Gift Fic for icecreamsuki Part 1/2

[stormymood.livejournal.com]

GIFT FIC for icecreamsuki   (PART 1/2)

Title: Hello grey skies. It’s me, Aiba
Pairing/Group: Aiba/Nino, one-sided Jun/Nino, Arashi
Rating/Warnings: PG
Summary: Aiba sends a balloon with a letter out, hoping to find a new friend.
Notes: To icecreamsuki: I really hope you’ll like this fic. I adore Nino pairings and AU, and writing this fic for you was enjoyable. To R, A, and B: Thanks for the help and support. I couldn’t have possibly finished this fic without you guys!

I.

His mother once told him that he was born smiling.

“The room lit up,” she said, the storybook on her lap forgotten as she regaled him yet again about his birth. No fairytale had ever rivalled that. “And suddenly, the pain stopped and warmth flowed from you to all the people in there.”

“And then?” he asked, fighting back the too early tendrils of sleep beckoning him to his dreams.

“And then everyone smiled back.”


Aiba lived in a little white box of a house nestled in a quiet little neighbourhood a respectable distance away from the hustle and bustle of the city. It had a square lawn – too short for a decent swimming pool or the mini golf course his father wanted – a short pebbled driveway lined with the required hydrangeas, and hedges designed exactly like the house before theirs and the house before that and the house before that (regulations, his father told him when his mother refused to allow them to shape the unruly bushes like dinosaurs, shaking his head sympathetically).

He couldn’t find it all so boring and plain despite that – despite the mirroring houses and winding streets that lead to nothing more than what he had seen before. He found something incredible everyday, things that couldn’t possibly happen again. One day it would be a ladybug settling carefully onto a leaf, the next a bee come buzzing calmly as it flitted around the neatly arranged flowers by the driveway. It was the way the smell of freshly mowed grass drowned the subtlety of burning asphalt and how the smell of rain lingered even as the skies cleared. It was how the ground was soft and spongy and tasted like rocks and twigs, and how the trees sometimes tasted exactly like that too.

Life was full of so many colours, so many reds and yellows and blues all coming together to paint the most wonderful things. And the world, he decided so early on, was really so beautiful.

-----

Life in the city was grey, lit occasionally a bright, obnoxious neon, all shades of black and white colouring what little Nino was allowed to see. The world was dull, he once thought.

Things passed him by everyday, his very existence forgotten in a world forged by routines and schedules and clocks and chimes. He was lost in an endless sea of people rushing to get where they wanted, up, over, and against him. Everyday was a constant flow of ‘always’ – the train was always late, the building always smelled like cats and cigarettes, his mother was always away, his father was always so angry, his parents always fought…

At night, he dreamed of a cozy little house with trimmed hedges and flowers and a pool that he dove into from his doorstep. There was a pretty little lawn full of wonders and a porch scented with apple pie and warm curry. The ground was always soft and sweet, and when he looked up, the skies were filled with the most brilliant stars blinking red, green, yellow, and blue.

And then he woke up, back to their ragged, cramped apartment, back to the filthy carpet that lined the hallways of the building, back to the pigeon-stained balcony, back to the hard, solid concrete that lined every surface. There were no stars in the city; all he saw was the hazy cloud of neon hovering lazily and permanently over grey structures.

He wished he didn’t live in a place that reeked of misery and dead fish.


He asked his mother once to tell him about the day he was born. She turned to him, a light in her dark tired eyes sparking briefly before they dulled again. “You cried,” she said. “And when you stopped, you had a tiny little smile on your face.”

“And then?” Nino prodded.

She paused thoughtfully, the pot of canned soup forgotten. “And then it disappeared.”

You never smiled again was left hanging between them.

II.

The children in school thought Aiba was weird. Alien, they had said. Aiba was too different to be human, too giggly, too stupid. He didn’t understand that though- couldn’t fathom why smiling and being cheerful was unusual. Was it wrong to love everything? Was it wrong to think that everyday was an adventure waiting to be conquered?

Perhaps, Aiba thought, they were aliens, too uninterested and blind to appreciate the world around them.

“They’re laughing at you again,” Sho told him nervously, his damp little hands clutching at the letter at the end of his red balloon. Sho was Aiba’s only friend and Aiba loved him like he loved the puppy in the pet store. Sho was excitable, quick to anger and please, and he was very loyal, sticking to Aiba even when they were thoroughly muddied the time the bigger, older boys decided to toss them around a bit. Sho worried about him far too much though, too concerned in what the others thought of Aiba instead of how Aiba felt about… well, about everything else.

Maybe he’s part alien, Aiba thought. He beamed at him and at the boys laughing at them, waving jauntily. “They like my balloon,” he said.

Sho sniffed, pushing his thick glasses up his nose. “You shouldn’t have drawn a smiley face on it,” he replied sourly, lips pressed together tightly.

Aiba looked up, his eyes following the slow and abrupt curves of the long string that looped around his envelope up to the yellow balloon and on the eyes and curving lips Aiba had gone over with a thick marker. He wondered why Sho didn’t like it – the balloon was his best artwork to date. “I don’t want to scare my new friend,” Aiba said. Smiles were friendly and sweet, and surely, a stranger couldn’t resist one.

Sho sighed heavily. “It’s weird,” he told him, voice drowning under the breathy, quack-like calls of their diminutive teacher.

You-sensei clapped her hands cheerfully, telling them to let go, children, let the balloons guide you to your new journeys. You-san was odd that way, always spouting long sentences that could easily be chopped into simpler ones. Aiba liked her; he liked weird things.

As the balloons rose carefully and slowly up into the sky, a multitude of colours dotting the wide, blue canvas, Aiba thought that he would remember all this, remember the smiles on everyone’s faces, the hush that fell over them, and the way You-sensei’s light pink scarf flapped as a breeze passed them by. He was giddy, excited, and although he didn’t want to admit it just yet, he felt like he belonged, like he was just one of the many faces gazing gleefully and hopefully at the ascending letters.

And then a wayward branch caught his smiling balloon.


