learashi

Pairing: Ohmiya

Rating: PG

Genre: Romance

Disclaimer: I don’t own Arashi or its members – this is a work of fiction

Summary: Ohno didn’t even notice at first because it was all so subtle. Nino seemed to always standing slightly out of his usual position. Instead of them breathing the same air, there was a small gap that had never been there before.

A/N: Hi

jade_lil. I caved in to your very polite hints and tried writing another (and depending on the reception it gets - possibly last) Ohmiya as my birthday fic for Arashi's always awesome Riida.

To a casual observer looking in from the outside, it had always appeared that Ohno and Nino had been a couple, right from the very beginning; but nothing could be further from the truth.

They were friends, actually more than that really. It sometimes seemed that they shared a brain if not a body. Their ability to communicate with each other didn't rely on words, most times a slightly raised eyebrow or a quirk to the corner of a lip was enough to convey more meaning than an entire sentence.

For the five of them as a whole, skinship was something that just came naturally; it wasn't even a matter of providing fan service, they just genuinely liked each other. The only exception to this rule was Jun and Sho. Nobody quite knew what had occurred, but after their return from a recent overnight location shoot there had suddenly been a new and frosty distance between them.

As Arashi's leader, however reluctant he had been originally to take on the role, Ohno had been concerned at this disruption to group harmony and had apparently been spending an extended amount of time counselling their youngest member. It was a perfectly innocent extension of their relationship but somehow it annoyed Nino to an exaggerated degree.

"Oh-chan, buy me dinner?" Nino asked with puppy eyes.

"Sorry Nino, but I already promised to meet Jun-kun for ramen," Ohno said as he packed his bag after hastily glancing at his watch "But you're welcome to come along as well."

Not wanting to intrude where he wasn't wanted Nino huffed "Never mind, I'm not that hungry anyway."

"Oh, ok," Ohno said as he headed towards the door "But try and eat something. You're looking far too thin lately."

Nino’s heart sank, not only didn’t Ohno want him around intruding on his alone time with Jun, but he thought he was ugly as well. The thought that he was jumping to an unreasonable and overly dramatic conclusion never crossed his mind. He only knew that he suddenly had an ache in his stomach and a hollow feeling in his heart. Obviously it was too late for him; Ohno had made a choice and it didn’t include him.

He couldn't even pinpoint a moment in time when his feelings for the older man had changed from friendship to the first stirrings of sexual desire and maybe even love. He had known of course that he preferred the idea of men over women since his first sexual awakening, but he had never contemplated involving any of his band mates in any of these feelings. His understanding of Ohno was that he didn't care particularly which sex a person was, as long as there were feelings on both sides. He was a quiet man, but one who's passions ran deeply. Nino had watched him become embroiled in more than a few scandals over the years, most of which had been successfully covered up by management before they became general knowledge. It wasn't that Ohno was deliberately defiant of the rules, it's just that once he focused on the object of his desires he tended to forget about everything else for a time until his passion had abated.

If he had now turned this passion towards Arashi's youngest member there was nothing that Nino could do to change the situation except give Ohno enough space to pursue his happiness.

++++

Ohno didn’t even notice at first because it was all so subtle. Nino seemed to be always standing slightly out of his usual position. Instead of them breathing the same air, there was a small gap that had never been there before. Not being the most observant of people, these extra few millimetres didn’t bother him at first.

But after a week of this treatment, Ohno felt unsettled and out of sorts. He tried to figure out what was wrong, putting it down to the change in weather or his ever increasing workload. Neither of these things had made him feel quite like this before though. He felt disorientated and his work was suffering. The fact that Sho, Jun and Aiba had been forced to step in and cover for him more than once when he’d totally spaced out during filming was embarrassing and worrying.

Usually it was Nino who stepped in to nudge him into action when his mind led him astray. He didn’t mean to disappear into his own head, but sometimes the guests on their shows were a complete mystery to him. He was the first one to admit that he was out of touch with popular culture and often he had no idea who these people were or what they did to make them famous in the first place. Whenever he was stranded, Nino would either make a joke out of it or whisper a hint breathily into his ear while attention was focused elsewhere, usually on Aiba, who never minded making himself look foolish for the cause if it would aid his band mates.

