rikke_leonhart | Fic: Watch A Million Dreams

Title: Watch A Million Dreams
Pairing(s): Ohno/Nino
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Uh-uh
Word count: 2,043
Summary: I wash my face clean in the rain // waves hit the shore and leave once more // I know I may have fallen from grace // but here I can see where the sky meets the sea
Author's Notes: First fic written for the Arashi fundraising per

dramaticsurgeon's request. Title and summary shamelessly stolen from Hush's song Where The Sky Meets The Sea. Possibly my favourite fic I've written in a really long time. A big thank you to Gati for beta!

Ohno didn’t know how it felt not to be in love with Nino.

He’d built his home with Nino, learned how to love with Nino, learned that love, while fantastic and breathtaking, hurt. It wasn’t the fairytales he’d been told of as a child – far from it. He’d foolishly thought, when he was younger and naïve, freshly fallen in love and giddy, that they could conquer anything – the public, their careers, the wrath of the jimusho. They had lasted so long already, but secrecy weighed heavily on them.

Them being together – the equation they made up simply made sense in a way Ohno had never expected them to.

Nino kept saying in interviews that Ohno had never invited him out.

That wasn’t true at all. That was how it all started, after all, and Ohno sometimes wondered if he’d had the courage if not for long nights after work spent in a small bar, with smoke lingering around them, staying with their clothes even when they went home. The way their glasses had clinked rarely, but it had meant something that neither of them had understood at the time. The low sound of hushed whispers and the countertop with glasses.

All these images his mind provided him with served to remind him of what they had.

I love you, Nino typed to him when he was far away, on another continent. Ohno had read it, had smiled and tucked it into his worn-down heart as he went back to sleep.

When Nino travelled all the way back home to Japan, he met up with Ohno in the bar they’d taken to calling theirs. It was oddly more intimate than anything else they might’ve been able to share, and they’d just sat there, smoking and drinking, their shoulders bumping occasionally. When the clock chimed midnight, they stood up and went home. They didn’t touch, didn’t say anything, all the way back to Nino’s apartment, but the moment the door closed behind them, they reconnected in ways more primal than anything they’d ever known before.

On a tour, Ohno remembered how he’d found Nino, once, in the hallway of the hotel they were staying in. In the middle of the night, was barefoot and small as he sat in the windowsill, only accompanied by his guitar and his voice, curled around the instrument.

To this day, Ohno didn’t know whether or not Nino realized that Ohno had been there, seen him mourn their love. At least, Ohno thought it was their love. It could’ve been anything, but he knew Nino, and Nino didn’t cry by the drop of a hat. It had to mean something.

“I was waiting for you,” Nino said one night when Ohno came home. “You didn’t come.”

“Filming,” Ohno apologized around a yawn. He didn’t want to deal with this, he didn’t want to feel guilty in his own home when all he wanted was to curl up around Nino and stay there all night.

It would’ve been easier if anyone knew, but it was simply too much of a risk. Unprofessional, their managers would say and shake their heads, maybe even hammer their fists to the table. Management would force them apart. Discrimination would keep them apart. They couldn’t bear it, so they kept it silent even though it ate them and what they felt for each other.

When they fought it had less to do with who they were than what they made up, and sometimes Ohno thought they needed excuses to vent the anger and sheer frustration that existed in the spaces between them. Nino’s fury was violent when he finally opened up for it, and Ohno always thought that this time, this is where we end, with a shouting match shorter than what we owe each other.

Sometimes, he knew that Nino wished they’d just go ahead and cheat, find someone else, a wonderful guy or a wonderful girl, because that would be easier, and it would allow them to make a clean cut, but they couldn’t.

Ohno had never known any wonderful guys or girls before Nino, not now that he knew what being wonderful truly meant. Nino with all his complicated words and complex, lonely soul, Nino was everything Ohno had never known he couldn’t live without.

When you tell me to get out, Nino had hissed to him through clenched teeth, cheeks flushed with anger and eyes so vivid that Ohno wanted to forget about their angry words and just reach out – when you tell me to get out, at least do me a favor and mean it.

It was funny how people always thought he did things half-heartedly; funny because he didn’t even know how to do that. Nino had taught him to go for it, so he did. He couldn’t pretend he wanted Nino to leave and take all his things with him; not when that would mean Nino wouldn’t return with things to come back for. He sometimes privately thought that Nino wished for an easy way out, but he’d also felt how desperately Nino could cling to him at night, as if the moment he’d let go, Ohno would disappear.

Ohno always had a hard time reconciling those two Ninos with each other, but he knew he got the best from both worlds, so he didn’t want to complain. He never did, not even when Nino was unfair and tired and worn and only wanted to escape.

When Nino’s words turned too harsh, Ohno always left and found refuge in the quiet air he needed to breathe, as if he could force the air to calm his lingering anger.

