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arashi_exchange2015-09-11 03:04 pm
stormymood.livejournal.com) wrote in arashi_exchange2015-09-11 03:04 pm
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Gift Fic for gurajiorasu 2/2
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gurajiorasu Part 2
6: Announcements
May
Nino fidgeted as he sat next to Aiba, Jun, and Grandpa. Across the room, where at least a hundred of Sakurai and Asami’s family and closest friends were gathered in celebration of their engagement, sat Koizumi. He had always been a stand-out guy: top of his class, a playerin the soccer varsity, and a member of the student council since his first year at university. It helped that he was good-looking in that athletic, laid-back way of the privileged and was sole heir to properties earned by generations of hoteliers.
Koizumi had always made Nino uncomfortable – in fact, he went out of his way to make Nino uncomfortable. Even years later, an entire lifetime later, his piercing eyes, smirk and swagger still unsettled Nino from across a vast hotel room.
He mumbled an excuse at Aiba, saying something dull about needing air, before practically stumbling out of the room and into an adjoining balcony. It was thankfully occupied by only a few guests, with most of the crowd preferring to stay inside, where future Mr. and Mrs. Sakurai were entertaining. Weaving his way through the posh assembly of austere gentlemen and elegant ladies, their chins held high as they laughed in crystalline tones, Nino found an empty bench in a dark corner and sank there. He buried his face in his hands.
“It’s Top Mark Kid, isn’t it?” Nino glanced up and found Aiba standing over him, holding two glasses of champagne. He hadn’t noticed that Aiba had followed him when he rose from their table.“I hate the way that guy looks at us. It makes me feel like he doesn’t want us here, and it’s not even his party!”
“For the record Sakurai doesn’t like him either,” Nino muttered, scooting over and taking the liquor Aiba handed him. “Their mothers are pretty close though, so there’s no way he and his family wouldn’t have been invited.”
Aiba hummed noncommittally and stared at the view that stretched out beyond the balcony. It was a very peaceful location that Sakurai had picked – one of hotel’s side halls overlooking a cluster of trees that Nino wouldn’t have thought existed in the middle of Tokyo. More than anything, the place reminded Nino of a golf course, albeit a flashier, classier one with koi ponds instead of holes and sand traps. Sighing deeply, he shook his head and downed half of his champagne. Sakurai had always seemed so comfortable in his tiny, rundown, one-bedroom apartment that it had been so easy to forget how the guy lived in another dimension most of the time.
“Sho-chan told me about Koizumi,” Aiba said suddenly. “He said the three of you went to school together.”
Nino laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah? What else did he say?”
“He said Koizumi bullied you in college,” Aiba began, choosing his words carefully, “and that seeing him here again might not be an entirely pleasant experience for you. He asked me to look after you today.”
Nino frowned. “Koizumi didn’t bully me.He paid me special attention, but he didn’t bully me.”
“That’s not what Sho-chan said.”
Nino stared at his hands. He would never admit it, but he had always hated his short fingers, and how they didn’t seem to be maturing, just like the rest of his body. “I was a scholarship kid from Hokkaido. Koizumi was a rich kid, he had great grades, friends, a great life, and he was just really good at everything. Koizumi treated me as a rival because he was top of the class, and I was his second, but he probably thought nothing of that. Just a stupid rivalry.”
“From the way he was looking at you, it doesn’t seem like it.”
“Koizumi is a classic Type-A personality,” Nino explained. “He relishes crushing people. He enjoys competition, and there’s nothing he likes better than coming out on top. He’d ask me my scores, and then he’d gloat when he did better.I couldn’t handle that type of strain. But it’s not his fault that I couldn’t pull myself together – that’s all me.”
Aiba was frowning at him, looking as though he didn’t believe what Nino was saying. “Sho-chansaid you quit school because of him.”
“He… was just one of the reasons,” Nino admitted. He had no reason to explain himself and to make Aiba understand – his secrets were his secrets. But he had a feeling that if he didn’t tell Aiba, Sakurai would, because he was interfering that way. And Nino would prefer it if he could present the real version, instead of the biased and spiteful version that Sakurai would no doubt expose.
“My mother had very high expectations of me. She kept telling people that I was a genius, that I was great and all that crap. I hated it,” he said through gritted teeth, and he had to control his grip or the wine glass would shatter in his hand. “I hated it, but in our neck of the woods, it was true that I was the best. I won every academic contest I joined, and I got scholarships. The worst mistake of my life was choosing Keio out of all my options. But I chose it. All because my mother had delusions of grandeur, and she thought I’d fit in one day with all these people,” he gestured towards the party that surrounded them.
“But it didn’t end well for me.” Nino shrugged.“I couldn’t deal with my mother asking me why I was only ever second in school, and I couldn’t deal with Koizumi, and I just decided I’d had it.”
“You quit school,” Aiba guessed. “And then you shut yourself up in your apartment.”
“Yeah, I did,” Nino replied dully. “I quit Keio in my second year, moved houses, took a job that allowed me to work at home, and decided never to come out again if I could. ‘Course Sakurai had to come and mess things up.”
Aiba smiled as Nino glared into the room, trying to scope out Sakurai from among the hundreds of guests. “How does Sho-chan figure in all this?”
“Oh, he was my senior at the school paper,” Nino supplied, recalling college-age Sakurai Sho, who was just as irritatingly perfect as Koizumi, but thankfully, not as vindictively competitive, nor in Nino’s batch. “He was the Associate Editor the year I became a Regular Contributor. He may have been the only one who noticed when I stopped coming to class. Obviously, no one else cared.”
“Well, it’s different now,” Aiba interrupted. “You’ve got us. You’ve got the people at the complex. And of course, you’ve got Sho-chan, too.”
“Do I?” Nino laughed mirthlessly. Aiba was fooling himself if he believed Sakurai would still have time for anything else once he got married. He’d disappear from Nino’s life, just like Ohno had, and then Nino would be alone again. But Nino had told himself he would have to cope on his own. Solitude, much like other things, just needed some getting used to.
Nino exhaled and got to his feet. “I’ll be leaving first. Let Sakurai know, won’t you?”
“But you’re all right?” Aiba had gotten to his feet, too, and he was peering into Nino’s eyes as though he were a child who had declared that he wasn’t feeling well. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” Nino began. “I just need a bit of air.”
“That’s what you said earlier.”
“Masaki,” Nino cut in, a little louder than he had intended. A group of middle-aged smokers had glanced in their direction, but otherwise, no one else had paid them any notice. “Aiba. I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. But I can take care of myself. I always have. AndI just need space,” Nino stressed, and he hated how his voice sounded breathless, as though he was losing control over his words when he had never been more honest in his life.“I don’t appreciate your pushing in on me. I don’t welcome it, I don’t know how to tell you to back off, and frankly, I think you’re starting to suffocate me.”
There was a moment, as Nino looked into Aiba’s eyes, when he thought his words had stung and Aiba was hurting in a way that physical wounds would not compare with. The impression was fleeting, however, as Aiba stood straighter, and Nino fidgeted in his eagerness to get away.
Aiba nodded. “Of course, Nino. You need your space. I understand that.”
“Thanks,” Nino managed. He bounced on the balls of his feet, arms stiff at his sides. “You’ll let Grandpa and Jun know, too, right?”
Without waiting for Aiba’s reply, Nino turned on his heel and left.
__
7: Aggravation
June
Nino hadn’t been expecting Jun to pay him a visit. Yes, they had talked before, but those conversations had never been long, and they had always been about inane things like gaming, groceries, and sometimes, even the weather. But Jun had turned up at his front door that afternoon, looking even more serious than he usually did, and requested to enter Nino’s apartment so they could talk. Nino had agreed. And so he found himself a couple of minutes later, sitting across Jun and pouring tea, watching him from the corner of his eye and wondering what on Earth had brought Matsumoto to his apartment.
