[Arashi] [Ohmiya] warm whispers

[Title] warm whispers
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG13?
[Notes] For waxrose’s request of Ohmiya with uncertain Nino. Title stolen shamelessly from Missy Higgins’ Warm Whispers. ♥

Ohno was warm pressed up against Nino’s side. They’d practically fallen onto the couch backstage, bento in hand, and Nino could already feel his adrenaline rush from being on stage wearing away. He wasn’t sure what hour they were on now; more than ten, less than twenty-four, and enough for his eyes to be blurring a bit. He ate his dinner without being able to taste it and knew without needing to ask that Ohno was doing the same.

Sho wandered in last, exhaustion lining his eyes but hidden by the large, sappy grin across his mouth.

“Aw, everyone’s almost done already?” Sho whined. “I’ll be all alone.”

“I’ll wait for you back in our room,” Nino offered generously. “And I will be in bed. But don’t be fooled by my snores; I’m not asleep, I’m waiting for you. Faithfully.”

“I’m touched,” Sho laughed, and Ohno choked on a piece of shrimp next to Nino, forcing them both to pat him on the back violently until his windpipe was cleared.

“Go to bed, you two,” Sho urged with a smile. “We aren’t getting long to sleep, after all.”

Nino chose not to think about it, but nodded his agreement anyway.

~

The entire walk back to the rooms that had been set up for them to sleep in, Ohno stayed glued to Nino’s side. This in itself wasn’t unusual; what was sticking out to Nino was the odd tension curling around Ohno. He was tired, but Nino wouldn’t call it stress—it seemed more like Ohno was waiting for something.

Nino wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. It bothered him.

He spent a lot of time just knowing what Ohno was thinking and feeling without either of them having to say it. Ohno wore his heart on his sleeve, and Nino read people like books. Five years of close friendship left them not so much with nothing unsaid, but nothing needing to be said, and Nino was comfortable with that. But in the last few months, he’d started to suspect Ohno was, if not hiding something, at least holding back. Looks that used to stay firmly in place now glanced to the side; gestures that were easy and relatively meaningless suddenly had a hesitancy added, as though they were heavier than before.

When they finally arrived at the room Nino and Sho had claimed, Ohno’s fingers curled lightly around Nino’s wrist and he said with a seriousness that surprised Nino, “Can I come in?”

“Of course you can,” Nino said immediately, wondering why Ohno thought he needed to ask.

As soon as they stepped into the room (Nino immediately stripping down to his tank top and boxers, and debating whether or not he had the energy to actually get under the covers as he sat on a futon), Ohno closed the door behind them. He stood with his back against it until Nino sprawled on his stomach and spotted him.

“What?” he asked, the question muffled somewhat by the pillow his chin was digging into. “Come sit with me.” Ohno never had to be asked twice, when it was Nino asking. He laid down on his back next to Nino, supporting his head with an arm behind his head and staring up at the ceiling as though it held the answers to all of life’s mysteries.

“Oh-chan,” Nino murmured. “Cut it out.”

“Eh?” Ohno answered, jerked from his thoughts. “What?”

Nino pushed himself up on his elbows. “You’re being weird. Stop it.”

“I—sorry,” Ohno said. Nino found himself suddenly annoyed with the apology; Ohno never needed to apologize for anything. He didn’t need to hide anything, either. Not from Nino.

“I mean it,” Nino said firmly. “Stop.”

“I can’t,” Ohno said, and Nino hated the regret that flashed across his face. “I’m sorry.”

Things were changing. Things had changed. Nino didn’t know what it was, but Ohno acted differently around him now. Things that should have been careless and easy came after a pause, as though Ohno had needed to make a decision about whether or not to do them. Nino didn’t want that.

He loved the way things were between them.

“Nino,” Ohno said softly, and Nino could feel how Ohno had only recently started saying his name like that. Like something soft and wonderful and also somehow painful.

“What?” Nino asked, frustrated. “You’re being weird.”

“Nino?” Ohno said. “I need to tell you something.”

“Say it,” Nino said even though he knew, he knew it would make things change even more than they already had. He wanted to understand what was going on in Ohno’s head again.

“I’m in love with you,” Ohno said simply, and Nino’s heart jumped into his throat because with that plain, unadorned statement there was no going back.

“Lately,” Ohno continued. “I’ve really just—felt it. All the time. And so I thought maybe, if you wanted, we could try… going out.”

“Ohno,” Nino said, his voice hollow. “Ohno.”

“I know it’s—a little strange,” Ohno said quickly. “But I just really want to try, so—“

“Ohno,” Nino interrupted. “We can’t.”

‘We’re idols,’ Nino wanted to say. ‘They’re always watching us, always waiting for us to screw up somehow. They don’t care a bit if you’re in love; they will tear it apart. They will taint it to the point where you can’t even speak your lover’s name without thinking of all the things you’ve said they twisted, and all the things you’ll never get to say because they tore you apart. Because the public loves us, we aren’t allowed to be in love. Not with anyone, and especially not with each other.’

He wanted to say, ‘There are no happy endings, not for us. There are no private moments, no things we can leave unasked. There’s no safety and no comfort and there is nothing that is sacred to the public. If we get caught (and we will, because I have no willpower and you have no shame) everything that we have will be taken from us and dragged kicking and screaming through the mud. There will be no future, after that. Only loud accusations that become cutting insults that become barely-hushed whispers about your motivations and my motivations and how it wasn’t love. It was never love.’

‘I don’t want to lose you to that,’ Nino wanted to tell him.

