arashi rps: just one of the boys
20 Nov 2007 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cimorenejust one of the boys (≈2900 words)
arashi rps
jun & sho friendship; matsumoto jun/aiba masaki implied (and background ohmiya)
sequel to just like all those girls. both of these stories belong to a very big universe and a long story that has lots of pieces missing from it, still.
just one of the boys
by cimorene
Jun had been on the movie set in Chiba for what felt like about five million years. The shoot ran over, and the director gathered everyone together for a pep talk, and Jun's current manager from Johnny's had showed up with some papers to sign on the fly and by the time Jun got on a train to the country he was almost asleep on his feet and he hadn't even scrubbed all the makeup off his face yet.
He had an apartment in the city, and his bed was calling to him, but Yuki-chan was going to be two and she was Jun's princess, and he'd promised Sho - and, more importantly, he had promised Mrs. Sho - that he would be there the entire day of her birthday party to help. That was before he'd known he would have a last-minute reschedule today and he'd thought he could spend the whole weekend between filming at his own country house. No such luck. He fell asleep with his cashmere scarf balled up between his head and the train window as a pillow.
The baby was asleep, of course, when Jun dragged himself and his suitcase into Sho's big cheerful house. Sho tiptoed out of the kitchen in an oversized purple sweater and an apron and held his finger to his lips, and pointed through the doorway in the other direction, where the couch was covered in four feet and nine inches of woman in satin pajamas and a fuzzy robe, a tangle of undyed black hair spread out over the arm. Jun loved her, honestly - and he also feared her, because they all knew she had magical powers and could totally have made Sho break Arashi up for good if she wanted to - but he was just gay enough to be disturbed by things like womanly curves close up, in real life, with no video cameras around. He turned his back carefully and followed Sho into the kitchen for a big, fuzzy purple hug that smelled like homemade norimaki and black tea.
Sho gave the best hugs. Nino was the most determined and Ohno was the cuddliest and Aiba - well - Aiba was hyper, even now when he was working all day every day and wearing a suit more often than not when they meet for lunch; Jun got a hug every time, a quick, distracted hug full of energy and long, bony arms and sharp elbows - and it wasn't always like that, a voice whispers in Jun's head, there was a time when Aiba would relax and wrap his arms around him easily and lean on his back and wrap around him like a big cape, but he hasn't felt that in years.
Sho's hugs were always the most relaxing, even before they knew each other very well. Sho was the steady one, the understanding one, the nice one, the one to hold your hair back when you're puking, the one who will drop everything even if he's busy if you say you really, no, really need him to pick you up.
Sho was kind of getting fatter with age, too, because he didn't have to be a movie star, and his shoulders were broader, more muscular. He was the best one to lean on. His fluffy purple sweater wrapped around Jun like a blanket for a long moment and Jun took a deep breath of kitchen-smell and ended up coughing it back up when he inhaled Sho's aftershave.
He looked up and wrinkles his nose accusingly. "Calvin Klein?" he asked.
Sho blinked. "Calvin - what - oh, the aftershave? Quiet, Jun, it was a present," but he was laughing and pushing Jun out of his arms. The warmth lingered around Jun's shoulders, though, and he shrugged out of his white leather jacket and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. "Are you hungry? Want a beer? Or some tea?"
"There's snow outside, and you offer beer first?" said Jun, raising an eyebrow.
Sho chuckled. "You're talking to a papa now, Matsujun. When the kid is asleep, it's always beer-time first," but he poured tea for Jun in an oversized raku mug with cherry-blossom pink crackles in the bottom. There was only one like it in the cupboard, Jun knew, because someone gave it to Sora-chan. Her favourite colour, though, was blue, and they always gave this cup to Jun. Both of them always remembered that it was his favourite.
"Working late?" said Sho, while Jun took a mouthful of burning-hot tea. It felt good, actually. Jun's mouth was immune to burning by now, after weeks on the set where the coffee was always too hot.