Jun sighed as he replaced his cup on Nino’s low table. “I’ll be direct, Nino. I’d like to know what happened between you and Aiba-san.”
Nino’s mouth tensed into a grim line. “Nothing. I don’t see how that concerns you, Jun-kun.”
“I don’t like it when two of my friends – who used to get along swimmingly, mind you – suddenly aren’t talking. And nodding to each other definitely doesn’t count.”
“What if I told you I’m more comfortable with the way things are now? Two grown men eating dinner at each other’s house every night – it was bound to get uncomfortable eventually.”
“I’m not saying you should invade each other’s private time, and I definitely don’t think eating dinners is the only way to gauge a friendship.” Jun frowned. “But I’ve spoken to Aiba-san as well. He seems to have understood what you told him as a permanent dismissal, as though you never want to be friends with him again.”
“If his idea of friendship means having to know everything about me, then maybe that’s exactly what I meant.”
Jun, still frowning at him, began to tap the table between them. “Do you want to know what I think?”
Nino scoffed. “I think you’re way past the point of asking that.”
“Well, then,” Jun began, and he seemed to weigh his next words carefully. “I think that you’re scared of being friends with Aiba-san because of what happened with Satoshi-kun.”
The silence that followed was so palpably thick that for a moment, Nino blamed it for being unable to breathe. Ohno Satoshi had died three years ago, after accidentally poisoning himself through one of the many painting liquids he had been using for his art. Neither Nino nor Grandpa had discovered his body until the next day when it was far, far too late, and so Ohno had died a painful death, all alone.
Nino crossed his arms. “I don’t see what Ohno has to do with this-”
“Satoshi-kun was the first person you accepted as your friend. You cared for him even before you cared for Sakurai, and don’t lie because I remember,” Jun interrupted as Nino opened his mouth to complain. “I remember how you two had been. For two people who rarely left each other’s houses, you sure got along well. And I remember Grandpa being so happy. He’d never thought Satoshi-kun would ever find friends – he was so… different. But then you moved in, and you were inseparable. We were all happy for you.”
“You’re thinking Aiba is a replacement for Ohno-”
“Aiba-san is a replacement for Ohno, whether you acknowledge it or not. It’s not your choice, Nino. You can’t tell yourself not to like a person when you obviously do.” He sighed. “And you need him. You’ve been grieving overSatoshi-kun too long, and now that Sakurai’s getting married, you desperately need to let your walls down – for your own sake.”
Jun threw his hands in the air. “Or better yet, you can reach out. You can reciprocate Aiba’s efforts – let him know you’re willing to accept him. Just so he knows he has a friend in you.”
Nino glared at Jun, jaw set. His blood was boiling at the sight of the man, but damn if Nino was going to let it show. “What makes you think you have the right to tell me this, Matsumoto? Who do you think you are? I don’t appreciate you psychoanalyzing me.”
“I’m your friend,” Jun spat. “I care about you. Just think about it, won’t you? You know I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if I didn’t think I had to.”
Nino simply murdered him with his eyes. “I don’t want to be dependent on anyone, Jun-kun.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Nino,” Jun growled. “Has it ever occurred to you that Aiba-san might need you more than you need him? He’s only just broken up with his first love, and he doesn’t even have a family or very many friends to see him through it. You’re not the only one with problems.”
Nino wrenched his eyes shut. Usually he didn’t let anyone’s lectures get to him, but he hated to admit that Jun was making sense. Worse, he didn’t even know the bulk of it. He didn’t know that Nino had been talking to Ohno since his death until a few weeks ago, and that they had been carrying on with their endless conversations in dreams as though they were both still alive.
“I’ll show myself out,” Jun muttered. “I really wish you’d see sense, Nino. You’ve already earned Aiba-san’s trust, and you shouldn’t waste that opportunity.”
When Nino opened his eyes, Jun was gone, and the tea had gotten cold.
__
8: Amends
Nino was looking out into Grandpa’s garden, a thin mist falling all around him. He stretched his limbs and sighed contentedly as he allowed peace to seep into his tired bones. If only things could always be this placid, he mused. He could barely hear the sound of anything, not even that of his own heart.
Ohno was suddenly standing in front of him, parting the mist and seemingly glowing in the early morning sunshine. He was wearing all white, his hair looking more tamed than Nino could ever remember, although he was wearing a troubled expression. He inched closer to Nino, bringing his face down.
“Wake up,” he urged, visibly alarmed. “Wake up, now!”
Nino’s eyes instantly flew open. It took a while for his senses to kick in, but when they did, the first thing he noticed was the cloud of grey smoke that surrounded him. A violent wall of orange flame rose higher around his small apartment, swallowing all the possessions around which his simple life had revolved. Not bothering to pick up anything, Nino jumped to his feet and ran out. The smoke stung his eyes.
As soon as he tumbled out of his porch, blinking away the midday sunlight,Nino collapsed onto the dirt path that snaked around the apartment complex. Aiba was slowly walking past him, leading Grandpa by the arm. They were both covered in blackened soot, their clothes singed in places.
“Nino!” Aiba shouted, panic flashing in his eyes. “Take Grandpa. I’ve forgotten something.”
Before Nino could stop him, Aiba had disappeared, and Grandpa had been shoved into his care. He barely registered Aiba returning to his room, head bowed with a hand raised to his mouth. As soon as Aiba disappeared through his screen door, the roof came down, and the familiar siren of a fire engine blared from around the corner.
The next few hours passed before Nino’s eyes in a blur. Jun had arrived, distressed and looking to be in an even worse condition than his grandfather. He had insisted on having Grandpa confined to the hospital near his parent’s home, where the entire family would be able to monitor him. The pair of them had left as soon as the police interrogation was over. It had fallen to Nino to fill in the gaps where Grandpa’s shock had not been informative for the police. He could barely remember anything from his conversation with the detectives.
Nino didn’t know how the fire had started, as he had been asleep the entire time, and when he woke up the flames had already been on the warpath. No one was sure of what had happened, but the detectives he had spoken with all surmised faulty electrical wiring as the cause of the accident. Yes, Nino knew they were all living in an apartment complex so old it was basically an arson case waiting to happen. No, he had never thought there would be a fire in his neighborhood. Everything there had always seemed so peaceful.
The police were planning to charge all of them with gross negligence, which Nino frankly couldn’t care about considering Aiba still hadn’t woken up. The detective that had been assigned to the case had been callous and uncaring about his friend’s condition, apparently only disgruntled that he was one witness short and therefore was stuck until further notice. Nino would have been offended at the man’s blatant disrespect had all his focus not been directed towards watching over Aiba. The doctor had said he had inhaled too much smoke. He had suffered a dangerous case of asphyxiation, along with a handful of third-degree burns. No one could tell when he would wake up, or if he would.
So Nino had seated himself in front of the ICU where Aiba lay fighting for his life, not feeling the slightest bit sleepy even as the sun began to set outside the hospital windows.
At nineo’clock that evening, Nino finally broke his unmoving vigil. Cursing silently, he buried his face in his hands, grasping at his singed hair in frustration – the case detective had gone long before the sun had gone down. The hospital hallway was quiet and dark even though it was still early in the evening, and Nino’s only company were the nurses onthe night shift, their heads bowed dutifully over documents behind their desks.
When he turned his head, he found Ohno Satoshi watching him sadly. “He went back for the gift, didn’t he?”
Nino made a non-committal grunt. The velvet box that had caused Aiba’s stupidity was sitting on his lap, taunting him. He had opened it when the fire department had first wrenched it out of Aiba’s curled and bleeding fingers, handing them over to Nino as they all filed into the waiting ambulance. It contained a deck of cards, each with a picture of Jun, Sakurai, Aiba, and Nino as substitutes for suits, with Grandpa’s picture figuring in as the two joker cards. Aiba had gone back for it despite the danger. Somehow, Nino knew the cards had been meant for his birthday, which was only two days away.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at the deck. Instead, he kept his weary eyes trained past the monitoring windows that afforded a view of the ICU. Aiba was strapped to the most uncomfortable bed Nino had ever seen, complete with colorful knobs, high-tech screens and dozens of tubes that connected Aiba’s body to the machines that kept him alive.
