I'll see you in five minutes."
"Okay," Sho yells back, otherwise Ninomiya wouldn't be able to hear him. "On the stairs?"
"Sure."
Sho slips into the entranceway and proceeds to sneeze three times in the empty corridor. He almost loses a grip on Ninomiya's groceries but manages to catch them at the last second; he hopes he hasn't squished the butter or anything like that. Then again, it would just give Sho another excuse to come back tomorrow.
He steps onto the staircase and takes a few deep breaths before ascending into darkness and another kind of chill that's separate--and decidedly more ominous--from the one the rain is creating.
And there he is again, at the top of the fourth floor stairwell.
"It's raining, huh?" Ninomiya says, and this time jumps down a couple of steps to take the package from Sho's arms. "Where's your umbrella?"
"I left it in the car," Sho says, and resists the urge to sneeze again. "I didn't think I would need it."
"The roof leaks here," Ninomiya responds. "Maybe you should have brought it."
Sho doesn't understand. "I'm just dropping off your groceries," he says. "Do you have everything?"
"No," Ninomiya says, and Sho is about to run back to the truck in the horrible weather and search the entire vehicle for a lost eggplant or a carton of milk. But he doesn't, because Ninomiya hasn't stopped talking. "I have everything. I mean you're not just here to drop off my groceries."
Sho blinks. "I--," he begins. "That's my job."
Ninomiya smirks. "You can come in," he says lightly, and begins to walk back up the stairs and down the unlit hallway that Sho had followed him down the day before. "I don't bite."
"It's not you I'm worried about," Sho says under his breath. The single thought running through his mind right now is whatisthiswhatisthiswhatisthis, and he can't seem to get a hold of his usual calm demeanor. On a good day he'd be able to refuse Ninomiya, would be able to say no thank you, but I have to be getting home, I have cats to feed and I may have left my engine running. I don't have the time to follow you into your home, because I'll only learn things about you and the tabloid magazine I work for will want to know those things. And that's not something I want to do.
Then something else pops up in Sho's mind. This isn't going to hurt you. You can always lie to Weekend. And what is he to you, anyway? An actor. You deal with them all the time.
"The door is open," Ninomiya calls from down the hallway.
This isn't going to hurt you, Sho's mind says again. Just go.
He takes a hesitant step forward, and then stops. The frantic heartbeat thrumming through his body like an army of drums certainly isn't helping matters.
"What's taking you so long?" Ninomiya snaps. He pokes his head round the corner of the wall and frowns. "It's not so hard to climb stairs, you know. One at a time and it'll be easy. You must be one of those people that take the elevator up to their apartment every day."
"I can climb stairs perfectly fine, thank you," Sho retorts, and makes use of the adrenaline from their conversation to run up the rest of the stairs. "And my apartment complex doesn't have an elevator."
He's next to Ninomiya within seconds.
"But it has windows," Sho says. The adrenaline has made him a little braver. "Very nice ones."
"Well aren't you special." Ninomiya sighs. "And didn't I tell you? Windows are a bad idea for some of us who don't like to be exposed to the public."
"The public would like to expose themselves to you, I'm sure."
Ninomiya throws his head back and laughs--the first laugh of Sho's day and one that startles him. The sound is high-pitched and clear, even over the sound of the rain. Then Sho realizes: he's in the enclosed hallway and can still hear the sheets of rain hitting the hard rooftop. The concrete must not be so thick after all.
"Ninomiya-san," Sho starts. "Why do you live here?"
"I like being alone," Ninomiya says. "In the city you're always with people."
He lets Sho into the apartment first, and the first blasts of air conditioning are a beautiful relief from the blanket of humidity that Sho has been walking in all day.
"But the hallway," Sho wonders. "It's like you're in a jail, here."
When Ninomiya turns Sho takes him in, all of him, from head to toe: so this is the famous actor everyone loves. He looks like a teenager on the brink of his twenties, or even younger--he is slim everywhere, even in the face, and his arms are boyish and thin. Even his pajama pants look too big for him, cotton fabric hanging loose on the notches of his hipbones, and Sho catches a glimpse of pale skin between the hem of Ninomiya's shirt and the top of his pants.
From the looks of Ninomiya's sleepy eyes and fierce bed head, it hasn't been long since he's gotten up. When he stretches Sho has to look away--it's a little too much, all that skin suddenly peeking out when Ninomiya's arms reach for the ceiling, like he's six years old and his mother woke up him up too early on a Saturday.
"What were you saying about a jail?" Ninomiya asks as soon as his arms fall back to his sides again. "Do you think I live in one?"
"It's just unusual for someone of your caliber, I think," Sho says calmly.
"Caliber," Ninomiya echoes. "I don't like that word. I'm just another person, you know."
"But you--," Sho begins. What will he say next? But you act? But you're being hunted by all of the tabloid magazines in the city? But your fanbase is the size of a small country?
"But I?" Ninomiya says, and his smirk is back in full force. "Listen, can you stay?"
"For what?"
"For nothing." Ninomiya shrugs. "Just stay."
Part 2
Pairing(s): Sho/Nino, Ohno/Jun, implied Aiba/Jun
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~19,900
Summary: Sho's assignment for the month of August is simple enough: find Ninomiya Kazunari.
A/N: This was written for the 2010 je_ficgames challenge. I was on Team AU (and we won! yay us!) and wrote for the prompt 'tell me the news, baby.' This fic basically sapped me dry, and I wrote part of it on a plane and finished it in an airport, but all that aside I couldn't have done this without the help of my betas aeslis and toinkydoink. ♥
Sho's assignment for the month of August is simple enough: find Ninomiya Kazunari.
At least, it had sounded easy until Aiba explained that Ninomiya Kazunari was an expert at staying hidden and therefore no paparazzo had ever gotten close enough to find out any juicy details about the guy. He was an actor and had a laundry list of awards pinned next to his name, but everyone knew that already. The tabloid magazines wanted something else to latch their dirty little hands on. They wanted something, anything that would set the entire entertainment industry aflame with pointed fingers and random girls crying in shame and disbelief.
Most importantly they wanted something that would bring in the money.
It was always about the money. This is why Sho became a paparazzo in the first place. Aiba had shown him the checks with scribbled values of seventy, eighty, ninety thousand yen just for a single picture of some B-grade actress throwing up into the river or a famous model trying to hitchhike with the heel of her silver stiletto, and Sho had been so disgusted and intrigued at the same time that he couldn't help but say yes when Aiba invited him out one night, just to get a feel for the game. He'd leant Sho a camera, one of the heavy, professional ones that Aiba had lots of, and he'd given Sho a VIP pass direct from the tabloid Weekend.
