fic for lover_youshould

[nino-mod.livejournal.com]

For: lover_youshould
From: harinezumi_kun

Title: long time coming
Pairing/Focus: nino/jun, nino/aiba, nino/ohno, nino + sho bff-ery
Rating: pg, I guess?
Warnings: brief, vague mentions of memory loss
Summary: Nino is living with Jun, who runs a little hipster coffee shop in Tokyo, until one day, Sho—Nino’s friend from another lifetime—appears, asking Nino to come with him, back to their hometown on a little island no one has ever heard of called Nagajima. Despite his reservations, Nino goes. On Nagajima, Nino meets up with more old friends, some new ones, and revisits the secrets of his past that he’s been running from for years.
Notes: dearest kinoface: your request comment was wonderful, because it gave me so many options – I picked the one that ended up inspiring me, and I hope you like the result! I won’t say which prompt it was here, since I want it to be a ~surprise ♥


-1-

“Nino,” Jun calls from the bottom of the attic stairs, “are you coming down? I need some help unpacking the kitchen.”

Nino only groans in response. After a few moments, he hears Jun’s footsteps retreat back down the hallway, and then down the stairs to the first floor.

It’s hot and stuffy in the attic, even with the window fan on, but at least it’s dark—the three hour ferry ride from Tokyo to the island had not been kind on Nino’s stomach. Outside, the air is full of summer noises and smells. Nino can hear the cicadas’ loud miiin-miiin-miiin. The scent of the wisteria growing on the outside of the house is strong. Everything about this little island town is full of nostalgia, full of beauty. It’s a paradise.

It’s one of the last places in the world Nino wants to be.

As he curls wretchedly on the bed, he can not help but wonder again how Sho managed to talk him into coming back to Nagajima.

-i-

Jun’s café—Café Meridian—has become a safe place for Nino. Jun’s here, of course, so it’s a place Nino can always come and know there’s someone who knows him, is maybe worrying about him a little. But it’s also one of the only places in the city that is familiar: the walls, papered with postcards and maps of the world; the mismatched chairs and tables; the tiny espresso cups and the outsize mugs for hot chocolate. Nino comes here enough that it’s almost more comfortable than the apartment he shares with Jun.

So it is shocking, foundation shaking, when Sho finds him here.

“What are you doing here?” Nino demands. Sho has trapped him in the corner booth. Jun looks on curiously from where he’s grinding coffee beans behind the counter, but doesn’t interfere. “How did you even find me?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” Sho says with a weak laugh. When Nino just stares at him, Sho sighs, straightens his glasses fussily, and explains. “It was luck, actually. I came to the city for school—I just graduated from Keio, in economics, but I minored in archeology…um, anyway. Yeah. I’ve been in town, I didn’t know you were here, but I saw you coming into this café and I guess I—I followed you, but I wasn’t sure if I should talk to you at first…”

“At first?” Nino interrupts. “Just how long have you ‘been in town’, anyway?”

“Long enough to get a college degree,” Sho says. “How about you?”

Nino debates answering truthfully—or at all—but in the end, he doesn’t really want to lie to Sho.

“A year, I guess,” he answers vaguely. It’s been a good year, the first in a long time that Nino has dared to come back to Tokyo. He has to be careful of people recognizing him, but he’s fairly confident that he’s been gone long enough that it won’t be a problem. Tokyo seems bigger after all this time, but it always does, and Nino likes the vastness, the hustle, the shuffle into which he can disappear so easily.

What really made it such a good year, though, was meeting Jun. Not only because Jun eventually let Nino move in, but because Jun is just right for Nino—he’s private, he’s discreet, he doesn’t ask questions. But he’s also very generous, with both his time and affection, once he has decided Nino deserves it.

As if reading Nino’s mind, Sho glances significantly towards the espresso machine, where Jun is currently steaming milk for a cappuccino. “Are you and Jun-kun…?”

Nino raises an eyebrow. “You know each other?”

“Ah,” Sho says. “Oh. Well. I’ve been—sometimes I would come to the café, but you weren’t here, and it just seemed polite to order something—and we just got to talking, you know, occasionally—”

“Whatever,” Nino sighs. He picks at the scone Jun gave him earlier, but it’s cold now.

“Well?” Sho asks again. “Are you?”

“I’m staying with him,” Nino says with a shrug. But Sho knows Nino well enough to see through such a show of nonchalance.

Nino changes the subject, eyeing Sho suspiciously. “You look different.”

Sho smiles ruefully and runs a hand self-consciously over his hair: much shorter now than the last time Nino saw it, smooth, with stylish bangs. Sho’s clothing has had an update too, but Nino has to admit that the argyle sweater-vest looks pretty good on him. Sho’s gaze moves to Nino’s face and his expression changes—his smile turns soft and his eyes crinkle just a little at the corners.