"I wasn't supposed to be working today at all," said Jun. "I haven't seen my house in months."
"Poor Matsujun," said Sho. Was he laughing? He was completely laughing. Jun chose to ignore that. He dropped his forehead down onto Sho's classy black kitchen table with a thunk.
There was a warm, comfortable kitchen sort of silence, where they could hear the hum of the washing machine and the heater and smell the tea evaporating into the air. Then he felt Sho patting his hand and rubbing his shoulder.
"You're like ice," said Sho. "Hold on a second," and he pushed back his chair and got up, and came back a second later with a big striped sweater hoodie two or three years out of fashion.
Jun would have kept it too, though, because it felt like wrapping up in a blanket, a cool woolly blanket full of the smell of home. Of course, it wasn't his home, but Jun had never really had a chance to have his own home. He'd bought one and everything, but it'd been so long since he'd been inside the nice country house he bought, perfectly halfway between Ohno and Nino's house and Sho's, that he couldn't even remember what it smelled like. Probably it smelled like dust.
"Thanks," said Jun, with a deep sniff to take in the smell of the wool and tea and baby, and he finally leaned back in his chair and took another drink of tea. "How's my princess?"
Sho smiled a big, proud papa grin and Jun smiled back and buried his face in his tea. "She went to bed at nine," Sho marveled. "Like a little angel. After she coloured in the bathtub with crayons."
Jun giggled. "That's my girl. Did it come off?"
Sho grinned. "Yeah. She asked when you were coming all through dinner."
Yuki-chan always asked about Jun, unless that was all part of a big conspiracy Sora and Sho were in together to get free babysitting. If that was the case, though, someone else would have been a better target, because it wasn't like Jun actually had time for that much babysitting.
He wasn't even sure that he liked babies before Yuki-chan and her wispy curls, her big fat head, her wobbly little chins and her tiny little fists. From the first time she spit up on his neck and pulled as hard as she could on his hair, and the first time she stretched out her chubby little arms and lit up, smiling all over, as soon as she saw him walk in the door, he was sold. He talked about babies, sometimes, when he was working, now - when she was first grabbing things, when Sho e-mailed him a cameraphone video of Yuki-chan dancing to Madonna.
She might have been a good quarter of the reason he decided to buy the house. He wanted one she could come over too when she was bigger. Every time he came back to it he looked at things and worries - new wallpaper, new floor, plastic plates for babies that won't break, even though Sora always brought a bag full of them everywhere she went with the baby.
What if his house wasn't cool enough for her anymore when she got bigger? What if he wasn't cool? (Which wasn't something Jun ever thought he'd worry about. Nino accused him of being uncool for babytalking, once - "You're just jealous because I'm her favourite," said Jun, and Nino kicked him in the ankle and sulked the rest of the night upstairs with Sora's pink playstation, so he was totally right.)
"She's got a new birthday outfit," said Sho. "You can see it tomorrow," he added when Jun opened his mouth to ask what it looked like, and Jun sighed. He could never impress upon Sho the true importance of fashion. Sho had fashion sense, and he wasn't afraid to use it, but he didn't give it the attention it deserved. Jun would have to trust in Sora for this one. And, well, it's not actually his baby.
"Do you have a lot of work for me to do?" said Jun. "How much work goes into a birthday party for babies, anyway?"
"Her cousins will be there," said Sho. "And there's a bag of decorations in the pantry. Believe me, there's plenty of work. You're gonna have to get up before noon, too."
At least getting up early was something Jun'd been used to for years. "It's a good thing I don't need beauty sleep to look this good," said Jun airily.
Sho snorted. "Who's the princess?"
"Can't you give some of the work to the other guys?" asked Jun.
"That's a last resort," said Sho solemnly, "because the guests are going to be already arriving when we told them to come. You know we can't count on Captain and Nino to be ontime when they're together."
"So they're off right now?" Jun asked, reaching for the teapot to pour another cup.
