Title: What I Like About You

Author: Lazulisong

Rating: G

Summary: Nino likes to mess with people's heads, but Ohno can pry an honest answer out of him.

There's times when Nino would rather mess with an interviewer's head than play a video game, so Ohno doesn't take much notice at first when Nino tells the girl that his ideal girl is Leader.

"Like Leader, you mean?" says the girl.

"No," says Nino, and the way that his face has gone all foxy and narrow makes Ohno vaguely nervous. "Leader." She blinks and laughs uneasily and Ohno thinks that maybe Nino's gone a little too far. He nudges him with his elbow, very gently -- stop it -- and says, "Well, this is awkward. I can never say Nino has a pretty girlfriend again." The girl giggles nervously. "Because you'd be complimenting yourself, right?" Ohno nods and says, "Even so, the girls he looks at aren't at all like me."

"They are so," mumbles Nino, under his breath, so quietly that Ohno thinks he is the only one who hears it. He behaves himself for the rest of the interview, though, so well that Ohno is pretty sure that he's up to something. As long as he doesn't do it on camera, Ohno's okay with it; he's dealt with Nino for years and can duck out of the way. As they're walking out of the studio toward the train station, their bags slung over their shoulders, Nino says, almost irritated, "They are so like you." "What?" says Ohno, and then, "There's the train station," and finally, "Don't be silly, you only like girls with brains." "That's something nobody's ever accused you of," says Nino, stalking to the station with his hair standing straight up. Ohno wonders how he made Nino mad this time. "I do like girls like you." His voice is sullen and childish, disappointed. It's like he did something special for Ohno and Ohno hadn't noticed or known, and Ohno feels a little bad for a second. Then Ohno thinks, Well it's not like I think you like girls like Matsujun. His mind veers off into what a girl like Jun would be like (high-strung and proud, only when you were alone together with her the walls would come down and she would lean against your side, still and beautiful) or Aiba (bubbly and excited, clapping her hands and laughing, hugging you sometimes for no reason) or Sho (poised and confident, with a sweet, serious mouth and a tiny bubble of laughter lurking in her eyes behind her heavy lashes). He's almost fatally distracted into walking in front of the train by trying to imagine a girl like Nino, all reserved and aware of her affect on others, feline and strange and beautiful. Nino catches hold of his arm and saves him, and then steers him expertly through getting on the train. They're lucky and find seats sort of near the back where people won't stare at them, and Ohno fishes out his Moleskine sketchbook that Matsujun gave him and a ballpoint pen. Working in ink is harder than pencil, but more interesting; you can't go back and erase, so you have to get it right. You can't be scared, either. You just have to go for it. Ohno's practicing, since pen and ink aren't a media he's very familiar with. He sketches out the interior of the train, rapid, angular strokes, circles and tubes, to suggest the walls of the train and the windows and the people around them. He fills in a few details and then turns the page and begins drawing Nino's hand where it rests halfway between Nino's thigh and Ohno's. After a while he has to stop drawing, because Nino's asleep on his shoulder. He turns his head and watches the city flash past them, cars and people and buildings. Everything's muted from the shading on the windows, but it's still interesting to see all of it. It's amazing, really. He'd never put those colors together in a painting, but the reds and yellows and grays look perfect together.

He thinks about asking Nino what he means about liking girls who are him, who are like him, but he'd have to wake Nino up to do it, and it's been a long day.

***

"Hey," says Ohno, to Sho, "What type of girls does Nino like?" Sho's hair is sticking straight up and he's sorting through drama scripts, but he says, "I try not to think about his sex life too much. Why don't you ask him?" "He says he likes me," says Ohno, and Sho looks up and one eyebrow climbs slowly up toward his hairline. "Like me, I mean, girls like me," says Ohno, and the other eyebrow joins its mate in the quest to scale Sho's forehead. "I mean, he said so on an interview." "Was he just messing with them?" says Sho, laying aside the scripts and looking at Ohno intently. "I don't know," says Ohno, poking at a crack in the makeup table. "He got mad when I tried to joke about it." "Huh," says Sho, and goes back to his scripts. Ohno waits for a minute to see if he's going to say something else, and then is distracted by the articulation of his own finger joints.