“I’ll tell your momma!” Sho hissed as he trailed after Aiba, footsteps heavy with reluctance. “It’s against the rules, Maa-kun!”

Aiba ignored him, staring at the dark gates of the school thoughtfully. The gates were shut and locked an hour or so after the last school bell, and for an apparently good reason – the boys from the next grade over had regaled Aiba and Sho once about the school’s eight horrors, one of which was the dwarf that lived inside the tree beside the gate (and the one that held Aiba’s balloon). It steals children away, they had said, eats their meat and grinds its bones until nothing is left but the fingers it makes into branches for the tree. Being in school at night was definitely not encouraged.

Aiba had plans though, and as imposing as the metal gates looked, Aiba knew he could easily get to the school grounds – they were short and trees lined the school’s border. The problem was: he needed Sho’s help to get where he needed to be. Sho was kind and smart and loyal, bless his heart, but the dear thing was as cowardly as an elephant facing a mouse.

“Can’t it wait until tomorrow?!”

No, Aiba thought it couldn’t. It had to be today, he was convinced, or else everything would change. Maybe he wouldn't find a new friend anymore, maybe the same person he was supposed to be with wouldn’t see the balloon – timing was tricky, and he didn’t want to miss the supposed-to-be’s. Really, if he had a time machine, he would have just zapped to just before he released the balloon and told his then-self to run a bit away from the tree, and nothing would have been stuck up in the gnarly branches. All would have been right and good as rain. As it so happened, it was about two hundred years too early for such a device. “Just boost me up, Sho-chan,” he said, eyes gazing at the other boy pleadingly. “That’s all you have to do.”

Sho hesitated. “I don’t have to sneak in too?”

Aiba was sure it would be twice as troublesome if he did. “Just push me up the tree,” he repeated, “and I can crawl up to the branch and release my balloon.”

Sho’s worried eyes refused to be reassured though and Aiba swore he could hear the hundreds of protests and worst case scenarios whirling around the other one’s head. “But the tree-“

He grabbed Sho’s hands and held them close to his heart. “I’ll be fine, Sho-chan,” he said sincerely. “It’ll be okay.”

The boy’s eyes searched his, looking for something Aiba was scared wouldn’t be there. Sometimes he wished Sho was just a bit braver, a bit more daring and bold like he was, but he knew he loved the boy for a reason. Sho was the stone that kept him from flying and disappearing completely; he kept Aiba grounded.

“Okay,” Sho surrendered at least. “Just… promise me one thing.”

Aiba beamed. “Anything.”

Sho returned his smile, the usually serious face brighter. “Promise me you won’t let the tree dwarf grab you away.”

Aiba couldn’t help hugging him tight. “I promise…”


He was stupid. He was really stupid.

He shouldn’t have tried to crawl as far away from the trunk as possible to the edge of the branch. He shouldn’t have let go of it to tear the balloon free. He should have just shook the thing from the branch instead, kept his eyes firmly on what he was holding on to. He shouldn’t have tried to stand up to wave at the balloon goodbye.

But it was worth it, he thought from the ground, the pain in his leg temporarily forgotten as he spied the smiling balloon in between the leaves. He was going to get a new friend, a non-alien friend:

Someone who could see the world through his eyes too.

-----

There wasn’t any food on the table when Nino got home a bit past seven. “I’m home,” he called out softly, even though he was certain no one would answer back.

He never arrived earlier – the apartment was so cold and so empty that he had always felt ten times more alone in it. It was even more depressing than that one time his father double-locked the apartment for some unfathomable reason, emerging some hours later smelling like too-sweet perfume and sweat with a pretty, albeit scantily dressed, woman on his arm. No, that was infinitely better; that was the day Jun extended a hand out to him and fed him the first rice ball the boy had ever made, and ever since then, they were thick as thieves.

There was so little in the apartment to entertain Nino, distract him from the dark thoughts that dogged him everyday, and he found himself heading off somewhere else after school.

Sometimes, and this was if and only if Jun and he fought, he hung about the arcade a few blocks from his building. It teemed with a conglomeration of awkward, dull-eyed, pimply-faced teenagers and adults, greasy hair spotted from every booth. They were kind to a seven-year-old boy, patiently teaching him about the finer points of gaming and animation. The noisy owners, Kosugi and Yoshida, even bought him pop and chips if he helped them cheat off each other. Nino loved the arcade, loved the people there, and even though he had never felt completely like he belonged, he was satisfied with watching and listening to the strange little beeps, content with the knowledge that he really wasn’t alone.

Most of the time, he stayed at Jun’s family’s apartment (at the end of the hallway), eating the other boy’s rice balls and hotdog octopuses and playing board games. Jun’s parents thought that board games made children smarter somehow and they had stocked a cabinet full of puzzles and Scrabble and other “clever games”. Not that Nino complained – he especially liked the one with the little green and red houses and the colourful stacks of money.

That day though, he had a nasty little tiff with Jun. He couldn’t remember details of how it escalated to the mess that it was now, but he was fairly sure it was his own fault. Jun was strong-headed, sharp-tongued, and annoying, but he had never done anything purposefully spiteful. Jun was kind-hearted that way – always making sure Nino was dressed well for the weather or if Nino had eaten or, even, if Nino had bathed. Plus, he could out-eat anyone under the table. He was the only acquaintance Nino could maybe consider his friend.

Nino was the mean one, always so jealous and miserable and unlucky. It made total sense that he started the silent war going on between them.

So he had stayed at the arcade against Jun’s wishes (on hindsight, Nino thought, that was probably why Jun was angry at him. The other boy had never liked that place, especially recently when the arcade had garnered less than favourable attention from the junkies that littered the area), walking around and meeting a couple of the new patrons. A few of them had been particularly shifty and they had delighted on irritating Kosugi and Yoshida by trying to get Nino to drink gross, yellow beer. Nino had refused to do so, of course – he had somehow known Jun would hate him if he did so. Before he had left though, a junkie had slipped a packet of cigs into his bag, winking at him surreptitiously.