And they went out. To sleazy, seedy bars with funky names like Sunday Monday and Leaky Monaco, to five-star restaurants that had reservations made for months into the future, to back alleys where drunken celebrities made out without a care in the world and also without a care for where their hands were wandering. Within a few hours Aiba had snapped hundreds of photos; Sho, about twenty.
Aiba had just smiled widely. "Don't you worry, Sho-chan," he'd said. "I'll teach you everything you need to know."
From that day on, Sho's name appeared in Weekend's paparazzi list. He started getting calls, too, and checks with small monetary values for his blurry, pixilated photos of celebrities doing the walk of shame at five AM. It was all convenience, really; Sho delivered groceries to residents all over Tokyo as a day job and started his runs around that time.
So August came and a letter showed up on Sho's desk with all the details of his new assignment. It required him to put down his camera and to change his grocery delivery route to include Ninomiya's apartment, which Weekend had struggled to find. But they'd figured out which one it was, finally, and they decided to send someone they could afford to lose to risk his life and dignity for a couple of random tidbits of information.
Sho wasn't the best photographer in the business. That was Aiba. But Sho was intelligent and could worm his way into things even if he had to beat back his morals and conscience to do them. He could take his camera and make it sound like he was a preppy photojournalist just wanting to take pictures of the restaurant; he could make it seem like he was actually invited to black-tie affairs when in reality Weekend had to pull fifty thousand strings to just get him into the building.
Even if the business made Sho want to vomit, he got used to it. He had to, because he and Aiba still lived in a crappy apartment with ridiculously high rent, and they were forced to pay bills and feed themselves and the kittens (they had two, a tabby and a black one).
If Sho decided to take on the Ninomiya assignment, he would get paid a lovely bonus, as would Aiba. They would get regular checks instead of getting paid whenever Weekend remembered that their legions of paparazzi had actual lives and weren't simply bats leaving their caves at night. They could buy new cameras, healthier cat food, new curtains to replace the fraying ones.
Sho signed on the dotted line.
-
Sometimes Sho wonders when this whole paparazzo thing started. It all began with Aiba, certainly, but it can't be as long as they've known each other because Sho didn't even know that there was anything beyond Aiba's photography major until they had passed the one-year mark as best friends. And even after that it had taken some time for Aiba to convince him that being a paparazzo wasn't all that bad--you just had to look beyond the fact that you were invading other people's lives, Aiba had explained offhandedly. You had to do it for a reason, money or recognition or something, anything that's more than just wanting to stalk celebrities for the hell of it.
Aiba has a reason. Aiba has a reason that walks runways and does his hair every morning with careful, practiced precision, a reason known as one of the best male models in the business, who used to be an actor when he was a kid but grew up and found that he could get paid for simply looking good.
Aiba has a reason named Matsumoto Jun.
If anyone asks Aiba how exactly he became a paparazzo, he'll just laugh for a moment and then shrug nonchalantly. There isn't really a story behind it, he'll say, the smile on his face one rich with nostalgia and a tinge of sadness. My dad had cameras and I lived next door to Matsumoto Jun.
We grew up together, he'll continue, and wistfully so. Before he got famous, you know? Jun-kun was my best friend. We did lots of things together.
Aiba's excitement will grow. And now Sho-chan and I do a lot of things together, he'll continue, and the feelings in him will bubble over as if he's reached some sort of boiling point. We met only a year ago, you know! But it's like we're best friends. No, we are best friends--we have an apartment together, and we're going to be living in it still when we finish college. It's so much fun, being with Sho-chan all the time.
But what, the other person will press on, about Matsumoto Jun?
If Aiba was at a boiling point one second before, something else in him will immediately freeze over. But the only way to know that change has happened is to find the new quiver in his voice, barely noticeable but there. It will be like someone has taken a pen and written in an accidental note on a once-perfect score of music, and even the most experienced musicians will have to squint.
It was kind of my dad's fault, Aiba will say, and that will be the end of the conversation--unless the other person is a certain Sakurai Sho, and the two of them are sitting in the dark of Sho's dorm room at two in the morning one lonely night, counting the stars as they sit together on the futon.
By the time Aiba reaches this point in the story, they have both counted twenty-seven stars each; enough to fill up one-third of a cup of the Milky Way (at least, according to Aiba's recipe).
At star twenty-eight Aiba continues his tale, but his voice will have thinned out. Sho has to lean in to listen.
Jun-kun was a child actor, right, Aiba says, and Sho nods. So my dad took lots of pictures of Jun's family through the window of our kitchen because you could see into Jun's house--he took pictures of them eating dinner and watching television. Just normal stuff, like the things you and I do together. But Jun's family, they…
Aiba trails off. Of course Sho can piece together the rest: the Matsumotos finding out about their prying neighbors and moving away, worlds away; forbidding their son from talking to Aiba ever again.
I don't think he remembers me, Aiba says after Sho has laid a hand on his shoulder. So maybe if I keep doing this I'll find him. Do you think so, Sho-chan? Maybe one day I'll get an assignment to photograph Matsumoto Jun, and we'll run into each other, and he'll remember everything we used to have!
Sho-chan, Aiba says after a long moment filled only with simple, even breaths. Do you think that's stupid?
No, Sho responds, and he means it very much. How could it be?
I don't know, Aiba breathes, and flops backwards on the bed. His outstretched legs dangle over the edge and Sho watches his toes wiggle in the semi-darkness. I just never thought I'd be doing this. When I was little I was supposed to take over the family restaurant, you know? And then my dad gave me a Polaroid camera and I liked taking pictures, so my brother started getting training instead of me.
And now we're here, he finishes, and laughs slightly. Two boys on a bed.
Um, Sho says, and Aiba laughs even more.
All I can say, Sho continues, is that I never thought I'd end up here, either.
Two boys on a bed? Aiba suggests.
You could say that, Sho says, and lies down next to Aiba, who has his eyes closed. Whether he's thinking or about to fall asleep Sho doesn't know, but he keeps on talking anyway.
What are we going to do with all these stars? he asks.
If you fill up one cup with the Milky Way your wish will come true, Aiba mumbles in response. His head finds Sho's shoulder. But that's a lot of stars.
And only one wish, says Sho. That's not the best deal.
Trust the economics major to point out things like that, Aiba yawns, and also to have really bad shoulders for people to sleep on. Do you know that your shoulders slope an awful lot, Sho-chan?
Sho would move away, but he figures that would be too cruel. Instead he lets Aiba fall asleep there on his bed, snuggled close and murmuring sleep-laced thoughts about Matsumoto Jun and stars and the galaxy. For the next hour until he falls asleep himself, Sho wishes on all twenty-eight stars that he has, and it's the same wish over and over again: please let everything just work out in the end.