***

He thinks about asking Aiba, but that would probably eventually involve flowcharts and diagrams and scientific inquiry, and Ohno has better things to do with his weekend.

***

He doesn't really think about asking Matsujun until the next time they're recording, and Jun puts his head in his lap and makes a sound that, in a cat, would mean 'I am here and yet you do not pet me, fix this now' and Ohno starts stroking his hair automatically. Jun's current shampoo smells faintly of lavender. He apparently used the deep conditioning thing today, because his hair is very silky under Ohno's fingers. Jun settles down, shifting his shoulders more comfortably, and Ohno gives up thinking about working on his sketches during break. Jun puts one hand on Ohno's thigh, and Ohno sees that today his nails are painted in different colors, red and blue and yellow and green and purple. He could get Jun to move, but it's really not worth the effort. Jun's been busy with his dramas, so he's tired. Thinking about getting Jun to move makes him think about Nino, because it's impossible to get Nino to move from your lap when he's good and settled.

"Hey," he says, putting his hand on the back of Jun's shoulders, "What type of girls does Nino like?" "How should I know," says Jun irritably. "I try not to think about it too hard." "Sho said the same thing," says Ohno, struck by the coincidence. Jun mumbles something under his breath about 'because Sakurai has sense' but Ohno figures he wasn't supposed to hear that. Jun shifts again, reaching for Ohno's other hand like a tired child. "What brought this up? Now that I have to think about Ninomiya's sex life."

"He got asked what type of girl he liked, and he said he liked me," explains Ohno.

"You are one of the prettiest girls I know," says Jun loyally.

***

The next day Ohno and Jun are sitting together getting makeup ready for a photoshoot; Jun is having something done to his hair with curling irons and Ohno is done except that his manicure needs to dry. The manicurist was very explicit about his nails drying completely. Ohno sits very still and tries not to think about the story she told him about the Bad Little Idol Who Ruined His Nails. He wants to go have a smoke but the manicurist was also clear on what would happen if he left the chair. He's watching Jun for lack of anything better to do when Aiba walks in. Ohno flicks a look over at Aiba -- he's wearing a pair of dark jeans and a black tank under a white cowboy-style shirt. He even has a cowboy hat and boots. Ohno remembers vaguely he was supposed to do a shoot for the animal show. Apparently he hasn't bothered to change yet.

It's not like Jun says anything, or even really shifts, but when Ohno looks over again, Jun's eyes are tracking helplessly up over Aiba's long legs in their covering of denim. His eyes drag up over Aiba's boots and legs, up to his thighs and his hips where the jeans ride low, held up by a belt with a heavy silver belt buckle, up over the white and silver shirt that fits closely over Aiba's chest and shoulders, over the bare skin of his forearms, where the shirt is rolled up and exposes the elegant lines of his wrists, over the line of his collarbones revealed by the open collar of the shirt and the low neck of the tank, and lingers for a bare second on Aiba's face. Ohno looks away. Jun's eyes, half-lidded behind his heavy lashes, aren't hungry, exactly, but there's a look in them like he's trying to convince himself that there's things that he wants that he can't have. Jun looks like it's four hours into a six hour taping and there's no way to go outside for a minute. What are you supposed to do? He whines, "Aiba, they told me a scary story about my nails." Aiba's attention is turned to him before he has a chance to look at Jun for more than a second or two.

"What type?" demanded Aiba, bounding over and hitting Jun on the shoulder lightly on the way. "Was it the one with nail clippers?" "No," says Ohno piteously. "It had orange sticks." Aiba shivers, delighted. "That's a horrible one!" he agrees. Aiba gets a new Bad Little Idol story almost every time he is put in a make up chair. The Bad Little Idol Who Started Headbanging Along With The Act Before His And Ruined His Hair is a perpetual favorite, and the staff is always adding more to it.

