Fic: Tower 1/3

[rikke_leonhart]

Title: Tower
Pairing(s): future Ohno/Jun
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nuh-uh!
Word count: ~15,800
Summary: AU. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped, but Jun is pretty sure he'll fight tooth and nail on the way down.
Author's Notes: Notes after cut.


AN: This is the last(!) fundraising fic for last year's effort on arashi_on, and this is for the wonderful, and not to mention patient(!!), boblemon - who could possibly have known that it would take me a year(!!!) to complete the fics, but here it is. I sincerely hope it lives up to your expectations, and I'm so very sorry for taking such a long time to finish this. It's been a long time underways, have seen at least three different versions, and that was after I'd abandoned no less than three other plots. All my apologies. Special thanks as always to the astonishing Gati for handholding and fabulous beta-ing, and to BFF for receiving all the whining without too much complaining in return. Thanks to Boblemon for bidding on my fic, and thank you for your patience, you're quite spectacular in that department, and I really do hope you'll like it even if it probably turned out a lot different than what you might have hoped for /bites nails.

Without further ado.

*

If there is anything Jun is painfully aware of, it’s that he really doesn’t have the time for anything else but his exams. Jun doesn’t even feel like he has the time to breathe, actually, but he does somehow, rather miraculously, every single day, and he wakes up every morning, knowing that he’ll get to the end of the day at one point or another and that he’ll finish the exams faster if he can study his days away.

In between long and exhausting lectures, he goes to the café Aiba’s family gave Aiba when he turned 18 – apparently, a café is just a small thing if you’re the heir to the entire empire of bakeries and cafés – and he sits there, tucked away but not entirely hidden. He enjoys the sparse sunlight from the late, shy January sun as he reads and makes notes, highlights and pointedly doesn’t think of how blue in the face his father will be if he doesn’t pass in the first try.

“Here,” Aiba’s voice says nearby, places a cup of steaming coffee with just a little milk to lighten up your mood next to him, and he spares a grateful smile for Aiba. “You look like you need it. How many more?”

“Two,” Jun sighs, stretches, feels more than hears his spine crack and realign against the back of the chair, and he yawns. “Just two more.”

“Maybe you should take a break,” Aiba suggests and discreetly sets a plate down with a scone on it. “You’ve been here for several hours already.”

It’s true, Jun knows, but he’d rather stay here and read than go home, because home is weighty. “I suppose I could take it easy,” he says even though he doesn’t owe Aiba anything. Nothing at all. He supposes they’re friends, when it all comes down to it, and he has Nino to blame for it, somehow or another. He’s known Nino for years and one day Nino had grabbed his elbow, pinched the sensitive skin just beneath his ribs and shoved him sideways hard, and there Aiba had been looking down at him, asking if he wanted help standing up. Not his best first impression ever, but Aiba hadn’t seemed to mind at all if the way he’d promptly fed them both coffee and a cookie from a recipe he was experimenting with that day. It’d tasted amazing and it was only later that Aiba had admitted that they were the first edible batch.

Aiba squeezes his shoulder briefly as he sets to the next table, chattering with the patrons as he goes, and Jun leans back in his seat, watches Aiba putter around and then he looks around, seeing the late afternoon clientele, girls his own age, chatting, older women, young men. Aiba has done such a great job in creating a place that attracts a little bit of everything.

That’s why, he tells himself, that he doesn’t notice him at first, tucked away at the back as he is. Jun is pretty sure he would’ve seen him if he’d been there earlier, but as it is, Jun hasn’t even noticed him shuffling past even if the only route to the back of the café is directly to the left of Jun’s small camp. He sees Aiba go to him, carrying a single mug of something steaming and he watches Aiba reach out for a shoulder, halt in hesitation and then finally tether, and he sets the mug down.

The man looks up Aiba, nods absently at whatever Aiba is saying that Jun can’t hear at all, and then Aiba leaves again, directly past Jun and rests his hand on Jun’s shoulder as he goes.