-
The truth is that Sho never thought he would still be living in a hole-in-the-wall flat years after he graduated from college. Somewhere down the line he expected a call from his father offering him a job in the company or at least the number of some high-up friend who could give Sho a decent job opportunity. But soon after Sho's graduation his father was transferred to Bahrain, and there were no calls from him for a very, very long time--only brief one-liners sent through his mother that said things like, hope all is well son and make your mother and I proud.
"Tell him I'm doing well," was the only thing Sho could ever say back to his mother over the phone.
"Still working at the grocery, dear?" she would respond sweetly. "Why don't you try and work your way up to corporate management and go from there?"
"I'll be fine, mother." Sho got very good at lying from those phone calls. "The rent here is manageable, and Masaki works too. We don't starve."
"It's not your rent or your food intake I'm worried about, dear," Sho's mother would sigh, and Sho would hurriedly change the subject. There was no need for her to bring up the fact that Sho wasn't doing as well as the entire Sakurai family had hoped. He was comfortable, of course, and had a good amount of money in his savings account thanks to Weekend, but in the eyes of his parents he was still holed up in a teeny-tiny apartment with an odd roommate and a job that had little to do with his economics degree.
All of that is fine for Aiba, of course--he has someone to look for on the job, a face to dream about when he's running around the city with his camera. But there is nothing about being a paparazzo that Sho finds particularly satisfying. There is nothing that he's running after, except perhaps his next check to help pay the rent and buy groceries and feed the cats.
He's worried that this is all going to burn out for him too soon.
"It's not too late," Aiba says one night as Sho is preparing dinner for the cats. "You'll figure it out, Sho-chan."
"I just thought I'd have it all figured out by now," Sho says miserably as he pours dry cat food into two bowls. Near his ankles Sammi and Yujitaka are mewling piteously for their food. "I didn't start this job for a reason and I still don't have one, even after all this time."
Aiba hums and proceeds to stuff a handful of chips into his mouth (even though the bag is clearly marked with a note that says, 'please conserve our snack food; do not eat more than 10 at a time'). "Well, you can always become a housewife. You're good at that, aren't you?"
Sho chooses to ignore that comment. "How long will I have to keep doing this?" he wonders aloud before bending down to set two small bowls on the linoleum. The kittens crowd round Sho's hand and lick his fingers before stuffing their heads into piles of cat food. "Pretty soon I'll be old and…and inadequate."
"And wrinkly," Aiba laughs. "But I'm sure everything will fall into place by the time we need to buy you a wheelchair."
For a second the only sounds in the kitchen are the bowls scraping against the floor.
"What are you going to do if you don't find Matsumoto Jun?" Sho asks suddenly.
Aiba reaches into the bag of chips, but doesn't come out with anything in his hand but crumbs and smudges of oil. The look on his face is calculating and a bit confused--Sho doesn't blame him. Nobody would ever want to wonder what would happen if they never found the person they were looking for the most.
"Keep trying," Aiba says, and smiles. "Just like you are."
"Who says I'm trying?"
"You get up in the morning, don't you?"
Aiba is still smiling, and Sho realizes: maybe this is the reason why Sho hasn't simply packed his bags and left this crummy little apartment and these less-than-desirable jobs behind--because in this life, failure isn't ever considered. It's not allowed. You get up in the morning and you breathe and you deliver groceries and carry around a camera, and you're trying. And that matters.
"I don't think you need to worry," Aiba continues. "Something good will happen, and things will change."
-
A few days after that conversation, Sho gets a call from Weekend telling him that he can start delivering to Ninomiya's house whenever he's ready.
Sho decides that he's not ready, mainly because he doesn't really know who Ninomiya Kazunari is.
"This is why I told you to watch Telegrams from Nagasaki with me!" Aiba exclaims once Sho admits that he's clueless. "If you'd just turned off your computer and stopped working on your thesis paper that one night, you would know who Ninomiya is."
Sho grunts. "Hey, I got an A on that term paper. And how do you remember all the way back to sophomore year anyway?"
Aiba gives Sho a withering look. "How do you not remember all the way back to sophomore year? College was pretty great, Sho-chan, despite the whole tests thing." Sho opens his mouth, but Aiba plows on. "Anyway, the point is that you should know who Ninomiya is because he's a famous actor. And I don't just mean like regular famous, like he's only been in a few movies. He's ridiculously famous."
"And?" Sho isn't really getting it. Everyone they photograph is 'ridiculously famous.' Even Matsumoto Jun is 'ridiculously famous,' even though Sho doesn't really see how a simple male model can garner the amount of attention that Jun does. Lately he's been doing an ad campaign for a cell phone company, and Sho feels like he's being followed by signs of lithe figures dressed in purple leather with sleek, wavy haircuts. "I'm not sure I understand why Weekend is making such a big deal out of this. Can't we just follow him around when he goes out like we do everyone else?"
"Because," Aiba says. "He doesn't go out."
"Oh come on," Sho scoffs, "that's what you told all our other friends every year during finals time, but I left my room sometimes, didn't I? That's just an exaggeration."
"No, no, no!" Suddenly Aiba bolts off the couch and runs into the kitchen to grab something. "I'm serious, Sho-chan. Look, here, here's proof."
He comes back with an armful of Weekend magazines. Usually it's Sho that brings them home from the grocery store, but it's Aiba who takes them into the bathroom to read and lets him pile up on the windowsill, organized neatly by month.
Sho tries not to touch them for sanitary reasons and also because he doesn't like to look at his pictures after he's sent them into the offices at Weekend to be developed and reviewed. It's his own little golden rule of being a paparazzo and he hasn't broken it since the very first issue his photographs appeared in (issue 46, volume 10--a series of mostly clear shots detailing an hour in veteran tycoon and notorious sleaze Johnny Kitagawa's daily routine; Sho doesn't really think there's anything valuable to see in the photographs but then again there are some people who consider Johnny drinking coffee a larger-than-life event).
But here is Aiba, breaking that rule so hard it's like Sho never made it in the first place. He's opening certain issues to specific pages and laying them out on the table until the entire surface is covered with newspaper in varying degrees of distress. The older issues especially have torn corners and entire paragraphs smudged out.
"So do you see?" Aiba says proudly as he motions to his monstrous creation.
"I see that you've made a mess." Sho is mostly focused on the fact that Aiba has just spread an entire country of bacteria into the living room. "And I also see my photographs, none of which are of this mysterious Ninomiya person--."
"Ah, Sho-chan, don't look at your pictures," Aiba snaps, and waves his hands in the air as if he's trying to rid Sho of all incorrect thoughts. "That's just a coincidence that they're on the same page. Focus on the text, the text!"