But the words got stuck in his throat, and all he could do was stare at his pillow and wonder for the thousandth time why things had to change.

“Let’s try it, Nino,” Ohno pleaded. Nino’s gaze moved from the pillow to Ohno’s face, and he immediately knew that was a mistake, because Ohno’s eyes we the easiest part of him for Nino to read. Just from his expression, Nino knew that Ohno wanted this more than anything.

Rolling on his side, Nino curled against Ohno and wrapped his arms around Ohno’s neck. He wanted to remember this; part of him feared this would be the last time he’d ever get this close to Ohno. Ohno automatically pulled the covers over them and pulled Nino tighter against him, twisting their limbs together until Nino almost couldn’t breathe, he was pressed so close.

“I need to think about it,” Nino said, his voice weary. Ohno squeezed him tight for a moment, acknowledging.

“I’ll wait for you,” he said simply.

~

They were awoken twenty minutes later when Sho, Aiba, and a camcorder invaded their privacy. Once the sleep-fog had cleared from Nino’s mind, he was struck with the realization that already, the public was invading a relationship they hadn’t even yet begun.

~

Three days later, after sleeping off the exhaustion of 24 hour TV, Nino asked Ohno over to his house for dinner. He hadn’t been able to ask him in person, so he’d sent the email right away, before he could lose his nerve. Ohno, of course, accepted, and Nino fed him and pretended everything was as normal as ever for as long as he could.

Finally, he and Ohno sat on the couch after dinner: Nino not ready to say anything, and Ohno not ready to leave.

“…Have you thought about what I said?” Ohno said quietly, and Nino wondered where this bold streak of his came from.

“Yes,” he admitted. “I have.”

“I know I said I would wait,” Ohno said, a touch sheepish and a touch urgent. “But if you’re going to break my heart, I’d prefer sooner to later.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot,” Nino said, intensely aware of his own vulnerability in that moment. “About what it would mean, and what it would change—“

“They’d be good changes,” Ohno interrupted.

“And about how I don’t think you’ve thought this through at all,” Nino finished seriously.

It hurt, to be telling Ohno this. Nino really did like him (not love him—not yet, not with the wounds of his last love still uncomfortably raw even after a year) and part of him wanted to accept Ohno’s offer and lose himself in another person again. Nino had loved being in love and the idea of falling in with Ohno seemed not only thrilling, but familiar.

But he couldn’t risk it all just for that. He couldn’t go into it knowing that it would be torn apart, knowing that it would end, and knowing that if he really fell in love with Ohno, he’d never get over it.

“What is it you’re so afraid of?” Ohno asked, catching Nino’s hand and squeezing.

“It’s dangerous,” Nino said.

“Of course it is,” Ohno responded. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be happy.”

“The happier you are, the more it will hurt when—“

“Stop it,” Ohno said firmly, his free hand cupping Nino’s face and forcing him to meet Ohno’s eyes. “Stop dooming things before they start.”

“I can’t help it,” Nino said weakly. “I’m not as strong as you.”

“You don’t have to be,” Ohno said gently. “I’ll protect you, Nino.”

Nino hesitated, just enough for Ohno to sense an opening. He pulled Nino against his chest, wrapping his arms around Nino and holding him close. Nino buried his face in Ohno’s shoulder, silently repeating to himself all the reasons why he couldn’t say yes.

“You can be happy again. If it’s me, I won’t let them take that from you,” Ohno murmured into Nino’s hair.

It was strange; Nino had come to understand over the past three days why things had changed. Where Ohno had once looked at him and simply seen a friend, he now looked and saw a friend, a companion, a lover, someone to protect and to care about and to lose himself to. All his moments of hesitation were moments where Ohno (always easily distracted) had lost track of his thoughts in the way Nino smiled or shrugged his shoulders or said a certain word. Nino understood with remarkable clarity that it wasn’t that Ohno was trying to hide things from him, only that there was more to share and no way to express it.

Suddenly, everything they shared felt at once infinitely fragile and infinitely fierce.

Nino lifted his head from Ohno’s shoulder.

“Just because I do not pay for dinner when we go out,” he said seriously. “That does not mean I am the girl.”

Ohno kissed him, still laughing, and Nino could feel the hitches in breath that were suppressed chuckles in Ohno’s chest. Then Nino kissed back with all the focus and all the intention he knew how to give and the hitches became something else entirely, accompanied by Ohno’s hands skimming softly up Nino’s back.

~

“You slept together?!” Jun yelped. “How gross!”

Nino grinned; Jun was disturbed the same way any boy was disturbed to discover his sister and her boyfriend have been intimate on the living room couch he is now sitting on. It was pretty cute, really.

“Did you sleep together?” Sho asked urgently, playing his role of the enabler well. Nino held up his hands, laughing.

“We didn’t sleep together,” he corrected, his implication clear. Ohno muttered next to him (too quietly for the mics to pick up) “Not that night, anyway.”

Three years had passed. They had toed more lines (and nearly been outed) more times than Nino could remember clearly, but somehow, they’d made it out unscathed. Each time, Nino grew more sure of their strength and their bond (and a little more sure of their luck), and each time he couldn’t help but think that for all the stress and all the worry, he was far happier like this with Ohno than he would have been without. And that even if it ended abruptly tomorrow, it would have been worth it for those three years alone.

Ohno squeezed his hand and laughed as Aiba and Sho ‘admitted’ they were dating and Jun looked torn between disgust and wondering why he was the odd man out.

It was better this way, by a long shot.