[Arashi] simplicity: a Love Story in eight
simplicity: a Love Story in eight
Nino/Ohno | R, 3229 words
A giant giant giant thank you to harinezumi_kun for her fic The Book of Love which completely inspired this, from start to finish. I have never written something this long and actually finished it, like, ever, in this fandom. Early happy birthday to waxrose !
slowly (1);
At first, Nino can't comprehend it. The sky is clouded over - grayer than he's ever seen it (but he doesn't mind that today) - and there's a distinct chill about the air. His fingers are purple and he isn't wearing enough layers for the weather, not really, because he has on silly little denim cutoff shorts that Ohno picked out back in summer as a joke (sort of) and they don't quite reach his knees and although he has a sweater on top everyone else is wearing trousers and coats and scarves and beanies and Nino has none of these things.
Anyway: comprehension, Nino can't, it. It, being why his heart rate is sitting abnormally high while he sits in what he supposes would be classed as a resting position (legs curled up beneath him on the bench, waiting and waiting for that midday train). There's nothing special about today, only that it's not quite winter but the weather says otherwise, and maybe also that Nino is going to see- but no not really. They're average things, not special enough to be exceptions on a not-special day.
He stops questioning it then; it's vaguely tiring to not understand, and so he pretends it's not even there at all. His heart rate is definitely normal, average. He hasn't run a marathon, and he certainly hasn't put on weight or become drastically unfit. His heart must not be beating faster than usual; Nino must simply be imagining it, all of it.
He can hear the announcer over the speakers; his train will be arriving in approximately two minutes. He knows. It's eleven fifty-eight, and the trains are always on time. He counts one hundred and twenty clicks of the second hand around the face of his watch as he walks up to the platform leisurely. It's not peak hour. It's a nice, quiet Sunday, and he's going somewhere slightly obscure (just slightly). It wasn't his pick, but he's one hundred percent okay with it.
The train is only about half full, and Nino takes a seat next to a pretty girl with bleached hair and a blue cardigan. Maybe she's twenty, maybe she's actually thirty, Nino can't tell past her makeup. She looks at him and he smiles out of courtesy because he was staring, after all. (She doesn't recognise him and he's both grateful and a little surprised). She turns back to her book and Nino can't tell what it is. The boy across the aisle is gazing at him when he looks up again. He doesn't smile this time, but the boy waves and waves and Nino's not sure what to do so he bows his head a little and then slinks down in his seat just slightly and closes his eyes.
He wakes up twenty minutes later to the sound of the announcer calling his station. When he steps off the train it only takes two blinks and Ohno is there, ready to pounce, but before he even gets the chance, Nino suddenly understands it; he comprehends.
"Fuck," he says out loud, and Ohno laughs at what to him is a greeting, and Nino is trying really hard not to blurt out the realisation that- that-
strong (2);
Ohno is in high spirits today. It's more than a little (something like completely) endearing, and it just makes Nino so happy to see it. It's not often they get the chance to shut off entirely, to relax and get away and be close to (something like almost completely) anonymous. It's not often they get the chance to be alone, really. Ohno knows the directions to their desired destination, he has them all saved in his head and committed to heart, and Nino swears for a second - just a second - it looks like Ohno is going to take his hand as they walk to lead the way.
This, Nino guesses, must either be wishful thinking or at least creative interpretation of a nothing gesture: a particular swing of an arm, the almost missable clenching of a fist. And it's at this point that Nino realises his trouble has shifted. It's no longer about the comprehension (he understands almost too well) but instead, it's about the coping. This whole new feeling kind of hurts. He wants those nothing gestures to be something gestures, but he doesn't have the guts to go out and transform them into such himself. His guts are elsewhere today, and no amount of daylight is bringing them back. It's all because of this damn realisation.
Nino's not paying attention. Ohno is doing gratuitous amounts of speaking and Nino isn't paying attention. Whatever has come over him is completely and utterly ridiculous and he thinks, he doesn't need this, he doesn't want this. It's painful and distracting and he feels so stupid.
"I'm sorry," he says slowly, embarrassed, "What did you say?" You only get once chance for a repeat; he's listening properly and intently now.
"I said We're here," Ohno laughs, and grabs Nino's wrist to stop him from walking any further.
Nino's heart jumps out of his chest and he scrambles to grab at it and put it back in. Breathe. He nods quickly and then stares down at his arm. Ohno's fingers are wrapped around his pulse and somehow it amplifies the feeling and it's all Nino can think: Ohno can feel his heart.