Oh. This explains why Sho isn't getting it: he never reads the articles in Weekend. Even if he technically works for the magazine, celebrity gossip isn't really the type of news Sho looks for in the morning with his morning coffee. Come to think of it, he's not sure if he's ever seen Aiba read any of the articles.
Then again, all of the Weekends in the house always seem to gravitate toward the bathroom.
Suppressing a gag, Sho leans forward to skim the articles in front of him. Most of them are short and made entirely of quotes from supposed, probably unreliable sources rather than actual reporting (then again, Sho doesn't expect proper journalism from a tabloid magazine).
But they're all about Ninomiya Kazunari and how he's practically a shut-in.
The articles gloss over Ninomiya's achievements and go straight to the dirty rumors about how he never, ever seems to leave his apartment. Sho reads that Weekend has been trying to tail Ninomiya since the beginning of his acting career six years ago, but no paparazzi have ever managed to snap his picture, let alone see him in public. And while Weekend prides itself on having nosy readers who send in texts whenever they see a famous person out on the street at any time of the day, no one has ever claimed to have seen Ninomiya.
"Good for him," Sho says when he's finished. He turns to his left to see Aiba with a kitten on each shoulder, meowing for their tiny, dear lives as they try to stay on by clinging to his sweater. "He must be pretty smart if no one's managed to see him in six years. And you'll have holes in your sweater if you don't let them go."
Aiba yelps as Yujitaka's claws dig past his clothes and into his skin. "Ow, ow, Yuji! Fine, fine," he says, and shakes the kittens off. They fall with little thuds onto the couch and amble over to Sho's lap, where they begin burrowing with fluffy determination. "And yeah, isn't that crazy? I heard he gets all of his groceries delivered to him. And I don't think he has a car, either, so he can't be followed all that easily. I think he gets picked up by a different van each time he needs to get to the studio."
"So he wouldn't do interviews or anything, right?" Sho wonders aloud. "That's fascinating, don't you think?"
"Weekend thinks so too," Aiba says, and tilts his head. Sho looks at him strangely. "I mean, that's exactly why they asked you to do this."
Sho frowns. He knows this, of course--he knew it from the moment he picked the envelope out of the rest of their usual mail, the envelope addressed to Sakurai Sho from Weekend. But there's still that nagging emotion in the back of his mind and the pit of his stomach that can't help but wonder what the hell he's supposed to get out of all of this. What could he tell his bosses, after all, besides what kind of peppers Ninomiya preferred and whether he liked skim milk instead of whole, or even if he liked milk at all? Maybe he was lactose-intolerant. Now that would cause a ruckus in the gossip industry.
"But I have a degree in economics," Sho mumbles, suddenly downtrodden. "Not psychiatry."
"I know, Sho-chan," Aiba says wearily, and Sho knows exactly where the rest of this sentence is going. He's heard it before, from Aiba and the demons in his own head and heart. "But you're not an economist."
This is the truth. Sho is not an economist--he's a college graduate, a grocery deliveryman and a paparazzo for one of the fastest-selling tabloid magazines on the market.
He might as well make the best of it. After all, something good might come from this, and everything might change.
-
It begins on a Tuesday. Sho gets up at five in the morning just as he usually does, only this time Aiba wakes up in the next room at the same time (and with a lot of noise. Sho always wonders how Aiba manages to be so loud and energetic in the morning; it's like his batteries suddenly jumpstart with the sound of the alarm and while other people take their time to get back into the swing of things, Aiba's swinging never stopped).
Sho had asked Aiba to come with him, and of course he'd agreed. He had nothing to do anyway, but Sho suspected that even if he had a full workday at some odd-end job he'd taken up--construction site worker or one of those people that handed out flyers on the street--he'd go anyway. They had been together long enough, breathing the same air and sharing the same towels for too many years to not understand when one of them needed the other without having to say so.
The kittens want to come too, but Sho pats both of their heads and tells them that he'll return home with half a heart and more money in his pocket.
"Daddy is being dramatic," Aiba whispers to the confused cats after Sho opens the door and has one foot in the hallway.
"Daddy will be late," Sho shoots back miserably. "Come on."
When they reach the warehouse in the company truck, Aiba helps him load packages into the back. They're both wearing uniforms that say Maruyama on the front in big orange letters, and it makes Sho believe harder in his little fantasy that they have normal jobs and live normal lives. Here they are, roommates who load delivery trucks with groceries, and in a bit they'll be driving the empty early-morning streets to drop off their wares. It's not much of a life, Sho thinks, but it'll do in place of the one they have now.
"Maybe we should just do this instead," Sho says as he drives. At five in the morning Tokyo is a strange color of blue and everything, everything is awash in that certain light. "We can sell our cameras and just deliver groceries all the time."
Aiba hums. Sho knows exactly what that means, and he stays silent for the rest of the route.
Finally comes the last turn, a swerve Sho has never made before but will today and from all days now on until his contract with Weekend expires. After saying hello to all the of the sleepy families and old pensioners that dot Sho's journey, after passing all of their pretty, well-painted homes with flowerpots in the front, Sho finds himself parked in front of a decaying, greenish-colored apartment building that doesn't look any better than his own complex.
There are even potholes in the parking lot.
"The stray cats don't even look friendly!" Aiba exclaims, as if this is the most upsetting thing about the place. "Look, they're all hissy! They're probably scared of people, you know, Sho-chan. We should take them home and give Yuji and Sammi new friends--."
"No," Sho says firmly, and unlocks the door of his car. "Unless you want to scavenge for their food."
It's a damp, overcast day for August, and the clouds carry a chill leftover from the night before. As he steps to the back of the truck to unload the last package of groceries Sho only half-listens to Aiba's argument about how all the cats can share their food and learn to live harmoniously (though he trips over the word, mainly because he's trying to say it in English).
The carton is light. Sho peeks inside to find only a meager assortment of groceries: two eggplants, a carton of whole milk and a stick of unsalted butter. Either Ninomiya doesn't do a lot of cooking, or he doesn't need much to sustain himself.
Sho has a sudden mental image of a thin, frail young man opening the door to his apartment.
But no, that wouldn't happen. Sho has seen Ninomiya's promotional photographs; the guy is skinny, but not malnourished. Just slim--the body of a seventeen-year-old boy forever stuck to an aging brain, a brain that is now in his late twenties and is gifted with the charm of a good actor, but obsessed with keeping the shades drawn on his private life.
Nothing wrong with that, Sho thinks, and has to force himself to shut the gate of the truck, to get moving.
"I'll stay here," Aiba says. He has his head stuck out of the passenger window. "I'll watch the truck for you."
Sho stares. "Aiba-chan," he starts, but doesn't really know what to say. "Are you sure?"