Cursing, Nino ran a hand over his eyes.
“I’m sorry we burned the complex down,” he muttered, voice hoarse from hours of both disuse and stress. “But you probably saw what happened, anyway.”
Ohno exhaled deeply. “An electrical spark caught on the wooden planks Aiba had been using to renovate his roof. It’s been a dry season. The fire didn’t take long to spread.”
They stared at Aiba quietly. Nino knew, perhaps had known for a long time, that Aiba could feel Ohno, too. He was the resident ghost of the apartment complex. Surely Aiba had felt his presence before, even if he couldn’t see him.
“We can still save him. Bring him back.” Nino’s glassy eyes turned to meet Ohno’s doubtful ones. “It will be dangerous. But if we just wait for him to come back on his own, he may never. His body will be there, but his mind won’t be.”
“And where will it be?”
“Hovering.” Ohno tilted his head thoughtfully. “He’ll be stuck until his body dies.”
Nino’s breath caught in his throat, and he was finding it difficult to think coherently. “What do we have to do?”
“Find him, and reach out to him. He probably doesn’t know he’s left this plane of existence.” He considered Nino’s exhausted, appalled and resolute expression. “I can’t bring him back, because I’m not a part of this world anymore. But I can help you find him, and I can stay until you both get back. The rest will be up to you.”
“All right,” Nino agreed instantly. “Take me there.”
Ohno shook his head. “You have to understand. There are things you have to be careful about. Time there doesn’t run the same way it does here. You’ll have to be careful not to stay there too long, or you, too, will forget.”
“You’ll be there with me anyway,” Nino growled. “Take me there.”
Ohno stood up without a word. Nino followed suit, leaving the deck of cards – the cost of Aiba’s life – on the plastic chair he had been sitting on. He followed Ohno, who was slowly walking towards a pair of heavy doors at the end of the hospital corridor.
__
9: Accidents
Whereas Nino expected to find another corridor on the other side, he and Ohno ended up on a long stretch of highway. The grey asphalt that seemed to stretch onward indefinitely under their feet was bordered by tall blades of grass on each side, and he could stand in that sea of green with only his head visible. The sky was the rich orange of sunset, its peaceful line broken only by wispy white clouds. Nino turned a quizzical brow towards Ohno, only to discover that his friend had started running.
Trying to keep Ohno’s pace, Nino peered into his determined expression and asked, “What are we doing here?”
“You don’t know anything about Aiba, do you?” Ohno’s lips formed a thin, straight line – the closest he could ever come to looking disappointed. “Not enough to understand what his worst memory is.”
“What do you mean?” Nino began to ask, before Ohno’s footsteps stopped. Up ahead was an overturned car, its hood still smoking. Instinctively, Nino ran towards it, looking through the shattered passenger’s seat into the wreckage. A man and a woman were in the front seats, with a little boy crushed behind them. The child’s neck was twisted in a painful angle, and there were shards of glass buried in the woman’s face. Blood was all over the car seats.
Nino exhaled and tensed, staggering away. Through the haze in his head, he heard someone howling – a small child. This was Aiba’s worst memory, Nino remembered. Aiba had to be here somewhere – he was connected to those people in the car. The realization made Nino’s insides run cold. He dragged his numb body away from the ruined car and turned to follow the cries.
There was a little boy standing a short way away from the wreckage. He was dressed in a sports uniform of a plain white shirt and blue shorts, the outfit ruined by soot, burns, and cuts. There was a medal slung around his neck, and his skin was littered with scratches. Even with his back turned to Nino, he knew he had never seen anyone who had looked more defeated than this child. Trembling, Nino raised a hand and placed it on the boy’s shoulder.
“Aiba?” he asked tentatively. “Masaki?”
The boy turned around and stared at him. There were tear tracts on his full cheeks, and his eyes were heavy and red-rimmed. So much desperation on a face so young. He broke into a wave of fresh tears when he saw Nino. “I need help. I need a hospital. My mum and dad are hurt. Yusuke, too.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” whispered a voice from behind Nino. Ohno was standing there, holding his arms awkwardly at his sides. “This is just a memory. You have to move now. The sun will be setting soon.”
“Masaki.” Nino crouched to the boy’s level and placed both his palms on those frail shoulders. With difficulty, he steadied his eyes to meet Aiba’s hopeful gaze. How could he possibly tell this small boy to let go? “Masaki, I understand that you want to get help. But there’s nothing you can do for your family now. They’re gone and we have to go now-”
“No, they’re not!” Aiba began to struggle under his grip. “I can still save them-”
“Masaki.” Nino cupped his friend’s face and held it as carefully as he could. “They’re gone. They’re dead, and there’s nothing you can do to bring them back”
The boy bit his lip. How could this creature ever have grown up to become Aiba – smiling, cheerful Aiba? He fell into a heap in the middle of the road, burying his face into his bleeding knees. Nino watched him helplessly. Aiba had stopped crying out loud, and now seemed to be choking on his own unshed tears. Nino wished he would kick and scream instead. Anything was better than this crushed resignation.
“Nino, the sun is setting,” Ohno said in a warning tone. It was true – the sky was fading into deeper shades of orange. A blood red sun had appeared above their heads, taunting. “You have to leave now. Carry him if you have to.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing the boy under the armpits, Nino hoisted him up and quickly turned to follow Ohno towards the direction from which they had come. Aiba seemed to have run out of steam, for which Nino was both grateful and worried. With his arms around Nino’s thin neck, he barely seemed to register the family car that was flipped over, still smoking. Nino would not have heard his question, had Aiba not whispered so closely to his ear.
“Who are you?”
Nino grimaced. “My name is Nino. I’m – a friend.”
“Where are we going?” Aiba’s weak voice urged Nino to run faster. His sides were bursting both with the sudden surge of exercise and the boy’s weight pulling him down. “Are we going to the hospital?”
“Yeah,” Nino answered noncommittally. “We’re going to put you back together.”
“Me?”
The scenery had begun to change around them. The road and the grassland had transformed into a quiet, gray street with dusty road signs, before turning, yet again, into one of the many public housing settlements scattered around Tokyo suburbs. A white-washed high school building, a nondescript convenience store. Were all these fragments of Aiba’s memories? The very worst ones, the ones he couldn’t wade through on his own?
“Yes,” Nino whispered, pressing Aiba’s small body closer to his own. “I’m going to put you back together. I’m going to watch over you now.”
The boy Aiba did not reply. Still, Nino felt his shoulder getting heavier and knew he had somehow found comfort there.
The hall from Sakurai’s engagement party was suddenly in front of them. Ohno was leading the way through the empty room, disappearing into the balconywhere Aiba and Nino had talked all those afternoons ago. Gripping Aiba as tightly as he could, Nino ran headfirst past elegant hotel doors and into a vast, warm darkness.
His eyes flew open, and the sudden rush of cold air that met him was one of the most painful Nino had ever experienced. He coughed out, grasping at oxygen and releasing something dark, something dirty at the same time. It took him a moment to notice that a flurry of activity was taking place around him. Through stinging eyes, he saw nurses running into the ICU in front of him.
Rising, Nino carried himself to the monitoring windows. Aiba was coughing up a lung as well, his oxygen mask misting with the effort. The heart rate monitor that he had been attached to was projecting the most activity it had seen in hours. Aiba seemed to be trying to open his eyes, although he was obviously failing at the attempt.
Nino couldn’t help it. He laughed. Aiba was alive again – he was still coughing, the nurses poking at random tubes and machines at his sides. Aiba was alive – he’d still get to eat Aiba’s horrible cooking, and have to suffer through the man’s awful Othello tactics. Nino pressed his damp forehead against the smooth fiberglass of the ICU window, letting his tears fall without shame. On another day, he might have said he was being emotional due to lack of sleep. He would have said gravity was pulling his teardrops down. But today was the day Aiba had come back to life, to him, and his old self would have to stuff it for a moment.