Ohno's gaze mimics Nino's and he quickly lets go. "S-sorry," he says, and then, "Let's go in?"
A shiver runs down Nino's back and he's not sure whether it's from the cold and his stupid bare legs or from something else entirely. The latter his brain is saying, The latter or both. "Okay," he replies lamely, still staring staring staring at that wrist, and it's not until he sees those nothing gestures appear and turn themselves into something gestures that do in fact mean I want to hold hands, that he looks back up again, cheeks burning, letting Ohno lace their fingers together slowly, (nervously), carefully. "Okay," he says again. His chest pulls tight.
scares (3);
"Why did you buy those silly shorts?" Ohno questions in whisper, while the people in the movie tattle on about things Nino can't really get his head around.
Nino almost, almost, squeaks in response to the warm breath on his ear, the fingers tentatively resting on his arm for the initial attention snag. In any case: the answer to Ohno's question seems simple enough to Nino, now that he's all privy to comprehension of feelings and other fabulous things that come with age and maturity. "Because you-" he stops himself, but the continuation of the sentence is already out there, he can tell, as if the air was able to interpret and complete it before it hit Ohno's ears.
Ohno blushes a furious red at this, and seems to debate between replying or watching the movie, until he finally just says, "You," and then turns back to the screen, reading the subtitles with an added determination.
While Nino just feels mostly ridiculous, he can understand the determination. This film is not going to beat him. It's black and white and from the sixties and Swedish for Christ's sake, and it's officially the most confusing thing he's ever watched. The subtitles are not helping at all and he can't for the life of him remember what inspired Ohno to suggest something like this (a date like this, he wants to think).
A few more undecipherable scenes pass, and Nino calms down sort of, mostly. A man a few rows back coughs lightly. The chair squeaks beneath Nino as he wriggles around and pulls his knees up to his chest. The characters in the movie are arguing again. One puts down a piece of glass on the floor in hopes the other will step on it. It's disturbing and almost sickening. And then suddenly the armrest is pulled away from his side and Ohno is snuggled up against him, warm through his sweater and down to his skin.
"I don't get this," Ohno tells him.
"It makes perfect sense," Nino says. But he's not talking about the movie anymore. And maybe he actually means it. (If nothing else, he's at least glad that it makes more sense than a Swedish movie, even if the possibility that that's the only thing it will ever make more sense than scares him half to death.)
Ohno looks up at him, perplexed, as Nino turns his head. There's hardly any space between them.
electricity (4);
Suddenly, everything, every nerve, is slammed into working order. Ohno's lips are against his, so lightly it almost feels accidental, and so misaligned that Nino is in fact half convinced that it really is. For a few lingering seconds, neither of them move, and Nino almost forgets to breathe. Every sense is concentrated wholly on that tiny amount of contact at the side of his lips. He can feel it; he can feel it everywhere, and still he's not quite sure what's going on. He was never expecting this.
He can hear it, feel the blood pounding in his ears, drowning out the argument on the screen and magnifying his awareness of his own racing heartbeat. Nino knows in that instant, more than any before it, that he is absolutely and unreservedly under.
Then Ohno pulls back sharply and a thousand apologies come tumbling from his lips, overlapping each other and blurring together. There's a frown kneaded into his eyebrows and Nino wants to massage it away, wants to tell him no no no, that it's totally fine, but his guts still don't look like they're returning to him any time soon so he just sits there dumbly, eyes locked with Ohno's. If he had his guts maybe he'd kiss Ohno now, initiate, but, alas (this is probably not true).
Nino does not blink for a really long time, and nor, he notes, does Ohno. Neither, apparently, have words or voices and Ohno, Nino decides, must have also just used up the last of his action. His cheeks and ears are burning, but Nino can't bring himself to look away. He's not sure how long they sit like that. The movie sounds like it's close to over, but then it's weird and Swedish so he could be completely off. Plus it's not like he's actively watching it anymore and without reading the subtitles he's a lost case.
Ohno is blessed with self-replenishing action, Nino discovers in the next moment. Ohno's tongue slips past his lips and everything about Ohno is so soft soft soft and inviting and sweet and soft, and Nino puts a hand to Ohno's cheek as he kisses him. They don't need words anyway. Ohno is kissing him, Ohno wanted to kiss him (or maybe it's wants to) - this means everything and then some. His head is spinning trying to grasp the situation and this sudden step forward. He is more than a little overwhelmed.