++++

It wasn’t just that Nino was distancing himself from Ohno, but the others as well. He found himself forming a protective shell around his heart which no one was allowed to penetrate. This way he wouldn't have to deal with any messy emotions.

After he'd snapped at Aiba one too many times for nothing at all really, his friend looked at him with wounded eyes, making Nino want to apologize but instead he went once again on the attack with words so vicious they surprised even himself.

"Right, Nino, I’ve had enough of this," Aiba said suddenly full of pent up anger "Until you can behave like a decent human being don't even bother to talk to me. I'm sick of being your emotional punching bag. I know you are hurting about something, but quite frankly right at this moment I don't really care."

Nino blinked, momentarily stunned by his friend's outburst, words of apology forming in his mind, but they lodged somewhere in the back of his throat and he maintained his silence as Aiba stalked from the room.

This was exactly what he wanted; to be left alone with his misery. So why did it feel so bad?

++++

"Nino, this has got to stop," Sho said in a very tired voice.

Nino chose to ignore him, curling up defensively on the sofa and concentrating on his DS. If he tried very hard he could spend minutes at a time not thinking about Ohno and how much he missed him, and the fact that his band mates probably hated him as well by now.

It was so hard to maintain his new icy distance from the man that had come to mean so much to him. He could still smell the sweetly spicy fragrance of his skin and see the soft fluffy hair that was asking for fingers to run gently through it, and his eyes were as penetrating and mesmerizing as always.

Nino's overwhelming frustration was once again manifesting itself in nasty attacks on those he considered to be his closest friends, but there was no way that he was going to allow Sho to tell him how to behave.

"What gives you the right to speak to me like this?"

"As someone who cares about Ohno and about Arashi, I think I have the right to speak." Sho replied, trying to keep his voice level and not incite Nino any further.

"How much did you care about Arashi when you obviously used Jun and then dumped him? It's your fault that he ended up in Ohno's arms, so don't even think about making this all my fault." Nino said, trying to hold back the sudden urge to cry.

"What?" Sho looked annoyed, but didn't have a chance to ask Nino what he was talking about before he pushed past him, practically running from the room.

+++

Nino sighed as his finger hovered over the call button. He knew that he needed to apologise to Aiba, and quickly, before he caused any more damage but deep down he was so ashamed of his actions that he was worried that he had ruined a lifelong friendship with his petulance.

Two hours later he opened the door to a stern faced Aiba who was juggling an armful of shopping bags as he attempted to free a finger to press the buzzer. Nino had been pacing nervously near the entranceway thinking of what he should say when his friend arrived and had heard the rustling and grumbling which had emanated from the other side of the door.

“I can’t believe you invited me around so you could apologise and then made me bring the food and drinks with me,” Aiba huffed as he pushed past Nino, heading towards the kitchen before he dropped something.

Nino wanted to snark back at his friend like he usually would, but the words just wouldn’t form in his brain. Instead the only word that came out was a muffled “Sorry.”

Aiba immediately dropped the bags where he was and walked cautiously back towards Nino.

“Who are you and what have you done with Nino?” he asked, picking up a cushion from the sofa to use as a shield.

“All right, all right, I get it,” Nino said, shaking himself out of his melancholy mood “Just get back in the kitchen and cook us some food, and make sure it’s edible.”

“I take that as an insult. I’m not Sho you know!” Aiba said as he flung the cushion at Nino’s head before retreating to the kitchen.

On the surface the rest of the evening passed as usual, with Aiba forcing to Nino eat more food than he considered to be absolutely necessary and in return Nino spent a lot of time insulting Aiba’s intelligence.

“Have you noticed anything odd between Jun and Ohno recently?” Nino asked in what he hoped was a casual tone as he toyed with his fried rice.