Nino wasn’t an idiot; he knew how cigs worked. His father smoked them, his mother went through a pack and a half each day, and she had sent Nino down to the store to buy her a value-pack every now and then. He knew that only adults were allowed to smoke and that even though Jun’s parents were adults – probably better ones than his own parents – they didn’t smoke because it was “unthinkably healthy”. Jun hated cigarettes almost as much as he hated the arcade.

That thought alone was enough to sway Nino into deciding to toss the pack out. He certainly didn’t want his only acquaintance to hate him even more.

He ruffled through his ratty old backpack for the cigs, surprised to hit something soft and squishy. He took it out carefully, already knowing from the size and weight what it was: a rice ball, just the way he liked it. Jun made him one every single day since they met and even when they fought, the other boy had continued slipping food inside Nino’s bag. Nino almost smiled at it – almost, except that he didn’t think he ever could.

He slipped onto the balcony, the rice ball held carefully against his chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world. After pushing the dismantled washing machine aside and righting his wobbly stool, he sat, gazing softly at the grey horizon. The noises of the city were a dull murmur at night, the unending whirrs and exclamations and music muffled under the blanket of darkness. That, Nino thought, was the only time he could enjoy the city.

It was only when he heard a strange squeaking that he saw it: a balloon, with what looked like a grimace drawn on it, was stuck on the railings of the balcony above theirs, a letter dangling from its string. He frowned. It wasn’t his business, this balloon, and he didn’t think he should be concerned about it or its horrific appearance.

He glued his eyes on the city again, munching contentedly on his cold rice ball. Tuna mayonnaise – Jun could never do him wrong.

The last grain of rice was gone and swallowed when he finally allowed himself to look at the balloon again. Something about it bothered him, an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. It was such an odd little thing – a colourful toy stuck in bits of grey and black. Why was it there, Nino wondered, where did it come from? Was it lost? If so, who lost it? Who was the letter for? What was inside it?

Somehow, Nino knew that the answers lay inside the envelope, the mysteries waiting to be unravelled with just a snip of the scissors. He couldn’t possibly leave this puzzle unsolved!

With that resolve, Nino jumped off his stool, tugging and positioning it underneath the balloon. He clambered up on it, reaching vainly for the string. No, he knew it, the stool was too short. His eyebrows furrowed again. The washing machine was tall enough, but it was too rickety and empty to hold Nino’s weight. The back of his father’s armchair was probably enough too, but the old thing was too huge and heavy for him to simply push through the balcony doors.

“The railings!” Nino gasped when his eyes fell on his balcony’s fence. They were metal jutting out from a solid, short slab of concrete and he knew they could hold him just fine. He had to keep his balance though; that was the most difficult part. If he didn’t-

Nino didn’t want to think about what could possibly happen if he tripped and fell on the other side of the railings. He almost hesitated.

What was it Jun had said? You never know until you try?

He nodded determinedly, climbing easily from the stool to the railing. He wobbled a bit, but he managed to keep straight, his feet placed carefully on the thin edge. He could definitely do this. He reached up and his fingers hardly grazed the bottom of the envelope. That definitely would not do. He needed just a bit more, a jump, a hop, a tiptoe more…

He caught the letter, but before he could cheer internally at his success, he felt his feet twist uncomfortably. He gasped as he felt himself lose his balance – he knew it; his luck had never been this good.

A strong hand wrapped around his and pulled him back onto the balcony and into a warm, chubby chest, thick arms winding around him tightly. “You bonehead,” Jun sobbed against the top of his head. “You stupid, stupid bonehead.”

Nino didn’t know why Jun was crying when he wasn’t the one who almost fell down to the greys below.

III.

It was about one and a half weeks after and Aiba had still not gotten his letter. The other children had received theirs early that week, letters, pictures, and the occasional candy distributed to everyone from their new friends. Even Sho had got one and from an adult too; he was sent pictures of a group called SMAP with signatures all over the backgrounds (Aiba couldn’t understand why adults were fond of pictures with names scrawled over them. It seemed unfair to the flowers and trees they hid) and a letter from a man called Nakai. Aiba decided he liked SMAP after he and Sho watched them play basketball on TV.

Aiba hoped he could play basketball soon too. His leg was healing slowly and his mother had told him that morning that it was only maybe three or five more weeks until the cast came off. Not that he minded – he thought he looked particularly heroic when he had arrived to school with a leg covered in plaster and wooden crutches. It was already decorated and drawn on, mostly by Sho, and Becky, the prettiest girl in class, had even stuck a cute, pink sticker on it.

“Chiaki-chan got another letter,” Sho told him as they watched the small girl squeal, her bows swinging this way and that as she bragged about her pen-pal.

Not for the last time, Aiba wondered if he really had missed his supposed-to-be – if he was a minute, no, a second too late – and that he had lost the friend he had not met yet. Maybe they hadn’t seen it, maybe the balloon was too low or too high, he thought, maybe...

Maybe he really wasn’t meant to have a new friend at all.

He shook his head before the thought could torment him. His mother had always told him that every rainy day made a sunny one even brighter. And if this was Aiba’s storm, he was sure that when he finally received his letter, that moment would be happier and more brilliant than all the selfish gloating Chiaki had done.

It was coming... he knew it.

-----

Dear new friend,

First of all, are you ginger? I’m not ginger, but I’ve always wanted to be one. My momma told me that I can’t be ginger because she and poppa aren’t. It’s weird. Momma is sometimes ginger, but her hair turns dark like mine after a while. Maybe we’re part-ginger?

If you’re not ginger, it’s alright too. As long as you’re not an alien.

Hi! My name is Aiba Masaki, but my friends (well, just friend, really) call me Maa-kun. Momma calls me her sweet little pumpkin, but I wouldn’t like it if you called me that. I’m 8 and growing. I like math and science and Godzilla, and I want to be a scientist someday so I could create a time machine that could send Godzilla back to the dinosaurs. I reckon he’d like that.

New friend, what are the skies like? Is it pretty up there as it is down here? When it rains, are the thunderbolts scary there too?