Nino is also, admittedly, eternally grateful for this weird Swedish movie, and that Ohno hadn't suggested something totally unromantic like fishing.
(He would have gone, but still.)
hurried (5);
On one hand, things snowball from there;
( They come out of rehearsals, and it's already pitch black outside. Nino is breathing a little more heavy than usual; he put more in today. Ohno looks nothing like they've just been dancing for the past few hours, but instead, more like he's been sitting down, sipping a cup of tea and watching television.
It's frustrating.
Nino stops Ohno in the hallway. The occasional staff member will pass and sometimes they will look on in curiosity and sometimes they won't. Nino pins Ohno up against the wall, forcing his lips to Ohno's neck, licking and biting and marking. It's hardly a scandal (especially when it's them), and Nino hardly cares anyway. Ohno whimpers a little, eyebrows scrunching together and biting his lip, and Nino ignores everything he ever was or should have been taught about time and place and appropriateness and decency, rolling his hips into Ohno and shuddering at the friction.
He kisses him then, Nino does, teasing Ohno's bottom lip away from his teeth and sucking on it for a second. "Don't bite your lip," he says, then nips at it anyway and plants a peck on Ohno's nose, and then goes back to Ohno's neck and works on slipping a hand down the front of Ohno's jeans, taking him in his hand and finding a rhythm. Ohno, naturally, completely disregards Nino's comment and gnaws on his lip more furiously than ever, eyelids fluttering closed.
Nino will admit that this kind of public indecency is a complete turn on. Ohno won't, but he also never complains.
"Nn," Ohno says, and Nino complies, yes yes and shifts back to his lips.
"Your neck is delicious though," Nino tells him between kisses, considering shoving a hand down his own pants for quick release. He leaves it up around Ohno's neck though, for now, running his fingers through the short, spiky hairs there. Ohno's neck is so warm, so perpetually warm, and it's fascinating and Nino wonders maybe if he was tanned if he could where those silly cutoff denim shorts in winter without getting cold too.
"Nn," Ohno says again, a little more desperately this time, and Nino completely agrees.
Ohno comes into Nino's hand just after Nino, eyes squeezed shut, beads of sweat on his forehead. Nino laughs a little. It's sticky and dirty and they're in a hallway, damn it, and Ohno wraps his arms around Nino's neck and rests fifty percent of his weight on him and Nino is struggling to stay standing, but he's satisfied. Ohno is sufficiently tired now, and he can't stop grinning at that.
And as he gets in the car to go home and the driver is giving him that look Nino just slaps that smug grin back on his face again and flashes him a thumbs up. )
lazy (6);
on the other hand, nothing changes at all.
( Sunday comes around again, quite a few months later, quite a few months after that beginning (or is it middle?). Nino sits at the dining table, swinging his legs back and forth under the chair as he lazily taps at the buttons on his DS. His character is stabbed again and he curses at the game, deciding it's time for a change of setting. He slips off the chair, shuffling over towards the living room and dropping himself onto the couch. He dies again, curses again, shifts again, lying down on the couch now.
Something's missing.
He digs his mobile out of his pocket and flicks it open, fingers hovering over the numbers. His heart rate is sitting annoyingly high again and Nino decides it either has to be his super intense game or that he's getting fat after all. He refuses to believe it could be anything else, that it could be that, because that would just mean that- that nothing had-
He holds down the three, waits for the speed dial to connect and start ringing, and then promptly hangs up. He puts his phone hastily back in his pocket and presses Retry on his DS. He's getting there this time, a bit further than last time at least, and then his phone rings and startles him, and the enemy shamelessly stabs him in the heart. He clutches at his chest with one hand and fishes his phone back out with the other, nervously flipping the phone open when he looks at the caller ID. This behavior is so not even natural or fair. Nino frowns at his heart.
When he answers the phone, his voice almost betrays him, but he manages to keep it from breaking (just barely).
"Did you call me just now?" comes Ohno's voice, unsure, curious.
Just at hearing his voice, Nino's heart beats even faster and he flails madly in frustration for a few seconds. "Yes. Come over. Or don't. Whatever." He quickly hangs up, and it isn't until ten minutes pass that he starts to feel the full anxiety of having no idea whether Ohno is coming over or not. He stares at the clock on the wall and it laughs at him. He turns to the TV for comfort and it laughs at him too. Nino yells at them and goes back to his game but the enemies have somehow miraculously leveled up tenfold since he last attempted them a few minutes ago and they kill him without a second's notice.
