stupid

a ficlet by cimorene

Nino is so close to beating the level that he doesn't answer his phone the first two times it rings. The third time he hits pause and grabs it in exasperation. It's Jun.

"What do you want, jerk?" Nino complains.

Jun just laughs. "I just got off the phone with Ohno," he drawls, and then stops.

Nino slants a look at the tv. "Yeah?"

Jun snorts. "After like, four hours. You owe me, Nino."

"You talked to Ohno for four hours?" Nino feels a spark of interest. It's hard to get Ohno to talk for that long at all. "Really? Why?"

Jun says caustically, "Because he finally realised he's in love with you, and somehow that was a big deal."

Nino's overhead light in his room flickers a little, the game stays paused, and in his ear Jun says "Nino? Nino? Hello? Nino! What the fuck is the matter with you two idiots? If you're passed out I'm going to be pissed."

Huh.

"What?" Nino grouches. "Hold on a second."

Interesting. The way everything sort of slowed down just then, sort of like being in the Matrix, and interesting the way it took such a long time for the words to get to his mouth and come out of it. He almost laughed, for a tiny fraction of a second when Jun said that, until he realised that Jun wasn't joking and basically choked on it, metaphorically of course.

Nino frowns to himself and picks at his toenails. Ohno. In love with him? He frowns some more. Maybe Jun meant that metaphorically. But it didn't sound like it.

What he says is, "Four hours?"

He can just hear the eye roll. "Ohno thinks that I'm smart and also he's getting revenge because I asked him why he doesn't tell me more things a while ago. I didn't mean to tell me about his internally conflicted, heart-breakingly profound love for you, but I couldn't really get him to hang up. My throat kind of hurts now too. You know Ohno didn't do most of the talking."

"...Oh." says Nino.

"Anyway," says Jun, "heads up. You can stop dicking around like a fourteen-year-old now. And if you ever have sex in the dressing room, I will throw out all your fucking video games."

"I - dicking around? I don't dick around," Nino protests.

"Not with your dick," Jun explains. "I meant with the way your life has no focus and aim. Except for work and video games." Which is totally enough, it's not like Nino has any free time already, and he barely has time for his family let alone four best friends, but he doesn't say any of that. He doesn't really think it, except in the background, because the whole front of his brain is full of OhnoOhnoOhnoHOLY FUCKING WHAT THE HELL Ohno??????

Then something else breaks through. "Sex?"

"No way!" Jun interrupts, laughing. "I had to hear all about that from Ohno, no way am I going to listen to it from you, too. Call Sho. Or Aiba-chan, but, well -" he pauses, obviously thinking the same thing that Nino is momentarily thinking, and concludes, " - Call Sho. Listen, I have to go."

"Okay," says Nino automatically, "bye," and hangs up after Jun leaves him with the dial tone.

He stares at the tv for a while, blankly, but he doesn't turn the game back on because for the life of him, he can't remember what exactly the brilliant strategy that he had just figured out was. He wanders downstairs into the kitchen, grabs a rice ball from the fridge and stands munching it and looking out the window.

His Mom comes home from running errands or something, "Tadaima"s, wanders into the kitchen and kisses his cheek and says something about dinner or his dad or maybe his job, Nino's not sure.

"In love," Nino mutters, frowning, and wanders out of the room before she can say anything else.

In the front hall he kicks off his slippers and steps into the closest pair of shoes - black and brown long-toed dress laceups, even though there's snow on the ground and he probably shouldn't get them wet - and walks out the door. On the step he stops and takes a few more bites of the riceball. His mom's rice balls are the best.

"Fuck," Nino mutters to himself, "Sex?" Then he walks down the path, kicking slush out of the way, and opens the gate. No one's gotten the mail yet today, and there's a sealed letter from his agent inside. He closes the lid again and leaves it there, and just then he remembers the way Jun said heart-breakingly and feels something hard and tight squish inside his chest, not exactly like a heart breaking, but maybe like his heart just got kicked in the guts, or elbowed with Aiba's bony elbows.

His hoodie's not meant for wearing outside and the wind is cold and cutting right through it; if he really wants to wander around like a homeless freak in a daze of personal crisis he should probably go back inside and grab a coat, Nino thinks, and takes another bite of riceball.

Ohno is standing at the end of his street wearing a fluffy parka with his hands clasped in front of him, his newly-bleached bangs blowing in the breeze. He looks small. He looks strong. He looks sad, his pointy little face smoothly expressionless until he meets Nino's eyes and it's like a cloud moving across the sun, not because he smiles but because his eyes come to life. He watches Nino come until Nino walks right up to him.