So Nino allowed himself to cry and to laugh as much as he wanted, public opinion be damned.
__
10: Amusements
Nino tried not to scowl as Aiba cheerily handed him the velvet box.
“It’s a bit anticlimactic, I know, but let’s pretend you’ve never seen it before, all right?” Aiba suggested. “We all pitched in for it. Matsujun found the graphic designer, Sho-chan had it printed, and I bought the supplies and stuff.”
“Sakurai said it was your idea, too.”
“Yeah, well.” Aiba shrugged modestly. “You were always playing with your cards. It wasn’t very hard to figure out what you’d like.”
It had been three days since the fire at the Matsumoto Apartment Complex. Grandpa, who had been hospitalized for all of twelve hours, had finally been coerced into living with his son and daughter-in-law.Since both their children were grown, Jun’s parents had insisted thatthey’d be more than happy to look after Grandpa – even if he did have a slight obsession with shogi, bonsai, and hotel matchboxes. Jun had taken over the cleanup at the complex, both in literal and legal terms. Nino knew they didn’t have to worry about him, because Jun lived to take over operations like this. He might even have been an army general or a school principal in a past life, which would definitely explain the permanent frown line in his eyebrows.
Sakurai was just coming home from meeting Asami’s relatives in Saga Prefecture, where they had apparently suggested that he try his hand at the family business of making high-class pottery. Sakurai, ever eager to please, had humored them, which was how he had ended up burning both his hands without knowing how he had botched up the procedure. He had joked – when the fiasco in Tokyo had calmed down – that he had been with them in spirit, what with having his hands burnt. Nino had rolled his eyes over the phone call, and Sakurai – sensing the wordless motion – promptly shut up and asked after Aiba’s health.
“I’m sorry about your collection,” Aiba said, looking extremely apologetic. He had his head turned towards Nino, who was seated next to his hospital bed, frowning at the universe. Between them was a tray with a collection of small cakes that Jun had forced upon them, along with the promise that he and Grandpa would be joining them once he closed the egg shop. Sakurai had made a vow of a similar nature, hinting that he would try to bring Asami along.
It was Nino’s 26th birthday.
“Don’t ruin my party,” he growled, poking at the mango cheesecake that sat in front of him. “For one day, just don’t think about what happened. I’d tell you it wasn’t your fault, but I’ve been telling you that for days, and you never seem to take me seriously.”
Aiba had nothing to say to that. Instead, he turned to look at the ceiling, thoughtful. “I wonder if Ohno’s moved on. We burned his house down to a crisp. He’d have nothing to go back to.”
Nino briefly glanced at Aiba before replying. He couldn’t seem to remember their rescue mission via his memories. Moreover, he had yet to ask directly if Aiba saw Ohno Satoshi, but from all they had talked about so far, it seemed that he could only sense him. No communication had happened between the two of them, and everything Aiba knew about Ohno he only pieced together because of Grandpa and Jun’s combined gossiping about the former resident who had died after accidentally poisoning himself.
“I’m sure he’s moved on,” Nino said simply. He had not seen Ohno since they had brought Aiba back, but he knew his statement to be true. “So, again, stop thinking about the fire, or I’ll poke you with this fork.”
“Right.” It was Aiba’s turn to frown at Nino. He chose to ignore it, and proceeded to decimate the remainder of his mango cheesecake. When Aiba had woken up, it was as though the Cold War between the two of them had never happened. Aiba had been glad to be alive, Nino had been glad that Aiba was alive, but because the two of them were awkward creatures, neither had seen it fit to air out that simple shared truth.
Aiba’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry about monopolizing your birthday. I think you’re the type who’d prefer to spend his birthday alone, but I ruined that for you, didn’t I?”
Nino would have snapped that he didn’t have a house to sulk in anymore, but thought that might be too tactless, even for him. “On another year, I might have minded. This year, I don’t really care.”
Just as it had been so easy – too easy really -- to fall into the quiet companionship he and Aiba had had before they grew apart, Nino wondered if it would be possible, too, for them to become good friends. When he thought about it, really, all his friends had been people who had insisted on being part of his life whether he wanted to be with them or not. They had threatened to break down his door if he didn’t open up; they had left him countless voice calls when he wouldn’t pick up the phone. Maybe he didn’t have to think too much into whatever he and Aiba would be. Maybe he’d just let it happen.
Or maybe he would take the initiative for once.
Nino scowled. Matsumoto Jun was going around giving spot-on relationship advice. The world was coming to an end.
“I was wondering-”
“Nino-”
“What?” Nino’s head snapped up. Aiba was looking at him with a slack jaw, as though he had been in the middle of saying something that had taken a lot of guts to open up about. “Were you saying something?”
“You go first.”
“No, no, you’re the invalid. You get that privilege.”
“Then let me have this one. You go first. You look like you’ve got something interesting to say.”
Nino glared at him. How he hated being put on the spot. He would have broken a couple of Aiba’s ribs if he didn’t have enough broken ones to begin with. “I said – I was just wondering if you’d let me bother you. In the future. Like, maybe pop in for brunch sometimes. Because you often make too much food, and you can’t ever finish it on your own, so it ends up clogging your refrigerator.”
“Yeah, of course,” Aiba said, cutting through Nino’s psychobabble. He was sitting up, a glint in his eye. It made Nino feel nervous, as though he had made Aiba extremely happy just by saying that he wanted to leech off his groceries. “Nino, you don’t even have to ask.”
“I didn’t want to be rude,” Nino muttered, playing with the hem of Aiba’s hospital blanket. “I just wanted to lay out the ground rules. Because I’m not used to… this.”
Making friends, he wanted to say. He wasn’t used to opening up to people, wasn’t used to offering up his heart for virtual strangers to trample on at will.
As he sneaked a look at Aiba though, he knew he didn’t have to say anything. Aiba was surprisingly a capable mind reader, or maybe Nino had become easier to read over time.
Despite the thought that his mind-meddling skills were slipping, Nino smiled. “Didn’t you want to say something?”
“Oh.” Aiba paused, thinking back on what he had been trying to say earlier. His face broke into a wide smile. “I just wanted to greet you a happy birthday.”
It might have been Nino’s imagination, but he thought the sad clouds in Aiba’s eyes had dissipated, even just for that moment.
There was suddenly a knock on the door of the hospital room, and both of them turned to search out the sound. Standing on the doorway, looking terribly smug, was a Sakurai Sho with bandaged hands. Asami was standing next to him, smiling brightly with her hands protectively wrapped around a cardboard box.
“You’re old,” Sakurai told Nino by way of greeting. He turned to poke fun at Aiba next. “And you look awful.”
“I’m not the one with mummified fingers,” Aiba shot back. Nino had to bite back a grin. He was definitely rubbing off on Aiba.
“Asami-san, hello,” he said, standing. He had to be the gentleman in the room because the other two candidates had chosen to behave like toddlers fighting over a sandlot. “What’s in the cardboard box?”
“Funny you should ask,” she replieddarkly. Unwrapping the package, she revealed a very poorly done potted plate. It might have been a shade between brown and dung, and it had cracks running across it. Nino couldn’t even tell if it was supposed to be circular or another shape entirely. “Sho-san said he wanted to show off his new pottery skills. He insisted on making you a birthday gift.”
Sakurai Sho plus arts and crafts. Those elements had always equaled disaster.
“I should have known,” Nino said sadly, shaking his head. “Some things will never change.”
From his spot on the hospital bed, Aiba laughed.
__
gurajiorasu Part 26: Announcements
May
Nino fidgeted as he sat next to Aiba, Jun, and Grandpa. Across the room, where at least a hundred of Sakurai and Asami’s family and closest friends were gathered in celebration of their engagement, sat Koizumi. He had always been a stand-out guy: top of his class, a playerin the soccer varsity, and a member of the student council since his first year at university. It helped that he was good-looking in that athletic, laid-back way of the privileged and was sole heir to properties earned by generations of hoteliers.