I’m sorry I couldn’t send you more things. You-sensei, she’s my teacher, wouldn’t let me send food from my momma’s restaurant. She said my bag was too heavy. I really wanted to send you drawings too, but Sho-chan spilled paint all over them. Sho-chan is a bit clumsy.

Anyway, please write back even if you’re an alien! I would love to have another friend.


Your new friend,

Aiba Masaki

P.S. You-san says that if you want to write back, please use the envelope I sent this with. It has the school’s address.

P.P.S. If you’re under ten years of age, please tell an adult about this letter.

P.P.S. I hope you like the smile on my balloon.


Nino’s eyes followed Jun’s sausage-like fingers as the other boy turned the letter, sharp irises scanning the envelopes laid neatly out on the living room floor meticulously. “He sounds a bit thick, doesn’t he?” Nino said lightly, rolling to his stomach. After he almost plummeted – to your death, Jun never failed to remind him, horrified – the bigger one had not allowed him to go anywhere near the balcony. “I mean, Godzilla isn’t even a dinosaur!”

Jun shrugged. “It’s a scam,” he told him, tossing the letter to the floor and next to the envelopes.

“Everything’s a scam to you.” That was true. Jun’s mother was saccharine sweet and exceptionally lovely, but she was a paranoid woman, scrubbing every surface thoroughly to rid them of invisible germs and examining every little detail painstakingly. Her precious little baby boy needed all the safety he could get and by god, she would give him that and more! To her, a stranger’s letter was most definitely a scam.

Unfortunately, Jun seemed to think the same way. “And I’ve never been wrong,” he said airily, flouncing down beside Nino, hands pillowing his head. That was also true. The last few months, Jun had turned down a blind woman who had read a particularly difficult kanji out to them, a beggar with clean shoes, and a man who claimed to be the Prince of Lilipulampinland. To be fair, Nino thought, those had been rather easy to spot; there was absolutely no way a country would name itself something utterly ridiculous like Lilipulampinland.

“But he has the address and everything,” Nino countered. He didn’t want to write the simpleton back, Nino tried to convince himself; he was just trying to play devil’s advocate. It wasn’t like the letter was endearing or anything, nor was it so flawed he wanted to write a scathing reply to it – especially the bit about Godzilla and the dinosaurs – no. The main reason was: Jun could be so arrogantly over-bearing that Nino would love to take him down a peg.

“Could be a fake school.”

Nino scoffed. Really, he got this in the bag. “Kosugi-san said he went into that school back when he was rich,” he shot back. “That’s why he’s so fat – he was rich before.”

Jun glared at him, thick eyebrows forming a V on his forehead. The boy looked quite scary when he was angry. “You’ve been to the arcade again.” Right. Nino nearly slapped himself over the head in frustration – Jun had also forbidden him from entering the arcade when Nino told him about the cigs. Jun forbade him from a lot of things.

“Well yeah, but, Matsujun,” he sat up, holding the letter up and close to Jun’s face, “it says so right here that I should consult an adult. And Kosugi-san and Yoshida-san are adults!”

“Barely,” Jun retorted sharply although his head was tilted thoughtfully. Nino lit up; Jun could be stubborn, but he was also so painfully fair, willing to take every fact, toss them around his brain, and come up with a very wise decision. “So it’s a real school.”

“Well, no, Kosugi-san went to a school made of fairy tales and Santa Clauses- of course it’s real!”

Jun rolled his eyes. “How should I- Kosugi-san doesn’t even sound smart! Look,” he held up a hand before Nino could get a sarcastic word in, “obviously you’ve thought long and hard about this and it seems you really want to write back-”

“I do not-”

“So, why don’t you?” Jun continued.

Nino squashed down his excitement firmly. “Oh lots of reasons,” he said unsurely. “He sounds daft, he thinks Godzilla is a dinosaur, and he likes math. Aren’t those enough reasons not to write back?”

Jun chuckled. “Bonehead.”

“I don’t even have stamps, Matsujun! Or a good pen! And stationery! Stationery’s important, you know?”

“I have stationery.”

“Oh.” Nino blinked. Jun’s approval was easier to earn than he thought. “You don’t suppose you can lend me some, can you?”

The other boy’s brows knit together and he hesitated, worry clouding his features. “Just listen, okay?”

Nino scowled. Listening to Jun’s many lectures always led to the other boy forbidding him from something. “I don’t know…”

Jun’s little hand wrapped around his, warm and strong and comforting. “Just,” he said seriously, “no more jumping off balconies, okay.”

Nino nodded, his own fingers gripping Jun’s just a bit tighter. His kind Jun, the only purple he could see amidst all the grey around him. “Okay,” he said.

-----

Dear Aiba Masaki,

Hello.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’m ginger nor am I part-ginger. My dad has dark hair and my mom’s is sort of a greyish brownish colour. She says it’s from stress and pressure. I’m not really sure what that means, but I guess it means I’ll have grey hair in the future too.

I do know for sure that I’m not alien.

My name is Ninomiya Kazunari. People like to call me Nino, but I think that’s only because they think my name is too long and common. Matsujun (my only sort of friend) calls me “bonehead”. I wish he wouldn’t.

I don’t think I can call you Maa-kun, because I’m not your friend. I don’t really know you. You’re a stranger who likes Godzilla, just like I do, and that makes you pretty cool.

I do have to tell you though, that Godzilla isn’t a dinosaur (it’s silly of you to think so). I should know. There’s a Godzilla statue outside the arcade and it looks nothing like a dinosaur. He wouldn’t like it if you dropped him with them. He seems happy with where he is now, but if you really wanna use your time machine for the better, I bet placing him to before all the fights would be a swell move.

I don’t like math and science. I love writing class and music, although my teacher says I don’t really have a nice singing voice.

Matsujun doesn’t want me to go to the balcony, but since he’s gone, I could go out and check the skies for you. It’s plenty grey where I am. It’s not really pretty. Just a big blob of grey and black and white. It’s really very dreary here, and when it rains, everything looks the same, but wet.