Jun never gets told Bad Little Idol stories, or hardly ever. The worst Jun's ever gotten was The Bad Little Idol Who Let Aiba Show Him The Puppy And Got Slobbered Over. "Where's Sho and Nino?" says Aiba, folding himself into a chair. "Solo shoots," says Jun, tilting his head back so one of the stylists can do something to his hair. "Hey, why are you still playing dress up? Hurry up and get changed. It'll be a bother if the staff has to wait for you." "Okay," says Aiba cheerfully. "Isn't this awesome though?" He gets up and does a twirl, and maybe Jun swallows kind of hard, but Aiba's ass is a work of art, even Ohno thinks so. When Aiba returns five minutes later, he's wearing the black slacks and white voile shirt the rest of them are. Sho and Nino come in with him. Ohno looks past Sho and meets Nino's eyes. Nino's pretty easy to read, if you know him well, and there's something secretive and foxish and rueful in his face. Ohno thinks, He wants me to do something. Before he can figure out what it is, the manicurist is back and examining his nails. "Good," she says, "Go get ready for the shoot." During the shoot itself, Nino presses close to him, insistent as a cat, leaning on his shoulder and pulling Ohno's head down to his lap when the photographer says, "Look cozy!" and putting his arm around Ohno's waist when they stand in a line for the group shot. It's not that it's something unusual, but there's a purpose to Nino's actions, a message. Look at me. Look at me. When the shoot is over, he and the others change out of their outfits into their own clothes. Jun's got his drama to go to and Aiba's got a meeting for the zoo show. Sho technically has the afternoon off but really is hauling three drama scripts in his backpack, and has to make a decision on them by the end of the week. Nino says, "I'll give you a ride," and Ohno follows him out to the parking garage. It's a little puzzling to Ohno why Nino kept the SUV, although Sho was heard to say something about Napoleon the first time he saw Nino sitting behind the wheel, grinning like a maniac. Nino starts the car and drives down the crowded city streets. When they get to Ohno's house, Nino parks the SUV and follows Ohno in, kicking off his shoes and wandering up the stairs with him, even though he didn't ask and Ohno hadn't said anything. Nino instantly claims the entirety of Ohno's bed, and although Ohno could probably wrestle him for it, it's been a long day and he doesn't really care. He sits against the side of the bed and lets his mind drift for a while. The soft white shirts they'd worn for the photo shoot had very subtle woven patterns on them, stripes and boxes and even flowers, embroidered white on white. His latest project is almost done but he needs to get a particular wire tool to finish it. All the ones he has aren't quite right, and he likes to be precise with his art. He needs to work on his solo for the new concert soon, maybe tonight after Nino goes home. Nino always likes to watch him, though, and he's not too distracting. Ohno likes having Nino watch him. It's a little lonely when Nino has a girlfriend sometimes, because he doesn't spend so much time with Ohno outside of work. Suddenly Ohno says, "Why did you say your type of girl was me?" He tilts his head up and looks at Nino, playing a game on his DS. Nino turns off the game, very deliberately, and lays the DS aside. He looks down at Ohno, and his dark eyes are wide and there's something in them, like he's about to tell Ohno a secret. He says, "You told me to stop messing with the interviewers."

Ohno says, "What's that supposed to mean?" There's something hard and eager in his chest, like a song, like he's about to dance and dance and dance. Nino slides off the bed and kneels over Ohno's lap. He puts his hands on Ohno's shoulders, and leans close. His lips are very close to Ohno's ear when he says, "I like you the best." Ohno's never been good at hiding from Nino anyway, and he's never seen the point of not saying what he means. He slides his arms further around Nino's waist, and he says, "Good."

He means it.

Labels: fanfiction