Jun glances back on the man in the back of the café, still and looking out on the darkening streets, and his throat hurts, suddenly, for no reason at all that he can possibly justify to himself. Maybe it’s the shock to the nervous system to see someone react to Aiba’s good temper with less than an answering smile, as if someone has woken Jun up from slumber he wasn’t aware he was in. When Aiba announces an hour later that he’s closing the café down for the day, it’s later than usual even if Thursdays are always days for long hours, and Jun looks up just as the man from earlier passes him without a glance back.

“Take care!” Aiba calls to him just as he’s almost out of the door. The man turns and he looks as if he might’ve smiled if his eyes weren’t half as sad as they are, and instead he just gives curt nod, something of a half shrug and a non-committed half-wave. His shoulders as he steps outside into the harsh January evening are hunched in, spine curled and the way he tucks his elbows in makes him look small as if he’s trying to disappear. Jun watches him walk past through the windows and he turns to catch Aiba look after him, a frown marring his forehead, then shake himself visibly out of it before starting to pull the chairs up.

Jun wordlessly moves to help and between the two of them they bid farewell and continued good evening to the rest of the patrons and get ready to lock the place up for the night. Jun leans against the counter, watches Aiba wring a cloth and he tells himself just to ask before he forgets, even if he’s sure he’ll remember those sad eyes forever.

“That man, just before,” Jun starts, has to wet his lips and his parched throat because it’s still aching in inexplicable ways, “the one you told to take care. Who is he?”

Aiba doesn’t falter in his movements where he wipes the counter. “Ah,” Aiba says, not sounding too forthcoming, and for a very long stilted moment Jun thinks that Aiba isn’t going to tell him at all, but then Aiba stops momentarily before resuming. “That’s Ohno-san. He’s been coming here for a few weeks now. Why?”

“No reason,” Jun says, perhaps a bit too quickly if Aiba’s brief glance is anything to go by, and Jun doesn’t even know why he wants to know. “I didn’t recognize him and your clientele is pretty loyal. I didn’t even see him come in.”

Aiba chuckles. “Ohno-san likes silence,” he says and then sobers. “He’s very nice.”

Somehow Jun doubts that that’s it, because Aiba chatters more than hormonal teenage girls but is notoriously tightlipped when it matters. However, Jun realizes he must be looking more curious than normal because Aiba softens and stops moving altogether. “Nino talks to him when he’s here,” Aiba says. “Weirdest thing ever, Nino had known him for all of ten minutes before he curled up to him and sat there for hours in silence. There’s something about him, I guess.”

Jun remembers those eyes as they looked back on Aiba calling for caution, remembers he heavy look and the slouch.

“I guess,” he concedes, because there’s really nothing else he can say.

*

Jun arrives at the café early in the morning just as Aiba turns the “Open” sign in the door and he goes in with just minimal greeting, because holy fuck, his exam is tomorrow and he feels hopelessly unprepared. And underprepared. He has no idea how to make it through, he knows logically he should know it all know with how much he’s studied, but it feels unattainable, some kind of knowledge he’s not sure he’ll ever use again in his life, because it’s not logical.

Aiba doesn’t need him to say anything, just provides him with fresh cups of coffee and sugary concoctions, and he’s halfway through a chapter when he sees the man, Ohno, come in and nod at Aiba. Jun hasn’t seen him since those days ago, but his stature is the same, framed by a slouch and an air Jun can’t quite decipher.

Aiba guides him to a table with a hand between his shoulder blades, murmuring something that elicits a murmur back and Jun wishes he had supersonic hearing in that moment, because. Because.

They’re the only two guests at this godawful early hour of the day and Jun is curious, because really, Jun has a reason to be here (he has several if he’s to be entirely honest, but he’s not doing so well in the honesty department these days, so he ignores it), and he wonders why Ohno chooses to be here, if he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

Aiba shuffles behind the counter, fiddles with the coffee machine. “Oh-chan, I forgot, milk or no?”

Ohno’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, a grimace that could’ve been a smile if it’d reached his eyes. “You choose,” he says, low and just about a mutter without actually being it, and Jun shivers.

“No,” Aiba insists for some reason. “Make a decision or I’ll give you the water from when I mopped the floors last week instead.”