"They've been there for a week or two, I think," said Sho. "Nino won't answer my text messages directly. But Ohno answered his phone for him last weekend, so they're probably at their house."
Jun shook his head and squashed down the treacherous thoughts about his own empty house, how the heating wasn't even on and he didn't remember if there were sheets on the futon.
"Is Aiba-chan even coming?" said Jun. "I haven't seen him in..." he didn't know. Months.
That was a lie. It was four weeks ago and three days since they'd met for coffee. They fit it into their schedules carefully, even when both schedules were bursting, and got together to joke about how they were the only ones left in Tokyo and talk about work, wearing their grey suits and shiny polished shoes. Aiba had come without his coat last time, a day when the temperature had dropped overnight for the first frost, and he'd been shivering over his tea and sandwich. Jun, always dressed for the occasion, had sent him away with his brand-new knitted scarf knotted around his neck, hoping it would keep that slight cough from developing into a cold.
"It smells like Jun," Aiba had grinned, winding it around his neck right there at the table like a dumbass even though Jun pointed out that it was an outer garment, and Jun had pulled the collar of his jacket up higher when he went back outside.
"Of course he is," said Sho fondly. "He emailed me tonight that he was buying a present. He's taking the morning train. I thought you two were keeping up?"
Jun nodded behind the teacup, almost hard enough to spill it. "Yeah, yeah, we are. Winter coming up, you know, we've been busy - haven't caught up."
Sho nodded, understanding. "How is he, then?"
Jun blinked for a long moment, bewildered. "You talked to him today."
"How did he look," said Sho impatiently, "is he eating? Sleeping?"
Jun didn't say that he didn't think either of them were eating or sleeping. He instead said almost without thinking, "He hasn't lost any more weight since the summer," and then took another drink of tea.
"Seem stressed?" said Sho.
"He was coming down with something," said Jun cautiously. "You know, sneezing - he didn't bring a coat."
Sho shook his head. "That's Aiba-chan. I never worry that you'll accidentally put yourself in the hospital if I don't hear from you for a few weeks, Jun." He was smiling, though.
Jun smiled and shook his head right along with him. It was an old joke - Aiba hadn't put himself in the hospital for years, but he was never going to stop being teased about it, either. Once was enough for that. And Aiba was easy to tease, too. Not like Nino, who might get angry, or Ohno, who might not notice.
"Is he still seeing - " Sho waved his hand vaguely.
"What was the name?" said Jun. "Oh - Natsumi?"
Sho laughed out loud. "Who? Wasn't that like two years ago? No, I meant, what was it... his co-worker, the boy with the bleached hair - ah, Tetsuo-kun," and Jun was just left blinking like a fish, once, twice, and had to make himself stop, reach for his tea, take a drink.
The motions of swallowing seemed new and alien to him suddenly - the tongue moving, the throat tightening, the hot tea sliding down, it seemed to take forever, while Jun relaxed his fingers and his neck one muscle at a time, made himself lean back in his chair and lift an eyebrow. "Are you sure you have the right Aiba?" he drawled.
Sho said, "Are you sure you have the right Aiba? I know he's busy, but he has to date more than once in two years."
Jun tapped his fingers on the table and kept smiling. "Apparently I'm the only one who doesn't," he said, too sharply, and Sho rolled his eyes.
"If Aiba had one-night stands he might not either, but," and then he said, slowly, "you really think I'm joking? You really didn't know?"
Jun wished, sometimes, that he wasn't just an actor, that he could write his own material, because he didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling. He tried to imagine a different Jun, just finding out that maybe Aiba dated boys too - what was the normal thing to feel, if that was the reason he was shocked?
He shrugged. That should be safe. I thought I was the only one, he wanted to say. "You're the only one who's straight out of all of us after all," he said instead. "Well, well, Sho-chan, is it lonely?"
Sho smiled, but he seemed worried. "Maybe I wasn't supposed to tell you? He never said not to - I just thought you knew," he said, a little awkward, "I thought you two were - closer - he seems closer to you than to me the last few years," and there his voice was wistful.
