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Nino knew he would never win against Jun. Maybe seventeen years ago, when they were all still scrawny little Juniors and Jun still had those atrocious teeth and way too much wounded self-consciousness, he would have stood a sliver of chance. But not now. His time had passed. It was Jun’s time now.
And judging by the thin giggles that kept trailing out of Masaki’s mouth, it was probably going to be Jun’s time for a long, long time.
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“Hey Ninomiya-kun, can I, um, do you mind if we, uh, walk to the station together after work?”
Nino had looked at the boy, an odd assembly of angular limbs poking through sweaty clothes. He didn’t look like the type to have very many friends.
Just like Nino.
The younger boy grinned and nodded.
And that had been the start.
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“Wow, Nino-chan, we have our own combi name now. BAD. Beautiful American Dream.” The thin giggles had been ticklish against Nino’s sideburns, but he hadn’t minded it.
“Ne, Nino. If we ever debut, I hope we get put in the same group.”
Nino remembered his 15-year-old self waving a disdainful hand at the suggestion.
Debut? Pssh! He wasn’t here to become some plastic idol. Oh no, he was on a one-way track to the gleaming searchlights of Hollywood!
“Oh.” Quietly, the hopeful look in those chocolate eyes receded, though the smile was still stretched taut across those bright lips.
“Well maybe… maybe in a few years, I’ll go to the Shibuya cinemas and find Nino in one of those imported film posters.”
The giggles had spluttered out in a mirthless gurgle. Not that Nino noticed that back then, though.
Because looking back, he really, really was a cocksure little idiot at fifteen.
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“Don’t quit, please.”
Nino had heard that whine many times before, but this was the first time it had caught him tongue-tied.
“You’re Arashi now. We’re Arashi now. Please, Nino.”
All he could do was shake his head.
“Even if you don’t care about the others…”
God, how he hated having that imploring voice thrust into his face like that.
“Even if MatsuJun and Ohno-san and Sho-sempai don’t mean anything to you…”
He couldn’t even look at the guy anymore.
“Then at least for me, Nino. Stay for me.”
Wordlessly, Nino had left the room, but he stayed in Arashi.
It was the first time, though, the first time that he felt the weight of another heart cracking against himself.
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“Why do I always share a room with Sho-chan now?”
It’s just what the managers arranged. No big deal.
“But Sho-chan grinds his teeth and talks in his sleep, and it scares me!”
You’re being annoying. Now get back to your room.
“But Nino…”
Nino had to admit that, in retrospect, he should have realized that nothing in that conversation was about Sho-chan.
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“Why does it have to be Ohmiya SK? Why can’t it be Aimiya MK?”
It just works better this way.
“But we have experience as a combi! We used to sing duets together!”
Will you let it rest? It’s just got more of a novelty factor if it’s Oh-chan.
“But I miss singing duets with Nino.”
Then treat me to karaoke sometime, he snapped, turning on his side so he could face the wall and end this stupid argument.
There had been a silence, and Nino was quick to take advantage of it to feign sleep.
But not even the great actor Nino could suppress a little shiver when he heard the forlorn voice, barely audible over the creak of worn door hinges:
“I see. I have to share Nino now. Nino who used to be only mine.”
The door opened, casting a fan of golden light on the wall, and then closed again with a soft click.
“Good night, Nino.”
If only he had known how many doors would close after that.
He would never have started that wretched Ohmiya SK.
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“I can’t believe Nino-chan wrote a letter to Arashi.”
The normally bright voice was husky and scratching against the silence of their green room.
“You made me cry, Nino. You made me cry again, on national TV.”
It was already 12 hours after the end of 24 Hr TV. Nino hadn’t expected the chocolate eyes to still be glistening wet.
Crybaby, he laughed softly, ignoring the oddly strong grip of those lanky arms on his shoulders. The chocolate eyes, they were so close, blinking out at him from beneath that wavy new perm with disconcerting clarity, as if they knew… as if he had revealed a little too much in that blasted letter his manager had told him to write.
“Nino knows we’ve always been together, right?”
There was definitely something just a little suggestive about the way that husky tone was breathing those words into his ear.
“And Nino worried about me.” The thick lips pouted a little. “I didn’t know that Nino ever worried at all. And he wasn’t worried about anyone else. Only about me, only about his Ma-”
But at that point, Nino shook the lanky arms off his body and hastened to interrupt before the really embarrassing things could be said aloud.
For Christ’s sake, it was just a letter! A few nice words for the cameras! That’s all. Nothing special. You-you must be overthinking it…
Nino would never forget the timid flinch in those chocolate eyes as they widened and brimmed with even more tears.
“For the cameras?” The voice seemed more like a lost breath on the wind. “Bu-but mine four years ago… mine wasn’t just for the cameras.”
I guess yours and mine are a bit different, then, snapped Nino.
He grabbed his jacket off a chair, and stomped out the green room before any more alarming truths could be uncovered.
He should have stayed, though. He told himself that every time he thought of that day, and boy, did he think about that day...
He really should have stayed.
With a long, reflective sigh, Nino combed a pudgy hand through his hair and frowned angrily at himself.
Well, how the hell was I supposed to know that MatsuJun would be the next person to enter the room that day?
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“Jun-pon~!”
Nino quickly lowered his head to stare unseeingly at the DS clutched in his hands. The game screen had come back to life, but a sudden stiffness had frozen every joint in his body, and he couldn’t press “unpause.” Maybe he was an inner masochist. Maybe his heart, after losing the one good thing that he’d always taken for granted, wanted to hear this disgustingly sweet exchange and to be slashed, bruised and bled even more.
Or maybe he was just a bitter man who, after two years of silent heartbreak, still couldn’t accept the fact that the high-strung peacock of Arashi had somehow replaced him as the shoulder to whine on, the person to tease.
There was a swift whoosh of fabric against fabric as one giggly body slammed itself into another and long arms snaked themselves around a thin waist.
“Idiot,” purred a low, masculine voice, the kind that Nino would never have. “What have I told you about calling me that at work?”
“But no one’s here except Nino, and Nino doesn’t care, does he, Nino?”
With a wrench of his insides that was as excruciating as any gory video game death, Nino gave a nonchalant shrug and pretended to be furiously pummeling a new boss on his DS.
“I’m sorry, didn’t hear what you were saying.” He shrugged again, not taking his eyes off the screen.
“See?” The breathy giggle sounded again, though this time, it was quickly muffled by a wet, smooching sound and the rustle of more fabric rubbing up against fabric.
“Not here, Masaki!” They were both panting a bit, and then…
“Your heart, it’s- it’s beating so fast.”
There was a faint scratch of fingers against the starch of a neatly pressed shirt.
“Yours too, Masaki.” The masculine voice was tempered into a fond chuckle. “Two years already. You’d think that our hearts would’ve learned to calm down by now.”
“Silly hearts,” tittered the thin voice, and hearing it was like feeling a sunbeam on bare skin. “Though I love our silly hearts, Jun-pon! And I want them to be racing all the time-”
Nino slid a set of headphones over his unkempt mop of hair and hunched down even more to block them out of his peripheral vision.
Silly hearts, he thought glumly, unpausing his game.
I have one, too, you know.
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END