"It's not like you're marching to your death or anything," Aiba says, and laughs brightly. Out of the corner of Sho's eye he sees a couple of unfriendly cats scatter, probably startled by the sudden noise.
"Anyway," Aiba continues. "We can get breakfast when you're done."
It's a small promise and an even bigger comfort, and somehow it--along with the first rays of sunlight beginning to highlight the tops of the buildings surrounding them--makes Sho feel a little better about this. He walks to the entranceway of the apartment, bundle of groceries balanced neatly in his arms, and presses the buzzer.
Time passes, and nothing happens. Sho is about to press the buzzer again, even if he knows how annoying that is--maybe Ninomiya is just in the bathroom. Or what if he wasn't even awake yet? What if his old grocers had come at night, or at other times, certain coded times that would signify to Ninomiya that there was a safe person there who only wanted to give him food? In fact, what if there was a code word or something that Sho needed to know? It had taken Weekend this long to find out where Ninomiya lived, after all. There could be other things they didn't know about.
"You're really early," something says, and Sho squints at the speaker next to the buzzer. "Didn't my people tell you that I only accept groceries after six AM?"
"Um," Sho says. "I'm sorry, should I come again later?"
"No thanks. I don't want to be bothered again," says the voice. "No one else is with you?"
"No one," Sho says, and wonders if the word of a deliveryman is really all that trustworthy, especially to someone who never leaves his house. Sho could be lying right now, straight through his teeth, and have an entire camera crew with him. Or his own camera, for that matter.
But it's just him and some veggies and dairy products. Nothing all that threatening.
"Okay. Come up, then. Fourth floor. I'll meet you on the stairs."
The door clicks open, and somehow the sound is uninviting, almost annoyed. But Sho pushes the door open with the tip of his foot and slips inside.
He tries not to look around too much--the more information he retains, the more he'll feel obligated to tell Weekend, after all--and finds his way to the stairwell while looking straight ahead at all times. All he sees in his forced view is concrete, concrete, and more concrete; this is obviously not a luxurious apartment building, and neither is it a welcoming one. It's no wonder why the cats are as hissy as Aiba described.
Sho stops at the bottom of the fourth floor stairwell.
Someone is standing at the top of it.
"You're--?" Sho begins, just to make sure. "Ninomiya-san?"
Ninomiya shrugs. "So they say," he replies, and Sho doesn't really know what to make of that, but he climbs the stairs anyway and follows Ninomiya down another concrete hallway. Again Sho looks straight ahead of him, but he can't help but notice the way the apartment complex is closed to the outside. There aren't even windows lining the corridor, so Sho has no idea whether or not the sun has fully come out yet. And there are no lights, either.
"It's not very well-lit in here, is it?" Sho mumbles, more to himself than to Ninomiya.
"You forget that's a good thing for some of us."
Sho clamps his mouth shut.
Soon enough they reach a door, though Sho can't really tell the number on it, or even if there's a doorbell or not. It is that dark where they are, and it unnerves Sho to the point where he's absolutely itching to suggest that Ninomiya have a light installed. But no, but no--he's a celebrity. He wouldn't want that, Sho has to remind himself over and over again.
He hands the package over instead.
"Please check to make sure you have everything," he says. "If you don't, I can go back to the truck and see if anything fell--."
"Not necessary," Ninomiya cuts Sho off. "I have everything. Thank you."
Neither of them makes a move.
"That means you can leave now," Ninomiya continues, but his voice carries a hint of hidden laughter. "I'm not going to invite you in, if you're hoping for that."
"No!" Sho waves his hands frantically. He can feel his face growing warmer, even in the dampness of the hallway. "That wasn't--I mean, I'll go now."
"But you'll be back tomorrow," Ninomiya says. He still sounds like he wants to throw his head back and laugh at any second, and it just makes Sho feel even more embarrassed. Clearly he's done something humiliating, but he can't even tell what that might have been. "With more groceries, right?"
"If that's what you want," Sho says.
Ninomiya shrugs. "Why not?"
The words stick with Sho long after he's climbed back into the truck. Why not? Why not come back and bring me more groceries? It's a long shot from what Sho expected of Ninomiya--he'd been prepared to face some sort of mole person-like recluse, not to meet a complete stranger on the stairwell and have a conversation with him.
He had seemed very normal, like the sort of man you would meet on the crosswalk on a rainy night with a look on his face that would clearly tell you to get out of his way. But he'd still have a smile on, a smile that would almost be a smirk, and you'd feel compelled to obey with no questions asked.
Usually Sho keeps a clear head about things. He never thinks too much about the celebrities he photographs and he never tries to talk to them either; if they say more than two words to him Sho won't remember what they are a minute later. There's no reason for him to recall what Celebrity A said, after all, since he gets paid to take photographs and not to make small talk with people who wear too many expensive things and hate his profession.
But for some reason, Ninomiya is hard to shake off.
"You're coming back tomorrow already?" Aiba is shocked after Sho tells him what happened. "And he asked you to? As in, he wanted you to come back?"
"It wasn't exactly like that," Sho says as he carefully maneuvers the truck out of the parking lot. Instead of taking a left turn back in the direction of their apartment, he goes right toward the nearest breakfast place. "Maybe he was joking. I couldn't see his face, after all."
"Yeah," Aiba agrees, and then grins to himself. "Hey, maybe he's part of some cult that doesn't allow sunlight and that's why he never goes outdoors!"
Sho chokes. "Maybe not."
"But just maybe," Aiba insists, and Sho mumbles something about how maybe they won't be getting any breakfast if Aiba continues to say things that don't make sense. After that, Aiba is quiet, and the only sounds to fill the cramped inside of the company truck are radio static and the low, uneven thrum of the tires against asphalt.
As he drives Sho notices that the sun has finally risen fully over Tokyo, and he thinks back to the dark apartment he was just in and how it's all such a shame that Ninomiya is hidden from the world in his cold, closed-in space. Would you even be able to tell if it was raining? Sho remembers walls thick with concrete and decides that no, you wouldn't be able to hear the rain falling on the roof, no matter how hard it came down.
"I can't come with you tomorrow morning," Aiba says over breakfast. They place they chose is one right on the edge of downtown, but in the early morning like this even the city is hush-hush with yawns and shots of caffeine that have yet to kick in. As it is, Sho is waiting for his huge mug of coffee so he doesn't fall asleep at the wheel on the drive back. "I'll be going home."
Aiba goes back to Chiba every so often to visit his parents, usually at the urging of his mother, an ex-delinquent who is the sweetest person Sho has ever met. She comes over a couple of times a month to bring take-out boxes of frozen spring rolls and gyoza from their family restaurant, and sometimes she stays for a little bit to clean up.