I’ve sent you a few things. Matsujun says I should get you something so you won’t think this is a scam. That’s a token from the arcade I go to. It’s a bit sticky, but that’s only really because Matsujun spilled pop on it. Matsujun is a bit clumsy like your Sho-chan, but I think it’s just because he’s fat. I’ve also sent you a drawing of Godzilla and Mothra. I’m convinced they’re good friends.

That is all, I guess. Thank you for the balloon, although I almost fell to my death to get it. I quite like its creepy scowl.

It was nice writing to you and I hope you’ll write back.


Sincerely,

Ninomiya Kazunari

P.S. I really hope this gets to you and that your letter isn’t a scam. Kosugi-san says it isn’t since he went to your school before. He’s rich and fat, kind of like Matsujun except that Matsujun isn’t rich at all.

P.P.S. I’m sorry it took so long to send this. I couldn’t find an adult fast enough (my parents aren’t really adults. Jun’s mom calls them ‘childish’. I suppose that means they’re another sort of children) or a stamp anywhere in the house, so I had to look for both elsewhere. Kosugi-san and Yoshida-san told me to write you, in case you’ll find it a bit suspicious, that the Dark Condiments is an arcade in the city and that they baby-sit me. I don’t know what baby-sitting is, since I’ve never been baby-sat before, but I imagine it can’t be when one sits on babies. Kosugi-san and Yoshida-san wouldn’t, I think. They’re funny and old, but they’re not mean. Have you been baby-sat before? Anyway, hope you enjoy the token and my drawing.


Aiba rolled over, clutching the sticky token and the letter close to his chest. “It came,” he said aloud. Sho-chan was off to other-school (tutoring, he had told Aiba a long time ago, so I can be smarter than everyone else!), and he was alone in his room, a wide grin on his face. He felt impossibly giddy – like the first time his father had let him stay awake after his bedtime and they watched action movies all night long. “I got my letter!” he exclaimed louder, although he knew no one was there to hear him. Somehow, he knew he just had to say it; he really couldn’t keep his excitement all to himself.

He wanted to share it, wanted everyone else feel as colourful and wonderful as he did.

He scrambled off his bed and yanked his ‘tools drawer’ open, grabbing a roll of double-sided tape and scissors from its depths, and he tucked the token in; tokens don’t belong on walls.

Almost reverently, he turned the letter over, smoothing the creases. He never really liked double-sided tape, preferring the ones with only one sticky side, but he knew he would hate it if shiny tape marred the letter’s face. The problem with double-sided tape though, he thought as he stuck the uncovered side against the letter, was peeling the non-stick surface, making sure that the glue doesn’t go with it or it doesn’t tear off in the middle. It was troublesome.

He breathed a sigh of relief when the strip came off flawlessly. The tape was straight and perfect, and, as he held the letter up and stuck it to the wall above his desk, the letter remained just as neat as Aiba first opened it. Well, except for the tiny little juice stain in the middle of it – that was Sho’s fault, he was the one who tipped Aiba’s juice over – and the little crumples at the corners.

He turned the drawing face down on the desk next. With bated breath, he stuck the tape on it, fingernails scratching at the non-sticky back. For a few panicky moments, he thought he wouldn’t get to peel it back – that the drawing was ruined forever – but it gave way immediately after. He held the drawing up, laughing quietly as he stuck it next to the letter. It was terribly clever.

He stood back, nodding to himself. Yup, this would have to do until he got a proper trophy case just like the one his father had for all his participation trophies for golf. His wide smile softened as he stepped closer again. For the twenty-fifth time (he counted), his fingers traced the dark, wobbly lines, carefully following all the loops and straight lines. “He can draw,” he said, just as amazed as he was when he first saw it. “And he’s funny.” He sat on his chair, staring up at the wonderful things Ninomiya Kazunari sent him.

“My new friend,” he continued softly, something not unlike pride swelling up in his chest, “is perfect.”

IV.

Dear Ninomiya Kazunari,

I don’t know what to call you yet, since I think you wouldn’t like it if I called you “bonehead”. My friend Sho-chan calls me “idiot” sometimes and I think that’s only when he’s scared when we go exploring. He feels sorry after and he tries to make up for it. Really, I only want a braver companion…

V.

It had been a beautiful day, Aiba remembered.

Sho had sat him below the dwarf-tree (the one that had stopped Aiba’s balloon from leaving nearly three years ago), sharp eyebrows knotted together and fingers twisting worriedly. There had been an air of anxiousness that had surrounded the other boy the whole day and Aiba had known that whatever caused it, whatever made Sho dart nervous looks his way, would be big. Big, as in it would maybe change their lives.

“I’m moving,” Sho had said, so bluntly and suddenly that it felt like when Aiba had fallen on a rose bush – it had hurt and he hadn’t known where it had hurt exactly and how to fix it.

Sho had rambled on a bit about independence and not running with scissors and baby birds taking flight after, and Aiba hadn’t been able to follow anything. All he had been able to think about was that Sho was leaving and there was no one else he could talk with like this, no one else who would help him open his soda cans (he was horrible at it), no one else to boost him up to the dwarf-tree if another of his balloons got stuck again.

He hadn’t cried then; he had resolved not to. Sho had been antsy about the whole thing as it was, and Aiba hadn’t wanted to make him worry more. Packing his things would be a chore, transferring schools would be troublesome – surely Aiba could lessen his burden.

So he had reeled his tears in.

And he kept them from falling until Sho’s family’s car finally turned the corner, the weather as beautiful as it had been under the dwarf-tree. His arms were exhausted from waving frantically at them, yet he continued to do so. Somehow, he thought that if he stopped, if he even paused for half a second, it would finally mean that Sho was gone – maybe forever.

It’s silly of him to think so, he chided himself. They could still call each other, like Sho promised, visit each other, have sleepovers and camps and-

Maybe it was the stillness around him, or maybe it was the emptiness that seemed to surround him – the gravity of the situation fell on him and he allowed himself to sob, tears streaming down his face as he continued to wave at the car that had long since disappeared from his view.