“You look the same,” Sho says, and Nino scoffs. He knows he does, despite how he’s tried disguising it behind second-hand clothes and by letting his hair get long and unkempt. He had tried for a bit of facial hair, too, but no luck—he looks just as seventeen as ever.

“So, why are you here?” Nino asks after a few long moments of quiet.

Sho sighs preemptively, as if he already knows that Nino’s not going to like what he has to say.

“I was kind of hoping…you’d come home with me.”

Nino just stares at him, keeping his face blank. He wasn’t expecting the little burst of warmth that came with hearing those words. He steels himself against it—he won’t go back again.

“I won’t go back,” he repeats, aloud. “You know why I left.”

“I’m not saying you have to stay forever,” Sho says, his tone just the tiniest bit pleading. “Just—come for a while, for the summer. Come see everyone.”

“Why?” Nino demands. “I don’t know anybody there anymore. What good would it do?”

Sho’s mouth twists in exasperation. “Look, it doesn’t—I just…We miss you. I miss you.”

Nino opens his mouth, but all that comes out is a sigh. Sho seems just as surprised as Nino by the lack of reaction—Nino thinks they’re both remembering a time, years ago, when Nino would have reacted with scorn to so much sentimentality, but now it just makes him kind of sad. They’re stuck staring at each other again, but Nino’s finding it much harder to hold a blank face, there’s too much to keep in: he’s angry because he had made a point of saying his goodbyes so he’d have no regrets; he’s heartsick because here’s Sho, who he kind of thought he’d never see again, sitting right in front of him with a hopeful look on his face; he’s tired, so tired of trying to find somewhere to go that will really feel like home again.

“Just…think about it,” Sho says gently. “I’m leaving in a week. Here’s my cell number.” He scribbles it on a scrap of napkin and pushes it across the table to Nino. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah,” Nino mutters.

He keeps his eyes on the table and listens to Sho leave: Sho’s chair scrapes as he pushes it back, his sneakers squeak across the café floor, he calls a brief goodbye to Jun, and then the bell over the door jingles as he steps out into a blustery June evening.

A breeze sneaks in as Sho leaves, and Nino could swear he smells the ocean.

-2-

Nino hadn’t realized he was asleep until the sound of feet thundering up the attic stairs wakes him. Before he’s had time to process what all the noise means, Aiba has flung himself on top of Nino in the bed.

“NINO WAKE UP!” Aiba says cheerfully. “I’M HERE TO SEE YOU!”

“I hate you, please go away,” Nino groans with what little air is left in his lungs.

“When Nino says ‘hate’, he really means ‘love’,” Aiba explains. Nino thinks Aiba’s talking to himself until he finally opens his eyes and notices a second visitor standing near the window and watching the scene on the bed with a bemused expression. He nods to Nino, when he notices Nino’s eyes on him, and looks vaguely uncomfortable.

“I can wait downstairs?” he offers, his voice soft and slurred, melting into the humid attic air so that Nino can barely understand him.

“No, don’t go, Captain, I wanted you to meet Nino!” Aiba jumps up again and walks over to the stranger, flinging an arm around his shoulder. “Nino, this is Ohno—he’s new, just came to town!”

Nino manages to get himself into an upright position against the headboard and stares blearily at Aiba’s new friend. It’s kind of hard to get a good look at him in the dusty attic light. He’s small, round-faced, with a slouch that makes him look even smaller next to Aiba who is all gangly limbs.

“So what are you the captain of?” Nino asks.

“Huh?” Ohno replies.

“Oh!” Aiba interrupts with a laugh. “I just call him that because of the boat—he came here on a boat!”

“Aiba,” Nino says, rubbing his hands over his face, trying to wake up, “this is an island. Everyone comes here on a boat.”

“No, I mean, he rode—drove?—whatever, he came here on his own boat. So he’s the Captain.”

“Okay,” Nino says on a yawn. And then, before he has the chance to say anything else, Aiba is on top of him again, straddling Nino’s lap this time, and Nino only avoids a suffocating hug by planting his hands on Aiba’s shoulders and locking his elbows, purely out of instinct. “What are you doing, get off!”

“I’m just happy you’re home!” Aiba says. Unfortunately for Nino, Aiba’s arms are longer than Nino’s and soon Aiba’s got his hands up under Nino’s armpits, tickling viciously. As they dissolve into a screaming, giggling, kicking tangle, Nino thinks he hears Ohno mutter something else about waiting downstairs. When he’s finally extricated himself from Aiba’s attack, Ohno is gone.

“Honestly, what is wrong with you—” Nino begins, but then Aiba is kissing him, and Nino can feel Aiba’s breathy laughs against his lips, inside his mouth, and he’s overwhelmed for a moment because suddenly he really feels like he’s home.

But then he pushes Aiba away again. “Knock it off,” he says, feeling flushed, overheated. The attic is so stuffy.