At least Jun knew what to say to that. "You've always been his best friend," he said.
"Then what do you talk about?" Sho wondered.
Jun grimaced and made a joke out of it. "Work! What else is there?"
Sho laughed. "That's the Jun I know, at least."
"Wow," Jun mused. "Aiba. He seems so - so -" Sho raised his eyebrows. He was laughing at Jun again, but Jun was used to ignoring that. "I always thought Aiba was just - really into girls." He certainly went through enough of them, Jun thought, but of course that was when they were teenagers. "I thought he was girls all the way."
Sho shook his head, thoughtfully. "It's been a few years, now. From what I remember - I think it's been gradual, but - it seems like he only sees men, lately." He shrugged. "People change."
Jun was done with his tea. "I guess they do," he said, and smiled and hugged Sho again, ugly sweater to ugly sweater. "But at least you stay the same."
Sho shook his head and gently pushed Jun away so he could carry the teacups to the sink. "Don't tell him I told you, okay?" said Sho over his shoulder, turning the water on. "At least not tomorrow."
"Your secret's safe with me," Jun promised, and hugged the ugly striped sweater tighter around him. Aiba's secret was safe with him too, because he could never, ever tell Aiba he knew.
Jun lay on the futon in Sho's guest room that night, looking up at the ceiling and trying to count sheep, but his mind kept racing, racing, racing: Aiba and boys. Aiba and men. Aiba sees men now - for years.
He didn't care, he told himself, he didn't care who Aiba dated, he didn't care if Aiba was gay, even. It didn't matter, right? It didn't have anything to do with him.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
He'd thought he was the only one, that was all. He'd been wrong about Aiba before. He probably would be again.
Jun shifted uncomfortably and turned on his side. Then he shifted some more and turned on his other side, staring up at the window.
People change, he told himself. Jun tried to tell himself that he'd changed, too. It was what he'd believed for years, that they'd both changed, that it didn't matter anymore. He hadn't had this much trouble believing it for a long, long time.
the end
arashi rps
jun & sho friendship; matsumoto jun/aiba masaki implied (and background ohmiya)
sequel to just like all those girls. both of these stories belong to a very big universe and a long story that has lots of pieces missing from it, still.
just one of the boys
by cimorene
Jun had been on the movie set in Chiba for what felt like about five million years. The shoot ran over, and the director gathered everyone together for a pep talk, and Jun's current manager from Johnny's had showed up with some papers to sign on the fly and by the time Jun got on a train to the country he was almost asleep on his feet and he hadn't even scrubbed all the makeup off his face yet.
He had an apartment in the city, and his bed was calling to him, but Yuki-chan was going to be two and she was Jun's princess, and he'd promised Sho - and, more importantly, he had promised Mrs. Sho - that he would be there the entire day of her birthday party to help. That was before he'd known he would have a last-minute reschedule today and he'd thought he could spend the whole weekend between filming at his own country house. No such luck. He fell asleep with his cashmere scarf balled up between his head and the train window as a pillow.
The baby was asleep, of course, when Jun dragged himself and his suitcase into Sho's big cheerful house. Sho tiptoed out of the kitchen in an oversized purple sweater and an apron and held his finger to his lips, and pointed through the doorway in the other direction, where the couch was covered in four feet and nine inches of woman in satin pajamas and a fuzzy robe, a tangle of undyed black hair spread out over the arm. Jun loved her, honestly - and he also feared her, because they all knew she had magical powers and could totally have made Sho break Arashi up for good if she wanted to - but he was just gay enough to be disturbed by things like womanly curves close up, in real life, with no video cameras around. He turned his back carefully and followed Sho into the kitchen for a big, fuzzy purple hug that smelled like homemade norimaki and black tea.