-----

Dear Nino-kun,

I think I’m sick.

Not the sort of sick where I can just eat chicken soup and medicine and be right as rain again.

It’s not that.

It’s more like a heavy feeling inside me. Usually I feel so light I sometimes think I can fly if I wanted to – if I jumped and somehow swooped away from the ground, I’ll be up there with the birds in no time at all – but now something more than gravity is holding me down. It’s possibly the scariest the worst I’ve felt.

I can’t jump. I can’t taste anything. I can’t

I can’t smile.

My friend Sho-chan left today. He’s moving to the city for a better life. That’s what his parents said. I’m not sure if Sho-chan thinks he’s going to have a better life though. I hope he does.

There’s no one else here with me, no one else who’ll watch the ladybugs with me, or climb the dwarf-tree, or eat bark after it rained. He won’t tell me weird things about everything and he won’t scream or scold me anymore when I get stupid. I think I’ll miss that the most.

I wonder if he’ll miss me too. Because I do. I already do.

Please help me. I want to smile again and be happy again. I want to stop crying and wishing for things that can’t happen. I just… want things to be back the way they were.


Your friend,

Aiba Masaki

P.S. I’m sorry I haven’t sent you anything. I can’t think of anything to get you for this one.


For once, Nino was afraid he couldn’t help Aiba at all.

It was easy answering the other boy’s inane questions about dinosaurs and Godzilla and, as of recent, Ranma ½, and it was even more effortless telling him the answers to his math and science homework (although Nino had thought at some point that it was moot to do so – Aiba handed his homework in days before he got Nino’s replies). Nino knew he was infinitely cleverer than Aiba; he knew he was wiser and more magnificent than a mere suburban…

But there were some things Aiba had that Nino knew he would never have, things that he could never understand.

And it confused him to no end; Aiba confused him to no end. He would be lying if he said the other boy felt like a kindred spirit. Aiba was different, so bright and idiotic and enthusiastic about the weirdest things. Nino fancied himself dark and boring, and he was certainly not as interesting as Aiba made him out to be.

That was what puzzled him the most – how someone as exciting as Aiba could ever find someone as plain as him even remotely fascinating.

He didn’t know when green balloon-decorated envelopes had begun to be the highlight of his day or when reading a letter made him see wonders that he couldn’t find in his place. He had started to see little splotches of colour in his grey world and had begun appreciating the smallest things – the beginning drops of rain and the metallic tang of coins and metal.

And he dreaded the day when all that would come to an end; Aiba would realize Nino wasn’t as amazing as he thought and the boy would stop writing him. No one ever stayed – some of his schoolmates transferred, his favourite music teacher was replaced by a thick old man, his father had gone to a place his mother called Boor-myu-dah with a “daft little wench”. Everybody left him (save for Jun and his mother, although Nino knew, at the back of his mind, that they’d replace him or abandon him in the future too). Aiba would leave him eventually. Nino’s world would be miserable and dull again, rain and coins nothing but worthless objects.

He wished he could solve whatever it was that was troubling Aiba, maybe read up on it or do equations and impress him, and then he could keep him longer. It was only his luck that Aiba’s problem was more abstract, more emotional, more than he had even experienced.

How could he teach Aiba how to smile again when he didn’t even know how to smile?


“How come you’re not writing your letter?” Jun asked him when he came over on a Saturday, a cookie wedged between his fingers. Aiba’s letters usually came during the week – as if he was so excited he wrote back as soon as he got Nino’s – and Nino had always written his on the weekends. It was an easy sort of arrangement (he mailed his letters on Monday, Aiba got them on Wednesday and he usually mailed his response the same day, and Nino got the green envelopes on Friday), and a habit he had easily fallen into.

“How come you’re eating a cookie?” Nino shot back, reluctant to tell him that he was getting out of Aiba’s way before the other one did. Jun’s mother had placed the other boy on a diet. Ever the perfectionist, she had been convinced that a rotund son wasn’t acceptable and had then supplied him with trays and trays of celery sticks and baby carrots. Nino knew it had been a gruelling year for Jun.

Jun rolled his eyes, appearing unperturbed even as he stuffed the double chocolate chip cookie into his mouth frantically. “It’s a reward,” he said, neatly wiping the flecks and crumbs of chocolate around his lips. “I’ve been good this week.”

That was true. Jun was almost so heartbreakingly obedient, keeping to his vegetables even as he made Nino delicious rice balls. Nino once thought that if his mother asked him to, Jun would jump to the moon and back. He hummed agreeably. “You’ll be skinny in no time,” he told him.

Jun shrugged. “Will you like me then?” he asked.

“I like Matsujun,” Nino said, without giving it any thought. The answer was too obvious: “I like you as you are now and I think I’ll like you even when you lose half of you.”

Red spread across Jun’s features, so bright that Nino thought Jun’s face would burn under his touch, and a smile lit up his face, slow and sweet and wide. It was unlike the grins and chiding smirks the boy shared with Nino in the past; it was softer and filled with an emotion Nino was certain he hadn’t felt. “I- thank you.”

“How are you doing that?” Nino asked. “Why are you doing that?”

Jun’s frown furrowed slightly, a questioning tilt on his head. “Doing what?”

“That.” Nino drew the curve of Jun’s lips between them.

“Oh. Smiling, you mean?” Nino nodded. Jun laughed, the sound ringing loudly in the small, empty apartment. “Are you serious?!”

“Well, yes,” Nino replied. “I haven’t before, you know.”

“That’s strange. You’re strange!” Jun guffawed.

Nino never thought of it that way. He couldn’t remember a time when he smiled and he never thought that doing so was of any importance. A smile was something he had seldom seen and never had, and it was certainly something he never wanted. “I’m sorry.”

“Wait.” The teasing curve at the edge of the other boy’s eyes disappeared, and they narrowed, examining Nino critically. Nino told himself not to shy away from Jun’s gaze – Jun knew him best, he had always thought, and maybe, just maybe, the boy could get him out of his problem. “You’re serious, aren’t you? I mean I never know sometimes when it comes to you, but… wow. You’ve never smiled?”