When the doorbell rings he's seconds from crying with utter irritation at the game and himself and everything (or possibly exploding) and so when he opens the door and Ohno is there looking slightly flushed and confused Nino dives at him, burying his face in Ohno's neck. "Oh-chan," he says, and the name feels soft and soothing on his tongue.
"Yes," says Ohno, and he pats Nino on the head.
Nino leads him into the living room and pushes him onto the couch then lies down and rests his head in Ohno's lap. "Don't move," he tells him, and reattempts the game.
Not only does he destroy the first enemy with no problems at all, he also flies through the next level and half of the one after, before realising that Ohno is fast asleep.
"Thank you," Nino says quietly. )
ended (7);
It's not all perfect; Nino isn't naive enough to believe that it is. Ohno sits across the room from him, and avoids eye contact. Nino knows what he's done, knows it's pretty bad and he's scared, so scared that he's fucked up for good this time.
(He'd seen her again at a bar, by chance. The pretty girl with the bleached hair and the blue cardigan from the train all those months ago. He hadn't recognised her at first, but after a few hours and a few drinks he'd remembered. It didn't go further than lips and hands at the bar, but he'd woken up the next morning with a head and heart full of regret and embarrassment and anger at his own stupidity, and had shown up at work and confessed on the spot.)
If it had been the other way around, Nino thinks, he would forgive Ohno, if for no other reason than he couldn't stand the thought of not being with him. But Nino doesn't think so highly of himself. He's not so sure it works this way for Ohno, and as he sits there he's shaking more than a little. He just wants to go home. He wants to go home and get away from all of this and bury his head in a pillow and pretend none of it ever happened.
But then there's warm hands on his shoulders and Nino looks up and Ohno is there, snaking arms around him and hugging him tight.
"If you're going to make out with pretty girls, make sure you invite me next time," Ohno tells him, and Nino can't decide whether to cry or laugh or both.
He places a chaste kiss on Ohno's lips and nods, "Will do."
lifetime (8);
In spite of it all, Nino knows one thing for sure:
It's something they just maybe call Love.
(Well, that, and it's forever.)
Nino/Ohno | R, 3229 words
A giant giant giant thank you to harinezumi_kun for her fic The Book of Love which completely inspired this, from start to finish. I have never written something this long and actually finished it, like, ever, in this fandom. Early happy birthday to waxrose !
slowly (1);
At first, Nino can't comprehend it. The sky is clouded over - grayer than he's ever seen it (but he doesn't mind that today) - and there's a distinct chill about the air. His fingers are purple and he isn't wearing enough layers for the weather, not really, because he has on silly little denim cutoff shorts that Ohno picked out back in summer as a joke (sort of) and they don't quite reach his knees and although he has a sweater on top everyone else is wearing trousers and coats and scarves and beanies and Nino has none of these things.
Anyway: comprehension, Nino can't, it. It, being why his heart rate is sitting abnormally high while he sits in what he supposes would be classed as a resting position (legs curled up beneath him on the bench, waiting and waiting for that midday train). There's nothing special about today, only that it's not quite winter but the weather says otherwise, and maybe also that Nino is going to see- but no not really. They're average things, not special enough to be exceptions on a not-special day.
He stops questioning it then; it's vaguely tiring to not understand, and so he pretends it's not even there at all. His heart rate is definitely normal, average. He hasn't run a marathon, and he certainly hasn't put on weight or become drastically unfit. His heart must not be beating faster than usual; Nino must simply be imagining it, all of it.
He can hear the announcer over the speakers; his train will be arriving in approximately two minutes. He knows. It's eleven fifty-eight, and the trains are always on time. He counts one hundred and twenty clicks of the second hand around the face of his watch as he walks up to the platform leisurely. It's not peak hour. It's a nice, quiet Sunday, and he's going somewhere slightly obscure (just slightly). It wasn't his pick, but he's one hundred percent okay with it.
The train is only about half full, and Nino takes a seat next to a pretty girl with bleached hair and a blue cardigan. Maybe she's twenty, maybe she's actually thirty, Nino can't tell past her makeup. She looks at him and he smiles out of courtesy because he was staring, after all. (She doesn't recognise him and he's both grateful and a little surprised). She turns back to her book and Nino can't tell what it is. The boy across the aisle is gazing at him when he looks up again. He doesn't smile this time, but the boy waves and waves and Nino's not sure what to do so he bows his head a little and then slinks down in his seat just slightly and closes his eyes.