"Oh yeah?" Sho says, and leans back heavily in his seat. "Are you staying overnight?"
Aiba has a huge forkful of eggs in his mouth. "I gueth," he says, and when he swallows it looks almost painful. "I told Weekend I wouldn't be able to shoot for a day and they told me it was okay. I'll just need to get a few good pictures tonight."
Weekend sends their paparazzi photo assignments during the day and expects digital copies of all photos taken by the next morning. This is why 'tonight' always feels like a whole other world to Sho--while everyone else is asleep, he pulls on bags of equipment worth almost a third of his college tuition and runs out the door.
"What do they want this time?"
"This guy," Aiba mumbles around more eggs. "Ohno Satoshi?"
"That sounds familiar."
"It's a very familiar name in our household," Aiba replies, and his smile is bitter. "Try and remember, Sho-chan."
-
It hits Sho on the way home: Ohno Satoshi only dates models. Male or female, it doesn't matter--he's been sighted with both in varying stages of intimacy, from simple hand-holding to drunken, full-on making out with his dates in supposedly empty alleyways.
Currently, he's rumored to be in a steady relationship with one very popular male model that every tabloid suspects is Matsumoto Jun.
The only reason Sho remembers this is because Ohno seemed the least likely celebrity to be wanted by the prying eyes of the media, and yet Weekend ran an entire special issue on him once. It wasn't as thick as their usual specials were, but it was practically overflowing with information--that Ohno is a professional fisherman willing to spend days on a boat but still manages to find time to date the most sought-after female and male models in the fashion industry.
Lately, there had been talk of him and Matsumoto Jun being seen together. Aiba hadn't said much about it, but Sho had noticed that the Weekend Ohno special had disappeared from the bathroom windowsill. He suspects it's in Aiba's bedside drawer, gathering dust but safe and there right beside him just as Sho knows Aiba wants Jun to be.
Sho won't ask Aiba about it. He knows that if he tries he won't get a straight answer, and it's best for him to just go along with the whole thing lest he get left behind. And when you're somebody's roommate and also a large part of their life, it's never good to be left behind.
Aiba must feel the same way. As he and Sho walk to the stretch of stores next to the station that night, he's bringing Sho up to date on everything he knows about this sushi place--including why he intends to work while they're eating.
"Ohno Satoshi owns the place," Aiba says distractedly. He's taken his phone out of his pocket and is fiddling with the buttons, trying to set the camera to maximum megapixels without draining his battery. "And he's going to be there tonight to take over the head chef job for a few hours before he heads back to his boat."
In the beginning Sho was surprised just how much information Weekend managed to squeeze out of Tokyo's back alleys and bored residents, but he's since gotten used to how scarily detailed his assignments are.
"What are you going to do? Sneak in the back?" Sho says.
Aiba throws him a thumbs-up.
When they reach the restaurant Sho isn't surprised to see that the dining room is almost over capacity. The place is tiny as it is and before they've even reached the entrance he can already see a line of people grouped outside the door, waiting and talking and surrounded by smoke and blue light.
But they're ushered in right away and shown to a table right by the kitchens. Sho slinks past groups of people clucking their tongues at being placed so low on the waiting list and walks into a cooler space filled with even more noise--the clinking of glasses, of plates, of long fake nails against ceramic surfaces.
"How--?" Sho begins.
"Weekend," Aiba says. "You should know that by now, Sho-chan!"
He should, but it still gets him every time they show up someplace and already have seats or drinks on the table or tickets to shows that most people have to wait months for. Even now there's already a plate of sashimi on the table, so thinly sliced that when Sho holds a piece of tuna up to the light he can see Aiba's face through the fish.
And there's already someone in the kitchen Aiba knows well enough to let him in the back. But this is all Aiba's doing, and not Weekend's fault that Aiba loves people, loves to make friends.
"Becky!" He calls her over with a wave of his hand, and even if Sho was raised to be a polite boy in every situation he can't help but stare. Aiba's talked about this Becky girl before, how he met her at the fish market one early morning as he was on the job and she was buying ingredients for the day, but Sho has never seen her.
She's cute--very cute. But she looks a little annoyed when she realizes it's Aiba who's calling her name.
"Aiba," she snaps. "Next time you want to be a nuisance, how about you give me a call instead of showing up with VIP treatment like you think I'm going to let you whisk me off my feet?"
Sho likes her already.
"Aw, Becky," Aiba says, and Sho watches his fingers reach out to rest on the bone of her wrist. She doesn't move away. "I try to call you sometimes, but you're always working."
Becky's eyes roll with a force that Sho has never seen before; the sarcasm in her expression nearly chides him into cowering in the corner. "Leave a message," she says, not so viciously this time. "Anyway, do you guys need anything?"
She's looking at Sho.
"I'm Aiba's roommate," he says.
"It's Sho-chan!" Aiba exclaims just as Becky gasps in delight. "Oh, you're that Sakurai!" she says, and claps her hands giddily. "Sorry, I should have known!"
Sho shakes his head and tells her no, it's okay, he doesn't usually live up to the stories that others tell about him.
Becky smiles. "But you're just as cute as Aiba said you were."
In the next moment as Sho splutters, Aiba motions Becky downward and whispers in her ear that he needs to go in the back.
She grins--a witty, sidelong curve. "So you heard?"
Aiba nods. He pats his pocket, checking for his cell phone.
"It was supposed to be a secret," Becky sighs, but she opens the kitchen curtains anyway. "Come on, then, get in here."
"If you're not back soon, all of this will be gone," Sho warns as his chopsticks dive into the bowl for another two pieces of sashimi. "And then we'll have to actually spend money."
"We'll have more money soon," Aiba says, and winks. "Right, Sho-chan?"
He promises he'll be back in ten minutes.
-
Instead of getting Aiba back, Sho gets a text after ten minutes have passed.
RUNNING. U can go home w/out me. SRYSRYSRY! Also pls leave door unlocked. 4got keys.
"I don't know what happened to him," Becky says when Sho asks about it. She has another plate of sashimi for him--salmon, his favorite--and insists that it's on the house bill when he tries to pay. "I let him in the back and he found Ohno-san straightaway. They liked each other, I think. Then after that…I don't know."
"They liked each other?" Sho says incredulously."You mean, they talked?"
"Yeah," Becky says. "Funny, right? Ohno-san isn't even the type to talk to many people. But he and Aiba, they hit it off really well."
Becky's words hang between them for a moment, gathering dust in the light from the lamps hanging above the tables as Sho stares blankly at her. Sometimes he finds that he has too many thoughts in his head to keep track of and he brushes each of them away too quickly to really keep them together in an organized fashion. When they pile up, he has to go through each of them one by one.