“Not more than usual. You know that Riida still thinks of Jun as a baby most of the time and likes to spoil him,” Aiba said as he stole a forkful of Nino’s food. “Although they do seem to have been spending more time together lately since the wall went up between Jun and Sho. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. I just thought they seemed to be doing an unnecessarily large amount of fan service lately.”

“Perhaps that’s because you and Riida haven’t been. Someone has to fill the gap and keep the fans happy,” Aiba said with a scrutinising stare.

Nino suddenly felt hot all over as Aiba looked expectantly at him as if waiting for him to expand on his reasons for keeping his distance from Ohno recently. Choosing not to answer Aiba he stuffed an unnaturally large portion of food into his mouth making it impossible to answer straight away. He managed to choke on half of it and by the time Aiba had hit him repeatedly on the back after offering to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre the moment to confide in his friend had passed.

But after Aiba had left Nino felt the cold grip of loneliness and isolation surrounding him once again.

++++

When Nino walked into the dressing room the only seat available was on the small sofa next to Ohno. After desperately looking around for an alternative and not finding one, he carefully sat down as far away as possible from the older man. He was careful to not come into contact with any part of Ohno’s body even though there was no room to escape.

As they sat there amusing themselves during a delay in filming he felt Ohno creeping towards him across the tiny gap. He could almost feel an electric charge as the gap lessened. Nino had always enjoyed sharing space with Ohno before. They would each use the other as a footrest, cushion or even a pillow depending on their levels of exhaustion, but the proximity of Ohno’s warm body was making Nino have inappropriate thoughts. He knew that it was wrong to feel this way when he thought that Ohno and Jun were clearly together now.

The smell of Ohno's cologne wafted over to Nino making it hard for him to swallow; the fresh crisp scent mixed with the shower gel that Ohno favoured made for an enticing combination.

While Nino was trying to stave off his feelings of desire, Ohno gradually crept closer until he was leaning his head on Nino's shoulder just as he had done a hundred times before. Before Nino enjoyed the feeling of closeness but now it just made him resentful and angry that Ohno was torturing him in this way when his affections clearly lay elsewhere.

Abruptly Nino got to his feet, pushing Ohno away from him as he did so causing Ohno to bounce off the armrest of the chair, his eyes full of unspoken hurt at the rejection.

"Nino?" Ohno mumbled confusedly.

"Stop crowding me. Why do you people always have to be so handsy all the time? It's not normal. Grown men don't touch each other all the time like you freaks do. Especially you. I'm not your bean bag," Nino yelled. It felt as if he was having an out of body experience watching himself say the words that made Ohno's pouty lips tremble with emotion as he curled into himself as if Nino's words were physical blows.

Hating himself more than ever Nino walked away from Ohno, unable to look at his sad face any longer. The others were looking at him with a mixture of horror, anger and disgust. Jun was standing up and heading in Ohno's direction, obviously on his way to comfort his boyfriend.

Turning his back on them all, Nino headed towards the door, looking for an escape from his feelings of guilt and the wave of hostility he could feel being directed towards him from his band mates.

++++

Nino didn’t even have time to think or react when a pair of hands grabbed him from behind and shoved him into the bathroom. He almost stumbled flat onto his face, only managing to right himself by grabbing hold of the washbasin at the last second.

Reflected in the mirror in front of him was a very angry looking Jun, the deep frown on his face making his eyebrows join together above his nose.

“Jun, have you lost your mind?” Nino asked as he turned to face his captor.

“That’s what we’ve all wanted to ask you for the last few weeks,” Jun snapped back in response.

“I don’t want to deal with this right now,” Nino said as he tried to dodge past his angry bandmate and make his escape.

“Oh, but I do,” Jun said, grabbing hold of Nino’s upper arms and forcing him to stand still. “What have you been doing to Riida?”

“I think the question here is what have you been doing to him, or rather with him,” Nino said, unable to contain the hurt in his voice “Wasn’t Sho enough for you? You had to take Ohno as well after Sho fucked you and then dumped you? Was it just revenge to Sho what he’s missing?”