I love you, he typed to Nino even as they were in the same hotel but in two different rooms opposite of each other. He didn’t know if Nino had brought his phone, but if not, Nino would find it when he got home, and he’d have a little piece of truth right there in his hands if he chose to believe it.

When they were happy, it was incredible. They could lie for hours, just making plans for the future – places they wanted to go, sights they wanted to see, food they wanted to try – so many new adventures that were waiting for them, just out of reach as of yet.

Sometimes, Ohno cried for what he knew they couldn’t have, but he only cried when he knew Nino was asleep. He couldn’t find it in him to regret anything they’d ever done with each other; he didn’t dare regret everything they’d become together, but sometimes it was just so hard, living in a world where he could tell no one where his heart really was.

But what made him keep going and not give up, was how he knew Nino was fighting harder. It wasn’t in Nino’s nature to be this way – Ohno couldn’t decide if it was loving someone so secretly, trusting someone so completely, or if it was all in Nino’s head. Because Nino thought little of himself in these aspects, something Ohno couldn’t make him reconsider no matter how hard he tried.

Nino found it worth staying for. He fought with the world and himself, and Ohno was happy for it, because Nino was beautiful when he was in love. He dropped all pretenses and stayed that way when Ohno smiled at him, and Ohno often thought that maybe, this, this is right, you and me together.

In times where Nino doubted – not their love and what they are – but whether or not they could do this forever, it scared Ohno. Ohno couldn’t show it, he had no one to tell, no one to confide in, no one to ease the burdens from his heart and hold him close while whispering that everything would be alright, that Nino would inevitably end with the same conclusion as Ohno had come to years ago.

That they were it.

“When the spotlight is off,” Nino whispered into his skin one night under covers where no one would find them. “When the spotlight is off.”

“We’ll go to a deserted island,” Ohno vowed as always; he’d always meant it, even if no one knew he was serious. Sometimes he suspected that even Nino wasn’t quite aware of how much he meant it when he said it. He supposed that random declarations of affection on national TV cheapened the sentiments, but he meant every single word, and even if everyone was laughing, it were chances to tell the world how he felt.

Nino’s chuckles were always breathless and his cheeks warm when Ohno said it, as if Nino couldn’t quite believe it either. It would be a long time, probably longer than they expected, but however much they wanted everything to be easier, somehow, smoother and lighter on their conscience, they didn’t want Arashi to end.

Arashi was everything good in their lives, no matter what else it brought to the table. Arashi made them give up so many things and all chances of normal lives, but it was everything.

They couldn’t do it to the others. Jun, who loved Arashi more than anything else. Sho, who always did what he could to make sure Arashi was the best. Aiba, who always did what was necessary to take them several steps further. These were the people they owed everything, and not even their tear-filled nights could change that.

I love you, Ohno sent to Nino when he was in New York. The night sky reminded him of Tokyo, and then again, it didn’t resemble Japan at all. He went to see the Brooklyn Bridge and he still thought the Rainbow Bridge with Nino was lovelier. He hoped Nino kept the messages Ohno sent him, just like Ohno collected the I love you’s that flowed from Nino’s lips and fingers.

The middle of the Brooklyn Bridge made him want to go home, just as much as it made him want to stay. If there was a place in the world for the two of them, where would it be, and would they be able to find it?

He hoped so. Maybe even before the spotlights glided away from their faces and their twined hands.

With both feet safely back on Japanese soil, the first text that ticked in was from Nino, and Ohno tucked it in right there in Nino’s space in his heart, right next to the huge storm that always raged there, ready to burst.

Nino didn’t say it, but Ohno felt it in his touches and kisses and hushed exhalations that danced on his lips. Ohno heard the words that Nino didn’t speak. It made it all worth it, somehow, these moments, even if they had to pretend for the world tomorrow when they woke up anew.

Because Ohno couldn’t remember a point in his life where he wasn’t in love with Nino, hopelessly and infuriatingly in love, so much that it frightened him and he didn’t know how to stop. In the few vulnerable moments Nino had begged him to stop, Ohno knew he couldn’t, because his heart was the only thing he couldn’t control.

And he didn’t want to. Loving Nino was so much a part of him, with all the hurt and happiness and heartache and fulfillment, that he didn’t want to part from it.

Nino’s inbox that was filled with I love you’s told the same story.

Someday, they’d wake up and go out in the broad daylight, wander together as their hands knocked against each other.

Ohno would reach out and curl his little finger around Nino’s, just for a brief moment, and he’d close his eyes and remember.

The smoky bar, the hazy alcohol that burned their throats, the cigarettes dangling from their fingers. He’d remember the sky he watched at the other end of the world, and he’d remember how he longed for home – or a piece from home. He’d always remember how much lovelier the view of the sunrise from his bedroom was when Nino curved against him in slumber and whispered words half-formed from sleep.

Nino’s fingers will linger in his own, and then they’ll say goodbye to what they used to be.

It would be worth risking almost everything for.