Right now, he's thinking about Aiba running (but why he is, and where to, is the question) and Becky's eyes (which look like sunflowers) and this Ohno person and why he's slicing fish and not stowing himself away in an expensive penthouse in Roppongi Hills.
"Can I talk to Ohno?" Sho finally asks.
Becky raises her eyebrows. "I gave you free sushi. Don't push it," she says, but just as Sho is about to completely balk and apologize for his rude behavior, she grins slyly and holds the curtains open for him with one hand.
"He won't mind," is her whispered explanation. "Nobody knows he's here but you two, anyway." And she winks.
"Won't you get fired for this?" Sho asks her as he stands and steps into the kitchen. Becky just purses her lips and shakes her head no; clearly this is not the kind of Tokyo establishment that Sho and Aiba often invade for photos at two in the morning--the sort of places that expect, but don't take kindly to, paparazzi and their meddling ways. You wouldn't expect any famous people in those places to have a friendly conversation with someone who only wanted to take their picture for a couple ten thousand yen.
Then again, Sho realizes later, none of those people are Ohno Satoshi.
"Hello?" Sho calls. Once he let the curtain fall behind him, the kitchen opened up in full view--a fairly small-sized space with large sinks and counters piled high with fish that are almost as wide as the shuttered windows that cover one wall. There are only a few fluorescent lights attached to the ceiling, and it takes Sho a moment to figure out that there's only one other person in the room. "Excuse me, are you--?"
Politeness fails Sho when Ohno looks up and smiles slightly. In fact, all words suddenly escape into the musky kitchen air; there is something about Ohno that suggests Sho doesn't have to say anything to explain himself. "Are you Aiba-san's friend? He mentioned you might come looking for him."
Sho clears his throat. "Well, I'm not sure where he went."
"He took off running down the alleyway behind the restaurant," Ohno says, and points vaguely behind him. Sho finds that he's too busy staring at Ohno's fish gut-splattered apron and sandaled feet to notice, but he tries hard not to be so distracted by this unorthodox brand of famous and listens hard to Ohno's voice (which is a cross between a mumble and a yawn). "I think he saw someone?"
Ohno hums through the same smile he's been harboring on his face for their entire conversation.
"Ah," he says. "Jun likes to smoke outside."
"Jun," Sho echoes, voice barely there. "Matsumoto Jun."
"Aiba-san saw him, I'm sure," Ohno says calmly, and for the first time Sho spots several knives in the pockets of Ohno's apron, all shining brilliantly against the naked lights. Some are spotted with drops of blood and others glisten with fish oil. Even though Sho knows they're only there because Ohno is a chef and a fisherman and would inevitably have to know how to gut and slice fish, he still can't help but shiver. "We were talking about how nice his camera phone was. Then he just ran out the back door."
"You don't mind?" This is the only thing Sho can think of to say, even though of course his mind is a wreck of realizations. "It doesn't matter to you that you've got a paparazzo in your restaurant, and now he's off chasing someone else?"
Ohno's eyebrows knot in the middle of his forehead.
"I don't mind if Jun doesn't," he says.
"How do you know he's okay with it?"
"They know each other, don't they?" Ohno points out. "Jun-kun mentions Aiba-san sometimes. He says they used to be best friends."
-
Two more texts from Aiba arrive as Sho finds his way out of the restaurant with a couple of paparazzi photos taken on his own camera phone (Ohno hadn't minded. "Stand in the doorway of the back alley so it looks like you were sneaking around," he'd said).
The first one reads, ULL NVR GUESS WHO IS AW . MAT JUN! CANT TYPE SRY, STILL RUNIN, TRYN TO CAVHTC HIM.
Sho already knows what the second one says before he opens it. It's a little more subdued, and if Aiba were talking to Sho he'd be saying the words softly, as if saying them that way made the whole thing a little more bearable.
He got away. But I watched his back for 5 min. 5 whole min!
"Like when we'd play chase when we were kids," Aiba says later, continuing where his text left off. Sho found Aiba sitting on a bench in the park by their home, out of breath and sweaty but full of words and hope and amazement. "He runs the same, Sho-chan. His feet still sound the same when they hit the ground."
Sho hums one long monotonous note in reply. He's busy thinking of Ohno Satoshi and how odd that entire thing had been, from the knives to Ohno being so willing to speak to someone he knew was a paparazzo to letting him take pictures. Then of course there was the Jun thing, and how Aiba had found him again after all this time the way you'd find a new penny heads-up on the sidewalk--so unexpectedly and with the thought, oh how lucky. Only Aiba had tried to pick it up and the penny had slipped and rolled down streets and turned corners until it disappeared into a gutter.
"Where'd he go?" Sho asks.
"In there." Aiba points to a small apartment building to their left. "Someone opened the door for him and closed it before I could get close enough to slip through."
"An accomplice," Sho says, like he knows.
"In what crime?" Aiba laughs. "I just want to see him again. That's not illegal or anything."
Sho grins sheepishly. "An assault of the heart."
Aiba's laugh booms throughout every neighborhood in their vicinity, and they have to stop and wait until he's caught his breath and the giggles have subsided into the nighttime air to join the fireflies.
"You're so silly," Aiba breathes when he is finally finished. "You know that, right, Sho-chan? Even though no one expects you to be."
"I try," Sho says. He's not so keen on expectations nowadays.
The next morning Aiba is already gone by the time Sho has managed to find his way to the bathroom. It's barely four in the morning, but Aiba has always left for home at ungodly hours like this. It's calming, was his reply when Sho asked him about it. He likes to drive to Chiba, to take the only car he and Sho have (that doesn't get used often, thanks to the rising cost of gas) and speed out onto the highway before anything is lit and the stars are fading quickly. By the time he gets to his home and the restaurant, the sun is up and his mom is in the kitchen getting started with breakfast.
But today it's pouring. As Sho brushes his teeth he stares out of the bathroom window, taking in the water-muddled view of the city, which lies miles out beyond this apartment complex. From here the buildings are like fat grey toothpicks; in the thick rain they look blurred out and Sho can imagine in his half-asleep state that the city of Tokyo doesn't exist. The skyscrapers and subway stations have been erased by a downpour and a wish.
Still, Sho gets dressed and eats three pieces of bread, all toasted. It's his usual breakfast and he has it at the kitchen table while he watches the still fast-asleep kittens in their tiny shared bed.
Then he's out the door, moving slowly, yawning fast.
In the truck the windshield wipers don't move fast enough to clear all the rain away and so Sho drives more carefully than usual. It's a good thing there's no one else on the road so early in the morning, otherwise he would probably have horns going off every second and a long, long line of cars behind him, waiting for him to take an exit or simply get off the road and let everyone else pass. Right now, though, he can drive however he wants to.