“Sorry,” Aiba says, not sounding especially apologetic. “I missed you.” He smiles, and happy lines spring up all around his eyes. Nino just sighs, and smiles back despite himself. It shouldn’t surprise him to be mauled by Aiba just because he’s back home—Aiba has always given out his emotions freely, physically, and has never really cared about the distinction between friends and lovers. Nino gets a good look at him, finally: Aiba leans back on his long arms, legs flung across the bed; he’s dressed for summer, in loose shorts and a ragged tank-top; his hair is already bleaching to a soft brown, and his tan is coming in, making the birthmark on his shoulder stand out.

“But, should I not?” Aiba asks, and when Nino stares at him blankly: “Are you with Jun-kun now?”

“Oh,” Nino says. Despite the heat, he rubs his hands up and down his arms a few times. “Yeah, I guess. Sort of.”

Aiba hums thoughtfully, rearranging himself into a cross-legged position. “He’s very handsome, you know.”

Nino can’t help but laugh. “Yes, I was aware. Don’t tell him that, though, it’ll go to his head.”

“Oops,” Aiba says, grinning: apparently it’s too late. Nino’s kind of sad he missed that exchange—he would have loved to have seen the look on Jun’s face.

“What about you?” Nino asks. “And that Ohno guy—is he just a new friend, or…?”

Aiba leans back on his arms again, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Well, we’re definitely on very friendly terms, if you know what I mean.”

“As if anybody wouldn’t know what you mean,” Nino says, shaking his head at the way Aiba is waggling his eyebrows. “You think he’ll stick around?”

Aiba just shrugs, completely content with not knowing. “Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, he just rode in on his little fishing boat one day. He might just ride away again.”

“Probably better if he does,” Nino says. He stretches, hearing some of his joints pop, then gets up and walks over to where he dropped his duffle bag by the door, riffling through the unorganized contents for a cooler change of clothes.

“And Jun-kun?” Aiba asks. “Will he stay?”

Nino doesn’t answer right away. Over the sound of the fan and the cicadas, Nino can hear Jun moving around downstairs, probably still unpacking—he’s got music on, something light and pop-y, and Nino can imagine him singing along under his breath. He feels it again, the same warm tightness in his chest that he felt when Aiba kissed him.

“Don’t know,” he says, shrugging out of his shirt. “Maybe.”

-ii-

Nino draws circles in the condensation on Jun’s balcony window. The rain outside and the heat from Jun’s bath—Nino has told him that he runs it too hot—always make the apartment windows steam up. He stops when he hears Jun finally emerging from the bathroom.

Nino pretends to be engrossed in practicing his new card trick, but takes a few surreptitious glances at Jun. All Jun’s wearing is a pair of baggy sweat pants, so it’s a little hard not to look at him: he’s all smooth, flushed skin, broad shoulders and trim waist. Still wet from the bath, Jun’s hair hangs almost to his shoulders, curling gently, with little beads of water hanging onto the ends of some of the dark strands. Nino doesn’t even realize he’s staring until Jun catches him at it.

“So,” Jun says, a little smirk on his face as he crosses the room to the couch, “how do you know Sho-kun?”

“Oh.” Nino’s expression sours, and he turns back to his cards. He’d been trying not to think about Sho. Nino shuffles and cuts a few times, makes Jun chose a card and return it to the deck, before answering. “Well. Actually, we grew up together.”

“Really?” Jun’s eyebrows go up. He picks three new cards when Nino fans out the deck for him. “Huh. He never mentioned it. Although, I guess I never really mentioned you, either.”

Nino frowns, feeling oddly stung. But then, it’s not as though either Jun or Sho have a reason to mention Nino to complete strangers.

“What were you two talking about anyway?” Jun asks, once Nino has correctly identified Jun’s original card.

Nino shrugs as he reshuffles the deck. He should have figured Jun would ask, especially since he’s apparently struck up some kind of friendship with Sho. Nino sticks to a simple answer—there’s not much more he could really tell Jun anyway.

“He asked me to go back with him,” Nino says. “Home, I mean.”

“Oh,” Jun says, and then there is a strange pause. Nino glances up curiously. Jun has an odd look on his face: he chews his lip, almost nervous. “So,” he says finally, “are you going?”

Nino blinks, surprised that Jun skipped straight to that question. He can’t read Jun’s expression: is he worried that Nino’s going to ditch him?

“I dunno,” Nino says slowly. “I was kind of thinking…not.”

“Oh,” Jun says again. Now Nino is really confused, because the tone of Jun’s voice is almost…disappointed. Jun shifts around in his seat, crossing his legs, absently picking up a magazine without opening it.

“The thing is,” Jun says a moment later. “He asked me to go, too.”

“What?!” Nino fumbles his shuffle, and cards go flying across the table. “But—what—why would he ask you to go?”