Koizumi had always made Nino uncomfortable – in fact, he went out of his way to make Nino uncomfortable. Even years later, an entire lifetime later, his piercing eyes, smirk and swagger still unsettled Nino from across a vast hotel room.
He mumbled an excuse at Aiba, saying something dull about needing air, before practically stumbling out of the room and into an adjoining balcony. It was thankfully occupied by only a few guests, with most of the crowd preferring to stay inside, where future Mr. and Mrs. Sakurai were entertaining. Weaving his way through the posh assembly of austere gentlemen and elegant ladies, their chins held high as they laughed in crystalline tones, Nino found an empty bench in a dark corner and sank there. He buried his face in his hands.
“It’s Top Mark Kid, isn’t it?” Nino glanced up and found Aiba standing over him, holding two glasses of champagne. He hadn’t noticed that Aiba had followed him when he rose from their table.“I hate the way that guy looks at us. It makes me feel like he doesn’t want us here, and it’s not even his party!”
“For the record Sakurai doesn’t like him either,” Nino muttered, scooting over and taking the liquor Aiba handed him. “Their mothers are pretty close though, so there’s no way he and his family wouldn’t have been invited.”
Aiba hummed noncommittally and stared at the view that stretched out beyond the balcony. It was a very peaceful location that Sakurai had picked – one of hotel’s side halls overlooking a cluster of trees that Nino wouldn’t have thought existed in the middle of Tokyo. More than anything, the place reminded Nino of a golf course, albeit a flashier, classier one with koi ponds instead of holes and sand traps. Sighing deeply, he shook his head and downed half of his champagne. Sakurai had always seemed so comfortable in his tiny, rundown, one-bedroom apartment that it had been so easy to forget how the guy lived in another dimension most of the time.
“Sho-chan told me about Koizumi,” Aiba said suddenly. “He said the three of you went to school together.”
Nino laughed mirthlessly. “Yeah? What else did he say?”
“He said Koizumi bullied you in college,” Aiba began, choosing his words carefully, “and that seeing him here again might not be an entirely pleasant experience for you. He asked me to look after you today.”
Nino frowned. “Koizumi didn’t bully me.He paid me special attention, but he didn’t bully me.”
“That’s not what Sho-chan said.”
Nino stared at his hands. He would never admit it, but he had always hated his short fingers, and how they didn’t seem to be maturing, just like the rest of his body. “I was a scholarship kid from Hokkaido. Koizumi was a rich kid, he had great grades, friends, a great life, and he was just really good at everything. Koizumi treated me as a rival because he was top of the class, and I was his second, but he probably thought nothing of that. Just a stupid rivalry.”
“From the way he was looking at you, it doesn’t seem like it.”
“Koizumi is a classic Type-A personality,” Nino explained. “He relishes crushing people. He enjoys competition, and there’s nothing he likes better than coming out on top. He’d ask me my scores, and then he’d gloat when he did better.I couldn’t handle that type of strain. But it’s not his fault that I couldn’t pull myself together – that’s all me.”
Aiba was frowning at him, looking as though he didn’t believe what Nino was saying. “Sho-chansaid you quit school because of him.”
“He… was just one of the reasons,” Nino admitted. He had no reason to explain himself and to make Aiba understand – his secrets were his secrets. But he had a feeling that if he didn’t tell Aiba, Sakurai would, because he was interfering that way. And Nino would prefer it if he could present the real version, instead of the biased and spiteful version that Sakurai would no doubt expose.
“My mother had very high expectations of me. She kept telling people that I was a genius, that I was great and all that crap. I hated it,” he said through gritted teeth, and he had to control his grip or the wine glass would shatter in his hand. “I hated it, but in our neck of the woods, it was true that I was the best. I won every academic contest I joined, and I got scholarships. The worst mistake of my life was choosing Keio out of all my options. But I chose it. All because my mother had delusions of grandeur, and she thought I’d fit in one day with all these people,” he gestured towards the party that surrounded them.
“But it didn’t end well for me.” Nino shrugged.“I couldn’t deal with my mother asking me why I was only ever second in school, and I couldn’t deal with Koizumi, and I just decided I’d had it.”
“You quit school,” Aiba guessed. “And then you shut yourself up in your apartment.”
“Yeah, I did,” Nino replied dully. “I quit Keio in my second year, moved houses, took a job that allowed me to work at home, and decided never to come out again if I could. ‘Course Sakurai had to come and mess things up.”
Aiba smiled as Nino glared into the room, trying to scope out Sakurai from among the hundreds of guests. “How does Sho-chan figure in all this?”
“Oh, he was my senior at the school paper,” Nino supplied, recalling college-age Sakurai Sho, who was just as irritatingly perfect as Koizumi, but thankfully, not as vindictively competitive, nor in Nino’s batch. “He was the Associate Editor the year I became a Regular Contributor. He may have been the only one who noticed when I stopped coming to class. Obviously, no one else cared.”
“Well, it’s different now,” Aiba interrupted. “You’ve got us. You’ve got the people at the complex. And of course, you’ve got Sho-chan, too.”
“Do I?” Nino laughed mirthlessly. Aiba was fooling himself if he believed Sakurai would still have time for anything else once he got married. He’d disappear from Nino’s life, just like Ohno had, and then Nino would be alone again. But Nino had told himself he would have to cope on his own. Solitude, much like other things, just needed some getting used to.
Nino exhaled and got to his feet. “I’ll be leaving first. Let Sakurai know, won’t you?”
“But you’re all right?” Aiba had gotten to his feet, too, and he was peering into Nino’s eyes as though he were a child who had declared that he wasn’t feeling well. “Do you want me to come with you?”
“No,” Nino began. “I just need a bit of air.”
“That’s what you said earlier.”
“Masaki,” Nino cut in, a little louder than he had intended. A group of middle-aged smokers had glanced in their direction, but otherwise, no one else had paid them any notice. “Aiba. I appreciate your concern. Really, I do. But I can take care of myself. I always have. AndI just need space,” Nino stressed, and he hated how his voice sounded breathless, as though he was losing control over his words when he had never been more honest in his life.“I don’t appreciate your pushing in on me. I don’t welcome it, I don’t know how to tell you to back off, and frankly, I think you’re starting to suffocate me.”
There was a moment, as Nino looked into Aiba’s eyes, when he thought his words had stung and Aiba was hurting in a way that physical wounds would not compare with. The impression was fleeting, however, as Aiba stood straighter, and Nino fidgeted in his eagerness to get away.
Aiba nodded. “Of course, Nino. You need your space. I understand that.”
“Thanks,” Nino managed. He bounced on the balls of his feet, arms stiff at his sides. “You’ll let Grandpa and Jun know, too, right?”
Without waiting for Aiba’s reply, Nino turned on his heel and left.
__
7: Aggravation
June
Nino hadn’t been expecting Jun to pay him a visit. Yes, they had talked before, but those conversations had never been long, and they had always been about inane things like gaming, groceries, and sometimes, even the weather. But Jun had turned up at his front door that afternoon, looking even more serious than he usually did, and requested to enter Nino’s apartment so they could talk. Nino had agreed. And so he found himself a couple of minutes later, sitting across Jun and pouring tea, watching him from the corner of his eye and wondering what on Earth had brought Matsumoto to his apartment.
Jun sighed as he replaced his cup on Nino’s low table. “I’ll be direct, Nino. I’d like to know what happened between you and Aiba-san.”
Nino’s mouth tensed into a grim line. “Nothing. I don’t see how that concerns you, Jun-kun.”
“I don’t like it when two of my friends – who used to get along swimmingly, mind you – suddenly aren’t talking. And nodding to each other definitely doesn’t count.”