"Want some?" Nino offers him the rice ball.

Ohno nods solemnly and opens his mouth; Nino stuffs the edge of the rice ball in and Ohno takes a bite. While he chews, Nino unzips his parka - Ohno holds his arms out of the way cooperatively - and slips inside it with him. Good thing the parka is kind of big.

"Cold?" says Ohno calmly, with his mouth still full of half-chewed rice ball. He wraps his arms around Nino gingerly, pulling the coat around him. It doesn't close all the way.

Nino shrugs the question off. "Nnn." He tilts his head and regards Ohno's round girly face, the dusting of unshaven stubble around his mouth, the sleek droop of his long narrow eyes.

Ohno lifts his eyes to Nino's face and stops chewing for a moment. He licks his lips and blinks, focusing closely on Nino's face, something that Ohno has to consciously do because his default setting is a vague undirected gaze that only focuses directly on you when you grab his attention. Nino has been trying hard, demanding, extorting that look of focus from Ohno for years.

Nino eats the last bite of riceball himself, though he kind of has to stuff it in his mouth and it's a little hard to maneuver his arm up inside the confines of the coat. He puts his hand down on Ohno's shoulder after, wrapping his other arm around Ohno's waist comfortably. Ohno's unfazed by Nino in his personal space, of course, he's been used to it for years. He just tightens his arms around Nino a little, and doesn't say anything after he finishes chewing and swallowing.

Nino's overcome by affection for him for a second, familiar and safe, not alarming or mind-blowing in the least (in love whispers a voice in Nino's mind that sounds like Ohno, not like Jun), and Nino finishes his bite and moves his face forward, presses his nose against Ohno's, grinning. Ohno watches him carefully, a little warily, and Nino laughs and kisses his cheek swiftly.

"In love with me?" Nino asks him.

Ohno hums thoughtfully. "It's just," he says, "It's just that - you're so. It's you." He sounds apologetic. "I can't explain, really."

This is - Nino's heart is beating faster, to hear this. He doesn't want to move away from Ohno. Maybe ever. (Considering it is hardly the first time Nino has had this thought, maybe he shouldn't be surprised to think Ohno is in love with him - or that he is in love with Ohno at least, if they don't each imply each other automatically, but, Nino thinks, in the case of Ohno and him, they obviously do.)

That wasn't really the response he's looking for though. He narrows his eyes a little, looks at Ohno under his eyelashes, smiles flirtatiously with half of his mouth. Ohno just watches him closely, eyes a little wider than usual.

"Sex?" Nino says.

Ohno starts at that, and stutters, "Kazu, I." Hah! Nino leans in and nuzzles soothingly at the side of Ohno's face and Ohno's breath eases out in a whoosh. "You're you," says Ohno helplessly, "so of course, of course I love you, I just - I'm so stupid," halfway under his breath but of course, because he's speaking in Nino's ear, Nino can hear all of it.

Nino wants to laugh. His ears are freezing, snow is seeping inside his stupid stylish shoes, he's trapped in a parka with Ohno and his chest is inflated like a helium balloon; he's stupid with it, crazy and apparently as dimwitted as Ohno, which he would never, ever have believed, because he didn't know. Nino squeezes Ohno tighter, and he can't laugh, but he says "Okay, okay, okay, Oh-chan, stop -" he turns his head and kisses the corner of Ohno's mouth, slower this time. "Let's go to - let's go get a coat and some different shoes for me, then we can - I can't kiss you here."

"You can't?" Ohno says in his ear. "Wait. Wait," and shoves Nino back by the shoulders, staring at him. "What do you mean? You can't kiss me here?"

Nino rolls his eyes. "Well, I could, but I'm cold," and Ohno stares at him, bewildered, and Nino forgets to breathe. "Four hours?" he mutters.

"What?" says Ohno sharply.

Nino leans back in, nose to nose, until his mouth is so close to Ohno's that Ohno has to shut up, and he's gone breathless and cross-eyed trying to keep track of Nino. "I want to take you somewhere where my mom isn't downstairs," Nino murmurs against Ohno's mouth, "I don't know, your apartment, a dressing room, the back seat of a cab, the bathrooms at the movie theatre, I'm not sure I care at this point, and do things to you that you won't even be able to tell Jun because even he wouldn't listen."

Ohno breathes in, shaky. "Okay," he murmurs. Nino can taste riceballs on his lips. "But Jun listens to more than you think."

end