Sho gave the best hugs. Nino was the most determined and Ohno was the cuddliest and Aiba - well - Aiba was hyper, even now when he was working all day every day and wearing a suit more often than not when they meet for lunch; Jun got a hug every time, a quick, distracted hug full of energy and long, bony arms and sharp elbows - and it wasn't always like that, a voice whispers in Jun's head, there was a time when Aiba would relax and wrap his arms around him easily and lean on his back and wrap around him like a big cape, but he hasn't felt that in years.
Sho's hugs were always the most relaxing, even before they knew each other very well. Sho was the steady one, the understanding one, the nice one, the one to hold your hair back when you're puking, the one who will drop everything even if he's busy if you say you really, no, really need him to pick you up.
Sho was kind of getting fatter with age, too, because he didn't have to be a movie star, and his shoulders were broader, more muscular. He was the best one to lean on. His fluffy purple sweater wrapped around Jun like a blanket for a long moment and Jun took a deep breath of kitchen-smell and ended up coughing it back up when he inhaled Sho's aftershave.
He looked up and wrinkles his nose accusingly. "Calvin Klein?" he asked.
Sho blinked. "Calvin - what - oh, the aftershave? Quiet, Jun, it was a present," but he was laughing and pushing Jun out of his arms. The warmth lingered around Jun's shoulders, though, and he shrugged out of his white leather jacket and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. "Are you hungry? Want a beer? Or some tea?"
"There's snow outside, and you offer beer first?" said Jun, raising an eyebrow.
Sho chuckled. "You're talking to a papa now, Matsujun. When the kid is asleep, it's always beer-time first," but he poured tea for Jun in an oversized raku mug with cherry-blossom pink crackles in the bottom. There was only one like it in the cupboard, Jun knew, because someone gave it to Sora-chan. Her favourite colour, though, was blue, and they always gave this cup to Jun. Both of them always remembered that it was his favourite.
"Working late?" said Sho, while Jun took a mouthful of burning-hot tea. It felt good, actually. Jun's mouth was immune to burning by now, after weeks on the set where the coffee was always too hot.
"I wasn't supposed to be working today at all," said Jun. "I haven't seen my house in months."
"Poor Matsujun," said Sho. Was he laughing? He was completely laughing. Jun chose to ignore that. He dropped his forehead down onto Sho's classy black kitchen table with a thunk.
There was a warm, comfortable kitchen sort of silence, where they could hear the hum of the washing machine and the heater and smell the tea evaporating into the air. Then he felt Sho patting his hand and rubbing his shoulder.
"You're like ice," said Sho. "Hold on a second," and he pushed back his chair and got up, and came back a second later with a big striped sweater hoodie two or three years out of fashion.
Jun would have kept it too, though, because it felt like wrapping up in a blanket, a cool woolly blanket full of the smell of home. Of course, it wasn't his home, but Jun had never really had a chance to have his own home. He'd bought one and everything, but it'd been so long since he'd been inside the nice country house he bought, perfectly halfway between Ohno and Nino's house and Sho's, that he couldn't even remember what it smelled like. Probably it smelled like dust.
"Thanks," said Jun, with a deep sniff to take in the smell of the wool and tea and baby, and he finally leaned back in his chair and took another drink of tea. "How's my princess?"
Sho smiled a big, proud papa grin and Jun smiled back and buried his face in his tea. "She went to bed at nine," Sho marveled. "Like a little angel. After she coloured in the bathtub with crayons."
Jun giggled. "That's my girl. Did it come off?"
Sho grinned. "Yeah. She asked when you were coming all through dinner."
Yuki-chan always asked about Jun, unless that was all part of a big conspiracy Sora and Sho were in together to get free babysitting. If that was the case, though, someone else would have been a better target, because it wasn't like Jun actually had time for that much babysitting.
He wasn't even sure that he liked babies before Yuki-chan and her wispy curls, her big fat head, her wobbly little chins and her tiny little fists. From the first time she spit up on his neck and pulled as hard as she could on his hair, and the first time she stretched out her chubby little arms and lit up, smiling all over, as soon as she saw him walk in the door, he was sold. He talked about babies, sometimes, when he was working, now - when she was first grabbing things, when Sho e-mailed him a cameraphone video of Yuki-chan dancing to Madonna.