“What if I told you I’m more comfortable with the way things are now? Two grown men eating dinner at each other’s house every night – it was bound to get uncomfortable eventually.”
“I’m not saying you should invade each other’s private time, and I definitely don’t think eating dinners is the only way to gauge a friendship.” Jun frowned. “But I’ve spoken to Aiba-san as well. He seems to have understood what you told him as a permanent dismissal, as though you never want to be friends with him again.”
“If his idea of friendship means having to know everything about me, then maybe that’s exactly what I meant.”
Jun, still frowning at him, began to tap the table between them. “Do you want to know what I think?”
Nino scoffed. “I think you’re way past the point of asking that.”
“Well, then,” Jun began, and he seemed to weigh his next words carefully. “I think that you’re scared of being friends with Aiba-san because of what happened with Satoshi-kun.”
The silence that followed was so palpably thick that for a moment, Nino blamed it for being unable to breathe. Ohno Satoshi had died three years ago, after accidentally poisoning himself through one of the many painting liquids he had been using for his art. Neither Nino nor Grandpa had discovered his body until the next day when it was far, far too late, and so Ohno had died a painful death, all alone.
Nino crossed his arms. “I don’t see what Ohno has to do with this-”
“Satoshi-kun was the first person you accepted as your friend. You cared for him even before you cared for Sakurai, and don’t lie because I remember,” Jun interrupted as Nino opened his mouth to complain. “I remember how you two had been. For two people who rarely left each other’s houses, you sure got along well. And I remember Grandpa being so happy. He’d never thought Satoshi-kun would ever find friends – he was so… different. But then you moved in, and you were inseparable. We were all happy for you.”
“You’re thinking Aiba is a replacement for Ohno-”
“Aiba-san is a replacement for Ohno, whether you acknowledge it or not. It’s not your choice, Nino. You can’t tell yourself not to like a person when you obviously do.” He sighed. “And you need him. You’ve been grieving overSatoshi-kun too long, and now that Sakurai’s getting married, you desperately need to let your walls down – for your own sake.”
Jun threw his hands in the air. “Or better yet, you can reach out. You can reciprocate Aiba’s efforts – let him know you’re willing to accept him. Just so he knows he has a friend in you.”
Nino glared at Jun, jaw set. His blood was boiling at the sight of the man, but damn if Nino was going to let it show. “What makes you think you have the right to tell me this, Matsumoto? Who do you think you are? I don’t appreciate you psychoanalyzing me.”
“I’m your friend,” Jun spat. “I care about you. Just think about it, won’t you? You know I wouldn’t be telling you any of this if I didn’t think I had to.”
Nino simply murdered him with his eyes. “I don’t want to be dependent on anyone, Jun-kun.”
“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Nino,” Jun growled. “Has it ever occurred to you that Aiba-san might need you more than you need him? He’s only just broken up with his first love, and he doesn’t even have a family or very many friends to see him through it. You’re not the only one with problems.”
Nino wrenched his eyes shut. Usually he didn’t let anyone’s lectures get to him, but he hated to admit that Jun was making sense. Worse, he didn’t even know the bulk of it. He didn’t know that Nino had been talking to Ohno since his death until a few weeks ago, and that they had been carrying on with their endless conversations in dreams as though they were both still alive.
“I’ll show myself out,” Jun muttered. “I really wish you’d see sense, Nino. You’ve already earned Aiba-san’s trust, and you shouldn’t waste that opportunity.”
When Nino opened his eyes, Jun was gone, and the tea had gotten cold.
__
8: Amends
Nino was looking out into Grandpa’s garden, a thin mist falling all around him. He stretched his limbs and sighed contentedly as he allowed peace to seep into his tired bones. If only things could always be this placid, he mused. He could barely hear the sound of anything, not even that of his own heart.
Ohno was suddenly standing in front of him, parting the mist and seemingly glowing in the early morning sunshine. He was wearing all white, his hair looking more tamed than Nino could ever remember, although he was wearing a troubled expression. He inched closer to Nino, bringing his face down.
“Wake up,” he urged, visibly alarmed. “Wake up, now!”
Nino’s eyes instantly flew open. It took a while for his senses to kick in, but when they did, the first thing he noticed was the cloud of grey smoke that surrounded him. A violent wall of orange flame rose higher around his small apartment, swallowing all the possessions around which his simple life had revolved. Not bothering to pick up anything, Nino jumped to his feet and ran out. The smoke stung his eyes.
As soon as he tumbled out of his porch, blinking away the midday sunlight,Nino collapsed onto the dirt path that snaked around the apartment complex. Aiba was slowly walking past him, leading Grandpa by the arm. They were both covered in blackened soot, their clothes singed in places.
“Nino!” Aiba shouted, panic flashing in his eyes. “Take Grandpa. I’ve forgotten something.”
Before Nino could stop him, Aiba had disappeared, and Grandpa had been shoved into his care. He barely registered Aiba returning to his room, head bowed with a hand raised to his mouth. As soon as Aiba disappeared through his screen door, the roof came down, and the familiar siren of a fire engine blared from around the corner.
The next few hours passed before Nino’s eyes in a blur. Jun had arrived, distressed and looking to be in an even worse condition than his grandfather. He had insisted on having Grandpa confined to the hospital near his parent’s home, where the entire family would be able to monitor him. The pair of them had left as soon as the police interrogation was over. It had fallen to Nino to fill in the gaps where Grandpa’s shock had not been informative for the police. He could barely remember anything from his conversation with the detectives.
Nino didn’t know how the fire had started, as he had been asleep the entire time, and when he woke up the flames had already been on the warpath. No one was sure of what had happened, but the detectives he had spoken with all surmised faulty electrical wiring as the cause of the accident. Yes, Nino knew they were all living in an apartment complex so old it was basically an arson case waiting to happen. No, he had never thought there would be a fire in his neighborhood. Everything there had always seemed so peaceful.
The police were planning to charge all of them with gross negligence, which Nino frankly couldn’t care about considering Aiba still hadn’t woken up. The detective that had been assigned to the case had been callous and uncaring about his friend’s condition, apparently only disgruntled that he was one witness short and therefore was stuck until further notice. Nino would have been offended at the man’s blatant disrespect had all his focus not been directed towards watching over Aiba. The doctor had said he had inhaled too much smoke. He had suffered a dangerous case of asphyxiation, along with a handful of third-degree burns. No one could tell when he would wake up, or if he would.
So Nino had seated himself in front of the ICU where Aiba lay fighting for his life, not feeling the slightest bit sleepy even as the sun began to set outside the hospital windows.
At nineo’clock that evening, Nino finally broke his unmoving vigil. Cursing silently, he buried his face in his hands, grasping at his singed hair in frustration – the case detective had gone long before the sun had gone down. The hospital hallway was quiet and dark even though it was still early in the evening, and Nino’s only company were the nurses onthe night shift, their heads bowed dutifully over documents behind their desks.
When he turned his head, he found Ohno Satoshi watching him sadly. “He went back for the gift, didn’t he?”
Nino made a non-committal grunt. The velvet box that had caused Aiba’s stupidity was sitting on his lap, taunting him. He had opened it when the fire department had first wrenched it out of Aiba’s curled and bleeding fingers, handing them over to Nino as they all filed into the waiting ambulance. It contained a deck of cards, each with a picture of Jun, Sakurai, Aiba, and Nino as substitutes for suits, with Grandpa’s picture figuring in as the two joker cards. Aiba had gone back for it despite the danger. Somehow, Nino knew the cards had been meant for his birthday, which was only two days away.
He couldn’t bring himself to look at the deck. Instead, he kept his weary eyes trained past the monitoring windows that afforded a view of the ICU. Aiba was strapped to the most uncomfortable bed Nino had ever seen, complete with colorful knobs, high-tech screens and dozens of tubes that connected Aiba’s body to the machines that kept him alive.
Cursing, Nino ran a hand over his eyes.