“Well,” Jun says, “I kind of mentioned how the café wasn’t doing so well, recently, and he said a space just opened up back in his hometown, and if I wanted to, he could get me in without any start up costs, so…”

Nino knows that the café’s struggling: though Café Meridian had enjoyed a brief spurt of wild popularity after it was featured on a famous idol group’s TV show a few months ago, things have died down since, and Jun’s been having a hard time making ends meet. But Nino still can’t imagine why Sho would make Jun such an offer. Unless…Nino remembers the familiar way Sho had said “Jun-kun”, and how he had stuttered and fumbled when Nino had asked how they knew each other.

“But you’re not going to go, right?” Nino asks. He can’t imagine that Jun will, as Jun is generally a very practical person who doesn’t up and relocate on invitations from strangers.

“I’m thinking about it,” Jun says vaguely. “He said there was a house for rent in town, too. I mean, why not try somewhere new? Get out of Tokyo for a while.”

“Since when do you want to get out of Tokyo?” Nino counters. “Why now?”

“Why not?” Jun says. “I’ve got enough money saved up to make the move—”

“But how do you even know a café in Nagajima will do any better than one here?”

“I don’t, but…” Jun sighs, throws his magazine back down on the coffee table. “It’s just—I’ve never gone anywhere, you know? The farthest outside of Tokyo I’ve ever been is Chiba. It’s not a trip to Paris or anything, but at least Nagajima would be somewhere new, and if it does take off maybe I can finally make enough money to actually travel—”

“But you don’t even know Sho! You’re just going to trust him like that?”

“I barely know you, but I’m letting you live in my house,” Jun counters.

“That’s just because you’re—wait. You…you like him!” Nino says, the force of the realization bringing him to his feet and he points accusingly at Jun. Jun flushes a guilty red and turns away, clicking his tongue in annoyance.

Nino had been going to call Jun a softy—though what he was really thinking was “hopeless romantic”.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jun says, which is as good as a confirmation. Nino sinks back into his seat, still feeling a bit dumbstruck. Not jealousy, he tells himself, since Jun is not really his to be jealous over—Nino’s the one who told Jun, back when he first moved in, that he couldn’t promise Jun anything. But he just wouldn’t have expected Jun to fall for Sho—boring, straight-laced, bad-joke-telling Sho—

“I’m going to bed,” Jun says, interrupting Nino’s train of thought. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Nino watches him go without a word, then starts gathering up his cards again. He doesn’t know what to think, now. He had planning on turning Sho down, or maybe just avoiding the café for a week until he left, and then having everything go back to normal. But now Jun’s going to Nagajima—Nino can’t even imagine it. Tokyo and the island seem like separate realities, separate lifetimes.

Nino plays around with the cards awhile longer before giving up and trying to sleep. He curls up on the couch, trying to quiet his brain, but the conversation with Jun keeps circling around in Nino’s head. Hours later, when he’s sure Jun must be asleep already, Nino slips into Jun’s room, and into the bed next to him.

“If you want,” Nino says on a quiet breath, “we’ll go. I’ll go with you. But I can’t promise to stay.”

Jun’s eyes slide open, lids still heavy, his pupils glossy black in the darkness. “I told you: you don’t have to make any promises,” he says.

Nino smiles, maybe a little sadly. He does love Jun, really, and he wishes he could give Jun promises that wouldn’t break.

Nino gives him something else instead. Shifting forward, he presses his mouth to Jun’s waiting lips.

-3-

“I told you not to trust him,” Nino says, and Jun just furrows his brow as he looks around his new premises.

The Café Meridian II, as Jun has decided to call it, leaves something to be desired on first inspection. It’s not a bad size, and there’s a nice bank of windows on the back wall, and a door leading out to a little patio, but the place obviously hasn’t been used in years. The paint—a lovely 70s-era puce—is peeling, the windows are grimy, and there’s a layer of dust over everything.

“It’ll be fine,” Jun says at last. “We’ll just have to work on it a little.”

“We?” Nino gripes, but ends up spending the morning helping Jun clean and air the place out. Once the windows are clean, the café is much brighter, and it turns out that under all the dust the floors and bar are a dark, rich hardwood that Jun falls in love with immediately. Nino cheers up a bit, too, when he discovers that the large piece of cloth-covered furniture in the back corner is actually a piano, and still in tune.

“You could come play here sometimes,” Jun suggests, and Nino surprises himself by agreeing.

Around lunch time, when Jun is starting to seriously contemplate a new color for the walls, Sho arrives with a bag of convenience store bentou and several cans of paint.

“Thought you might be hungry,” he says enthusiastically. “And, yeah, the walls could use a fresh coat of paint—Satoshi-kun helped me pick out the color, I hope you like it—and they only had grilled eel at the store, so I hope that’s alright, and I got a couple different drinks: tea, cola, beer—”

Sho continues to rattle on as he spreads out the food on the bar, and Nino is a bit nonplussed: the Sho he remembers is usually much more relaxed, composed, especially around strangers. But then Nino sees the way Sho and Jun both jerk back when their fingers brush over a pair of chopsticks and suddenly he feels very much like a third wheel.