She might have been a good quarter of the reason he decided to buy the house. He wanted one she could come over too when she was bigger. Every time he came back to it he looked at things and worries - new wallpaper, new floor, plastic plates for babies that won't break, even though Sora always brought a bag full of them everywhere she went with the baby.
What if his house wasn't cool enough for her anymore when she got bigger? What if he wasn't cool? (Which wasn't something Jun ever thought he'd worry about. Nino accused him of being uncool for babytalking, once - "You're just jealous because I'm her favourite," said Jun, and Nino kicked him in the ankle and sulked the rest of the night upstairs with Sora's pink playstation, so he was totally right.)
"She's got a new birthday outfit," said Sho. "You can see it tomorrow," he added when Jun opened his mouth to ask what it looked like, and Jun sighed. He could never impress upon Sho the true importance of fashion. Sho had fashion sense, and he wasn't afraid to use it, but he didn't give it the attention it deserved. Jun would have to trust in Sora for this one. And, well, it's not actually his baby.
"Do you have a lot of work for me to do?" said Jun. "How much work goes into a birthday party for babies, anyway?"
"Her cousins will be there," said Sho. "And there's a bag of decorations in the pantry. Believe me, there's plenty of work. You're gonna have to get up before noon, too."
At least getting up early was something Jun'd been used to for years. "It's a good thing I don't need beauty sleep to look this good," said Jun airily.
Sho snorted. "Who's the princess?"
"Can't you give some of the work to the other guys?" asked Jun.
"That's a last resort," said Sho solemnly, "because the guests are going to be already arriving when we told them to come. You know we can't count on Captain and Nino to be ontime when they're together."
"So they're off right now?" Jun asked, reaching for the teapot to pour another cup.
"They've been there for a week or two, I think," said Sho. "Nino won't answer my text messages directly. But Ohno answered his phone for him last weekend, so they're probably at their house."
Jun shook his head and squashed down the treacherous thoughts about his own empty house, how the heating wasn't even on and he didn't remember if there were sheets on the futon.
"Is Aiba-chan even coming?" said Jun. "I haven't seen him in..." he didn't know. Months.
That was a lie. It was four weeks ago and three days since they'd met for coffee. They fit it into their schedules carefully, even when both schedules were bursting, and got together to joke about how they were the only ones left in Tokyo and talk about work, wearing their grey suits and shiny polished shoes. Aiba had come without his coat last time, a day when the temperature had dropped overnight for the first frost, and he'd been shivering over his tea and sandwich. Jun, always dressed for the occasion, had sent him away with his brand-new knitted scarf knotted around his neck, hoping it would keep that slight cough from developing into a cold.
"It smells like Jun," Aiba had grinned, winding it around his neck right there at the table like a dumbass even though Jun pointed out that it was an outer garment, and Jun had pulled the collar of his jacket up higher when he went back outside.
"Of course he is," said Sho fondly. "He emailed me tonight that he was buying a present. He's taking the morning train. I thought you two were keeping up?"
Jun nodded behind the teacup, almost hard enough to spill it. "Yeah, yeah, we are. Winter coming up, you know, we've been busy - haven't caught up."
Sho nodded, understanding. "How is he, then?"
Jun blinked for a long moment, bewildered. "You talked to him today."
"How did he look," said Sho impatiently, "is he eating? Sleeping?"
Jun didn't say that he didn't think either of them were eating or sleeping. He instead said almost without thinking, "He hasn't lost any more weight since the summer," and then took another drink of tea.
"Seem stressed?" said Sho.
"He was coming down with something," said Jun cautiously. "You know, sneezing - he didn't bring a coat."
Sho shook his head. "That's Aiba-chan. I never worry that you'll accidentally put yourself in the hospital if I don't hear from you for a few weeks, Jun." He was smiling, though.