“I’m sorry we burned the complex down,” he muttered, voice hoarse from hours of both disuse and stress. “But you probably saw what happened, anyway.”
Ohno exhaled deeply. “An electrical spark caught on the wooden planks Aiba had been using to renovate his roof. It’s been a dry season. The fire didn’t take long to spread.”
They stared at Aiba quietly. Nino knew, perhaps had known for a long time, that Aiba could feel Ohno, too. He was the resident ghost of the apartment complex. Surely Aiba had felt his presence before, even if he couldn’t see him.
“We can still save him. Bring him back.” Nino’s glassy eyes turned to meet Ohno’s doubtful ones. “It will be dangerous. But if we just wait for him to come back on his own, he may never. His body will be there, but his mind won’t be.”
“And where will it be?”
“Hovering.” Ohno tilted his head thoughtfully. “He’ll be stuck until his body dies.”
Nino’s breath caught in his throat, and he was finding it difficult to think coherently. “What do we have to do?”
“Find him, and reach out to him. He probably doesn’t know he’s left this plane of existence.” He considered Nino’s exhausted, appalled and resolute expression. “I can’t bring him back, because I’m not a part of this world anymore. But I can help you find him, and I can stay until you both get back. The rest will be up to you.”
“All right,” Nino agreed instantly. “Take me there.”
Ohno shook his head. “You have to understand. There are things you have to be careful about. Time there doesn’t run the same way it does here. You’ll have to be careful not to stay there too long, or you, too, will forget.”
“You’ll be there with me anyway,” Nino growled. “Take me there.”
Ohno stood up without a word. Nino followed suit, leaving the deck of cards – the cost of Aiba’s life – on the plastic chair he had been sitting on. He followed Ohno, who was slowly walking towards a pair of heavy doors at the end of the hospital corridor.
__
9: Accidents
Whereas Nino expected to find another corridor on the other side, he and Ohno ended up on a long stretch of highway. The grey asphalt that seemed to stretch onward indefinitely under their feet was bordered by tall blades of grass on each side, and he could stand in that sea of green with only his head visible. The sky was the rich orange of sunset, its peaceful line broken only by wispy white clouds. Nino turned a quizzical brow towards Ohno, only to discover that his friend had started running.
Trying to keep Ohno’s pace, Nino peered into his determined expression and asked, “What are we doing here?”
“You don’t know anything about Aiba, do you?” Ohno’s lips formed a thin, straight line – the closest he could ever come to looking disappointed. “Not enough to understand what his worst memory is.”
“What do you mean?” Nino began to ask, before Ohno’s footsteps stopped. Up ahead was an overturned car, its hood still smoking. Instinctively, Nino ran towards it, looking through the shattered passenger’s seat into the wreckage. A man and a woman were in the front seats, with a little boy crushed behind them. The child’s neck was twisted in a painful angle, and there were shards of glass buried in the woman’s face. Blood was all over the car seats.
Nino exhaled and tensed, staggering away. Through the haze in his head, he heard someone howling – a small child. This was Aiba’s worst memory, Nino remembered. Aiba had to be here somewhere – he was connected to those people in the car. The realization made Nino’s insides run cold. He dragged his numb body away from the ruined car and turned to follow the cries.
There was a little boy standing a short way away from the wreckage. He was dressed in a sports uniform of a plain white shirt and blue shorts, the outfit ruined by soot, burns, and cuts. There was a medal slung around his neck, and his skin was littered with scratches. Even with his back turned to Nino, he knew he had never seen anyone who had looked more defeated than this child. Trembling, Nino raised a hand and placed it on the boy’s shoulder.
“Aiba?” he asked tentatively. “Masaki?”
The boy turned around and stared at him. There were tear tracts on his full cheeks, and his eyes were heavy and red-rimmed. So much desperation on a face so young. He broke into a wave of fresh tears when he saw Nino. “I need help. I need a hospital. My mum and dad are hurt. Yusuke, too.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” whispered a voice from behind Nino. Ohno was standing there, holding his arms awkwardly at his sides. “This is just a memory. You have to move now. The sun will be setting soon.”
“Masaki.” Nino crouched to the boy’s level and placed both his palms on those frail shoulders. With difficulty, he steadied his eyes to meet Aiba’s hopeful gaze. How could he possibly tell this small boy to let go? “Masaki, I understand that you want to get help. But there’s nothing you can do for your family now. They’re gone and we have to go now-”
“No, they’re not!” Aiba began to struggle under his grip. “I can still save them-”
“Masaki.” Nino cupped his friend’s face and held it as carefully as he could. “They’re gone. They’re dead, and there’s nothing you can do to bring them back”
The boy bit his lip. How could this creature ever have grown up to become Aiba – smiling, cheerful Aiba? He fell into a heap in the middle of the road, burying his face into his bleeding knees. Nino watched him helplessly. Aiba had stopped crying out loud, and now seemed to be choking on his own unshed tears. Nino wished he would kick and scream instead. Anything was better than this crushed resignation.
“Nino, the sun is setting,” Ohno said in a warning tone. It was true – the sky was fading into deeper shades of orange. A blood red sun had appeared above their heads, taunting. “You have to leave now. Carry him if you have to.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. Grabbing the boy under the armpits, Nino hoisted him up and quickly turned to follow Ohno towards the direction from which they had come. Aiba seemed to have run out of steam, for which Nino was both grateful and worried. With his arms around Nino’s thin neck, he barely seemed to register the family car that was flipped over, still smoking. Nino would not have heard his question, had Aiba not whispered so closely to his ear.
“Who are you?”
Nino grimaced. “My name is Nino. I’m – a friend.”
“Where are we going?” Aiba’s weak voice urged Nino to run faster. His sides were bursting both with the sudden surge of exercise and the boy’s weight pulling him down. “Are we going to the hospital?”
“Yeah,” Nino answered noncommittally. “We’re going to put you back together.”
“Me?”
The scenery had begun to change around them. The road and the grassland had transformed into a quiet, gray street with dusty road signs, before turning, yet again, into one of the many public housing settlements scattered around Tokyo suburbs. A white-washed high school building, a nondescript convenience store. Were all these fragments of Aiba’s memories? The very worst ones, the ones he couldn’t wade through on his own?
“Yes,” Nino whispered, pressing Aiba’s small body closer to his own. “I’m going to put you back together. I’m going to watch over you now.”
The boy Aiba did not reply. Still, Nino felt his shoulder getting heavier and knew he had somehow found comfort there.
The hall from Sakurai’s engagement party was suddenly in front of them. Ohno was leading the way through the empty room, disappearing into the balconywhere Aiba and Nino had talked all those afternoons ago. Gripping Aiba as tightly as he could, Nino ran headfirst past elegant hotel doors and into a vast, warm darkness.
His eyes flew open, and the sudden rush of cold air that met him was one of the most painful Nino had ever experienced. He coughed out, grasping at oxygen and releasing something dark, something dirty at the same time. It took him a moment to notice that a flurry of activity was taking place around him. Through stinging eyes, he saw nurses running into the ICU in front of him.
Rising, Nino carried himself to the monitoring windows. Aiba was coughing up a lung as well, his oxygen mask misting with the effort. The heart rate monitor that he had been attached to was projecting the most activity it had seen in hours. Aiba seemed to be trying to open his eyes, although he was obviously failing at the attempt.
Nino couldn’t help it. He laughed. Aiba was alive again – he was still coughing, the nurses poking at random tubes and machines at his sides. Aiba was alive – he’d still get to eat Aiba’s horrible cooking, and have to suffer through the man’s awful Othello tactics. Nino pressed his damp forehead against the smooth fiberglass of the ICU window, letting his tears fall without shame. On another day, he might have said he was being emotional due to lack of sleep. He would have said gravity was pulling his teardrops down. But today was the day Aiba had come back to life, to him, and his old self would have to stuff it for a moment.
So Nino allowed himself to cry and to laugh as much as he wanted, public opinion be damned.