“I think I’ll go get some air,” he says, and heads out as Sho splutters that he hasn’t even eaten yet.

The door Nino takes, by the cash register, leads to a staircase, going up. The stairs come out into the lobby of the newly refurbished Nagajima Cultural Center. The building had been boarded up the last time Nino had been on Nagajima, but apparently Sho’s taken it on as his new project. Not wanting to go back downstairs, and wanting to stay inside in the conditioned air, Nino starts wandering around.

Nino sees that Sho’s got a collection going of local insects and plant life, a section on the history of the island with lots of old sepia-toned and black-and-white photographs, a number of odd artifacts he’s managed to scrounge up—a very old pair of wooden geta, rusty coins, delicate looking paper with some kind of official notification on it—as well as more recent paraphernalia: a propaganda poster from the war, an old record-player, a pair of saddle-shoes. Naturally, Sho has put together a small library of information on the town: maps, geological surveys, newspaper clippings. There is also, Nino discovers in his wanderings, a small gallery full of works by local artists. And that is also where he finds Ohno.

Ohno looks like he just wandered in from the beach, wearing a sun-bleached t-shirt and a pair of board shorts he must have borrowed from Aiba. He is so intent on examining a found-art sculpture of a whale-shark that he doesn’t seem to hear Nino come in. He startles when Nino comes up beside him to say hello.

“Hey,” Nino says, happy to have found a distraction.

“Hey,” Ohno replies. He glances between Nino and the statue a few times as if debating how rude it would be to go back to his staring without starting up a conversation.

“So you like art?” Nino asks, standing beside Ohno and staring at the statue along with him. It’s actually kind of pretty, made up of smooth pieces of driftwood and colorful glass bottles.

“Yeah,” Ohno says. There is a very long pause, until Ohno seems to realize he ought to say something more. “Uh, do you? Like art?”

Nino shrugs. “Sure, it’s alright. What are you doing in here, anyway?”

“Couldn’t find Aiba,” Ohno says simply. “But I saw Sho-san come in here, so.”

“Sorry, Aiba’s not here,” Nino says. Then, after another long pause. “So, how do you like the island so far?”

“’S good,” Ohno says. He thinks about it for a minute. “The weather’s nice. It’s quiet. There’s something…” he pauses, then looks up at Nino. “There’s something kind of different about it, right? Special.”

Nino looks at Ohno hard—does he know? Did Aiba tell him something? But after a moment, Ohno just shrugs and turns back to the sculpture.

“Maybe it’s just me,” he says. “It’s nice, though. Why’d you move away?”

Nino shoves his hands in his pockets and wanders over to look at on oil painting of a beach scene. “Didn’t want to stay here forever,” he says vaguely. “Needed a change.”

“You look the same, though,” Ohno mutters, and Nino whips around to look at him again, not sure if he heard Ohno right. But before he can ask what Ohno means, he hears footsteps back out in the lobby. He exchanges a glance with Ohno and they wander out together to find Aiba peering down the stairs towards the café.

“Hey!” Aiba says when he sees them, speaking in a stage whisper. “Sho-chan and Jun-kun are down there—I’m trying to hear what they’re talking about!”

“Just go down there, idiot,” Nino says, and beside him Ohno chuckles softly. “Ohno-san was looking for you—where’ve you been?”

“Went out to the woods,” Aiba says. “I caught a beetle for Sho-chan’s collection—a big one!” He holds up a small cardboard box that Nino hadn’t noticed before—there’s an ominous skittering sound coming from inside it, and Nino backs up quickly.

“Just go down there and give it to him then,” Nino says. Aiba grins and does as he’s told, creeping down the stairs like he’s hoping to catch the pair in the café in the middle of something scandalous. Nino rolls his eyes.

“You’re not going?” Ohno asks.

“I don’t wanna be down there when whatever Aiba’s got in that box escapes,” Nino says with a shudder.

Ohno laughs again, a little chuffing sound through his nose, and when Nino makes for the door, Ohno follows him. Nino raises an eyebrow.

“Where’re we going?” Ohno asks.

“Uh, I was going home,” Nino says, stepping out into the humid, salty air. “Weren’t you looking for Aiba?”

“Nino’s good, too,” Ohno says. “Can I come with you?”

Nino thinks of Jun and Sho down in the café, imagines them laughing together as Aiba chases his giant bug around the café. Looks at Ohno’s sleepy, soft expression, and feels a smile pull up one corner of his mouth.

“Sure,” Nino says. “Let’s go.”

-4-

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Ohno-san,” Jun says as he wipes down the bar once the last customer has left.

Nino shrugs without looking up from the piano. “Yeah.”