Nino shrugged. “I never needed to,” he said honestly.

“Kazu,” Jun began (he hardly called Nino “bonehead” recently. Nino didn’t know why he did, but he was pleased all the same), “no one ever needs to smile. A smile, a true smile, comes whenever you feel happy, not whenever you think you should. This,” he traced his lips to the lifted ends, “I’m smiling because I’m happy here. With you.”

Nino frowned. Oh he’s heard of what it is – he’s seen happy people, been with happy people – but he could never figure out the details of happiness. When does one feel happy? Did it happen often or was it something rare and special? Was it something one could buy if they wanted or was it something so precious that it wasn’t worth anything tangible?

“Happiness is something you can’t really describe,” Jun continued seamlessly, and Nino was always grateful for that, for Jun knowing exactly the questions Nino held in and for answering as smoothly as he could. Jun knew him best, he thought. “It’s this warm feeling you get, as if you’re safe and nothing can go wrong and everything is perfect. It’s like… it’s like you can’t worry about anything because somehow, you know the future’s going to be fine.”

“I always worry,” Nino said. There were an infinite number of things to worry about; he worried about Jun (whether he was starving or overeating, whether the next time he saw him, Jun would be smaller and skinnier, and would Nino recognize him then?), his mother (whether she’ll come home or stay at work, whether there’s enough food for the both of them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, whether she would remember he’s at the Dark Condiments instead of panicking and calling the police like last time), Kosugi and Yoshida (they’re old, Nino worried they’d fault to their stupid deaths next time he’d come around the arcade), and his father, to a lesser extent. His father was too… what was it his mother said? His father was a pile of rubbish the dogs wouldn’t even shat on.

“Have you ever been happy?” Jun asked him, his concern barely masked by his curiosity.

Nino thought back quickly on his short life – at all the scrapes that were never kissed, at all the homework that were never checked, and at all the homemade food he had never enjoyed – and he realized: “I don’t know.”

He barely caught Jun’s crestfallen face.


That night, he dreamed about purple things and green envelopes, and when he rushed to the mirror to check his face the next morning, his dour eyes staring back, he thought he must have smiled in his sleep.

-----

Dear Aiba-kun,

When I was little, my mom and dad had a terrible row. They were loud and dishes were smashed (we had to eat from mugs days after), and my mom walked out. I thought she was gone forever, that I wouldn’t see her again, and I cried. My father (my mom calls him rubbish) left me after, saying he couldn’t handle all the noise.

I’ve never felt so alone. I’ve always been alone, but this one was different. I was convinced that everyone forgot about me, that no one would come and get me. It felt like… like my world just crashed around me. It was cold.

And then I heard the door open and warm arms and my mom’s old, faded perfume surrounded me. She bought me plums that day. Have you tasted plums? They’re purple and sweet and sort of sour. This is a bit corny, but they taste like home to me. Not like a dreary, dark apartment. It tastes like… I’ve hardly been truly happy in my life, but I thought that it tasted as close to happy as I have ever known.

Ever since then, when I’m sad or mom is sad, she brings us plums. We eat them out at the balcony and beyond all the smoke and city noises and the grey over the horizon, we could see a bit of purple out there.

I’ve sent you a drawing of a plum. It’s not as good as a real plum, but I hope it makes you smile just a little bit.


Your question answerer,

Nino

P.S. You are stupid. Really stupid. Don’t you know that your Sho-kun will never ever leave you? He loves you dearly.


Aiba beamed wider than he had ever had. He placed the letter under his pillow. This one, he thought, he was content to keep beside him.

He resolved to call Sho the next day.

VI.

Dear Aiba-chan,

I sent you a present. I know this letter will come days before your actual birthday and I just know you’re going to open the present even if I tell you not to until Christmas Eve. You’re stubborn and impatient.

Oh, but I’m clever.

You see, I’ve decided to spoil your surprise before you do. And no, you can’t stop reading my letter now! What if I have something important to say and you missed it because you refused to finish the letter?

I got you an Encarta disk. It’s this encyclopaedia you can install on your new computer (see, I do pay attention) and it has articles and pictures on science and other things that I know you really like. Oh and it has this game called MindMaze where you answer trivia questions. With all that useless junk in your brain, I bet you’ll finish it real quick.

Anyway, happy advanced 16th birthday! You’re old! Feel your bones creaking yet?


Your young acquaintance,

Nino

P.S. I’m sorry I don’t have a drawing today. Been busy working at the arcade and all. And no, I did not start working there just for your present, so stop smiling like that!

VII.

“I’m gay,” Jun told him, eyebrows and mouth set in hard lines, eyes serious and daring Nino to say anything. Something. Nino didn’t know what Jun wanted from him and that was just a bit disconcerting – he knew Jun like he knew the special wrapped rice balls the boy brought him everyday. It troubled him whenever he was lost in Jun’s presence.

And that was quickly becoming quite common. Since puberty hit, Jun had suddenly grown a few inches, and the last vestiges of baby fat he'd had filled him perfectly, so that he looked less gangly and awkward than Nino (and the rest of the people in high school) did. His thick eyebrows and large eyes had become less monstrous and considerably more striking. Jun had become, by all counts, completely stunning.

With those newfound looks, the boy had gained more confidence. At times, Nino had thought that Jun had become a bit too arrogant, a bit too sure and callous, and he had once come to the conclusion that these changes also meant Jun abandoning him sooner or later for someone better – someone as beautiful and charming as Jun was.

But Jun had stayed and continued making him rice balls, and he had witnessed, on more than one occasion, his old Jun, his sweet, bossy, insecure, and caring Jun.

His Jun was frightening at the moment though. Jun sniffed daintily – a bit too forced, Nino thought – and he crossed his arms, fixing the shorter one with a fierce glare. “Go on,” he taunted, “tell me what you really think. I know what everyone else thinks – how disgusting someone like me is to them. You- maybe you’re not too different… are you?” Nino saw Jun’s bottom lip quiver, large eyes begging him to be different, to say something to allay his fears.