He wakes up twenty minutes later to the sound of the announcer calling his station. When he steps off the train it only takes two blinks and Ohno is there, ready to pounce, but before he even gets the chance, Nino suddenly understands it; he comprehends.
"Fuck," he says out loud, and Ohno laughs at what to him is a greeting, and Nino is trying really hard not to blurt out the realisation that- that-
strong (2);
Ohno is in high spirits today. It's more than a little (something like completely) endearing, and it just makes Nino so happy to see it. It's not often they get the chance to shut off entirely, to relax and get away and be close to (something like almost completely) anonymous. It's not often they get the chance to be alone, really. Ohno knows the directions to their desired destination, he has them all saved in his head and committed to heart, and Nino swears for a second - just a second - it looks like Ohno is going to take his hand as they walk to lead the way.
This, Nino guesses, must either be wishful thinking or at least creative interpretation of a nothing gesture: a particular swing of an arm, the almost missable clenching of a fist. And it's at this point that Nino realises his trouble has shifted. It's no longer about the comprehension (he understands almost too well) but instead, it's about the coping. This whole new feeling kind of hurts. He wants those nothing gestures to be something gestures, but he doesn't have the guts to go out and transform them into such himself. His guts are elsewhere today, and no amount of daylight is bringing them back. It's all because of this damn realisation.
Nino's not paying attention. Ohno is doing gratuitous amounts of speaking and Nino isn't paying attention. Whatever has come over him is completely and utterly ridiculous and he thinks, he doesn't need this, he doesn't want this. It's painful and distracting and he feels so stupid.
"I'm sorry," he says slowly, embarrassed, "What did you say?" You only get once chance for a repeat; he's listening properly and intently now.
"I said We're here," Ohno laughs, and grabs Nino's wrist to stop him from walking any further.
Nino's heart jumps out of his chest and he scrambles to grab at it and put it back in. Breathe. He nods quickly and then stares down at his arm. Ohno's fingers are wrapped around his pulse and somehow it amplifies the feeling and it's all Nino can think: Ohno can feel his heart.
Ohno's gaze mimics Nino's and he quickly lets go. "S-sorry," he says, and then, "Let's go in?"
A shiver runs down Nino's back and he's not sure whether it's from the cold and his stupid bare legs or from something else entirely. The latter his brain is saying, The latter or both. "Okay," he replies lamely, still staring staring staring at that wrist, and it's not until he sees those nothing gestures appear and turn themselves into something gestures that do in fact mean I want to hold hands, that he looks back up again, cheeks burning, letting Ohno lace their fingers together slowly, (nervously), carefully. "Okay," he says again. His chest pulls tight.
scares (3);
"Why did you buy those silly shorts?" Ohno questions in whisper, while the people in the movie tattle on about things Nino can't really get his head around.
Nino almost, almost, squeaks in response to the warm breath on his ear, the fingers tentatively resting on his arm for the initial attention snag. In any case: the answer to Ohno's question seems simple enough to Nino, now that he's all privy to comprehension of feelings and other fabulous things that come with age and maturity. "Because you-" he stops himself, but the continuation of the sentence is already out there, he can tell, as if the air was able to interpret and complete it before it hit Ohno's ears.
Ohno blushes a furious red at this, and seems to debate between replying or watching the movie, until he finally just says, "You," and then turns back to the screen, reading the subtitles with an added determination.
While Nino just feels mostly ridiculous, he can understand the determination. This film is not going to beat him. It's black and white and from the sixties and Swedish for Christ's sake, and it's officially the most confusing thing he's ever watched. The subtitles are not helping at all and he can't for the life of him remember what inspired Ohno to suggest something like this (a date like this, he wants to think).
A few more undecipherable scenes pass, and Nino calms down sort of, mostly. A man a few rows back coughs lightly. The chair squeaks beneath Nino as he wriggles around and pulls his knees up to his chest. The characters in the movie are arguing again. One puts down a piece of glass on the floor in hopes the other will step on it. It's disturbing and almost sickening. And then suddenly the armrest is pulled away from his side and Ohno is snuggled up against him, warm through his sweater and down to his skin.
"I don't get this," Ohno tells him.