“Why do you even have the water from when you mopped the floors last week?” Jun butts in without thinking and then when he realizes it’d be awkward, he just continues, “And more importantly, haven’t you mopped the floors since last week?”

Aiba pouts impressively. “I was just saying,” he says, but he looks strangely pleased too, and he looks like he’s about to say something when Ohno chuckles and Aiba’s jaw drops.

“Black,” Ohno decides, finally and sends a look in Jun’s direction, still not a full smile, and Jun, for some reason, decides that saluting him with coffee would be a good idea.

Jun cringes as he holds the cup up, and he lowers it. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m not actually sure why I thought that was the best course of action.”

“It’s fine,” Ohno says, strangely dismissive and not willing to meet Jun’s eyes. “It’s fine.”

A movement catches Jun’s eye and he sees Aiba making wild, flaily gestures with his arms behind the counter and more than anything, Jun fears that he’ll knock over everything in the radius of his enthusiasm (which reaches three times around the equator at the very least, on a good day), but then Aiba makes shooing noises as well.

Jun is not impressed. “Did someone puncture you?”

“Shut up,” Aiba laughs, pinking a bit high on his cheekbones, and turns fully to Ohno, still voice loud enough to call across the café. “How are you, Oh-chan?”

And the manner in which Ohno shrugs irks Jun. “I’m okay,” he says, just about as convincingly as the sun is successful in trying to hold the night back. “You, Aiba-chan?”

There’s a lilt in his voice, just a bit, and Jun thinks briefly that he speaks like someone in the habit of speaking very little, a bit brittle and raw and so very hesitant.

“The usual,” Aiba returns and finally, finally, returns to Ohno’s table with coffee and when he sets a plate down with a bagel, Ohno looks up at him. “I know you didn’t order that,” he says, “but seriously, you’re skin and bones.” To Jun’s horror, Aiba pokes Ohno’s cheek and Ohno just moves with him, sways to the side and does nothing, just nods and rights himself when Aiba finally pulls back.  Aiba stands beside him, hands on his hips, until Ohno bites into the bagel and nods his pleasure.

Only then does Aiba go back to the counter.

Later when Jun looks at Aiba, he sees him watching Ohno with something that looks like regret. It’s snooping, but he’ll have to ask again at some point, because when Ohno leaves, Aiba looks even sadder, as if he’s not quite sure what to do, and the sight is unsettling for so many reasons.

It’s two days after his exam when he gets back to the café and sees Nino sitting by the counter, nursing a cup of whatever Aiba felt like serving at that particular moment in time, and Jun sits down next to him.

“Jun-kun,” he greets, not looking up, his dark eyes intent on whatever pattern he makes in the drink with the spoon. “How’s university life? How many panic attacks this far?”

“Fuck you,” Jun returns pleasantly as Aiba snickers even while he’s serving other customers. “And I’m doing good, better than you in any case, so I’m not complaining. Aiba-chan.”

Aiba nods at him and slides a coffee across the counter to him before leaving to attend other guests. Jun looks around, tries to be discreet as he looks to the back, but no Ohno today, no silent form tucked in at the back, looking like he wants to blend in with the walls.

Nino shifts slightly beside him, still not looking up. “You’re not subtle, you know,” he says at length, his fingertips running at the edge of his mug. “Aiba-chan tells me you’ve been asking around for Oh-chan.”

Jun frowns. “Asking around might be a bit of a stretch,” he says, confused. “I’ve just seen him around a fair bit, nothing else.”

Nino finally looks up at him, sideways and dark, and Jun is reminded of one of the reasons Nino can be a scary fucker. Nino’s eyes are feline in the dimmed artificial overhead lights, narrow and heavy, and Jun doesn’t even know why he’s being looked at like that. “What?”

“Nothing,” Nino finally says and drains his mug. “Oh-chan is sweet,” he then adds and looks directly at Jun at last. “Don’t go looking for trouble.”

“What?” Jun is officially confused. “No, wait what? Seriously, I’m not just trying to be difficult, I really don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. What are you saying?”