And the slower he drives, the later he'll make it to Ninomiya's apartment after dawn.
Sho isn't sure what difference that will make exactly, but he's willing to try it out. So he's extra-careful with the cartons of eggs he brings into the other families, and he unpacks packages from the back of the truck with more care than he normally would. Nobody says anything about it, mainly because they're all too tired and depressed at the weather to mention that Sho is moving at a snail's pace. When he arrives at the door, he apologizes for taking his time, blaming it all on the heavy umbrella he has to carry and because he doesn't want to drop anything.
"Make sure you have everything," Sho says--has to yell. The rain isn't giving up on its steady tirade. "I can go back and look if something's missing from your package."
"Don't worry about it, Sakurai-san," the mothers say. The old pensioners usually call him dear, or kid. "If we're missing anything we're not going to blame it on you. Stay safe. Drive slowly."
They go back into their warm houses, safe from the humidity and torrential downpour. Sho drives on.
It's six-ten when he reaches Ninomiya's apartment, and today there is no sun. It must be even colder, then, inside the building, inside that jail-like hallway where Ninomiya lives. In there it can't be August--it must be October. Ninomiya might be wearing a sweater.
And Weekend will want you to tell them that, Sho's mind suddenly says. Weekend will want to know everything.
Sho pushes those thoughts out of his head. He might technically be working right now, but the muted excitement running through his veins is something he's never felt before while on the job--usually when he goes out with his huge camera and tons of equipment he just feels sick.
The only reason he feels slightly sick now is because he's nervous. When he presses the buzzer he expects another long silence, only this time the speakers snap into static action almost immediately.
"It's after six," Ninomiya says. "You're a good listener. I'll see you in five minutes."
"Okay," Sho yells back, otherwise Ninomiya wouldn't be able to hear him. "On the stairs?"
"Sure."
Sho slips into the entranceway and proceeds to sneeze three times in the empty corridor. He almost loses a grip on Ninomiya's groceries but manages to catch them at the last second; he hopes he hasn't squished the butter or anything like that. Then again, it would just give Sho another excuse to come back tomorrow.
He steps onto the staircase and takes a few deep breaths before ascending into darkness and another kind of chill that's separate--and decidedly more ominous--from the one the rain is creating.
And there he is again, at the top of the fourth floor stairwell.
"It's raining, huh?" Ninomiya says, and this time jumps down a couple of steps to take the package from Sho's arms. "Where's your umbrella?"
"I left it in the car," Sho says, and resists the urge to sneeze again. "I didn't think I would need it."
"The roof leaks here," Ninomiya responds. "Maybe you should have brought it."
Sho doesn't understand. "I'm just dropping off your groceries," he says. "Do you have everything?"
"No," Ninomiya says, and Sho is about to run back to the truck in the horrible weather and search the entire vehicle for a lost eggplant or a carton of milk. But he doesn't, because Ninomiya hasn't stopped talking. "I have everything. I mean you're not just here to drop off my groceries."
Sho blinks. "I--," he begins. "That's my job."
Ninomiya smirks. "You can come in," he says lightly, and begins to walk back up the stairs and down the unlit hallway that Sho had followed him down the day before. "I don't bite."
"It's not you I'm worried about," Sho says under his breath. The single thought running through his mind right now is whatisthiswhatisthiswhatisthis, and he can't seem to get a hold of his usual calm demeanor. On a good day he'd be able to refuse Ninomiya, would be able to say no thank you, but I have to be getting home, I have cats to feed and I may have left my engine running. I don't have the time to follow you into your home, because I'll only learn things about you and the tabloid magazine I work for will want to know those things. And that's not something I want to do.
Then something else pops up in Sho's mind. This isn't going to hurt you. You can always lie to Weekend. And what is he to you, anyway? An actor. You deal with them all the time.
"The door is open," Ninomiya calls from down the hallway.
This isn't going to hurt you, Sho's mind says again. Just go.
He takes a hesitant step forward, and then stops. The frantic heartbeat thrumming through his body like an army of drums certainly isn't helping matters.
"What's taking you so long?" Ninomiya snaps. He pokes his head round the corner of the wall and frowns. "It's not so hard to climb stairs, you know. One at a time and it'll be easy. You must be one of those people that take the elevator up to their apartment every day."
"I can climb stairs perfectly fine, thank you," Sho retorts, and makes use of the adrenaline from their conversation to run up the rest of the stairs. "And my apartment complex doesn't have an elevator."
He's next to Ninomiya within seconds.
"But it has windows," Sho says. The adrenaline has made him a little braver. "Very nice ones."
"Well aren't you special." Ninomiya sighs. "And didn't I tell you? Windows are a bad idea for some of us who don't like to be exposed to the public."
"The public would like to expose themselves to you, I'm sure."
Ninomiya throws his head back and laughs--the first laugh of Sho's day and one that startles him. The sound is high-pitched and clear, even over the sound of the rain. Then Sho realizes: he's in the enclosed hallway and can still hear the sheets of rain hitting the hard rooftop. The concrete must not be so thick after all.
"Ninomiya-san," Sho starts. "Why do you live here?"
"I like being alone," Ninomiya says. "In the city you're always with people."
He lets Sho into the apartment first, and the first blasts of air conditioning are a beautiful relief from the blanket of humidity that Sho has been walking in all day.
"But the hallway," Sho wonders. "It's like you're in a jail, here."
When Ninomiya turns Sho takes him in, all of him, from head to toe: so this is the famous actor everyone loves. He looks like a teenager on the brink of his twenties, or even younger--he is slim everywhere, even in the face, and his arms are boyish and thin. Even his pajama pants look too big for him, cotton fabric hanging loose on the notches of his hipbones, and Sho catches a glimpse of pale skin between the hem of Ninomiya's shirt and the top of his pants.
From the looks of Ninomiya's sleepy eyes and fierce bed head, it hasn't been long since he's gotten up. When he stretches Sho has to look away--it's a little too much, all that skin suddenly peeking out when Ninomiya's arms reach for the ceiling, like he's six years old and his mother woke up him up too early on a Saturday.
"What were you saying about a jail?" Ninomiya asks as soon as his arms fall back to his sides again. "Do you think I live in one?"
"It's just unusual for someone of your caliber, I think," Sho says calmly.
"Caliber," Ninomiya echoes. "I don't like that word. I'm just another person, you know."
"But you--," Sho begins. What will he say next? But you act? But you're being hunted by all of the tabloid magazines in the city? But your fanbase is the size of a small country?
"But I?" Ninomiya says, and his smirk is back in full force. "Listen, can you stay?"
"For what?"
"For nothing." Ninomiya shrugs. "Just stay."
Part 2