"It makes perfect sense," Nino says. But he's not talking about the movie anymore. And maybe he actually means it. (If nothing else, he's at least glad that it makes more sense than a Swedish movie, even if the possibility that that's the only thing it will ever make more sense than scares him half to death.)
Ohno looks up at him, perplexed, as Nino turns his head. There's hardly any space between them.
electricity (4);
Suddenly, everything, every nerve, is slammed into working order. Ohno's lips are against his, so lightly it almost feels accidental, and so misaligned that Nino is in fact half convinced that it really is. For a few lingering seconds, neither of them move, and Nino almost forgets to breathe. Every sense is concentrated wholly on that tiny amount of contact at the side of his lips. He can feel it; he can feel it everywhere, and still he's not quite sure what's going on. He was never expecting this.
He can hear it, feel the blood pounding in his ears, drowning out the argument on the screen and magnifying his awareness of his own racing heartbeat. Nino knows in that instant, more than any before it, that he is absolutely and unreservedly under.
Then Ohno pulls back sharply and a thousand apologies come tumbling from his lips, overlapping each other and blurring together. There's a frown kneaded into his eyebrows and Nino wants to massage it away, wants to tell him no no no, that it's totally fine, but his guts still don't look like they're returning to him any time soon so he just sits there dumbly, eyes locked with Ohno's. If he had his guts maybe he'd kiss Ohno now, initiate, but, alas (this is probably not true).
Nino does not blink for a really long time, and nor, he notes, does Ohno. Neither, apparently, have words or voices and Ohno, Nino decides, must have also just used up the last of his action. His cheeks and ears are burning, but Nino can't bring himself to look away. He's not sure how long they sit like that. The movie sounds like it's close to over, but then it's weird and Swedish so he could be completely off. Plus it's not like he's actively watching it anymore and without reading the subtitles he's a lost case.
Ohno is blessed with self-replenishing action, Nino discovers in the next moment. Ohno's tongue slips past his lips and everything about Ohno is so soft soft soft and inviting and sweet and soft, and Nino puts a hand to Ohno's cheek as he kisses him. They don't need words anyway. Ohno is kissing him, Ohno wanted to kiss him (or maybe it's wants to) - this means everything and then some. His head is spinning trying to grasp the situation and this sudden step forward. He is more than a little overwhelmed.
Nino is also, admittedly, eternally grateful for this weird Swedish movie, and that Ohno hadn't suggested something totally unromantic like fishing.
(He would have gone, but still.)
hurried (5);
On one hand, things snowball from there;
( They come out of rehearsals, and it's already pitch black outside. Nino is breathing a little more heavy than usual; he put more in today. Ohno looks nothing like they've just been dancing for the past few hours, but instead, more like he's been sitting down, sipping a cup of tea and watching television.
It's frustrating.
Nino stops Ohno in the hallway. The occasional staff member will pass and sometimes they will look on in curiosity and sometimes they won't. Nino pins Ohno up against the wall, forcing his lips to Ohno's neck, licking and biting and marking. It's hardly a scandal (especially when it's them), and Nino hardly cares anyway. Ohno whimpers a little, eyebrows scrunching together and biting his lip, and Nino ignores everything he ever was or should have been taught about time and place and appropriateness and decency, rolling his hips into Ohno and shuddering at the friction.
He kisses him then, Nino does, teasing Ohno's bottom lip away from his teeth and sucking on it for a second. "Don't bite your lip," he says, then nips at it anyway and plants a peck on Ohno's nose, and then goes back to Ohno's neck and works on slipping a hand down the front of Ohno's jeans, taking him in his hand and finding a rhythm. Ohno, naturally, completely disregards Nino's comment and gnaws on his lip more furiously than ever, eyelids fluttering closed.
Nino will admit that this kind of public indecency is a complete turn on. Ohno won't, but he also never complains.
"Nn," Ohno says, and Nino complies, yes yes and shifts back to his lips.
"Your neck is delicious though," Nino tells him between kisses, considering shoving a hand down his own pants for quick release. He leaves it up around Ohno's neck though, for now, running his fingers through the short, spiky hairs there. Ohno's neck is so warm, so perpetually warm, and it's fascinating and Nino wonders maybe if he was tanned if he could where those silly cutoff denim shorts in winter without getting cold too.
"Nn," Ohno says again, a little more desperately this time, and Nino completely agrees.