June has melted into July, and Café Meridian II has been doing a good business with the annual influx of tourists. As it turns out, it’s the only coffee shop in the entire town, and the only place for the city folk to get a decent cup of coffee, much less something with espresso in it. It’s a popular spot with locals, too, and as expected, Jun charms all his customers. But because Jun’s so busy, Nino has been spending his time finding other things to do.

He picks up a part-time job stocking shelves at the local convenience store at night, so he’s often asleep during the days. He comes to the café some nights to play to piano quietly in the corner, sometimes singing if he gets a request. But the other nights, and the rare days when he’s awake, somehow Nino keeps finding himself in Ohno’s company.

And Nino likes Ohno. There’s something about him. Different. Special, Nino thinks with a grin. Maybe he likes that Ohno’s new, that he doesn’t know anything about Nino or have any preconceptions about him. After that first awkward conversation, it had become very easy to talk to Ohno: like Jun, Ohno doesn’t ask questions, or at least, he doesn’t ask questions that Nino can’t answer, and also doesn’t seem to mind when Nino’s answers are brief or vague. Ohno’s own answers to Nino’s questions tend to be equally brief and vague, or to wander off onto entirely different subjects. All Nino really knows about Ohno’s background is that he’s from Tokyo, he got a boat license and a boat after dropping out of high school, and he came to Nagajima by accident when he was trying to get to a different island.

“Have you slept with him yet?”

Nino jerks his head around to stare at Jun. “Pardon?”

“Well,” Jun keeps his eyes fixed on the section of counter he’s cleaning, jaw tight and eyebrows furrowed. “Like I said, you’ve been spending lots of time together. Seems like you’ve gotten pretty close.”

“What the fuck,” Nino says, irritated. He gathers up his sheet music and his bag. “I’m going home.”

“Don’t—” Jun starts, stepping out from behind the bar. “Look, I just—I hardly see you anymore. I have no idea what’s going on with you since we came here—”

“Well, you’ve had Sho-chan to keep you occupied, haven’t you?” Nino snaps. Jun isn’t really one to talk. Nino remembers the feeling—like a rock falling into his stomach—of walking past the café one night after closing to see Jun leaning across the counter to kiss Sho squarely on the mouth. He glares at Jun, and Jun stares back at him, pressing his lips together. After a moment, Nino sighs. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“Nino,” Jun says hesitantly. “Do you—I mean, do you mind? About Sho-kun?”

Suddenly, all the bitterness Nino had been feeling disappears. After all, he’s the one who said no promises.

“No, it’s fine,” Nino says. He slumps onto one of the bar stools by the counter. Jun joins him a moment later. “There’s nothing going on with me and Ohno, though.”

Jun fiddles with one of the large rings he’s wearing, twisting it around his finger. “Do you like him?”

“Sure,” Nino sighs, leaning back against the bar. “But it doesn’t matter, I can’t—”

“I know,” Jun interrupts. “No promises.” He gazes at Nino for a few long moments, with the same look on his face that he had had just before telling Nino that Sho had asked him to come to Nagajima, too. “What is it, Nino? Why are you always holding yourself back from people?”

Nino just shakes his head. “I can’t tell you.”

Jun stares at him for a moment more, then rises to go back to closing up the café. He drops a hand briefly to Nino’s shoulder as he walks by.

“You don’t have to tell me,” he says, stepping back around behind the bar. “But maybe it’s time you told somebody.”

-5-

“Tell me what?” Ohno asks, looking vaguely amused at Nino’s sudden announcement.

It’s late, dark but for the streetlights beyond the beach, and Nino and Ohno are ankle-deep in the gentle surf. The waves fill the air with a rhythmic shushing that helps calm Nino’s singing nerves, helps him keep talking rather than running the other way.

“Remember how you said there was something about this place? How it was special?”

Ohno nods.

“You were right.” Nino glances over, but Ohno still just looks mildly interested, waiting to see where Nino will take him this time. With a nervous flutter in his stomach, Nino reaches out and takes Ohno’s hand. “C’mon.”

And Ohno doesn’t pull away, just clasps Nino’s hand warmly and follows him back up the beach towards town.

-3.5-

Nino has a night off from his stocking job, but when he had passed the café earlier in the evening it had been packed to the gills with people, and he just couldn’t bring himself to go inside. Instead, he had wandered back towards the house, taking the longer route that went down past the beach. He was not especially surprised to see Ohno’s small silhouette against the sand.

“What’s up, Captain?” Nino says, crouching down next to Ohno. They are shoulder to shoulder, and the water just barely touches their toes each time a waves comes in.

“Crabs,” Ohno says, pointing. Nino follows the gesture and sees a tiny dark shape scuttling away over the damp sand. Now that he’s looking, and his eyes have adjusted to the darkness, he sees that they’re everywhere, running over the sand, then disappearing suddenly into little burrows that are almost invisible to the eye.

“Cake,” Nino says—and this is something he and Ohno have started doing, a weird kind of word association game that can begin at any time, with any word, and he wonders if Ohno will catch on.