Jun smiled and shook his head right along with him. It was an old joke - Aiba hadn't put himself in the hospital for years, but he was never going to stop being teased about it, either. Once was enough for that. And Aiba was easy to tease, too. Not like Nino, who might get angry, or Ohno, who might not notice.
"Is he still seeing - " Sho waved his hand vaguely.
"What was the name?" said Jun. "Oh - Natsumi?"
Sho laughed out loud. "Who? Wasn't that like two years ago? No, I meant, what was it... his co-worker, the boy with the bleached hair - ah, Tetsuo-kun," and Jun was just left blinking like a fish, once, twice, and had to make himself stop, reach for his tea, take a drink.
The motions of swallowing seemed new and alien to him suddenly - the tongue moving, the throat tightening, the hot tea sliding down, it seemed to take forever, while Jun relaxed his fingers and his neck one muscle at a time, made himself lean back in his chair and lift an eyebrow. "Are you sure you have the right Aiba?" he drawled.
Sho said, "Are you sure you have the right Aiba? I know he's busy, but he has to date more than once in two years."
Jun tapped his fingers on the table and kept smiling. "Apparently I'm the only one who doesn't," he said, too sharply, and Sho rolled his eyes.
"If Aiba had one-night stands he might not either, but," and then he said, slowly, "you really think I'm joking? You really didn't know?"
Jun wished, sometimes, that he wasn't just an actor, that he could write his own material, because he didn't know what he was supposed to be feeling. He tried to imagine a different Jun, just finding out that maybe Aiba dated boys too - what was the normal thing to feel, if that was the reason he was shocked?
He shrugged. That should be safe. I thought I was the only one, he wanted to say. "You're the only one who's straight out of all of us after all," he said instead. "Well, well, Sho-chan, is it lonely?"
Sho smiled, but he seemed worried. "Maybe I wasn't supposed to tell you? He never said not to - I just thought you knew," he said, a little awkward, "I thought you two were - closer - he seems closer to you than to me the last few years," and there his voice was wistful.
At least Jun knew what to say to that. "You've always been his best friend," he said.
"Then what do you talk about?" Sho wondered.
Jun grimaced and made a joke out of it. "Work! What else is there?"
Sho laughed. "That's the Jun I know, at least."
"Wow," Jun mused. "Aiba. He seems so - so -" Sho raised his eyebrows. He was laughing at Jun again, but Jun was used to ignoring that. "I always thought Aiba was just - really into girls." He certainly went through enough of them, Jun thought, but of course that was when they were teenagers. "I thought he was girls all the way."
Sho shook his head, thoughtfully. "It's been a few years, now. From what I remember - I think it's been gradual, but - it seems like he only sees men, lately." He shrugged. "People change."
Jun was done with his tea. "I guess they do," he said, and smiled and hugged Sho again, ugly sweater to ugly sweater. "But at least you stay the same."
Sho shook his head and gently pushed Jun away so he could carry the teacups to the sink. "Don't tell him I told you, okay?" said Sho over his shoulder, turning the water on. "At least not tomorrow."
"Your secret's safe with me," Jun promised, and hugged the ugly striped sweater tighter around him. Aiba's secret was safe with him too, because he could never, ever tell Aiba he knew.
Jun lay on the futon in Sho's guest room that night, looking up at the ceiling and trying to count sheep, but his mind kept racing, racing, racing: Aiba and boys. Aiba and men. Aiba sees men now - for years.
He didn't care, he told himself, he didn't care who Aiba dated, he didn't care if Aiba was gay, even. It didn't matter, right? It didn't have anything to do with him.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
He'd thought he was the only one, that was all. He'd been wrong about Aiba before. He probably would be again.
Jun shifted uncomfortably and turned on his side. Then he shifted some more and turned on his other side, staring up at the window.
People change, he told himself. Jun tried to tell himself that he'd changed, too. It was what he'd believed for years, that they'd both changed, that it didn't matter anymore. He hadn't had this much trouble believing it for a long, long time.
the end