Jun seemed taken aback by Nino’s last statement before his eyes narrowed dangerously.

“What did you just say about Sho and I?”

“Well that’s why you latched onto Ohno wasn’t it? Because Sho broke your heart and Ohno being a kind hearted fool took it upon himself to fix you and then he fell in love with you like everyone else except Sho does?”

“That’s what you’ve been thinking?” Jun asked incredulously as he slowly relaxed his grip on Nino’s arms.

“I’m right aren’t I?”

“Nino, have you lost your mind? Whatever happened between Sho and I is none of anybody’s business, not yours and not even Riida’s. I haven’t spoken to him about it. And the idea of anything going on between Riida and I is just…”

“But why have you been spending so much time together lately then?

“Because he is worried about you, you blind fool. He thinks that he’s done something wrong. He thinks that he’s hurt you in some way and it’s breaking his heart,” Jun said in a suddenly gentle voice while looking at Nino in a way that made him feel very small indeed.

“I...”

“You like him don’t you? And because you are afraid of showing him your true feelings, you’ve been pushing him away.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Where did you get that idea?”

“Nino, you have been shutting yourself off from him. He misses you and he needs you.”

To Nino’s shame, he felt a tear trickle unchecked down his cheek at the thought of causing Ohno unnecessary pain.

“Do you really not want to know if he feels the same way about you?” Jun asked, touching Nino lightly on the arm.

“But what if he says that he doesn’t?”

“Then you’ll know the answer and maybe you can learn to get past it. Speaking from experience it isn’t easy, but I’m sure that you can find a way to make it work if it comes to the worst. But believe me, it’s better to finally know and then you can move on, not spend your life pining for something that will never happen.”

Jun’s eyes looked suspiciously glassy at the end of that sentence, something which Nino wisely chose to ignore; instead he grudgingly allowed Jun to hug him tightly and smack him gently on the back of the head for being foolish.

When they finally emerged from the bathroom, Jun grabbed a concerned looking Aiba and an angry looking Sho by their hands and dragged them both from the room, leaving only a sad and hunched looking Ohno behind sitting listlessly on the sofa.

++++

When Ohno spoke Nino could barely hear him over the loud thumping of his own heart. “Why?”

“What did I do to make you hate me?” Ohno continued, a little louder now but in a voice that was trembling on the edge of tears.

“I don’t hate you.”

“Then why have you left me? I don’t understand.”

Nino was about to protest. How could he leave someone when they were never together in the first place? And then he remembered the way that he had been distancing himself, the barriers that he had placed between them and the shutters he had placed over his eyes to prevent Ohno from seeing into his soul and understanding his true feelings.

Instead of answering right away he went and sat next to Ohno on the sofa; this time sitting so close that the fine hairs on their arms were touching lightly. He could feel Ohno’s warmth and hear his breathing. The room was so quiet that he thought he could almost hear Ohno’s heartbeat as well, wondering if it was racing as fast as his own was.

“Why?” Nino said in a husky voice, finding it hard to press sounds out around the large lump in his throat. “Because I am a jealous cowardly idiot. That’s why.”

“Nino -” Ohno began, turning to face Nino and taking his hand in his.

“No Oh-chan, let me finish,” Nino said in a determined voice. “It’s about time I was honest with myself and with you. I owe you at least that much.”

Nino pulled his hand away with great difficulty from Ohno’s grasp. His brain was stubbornly refusing to send the signal to his fingers to remove themselves from the elegantly long and warm fingers that were entangled with his own stumpy ones.

There was no way that he could bear to look at Ohno at the moment, so he stood and took a few steps away from the sofa and turned his back towards the older man. He couldn’t bear to see the look of pity in Ohno’s eyes if he rejected his feelings or even worse, laughed in his face at the very thought of being attracted to someone like him.