Nino exhales harshly, tilting his head as if Jun is being a deliberate idiot. “Don’t worry, none of us understand, is all.” He pats Jun’s cheek in a patronizing manner, his mouth tilting just so that it always infuriates Jun. “Have fun with your little exam.”

“You’d think to speak higher of the rest of my life, thank you very much,” Jun returns, mentally facepalming that he rose to Nino’s bait and he keeps quiet when Nino returns with a sharp “How utterly fascinating.”

“Don’t be a dick, Nino!” Aiba calls from across the bar and Nino returns the sentiment with a one-fingered salute as he steps out of the café and onto the frozen pavement. “He’s pissy,” Aiba remarks as he returns behind the counter with a batch of empty, used cups. “Surprisingly pissy.”

Jun doesn’t even feel like congratulating Aiba on his marvelous observation skills, but he’s worried about Nino’s skittish behavior and even more than that, Jun wondered what could make Nino’s hackles rise that much without any kind of direct prompting. He’s also just plain confused. “Was that just me?”

Aiba shrugs. “Who knows? It’s not like he ever explains himself anyway. Maybe it’s just been way too long since he got laid.”

“I really don’t need to know that about any of you,” Jun says drily, because, seriously. “But really, that was harsh, even for him.”

“I agree,” Aiba says, loading the dishwasher with the cups. “I’ve stopped trying to make sense of his moods. I think that’s the best thing you can do as well.”

“Perhaps,” Jun concedes, looking out the door again at the space Nino occupied briefly when he left.

*

The next time Jun comes into the café, it’s packed. Literally, packed to the brim, and he frowns with dismay when he realizes that he will most probably not be able to get a seat and sit and relax. Aiba nods absently at him from where he’s poised to snatch several mugs from a table, and somewhere behind Aiba, Jun can hear Nino’s voice cutting through the general buzz of chattering voices. Jun looks over all the tables and seats and, seeing none available, he resigns himself to just getting a coffee to go, but then he sees a wave and he refocuses. Ohno sits there at his usual table (and Jun suspects that Nino might have had a hand in that happening) and motions for him, looking up at him with his dark eyes. Weary, because how is this even happening, but grateful, he makes his way to Ohno’s table and sits down, hesitant as if Ohno is going to retract his invitation at any moment now.

“Sorry for intruding,” he says when Ohno doesn’t offer any forthcoming words, and Ohno just sort of waves it off as if it’s no big deal at all, as if Ohno doesn’t exude the air of someone who’d rather poke his eyes out with a dull spoon than have company, but Jun sits nevertheless, keeping his eyes on Ohno, who seems increasingly determined not to look at Jun.

“Crowded today, huh,” Jun observes, thinking he can get at least a little reaction out of Ohno, maybe a few words from between his lips just like Aiba does so effortlessly, but then again, Jun doesn’t know if Aiba has been working on this for as long as Ohno has been coming here. Maybe Aiba only succeeds on sheer will power alone, because Jun knows few people more stubborn than a determined Aiba, but it’s difficult to tell. “You’re Ohno-san, right?”

Ohno looks up – not quite at Jun yet but closer, yet – and nods somewhat warily.

Jun isn’t in the habit of beaming at practical strangers, but he smiles at Ohno, hopes it looks more welcoming than downright creepy, and Ohno isn’t bolting for the door, at least. “I’m Matsumoto Jun.”

“Ah,” Ohno says, first thing he’s uttered, and then, “Aiba-chan talks about you. So does Nino.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

Okay, so Ohno isn’t going to make conversation easy, but if Jun is to be entirely honest (he’s still working on it, he really is, some things just take longer than anticipated, okay) he didn’t expect it to be. All honesty, he hadn’t even expected to be sitting across from Ohno and trying to get him to talk.

“So, how has your day been?”

Smooth, Jun, really smooth.

“Fine,” Ohno says, disinterested once again, removing his almost-gaze from Jun and turning towards the window panes. He places his chin on the heel of his palm, leans against it, and Jun aches with how utterly empty he looks. Jun keeps looking at him, fully aware of how annoying it can be, and after several minutes it seems that Ohno finally realizes that Jun has been looking at him.