“Mmm…strawberries,” Ohno counters, most of his attention still on the crabs.

Nino thinks for a moment. “Pickles.”

“School,” Ohno says serenely.

“Mario,” Nino insists.

“Aliens,” Ohno shoots back, and with such a tone of conviction in his voice that Nino can’t help but laugh out loud, sending the little sand crabs scurrying away.

“Okay, you win,” Nino concedes. Ohno just smiles and Nino watches him in silence for a minute. The more time Nino spends with him, the more Nino realizes there is something very comfortable about being around Ohno.

“It’s really easy to be with you,” Nino confides suddenly, surprised at himself. “I mean,” he looks down at his feet, “I don’t really know you, but. I feel like I do. Like I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Mm, you don’t have to,” Ohno agrees. Then, when Nino looks up at him again: “But you can. If you want.”

Nino nods, but doesn’t say anything else. Eventually Nino stands and Ohno follows suit, falling into step with Nino when he resumes his walk home. When they reach the house, Nino pauses on the threshold. He’s had Ohno over plenty of times, but something feels a little different tonight, like it’s a little more important if he lets Ohno through the door.

“Can I come in?” Ohno asks, and he touches Nino’s elbow with just the tips of his fingers.

Nino looks down at where Ohno is touching him, then back up at Ohno’s face.

“Okay,” he says.

-6-

Nino leads Ohno to the very edge of town, where the forest is starting to encroach: grass pushes up through all the cracks in the asphalt, vines tangle around street signs and telephone poles. They step right up to the edge of the trees before they stop.

“Will you come with me?” Nino asks.

Ohno stares hard into the dark woods. His hand is still tight in Nino’s, their fingers laced together now and a little damp with sweat. “Is it dangerous?” he asks eventually.

Nino’s not really sure how to answer that question. His heart is beating so hard he’s sure Ohno can feel the pulse fluttering under his skin. “Not for you,” Nino says.

“It’s kind of creepy,” Ohno says with a nervous chuckle. “You’ll look out for me?”

“Yeah.” Nino smiles.

“Promise?”

Nino’s breath catches in his throat, and he squeezes Ohno’s hand, hard, without meaning to. It takes him a long time to answer.

“Yeah,” he says, barely a whisper.

¬-7-

“What is this place?” Ohno asks.

After picking their way through the dark forest for almost a half hour, they’ve come to a kind of clearing. There’s still a good amount of plant life covering the ground, but under all the brambles and dripping leaves, there’s a clear pattern, a broken square with short, rotting wooden posts at each corner.

“I used to live here,” Nino says, and lets go of Ohno’s hand as he steps inside the ancient foundation.

Nino moves carefully through the low foliage until he finds what he’s looking for—a small patch of ground that’s still clear, outlined by little smooth stones. He fishes around in the grass and leaves nearby until his hand finds the rusted handle of an old spade. He can sense Ohno standing behind him as he starts to dig, but doesn’t turn around to look at him.

There is a dull clang when the spade finally hits something, and a minute later, Nino is pulling a small metal box out of the hole he’s dug. It’s really starting to look its age—dark, rusted, with pair of holes on the top all that remains of the handle that used to be there. As he wipes dirt off the little nameplate on the front—Ninomiya-ya—he feels a drop of rain hit the back of his hand.

“Damn,” he mutters, glancing up at the sky, and getting rain in his eyes for his trouble. “C’mon,” he says to Ohno, and pulls the other man with him under the protection of a towering pine tree near the edge of the clearing. The branches are thick and low to the ground, keeping them dry, but making the darkness almost complete.

“Ah, hang on,” Ohno says, and a moment later, a flickering light flashes to life in his hand—a Zippo lighter with a Hiroshima Carp logo on the side.

“Thanks,” Nino mutters. He looks around for a moment, then finds a soft patch of needles to sit on, motions for Ohno to join him.

Nino holds the box in his lap, unsure where to start. Ohno doesn’t say anything, just holds the lighter steady, and lets Nino lean into him. The rain starts to fall harder, loud against the sheltering branches, and it’s a little like the sound of waves. Eventually, Nino cracks the lid of the box open. Flakes of rust crack off, fall onto his pants and onto the ground. He riffles through the contents until he finds what he’s looking for. He pulls out a small photo—faded, cracking, the same sepia-tone as the ones Sho has in the museum—and hands it to Ohno.

It’s a photo of three boys, sitting very stiffly in formal kimono, two with short-cropped hair and one with a topknot.

“Ah,” Ohno says, pointing to one of the short-haired boys. “Nino.”

Nino nods. “And Aiba-chan,” he points to the other short-haired boy. “And Sho-chan. I was seventeen when they took this picture. It was for Sho-chan’s coming of age ceremony.”

“It’s really old,” Ohno says slowly. He’s turned the picture over and is peering at the tiny, carefully inked numbers on the back: 1883. He looks up at Nino. “You look the same.”