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10: Amusements
Nino tried not to scowl as Aiba cheerily handed him the velvet box.
“It’s a bit anticlimactic, I know, but let’s pretend you’ve never seen it before, all right?” Aiba suggested. “We all pitched in for it. Matsujun found the graphic designer, Sho-chan had it printed, and I bought the supplies and stuff.”
“Sakurai said it was your idea, too.”
“Yeah, well.” Aiba shrugged modestly. “You were always playing with your cards. It wasn’t very hard to figure out what you’d like.”
It had been three days since the fire at the Matsumoto Apartment Complex. Grandpa, who had been hospitalized for all of twelve hours, had finally been coerced into living with his son and daughter-in-law.Since both their children were grown, Jun’s parents had insisted thatthey’d be more than happy to look after Grandpa – even if he did have a slight obsession with shogi, bonsai, and hotel matchboxes. Jun had taken over the cleanup at the complex, both in literal and legal terms. Nino knew they didn’t have to worry about him, because Jun lived to take over operations like this. He might even have been an army general or a school principal in a past life, which would definitely explain the permanent frown line in his eyebrows.
Sakurai was just coming home from meeting Asami’s relatives in Saga Prefecture, where they had apparently suggested that he try his hand at the family business of making high-class pottery. Sakurai, ever eager to please, had humored them, which was how he had ended up burning both his hands without knowing how he had botched up the procedure. He had joked – when the fiasco in Tokyo had calmed down – that he had been with them in spirit, what with having his hands burnt. Nino had rolled his eyes over the phone call, and Sakurai – sensing the wordless motion – promptly shut up and asked after Aiba’s health.
“I’m sorry about your collection,” Aiba said, looking extremely apologetic. He had his head turned towards Nino, who was seated next to his hospital bed, frowning at the universe. Between them was a tray with a collection of small cakes that Jun had forced upon them, along with the promise that he and Grandpa would be joining them once he closed the egg shop. Sakurai had made a vow of a similar nature, hinting that he would try to bring Asami along.
It was Nino’s 26th birthday.
“Don’t ruin my party,” he growled, poking at the mango cheesecake that sat in front of him. “For one day, just don’t think about what happened. I’d tell you it wasn’t your fault, but I’ve been telling you that for days, and you never seem to take me seriously.”
Aiba had nothing to say to that. Instead, he turned to look at the ceiling, thoughtful. “I wonder if Ohno’s moved on. We burned his house down to a crisp. He’d have nothing to go back to.”
Nino briefly glanced at Aiba before replying. He couldn’t seem to remember their rescue mission via his memories. Moreover, he had yet to ask directly if Aiba saw Ohno Satoshi, but from all they had talked about so far, it seemed that he could only sense him. No communication had happened between the two of them, and everything Aiba knew about Ohno he only pieced together because of Grandpa and Jun’s combined gossiping about the former resident who had died after accidentally poisoning himself.
“I’m sure he’s moved on,” Nino said simply. He had not seen Ohno since they had brought Aiba back, but he knew his statement to be true. “So, again, stop thinking about the fire, or I’ll poke you with this fork.”
“Right.” It was Aiba’s turn to frown at Nino. He chose to ignore it, and proceeded to decimate the remainder of his mango cheesecake. When Aiba had woken up, it was as though the Cold War between the two of them had never happened. Aiba had been glad to be alive, Nino had been glad that Aiba was alive, but because the two of them were awkward creatures, neither had seen it fit to air out that simple shared truth.
Aiba’s frown deepened. “I’m sorry about monopolizing your birthday. I think you’re the type who’d prefer to spend his birthday alone, but I ruined that for you, didn’t I?”
Nino would have snapped that he didn’t have a house to sulk in anymore, but thought that might be too tactless, even for him. “On another year, I might have minded. This year, I don’t really care.”
Just as it had been so easy – too easy really -- to fall into the quiet companionship he and Aiba had had before they grew apart, Nino wondered if it would be possible, too, for them to become good friends. When he thought about it, really, all his friends had been people who had insisted on being part of his life whether he wanted to be with them or not. They had threatened to break down his door if he didn’t open up; they had left him countless voice calls when he wouldn’t pick up the phone. Maybe he didn’t have to think too much into whatever he and Aiba would be. Maybe he’d just let it happen.
Or maybe he would take the initiative for once.
Nino scowled. Matsumoto Jun was going around giving spot-on relationship advice. The world was coming to an end.
“I was wondering-”
“Nino-”
“What?” Nino’s head snapped up. Aiba was looking at him with a slack jaw, as though he had been in the middle of saying something that had taken a lot of guts to open up about. “Were you saying something?”
“You go first.”
“No, no, you’re the invalid. You get that privilege.”
“Then let me have this one. You go first. You look like you’ve got something interesting to say.”
Nino glared at him. How he hated being put on the spot. He would have broken a couple of Aiba’s ribs if he didn’t have enough broken ones to begin with. “I said – I was just wondering if you’d let me bother you. In the future. Like, maybe pop in for brunch sometimes. Because you often make too much food, and you can’t ever finish it on your own, so it ends up clogging your refrigerator.”
“Yeah, of course,” Aiba said, cutting through Nino’s psychobabble. He was sitting up, a glint in his eye. It made Nino feel nervous, as though he had made Aiba extremely happy just by saying that he wanted to leech off his groceries. “Nino, you don’t even have to ask.”
“I didn’t want to be rude,” Nino muttered, playing with the hem of Aiba’s hospital blanket. “I just wanted to lay out the ground rules. Because I’m not used to… this.”
Making friends, he wanted to say. He wasn’t used to opening up to people, wasn’t used to offering up his heart for virtual strangers to trample on at will.
As he sneaked a look at Aiba though, he knew he didn’t have to say anything. Aiba was surprisingly a capable mind reader, or maybe Nino had become easier to read over time.
Despite the thought that his mind-meddling skills were slipping, Nino smiled. “Didn’t you want to say something?”
“Oh.” Aiba paused, thinking back on what he had been trying to say earlier. His face broke into a wide smile. “I just wanted to greet you a happy birthday.”
It might have been Nino’s imagination, but he thought the sad clouds in Aiba’s eyes had dissipated, even just for that moment.
There was suddenly a knock on the door of the hospital room, and both of them turned to search out the sound. Standing on the doorway, looking terribly smug, was a Sakurai Sho with bandaged hands. Asami was standing next to him, smiling brightly with her hands protectively wrapped around a cardboard box.
“You’re old,” Sakurai told Nino by way of greeting. He turned to poke fun at Aiba next. “And you look awful.”
“I’m not the one with mummified fingers,” Aiba shot back. Nino had to bite back a grin. He was definitely rubbing off on Aiba.
“Asami-san, hello,” he said, standing. He had to be the gentleman in the room because the other two candidates had chosen to behave like toddlers fighting over a sandlot. “What’s in the cardboard box?”
“Funny you should ask,” she replieddarkly. Unwrapping the package, she revealed a very poorly done potted plate. It might have been a shade between brown and dung, and it had cracks running across it. Nino couldn’t even tell if it was supposed to be circular or another shape entirely. “Sho-san said he wanted to show off his new pottery skills. He insisted on making you a birthday gift.”
Sakurai Sho plus arts and crafts. Those elements had always equaled disaster.
“I should have known,” Nino said sadly, shaking his head. “Some things will never change.”
From his spot on the hospital bed, Aiba laughed.
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OMG, WRITER SAN! this is so amazingly good. I love the dynamics. I love Ohno's appearance. I love how Aiba tried to be Nino's friend and how Nino gave in bit by bit. I love how both Aiba and Nino went all the way for each other and I love their conversations.
I cried on this. I swear.
Thank you so much for this!!! I LOOOOOVE this. :')
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This really is a good fic. The friendship between Nino and Aiba, how it changed Nino usual habit, how Nino struggled to save Aiba. And I've been wondering of Ohno existence it seems blurry at first, then figured out.. no wonder...