Ohno comes into Nino's hand just after Nino, eyes squeezed shut, beads of sweat on his forehead. Nino laughs a little. It's sticky and dirty and they're in a hallway, damn it, and Ohno wraps his arms around Nino's neck and rests fifty percent of his weight on him and Nino is struggling to stay standing, but he's satisfied. Ohno is sufficiently tired now, and he can't stop grinning at that.
And as he gets in the car to go home and the driver is giving him that look Nino just slaps that smug grin back on his face again and flashes him a thumbs up. )
lazy (6);
on the other hand, nothing changes at all.
( Sunday comes around again, quite a few months later, quite a few months after that beginning (or is it middle?). Nino sits at the dining table, swinging his legs back and forth under the chair as he lazily taps at the buttons on his DS. His character is stabbed again and he curses at the game, deciding it's time for a change of setting. He slips off the chair, shuffling over towards the living room and dropping himself onto the couch. He dies again, curses again, shifts again, lying down on the couch now.
Something's missing.
He digs his mobile out of his pocket and flicks it open, fingers hovering over the numbers. His heart rate is sitting annoyingly high again and Nino decides it either has to be his super intense game or that he's getting fat after all. He refuses to believe it could be anything else, that it could be that, because that would just mean that- that nothing had-
He holds down the three, waits for the speed dial to connect and start ringing, and then promptly hangs up. He puts his phone hastily back in his pocket and presses Retry on his DS. He's getting there this time, a bit further than last time at least, and then his phone rings and startles him, and the enemy shamelessly stabs him in the heart. He clutches at his chest with one hand and fishes his phone back out with the other, nervously flipping the phone open when he looks at the caller ID. This behavior is so not even natural or fair. Nino frowns at his heart.
When he answers the phone, his voice almost betrays him, but he manages to keep it from breaking (just barely).
"Did you call me just now?" comes Ohno's voice, unsure, curious.
Just at hearing his voice, Nino's heart beats even faster and he flails madly in frustration for a few seconds. "Yes. Come over. Or don't. Whatever." He quickly hangs up, and it isn't until ten minutes pass that he starts to feel the full anxiety of having no idea whether Ohno is coming over or not. He stares at the clock on the wall and it laughs at him. He turns to the TV for comfort and it laughs at him too. Nino yells at them and goes back to his game but the enemies have somehow miraculously leveled up tenfold since he last attempted them a few minutes ago and they kill him without a second's notice.
When the doorbell rings he's seconds from crying with utter irritation at the game and himself and everything (or possibly exploding) and so when he opens the door and Ohno is there looking slightly flushed and confused Nino dives at him, burying his face in Ohno's neck. "Oh-chan," he says, and the name feels soft and soothing on his tongue.
"Yes," says Ohno, and he pats Nino on the head.
Nino leads him into the living room and pushes him onto the couch then lies down and rests his head in Ohno's lap. "Don't move," he tells him, and reattempts the game.
Not only does he destroy the first enemy with no problems at all, he also flies through the next level and half of the one after, before realising that Ohno is fast asleep.
"Thank you," Nino says quietly. )
ended (7);
It's not all perfect; Nino isn't naive enough to believe that it is. Ohno sits across the room from him, and avoids eye contact. Nino knows what he's done, knows it's pretty bad and he's scared, so scared that he's fucked up for good this time.
(He'd seen her again at a bar, by chance. The pretty girl with the bleached hair and the blue cardigan from the train all those months ago. He hadn't recognised her at first, but after a few hours and a few drinks he'd remembered. It didn't go further than lips and hands at the bar, but he'd woken up the next morning with a head and heart full of regret and embarrassment and anger at his own stupidity, and had shown up at work and confessed on the spot.)
If it had been the other way around, Nino thinks, he would forgive Ohno, if for no other reason than he couldn't stand the thought of not being with him. But Nino doesn't think so highly of himself. He's not so sure it works this way for Ohno, and as he sits there he's shaking more than a little. He just wants to go home. He wants to go home and get away from all of this and bury his head in a pillow and pretend none of it ever happened.
But then there's warm hands on his shoulders and Nino looks up and Ohno is there, snaking arms around him and hugging him tight.
"If you're going to make out with pretty girls, make sure you invite me next time," Ohno tells him, and Nino can't decide whether to cry or laugh or both.
He places a chaste kiss on Ohno's lips and nods, "Will do."
lifetime (8);
In spite of it all, Nino knows one thing for sure:
It's something they just maybe call Love.
(Well, that, and it's forever.)