Nino takes a deep, shuddering breath. “That was the year we met Aiba—Sho-chan and me, I mean. None of the other kids would play with him, said he was a ghost because he lived alone out in the forest. But he was nice. He seemed lonely. Then one day he took us out into the woods with him. He took us to a spring, said he’d found it, that it had the sweetest water in the world, we ought to taste it. So we did.”

Ohno rubs his thumb thoughtfully along the edge of the photograph. “And so…ever since then?”

Nino just nods.

“Were you mad at him?” Ohno asks.

Nino smiles. “For a while, yeah. But, like I said, he was just very lonely.” Nino looks up at Ohno’s face. “You believe me?”

This time, Ohno smiles. “Sure. There was another one like this,” he lays the photo back down in the box, “at the museum. That’s how I knew.”

“You knew?” Nino says, taken aback.

“That something was different,” Ohno says. “About all of you. About the island. And I thought maybe that’s why Aiba-san was so friendly. And why Sho-san works so hard on the museum. Because it must be hard to remember things after such a long time. And I thought maybe that’s why Nino was so scared.” His eyes hold Nino’s intently. “Because it must get hard to watch everyone keep disappearing.”

At that moment, a sharp, wet breeze flutters under the shelter of the pine branches, blowing out the flame on Ohno’s lighter.

Nino is glad for the sudden darkness. It hides the wetness he can feel on his face—not from the rain—and makes it easier to lean forward and press his lips to Ohno’s.

-8-

“You’re sure you won’t stay?” Sho says, doing a bad job of hiding his disappointment. “Just a little longer?”

They’re standing on the docks, not by the ferry landing this time, but near where Ohno’s little fishing boat has been tied up all summer. August is coming to an end, and the marina has been growing slowly more vacant as the vacationers take their leave. Nino can see Jun and Aiba in the distance, walking towards them down the road from the convenience store where they’ve been buying some last minute provisions, to make sure that Nino and Ohno don’t starve on the trip back to Tokyo.

“I said I’d stay for the summer and I did,” Nino says. “But I can’t stay here forever. It’s just too hard. And you’ve got Aiba-chan, and Jun-kun, now.” Sho nods, and Nino sees the worry cloud his eyes. “Will you tell him?” Nino asks.

“I—” Sho starts, stops, glances back at Aiba and Jun at the far end of the dock. “I want to. But what if—do you think he’ll believe me?

“Maybe not at first,” Nino says. He watches Aiba jostling Jun a little too close to the edge of the dock, watches Jun push Aiba back the other way and smack him affectionately. “But I think he’s happy here. I think he’ll want to stay.”

“Who’ll stay?” Aiba asks, jogging up to them. Jun joins them at a more sedate pace.

“Jun-kun, away from you,” Nino says, accepting the food bags from Jun. “’Cause you’re a hazard to his health. Hey, this is all just candy!”

“There’s real food in this one,” Jun reassures him. Aiba’s already run off to say his goodbyes to Ohno, with Sho close behind him. There’s a bit of an awkward pause as Jun searches for something to say. “And make sure you eat properly once you get back to Tokyo, too. You should actually make food sometimes, you can’t just live off of store bought stuff.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t die of malnutrition without you around,” Nino says. The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and Nino raises a hand to shield his eyes. “You gonna be alright here with those two?” He nods his head towards Sho and Aiba, who are making a big show of pretending to fall overboard.

Jun grins, a little ruefully, but nods. “Yeah. You—you’ll keep in touch, right?”

“Sure,” Nino says, and he pulls Jun into a quick hug before he can change his mind. When he steps back, Jun is a little misty-eyed, so Nino pushes him towards the boat. “Go say goodbye to Ohno.”

Jun goes, and Nino sees him wiping surreptitiously at his eyes. A moment later, Aiba and Sho are back, and Nino allows them to catch him in a crushing embrace from both sides.

“Okay, okay!” he gasps after a moment. He pushes them off and straightens his clothes. “You two take care of Jun-kun, okay?”

“Roger!” Aiba says with a little salute. “And you take care of the Captain. You know, I think you’ll be with him for a long time.”

Nino narrows his eyes suspiciously at the silly grin on Aiba’s face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing!” Aiba says unconvincingly. His smile softens, then. “He really likes you, though. So be nice to him.”

“Yeah, alright,” Nino shrugs, feeling his face go a little warm, and not just from the sun. He looks between Sho and Aiba, out across the little bay, and then back towards the town itself, nestled among the trees and the island’s little row of forested mountains. He feels his chest getting tight, that ache that is so familiar by now. But it’s not enough to keep him here.

“Nino,” Sho says softly. “Do you think you’ll come back?”

Nino turns back to Sho. He can’t stay. But…

“Yeah,” Nino says.

Aiba gasps in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Nino says again. “I promise.”