“Sorry?” Ohno apologizes, sounding as if he’s not quite sure he should be sorry, and if he should, what he should be apologizing for in that case. Then he rolls his shoulders in a long graceful movement, leans back and crosses his arms, looking up at Jun through lowered lashes. “And how has your day been, Matsumoto-kun?”

It sounds vaguely mocking, but Jun isn’t deterred. Not wholly, anyway, it’s still an opening even if Ohno isn’t asking him because he wants to, but probably because he can see that Jun isn’t finished conversing with him yet and it’s easier to play along and just roll with it.

“Busy,” he says, it’s the truth with cramming for the last exam in two weeks, but he was going stir crazy from being cooped up in the house where he isn’t completely comfortable anymore and he can’t wait until he makes enough money to move out and get a place of his own, seriously. “I’m thinking of going out with some friends for dinner tonight, so.”

“Thrilling,” Ohno says, completely devoid of any intonation, just flat and empty.

It seems that making conversation with Ohno is like trying to answer the dentist when he asks you things while having ten different mirrors and drills in your mouth and then at least six of his fingers. It’s not even nearly as fun or as kinky as it sounds.

“What brings you here?” Jun tries as a last ditch attempt just as Nino sidles up to the table, balancing too many mugs precariously on a tray and Jun has never really understood how he can do that without smashing at least half of them.

“Nosy,” Nino comments and sets Jun’s usual café latte down in front of him harder than he normally would, the coffee sloshes dangerously but doesn’t spill, and Jun glances at it with suspicion, somehow not trusting that Nino didn’t spit in it, and Nino not so accidentally juts the table with his hip. He sets down another mug, replaces the half-empty mug Ohno has been ignoring valiantly. “Here you go, Oh-chan, just for you. Made with love and a coffee machine.”

Ohno looks up, suddenly softening, and Jun blinks, because it might just be one of the oddest things he’s ever seen, Aiba was totally right. Nino isn’t flirting (trust Jun on this, he’s known Nino for years and he’s seen all of Nino’s techniques both drunk and sober. Drunk Nino, that is) but he’s still being deliberately gentle and that is just plain weird, because Nino is only ever gentle when he isn’t going to be in a position where he can get called out on it.

Then Ohno hardens, as inexplicably as he’d responded to Nino’s sudden gentleness, and he stands. “I’m hardly a damsel in distress,” he hisses and leaves without a backward glance. Nino slumps and then seems to remember that Jun is still present and quite possible gaping, Jun isn’t sure what he looks like right now, torn between fascination and complete bewilderment.

Nino straightens up into his usual slouchy posture and his lips thin into a set line, shifting all weight onto one hip, and he narrows his eyes at Jun. Jun crosses his arms. “Why do you assume it has anything to do with me?”

“Because I can’t blame it on Aiba this time,” Nino admits tersely before he walks away, and Jun is just so damn curious, because what?

Jun avoids the café for the next few days, because he doesn’t need more confusion while he’s focusing on his last exam, but after five hours spent in the company of a written exam, he feels light in a way that’s both freeing and also so incredibly depressing, because now he has no more excuses to not think about what goes on in his home (or rather, what pointedly doesn’t go on in his home, but yes, the honesty thing, he knows, he knows). He decides, what the hell, and thinks to grab a cup of coffee, just to clear his head a bit, to think of something else for just a moment before he has to go home again.

He sees Ohno, suddenly, by a light pole, talking to someone, a pretty girl from what Jun can see, and it takes Jun more than just a few moments to realize what’s different, and it hits him like a punch to the stomach. Compared to the Ohno that sits empty in the café – this Ohno looks coy, smooth, and as Jun watches, Ohno shifts subtly closer until he has an arm wound around the girl’s waist, a hand on her bent elbow as he leads her down the street along the sidewalk. Jun watches with something he identifies as horror when Ohno so easily takes a girl with him – a girl Jun is willing to bet is a complete stranger. He has no evidence of this, but it feels bone deep wrong.

There’s someone he doesn’t know in the café when he arrives, which in and of itself isn’t that much of an odd occurrence, but the way the man is sitting by the counter and the way Aiba stands beside him, hand soothingly rubbing the small space between his shoulder blades hint at familiarity and Jun is sharply reminded that he hasn’t known Aiba for that long even if it feels like it.