Ahh, and this was all too familiar; he had seen this expression countless times before, half-hidden in the dark as they confided to each other fears and secrets no one else knew. Nino looked out the windows. “It was grey before you said anything,” Nino said, choosing his words carefully. “And it’s still grey now. How dim must you be to think that what you said was something so big and important that it changed everything?”

Jun beamed, teeth still too large and lips spread too wide. “Thank you,” he whispered. Nino once wondered if he would recognize Jun if he lost all that weight. He thought he knew the answer now.

-----

Dear Aiba-chan,

I’ve concluded that humans are odd creatures.

They condemn people who aren’t like them or those who do not conform to what they think is normal. That’s strange, isn’t it? People are never the same, never a clone of anyone, and if they appear to be, there’s always something there about them that is uniquely them. It seems so… so ridiculous that some humans can’t accept that difference.

My Matsujun is in love, but I suppose people think the way he loves is unacceptable. His mom and dad are okay with it, I think, although I’ve heard his mom talk to mine about how it’s just a “condition” or a “phase” and Matsujun will grow out of it sooner or later. It bothers me sometimes since this comes from a woman who has worked Matsujun into someone perfect.

I think Matsujun is perfect.

And who he loves shouldn’t matter. I’ve never been in love, but I think it’s something amazing. It should be if it makes Matsujun smile so wide his face looks like it’s splitting in two. I wonder why people would like to take that away from him.


Forever confused about humanity’s idiocy,

Nino

P.S. I’ve enclosed a picture of Matsujun’s silly grin. I hope you get a laugh out of it.

VIII.

“I think I’m in love.”

Aiba stifled a long sigh. Sho was always in love these days (the older blamed it on hormones. Aiba thought Sho just liked girls too much) and it was really all he talked about, save for the occasional conversations about chess and the news and other boring things. “You told me that last week,” Aiba accused over the phone.

“This is different,” Sho insisted, “this, this is true love.”

Aiba frowned. “Last week though-“

“They’re special!”

“They?”

“Miki and Shizuka!” Sho professed loudly and emotionally, Aiba moving the phone away from his ear. “I love them, Masaki!”

“What happened to Tsukiko?” Aiba really shouldn’t be surprised; Sho changed girls as quickly as Godzilla traded enemies. There was Rena and then Kazuha and Tsukiko followed immediately after. His good, proper Sho was a bit too weak around feminine wiles (as his mother was wont to call them… whatever they were).

“Tsukiko wasn’t the one,” Sho said. “Now Miki and Shizuka, let me tell you, they’re absolutely ra-“

“How can you do it?” Aiba asked. “How can you fall in love this much?” He had always thought love was something wondrous, something so heartbreakingly beautiful that every happiness and pain it caused lasted forever. What Sho had hadn’t seemed to last any more than a week.

He heard Sho scoff quietly and he imagined seeing the other boy pushing his glasses up his nose airily. “See, Masaki, when two people happen to like each other- well, three in this case-“

“That’s not what I meant. I mean love, love.” Aiba closed his eyes, imagining what that felt like, believing in forever. “I’ve always thought it’s, you know, endless.”

“What, like you and your endless rambles about that Ninomiya kid?” Sho guffawed. “I’m sorry we can’t be all in love with our penpals! Imagine what Nakai-kun would say if I suddenly confess to an everlasting love for him!”

Aiba flushed a deep red and even though Sho couldn’t see him; he knew that Sho knew him enough to figure out that he was quite embarrassed. “Well it’s not like-“ but isn’t it? Aiba paused. He would be lying if he denied ever having thought that of Nino – that he maybe liked Nino more than anyone else – and Aiba hated lying. Nino was forever to him.

“Wait,” Sho started when Aiba’s silence grew too long. “Are you… Really?”

“Um… yes?” Aiba said uncertainly.

It was silent between them again. Aiba contemplated telling him why he liked – loved – Nino so much, why he adored him. Maybe he should tell him about how Nino had always been there when he needed him, in a different way from how he needed Sho, because even though Sho was an amazing friend, he would get weird about sad things and about lonely things and Aiba tended to stay away from that sort of conversation around him. Or maybe he should tell him about how Nino showed Aiba the darker parts of the world, the greys and the inky blacks and stark whites, and that had only served to make Aiba’s light shine even brighter.

“Oh,” Sho said before Aiba could say anything.

“Oh,” Aiba replied.

“I thought, well you know,” Sho continued, “that you’re fond of him and everything, but I never thought you really did like- I mean… He’s a boy, Masaki.”

“I see.” Aiba frowned worriedly. “Should that matter?”

“I don’t know… it shouldn’t, I suppose. Does it? To you, I mean.” Sho paused. “Did it even occur to you that liking a boy is weird?”

It didn’t. He shook his head.

“I can’t hear you shaking your head over the phone, but I’m guessing you are,” Sho said. Aiba tittered – sometimes he forgot that some things couldn’t be translated over the phone. He wished Sho was across from him instead – he didn’t really know how Sho felt at the moment about his confession, and he couldn’t understand why Sho thought it was weird for him to like a boy.

“Did you like me too?” Sho asked.

“I’ve always liked you,” Aiba answered, confused by his question.

“No, I mean,” Sho took a deep breath, “did you like me like you like Ninomiya?”

That clarified nothing at all. “Why would I like you like I like Nino-kun?”

Sho sighed, the one that he usually used when he’s tired of explaining things to Aiba. “Well, I’m a guy. And you… you like guys.”

“Oh.” Aiba laughed loudly. “No way!”

“But-“

“Sho-chan,” Aiba said between giggles, “I don’t- I’ve never liked you like that. You’re not Nino-kun.”

Across the phone, he heard Sho laugh in relief and he laughed along with him. Sho’s laughs were always so infectious.

He thought that for a smart boy, Sho could be so silly and stupid sometimes.









Click for Part 2