“I like being near you. I like the way you smile. I like the way you are you own person and know your own mind and allow nothing and no one to change that. I like the way that you care for us all in your quiet way. I like your warm brown eyes that make me feel so secure and supported when you look at me in your own special way. I like the way you smell, the way you laugh and even the way you cry. And when you do cry I want to take you in my arms and hold you until you laugh again. Even if you don’t feel the same way about me I just wanted to let you know that this is how I feel; and I promise that nothing will change with Arashi if you turn me down.” Nino said quickly before he lost the courage that he had found to speak his mind. “Oh and I also like your bouncy butt and think that it is a major work of art and I have to restrain myself all the time from squishing it between my hands.” He added, thinking that if he was handing his heart to Ohno then he’d better say absolutely everything that was in his heart while he had the chance.

There was nothing that he could do now but wait for the other man’s response. At least he would finally know whether his feelings were reciprocated and if they weren’t then with the support of his friends he would find a way to carry on as before.

There was a pause that must have only been a few seconds in real time but to Nino it seemed as if he waited for an entire lifetime. His heart was thumping so loudly in his chest and his pulse was thrumming so loudly in his ears that he didn’t hear Ohno move towards him. He was just on the point of fleeing from the room when two arms snaked around his waist and a pair of plump lips was pressed to the side of his neck.

When Ohno spoke his voice was muffled as he kept his lips pressed firmly to the pulse point in Nino’s neck. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t even think about running away from me. There’s no way that I am ever letting you go now that I know that you like me as much as I like you.”

“You – you like me?”

“Of course I do. I thought that you could tell. Did you really think that all of that touching was just fan service?” Ohno said as he gently turned Nino around to face him. “I want to be with you.”

“But...”

“Nino, would I do this if I didn’t like you?” Ohno said as he claimed Nino’s lips in a soft kiss.

One part of Nino’s brain – the dominant snarky side – wanted to make light of the feelings and the almost electric currents that were zinging through his body just from this light and chaste kiss. He had never imagined that one person could take such control of his emotions and feelings and it scared him to realize just how vulnerable he was and how much he was willing to surrender if it meant that he got to be this close to the man who seemed to have ownership of his heart.

With a sigh, Nino ignored that side of his brain and relaxed into Ohno’s embrace as they deepened their kiss, slowly familiarizing themselves with the taste of each other’s lips. All of his earlier fears and worries melted away as he felt as if he was arriving home after a long absence.

++++

Ten minutes later the door opened a crack and Jun carefully peered around the edge, not wanting to interrupt anything between the pair if they hadn’t sorted out their problems yet.

He soon realized that there was nothing to worry about as he looked across the room to where Ohno and Nino were sitting on the sofa. Although to be exact they were more sitting on each other than on the actual chair. Ohno had his legs draped over Nino’s lap and his head resting on Nino’s chest while Nino ran his fingers absently through Ohno’s slightly ruffled hair smoothing it back into place.

Glad to see that the coast was clear Jun pushed open the door and was almost knocked over by Aiba stumbling in behind him with his hand shielding his eyes.

“Aiba, what do you think you’re doing?” Jun grumbled as he rubbed his foot that had been stamped on in the process.

“Are they doing anything gross?” Aiba asked as he opened his fingers slightly and squinted between them.

“No we aren’t,” Nino said in an offended tone. “But we can do if you want us to.”

“I think that won’t be necessary,” Sho said quickly before Aiba could answer.

“I like Nino and Nino likes me,” Ohno said dreamily as he snuggled even closer to Nino’s body. “We both decided to be brave and honest about our feelings for each other. If you are afraid to confess to someone because of a fear of being hurt, then you could miss out on your best chance of achieving happiness in your life.” He added with a pointed look at Sho and Jun who both blushed deeply as they met each other’s eyes across the room.

As the room settled into a companionable silence Nino looked over to Jun with a grateful smile and blink as he wrapped his arms around Ohno, breathing in his addictive scent and enjoying the fact that there wasn’t even the tiniest gap between their closely entwined bodies.

Note: Yes, I know this is early, but I have a busy weekend ahead and I figured better early than late, or possibly never.