“Matsujun,” Aiba greets and his voice makes the other guy tense briefly until Aiba’s hand ruffles his hair. “Sho-chan, it’s just Matsujun, relax for a bit, it won’t kill you, really.”

Jun, wary that this is somehow a scenario he shouldn’t be present for, steps closer anyway, and he nods when Aiba introduces them with flourish, “Sakurai Sho, Matsumoto Jun, now be friends!” and he sits down gingerly next to Sakurai.

Sakurai looks haggard. “Nice to meet you,” he says, sincere but exhausted and Jun can do nothing but return the sentiment.

Aiba returns to the other side of the counter and sits down, glancing at the door with random intervals to check for customers. His fingertips are dancing across the countertop as if they’re skating, and he turns his attention back to Sho in that eerie earnest way of his. “Sho-chan, you were saying?”

The way Sakurai darts a look at Jun makes Jun believe he’s intruding, but then Sakurai just slumps. “I don’t know what to do anymore, he’s just closing me out and he’s never done that before, not like this. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for him at this point.”

Aiba nods solemnly.

“And I just- I wish there was something I could do for him, but even if I could he wouldn’t let me. I asked him what he’d be doing, and he said he hadn’t thought about it, and when I asked him when he’d last been dancing, he said he’d just stopped because it seemed like too much of a hassle,” Sho blinks rapidly, doesn’t even flinch when Aiba reaches for his hand on the counter. “He just said it was too exhausting. Not even dancing, just the thought of it. Heavy, draining, exhausting.”

Aiba swallows heavily, glances at Jun, “If he can’t even find the energy to dance…”

“I know,” Sho says, his voice pitching and holding with the effort of a man who knows he’s fighting a lost battle all on his own. “He doesn’t do anything anymore.”

Jun isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do, if anything, he ‘s pretty sure it’s the polar opposite of right, but he can’t stay silent, not when he’s just seen what he’s seen, Ohno’s easy façade, the art of pulling someone under seduction. He clears his throat, tentative, and then, “I saw Ohno-san. Just before. He was talking to a girl, I think, really, I’m sure he took her home.”

Sho looks surprised, then confused, then resigned. “He does that,” Sho admits, brows furrowed, shoulders angled in hurt. “He says that– fuck, I don’t even know anymore.”

Aiba strokes the skin between Sho’s thumb and forefinger before he turns to Jun, to explain, oh god, Jun is suddenly so certain he doesn’t want to know, it can only be awful, horrible like the dull shine of Ohno’s eyes. “Ohno-kun says that sex is the only thing that makes him feel, anymore. Something that makes him feel real and warm even if it’s just for a night, a few hours.”

“Would if I could,” Sho says, mostly to himself Jun thinks, “if I could I’d carry it all for him.”

“I know,” Aiba says with feeling, too soft, too sincere, Jun is happy it’s not directed at him – “that’s what make you you, Sho-chan. Always caring so much for us. But you can’t, not this time.”

Sho heaves a sigh that speaks of disappointment and too many burdens for a young heart, and Jun aches to his bones, heavy and weary like an oncoming illness settling in. “I’m sorry,” he says and manages a smile for Jun, and Jun really, really wishes he wouldn’t, because the hurt is even more noticeable when seen in contrast. “I hope we’ll meet again under happier circumstances.”

“Yeah,” Jun says, throat parched and lips dry, his tongue puzzling. “Yes, I hope so.”

The smile on Sho’s face weakens as he turns, and Jun only sees him in profile, is grateful and lowers his eyes, it’s too much, it’s entirely too much.

“Masaki,” Sho says in parting, stands, leaves with a tilt in his hips that speaks of weariness, and he doesn’t look back.

Aiba crumbles. Alarmed, Jun reaches for him, is startled when Aiba grips his hand right back over the counter, but he doesn’t let go even when the white-knuckled grip hurts. “It’s all so sad,” Aiba says as if it’s all that simple and really, Jun thinks.

Maybe it is.

*

Part two