Work Text:
Sho had a solitary breakfast of burnt toast the next morning, barely getting Nino out of bed in time to get to the set. He had a solitary lunch in his office and worked through it, reading through proposed schedules as he worked through a convenience store bento of questionable freshness. When he picked Nino up from the set at nine o'clock he was looking forward to a real meal, real in terms of food and also companionship.
It came as a real blow to walk into the kitchen and find no busily cooking Jun. To walk into the dining room and find that Jun had left dinner there under plastic covers, with a note to eat without him, was even more disheartening. The last straw was provided by Nino, who took one look at the food and told Sho he was too tired to eat and promptly left the room. He even went to his actual bedroom instead of the living room and Sho heard the door close with a click that sounded like it echoed in the empty-feeling house.
Sho stared at the food, stomach grumbling.
It was the work of a few seconds to get his phone out and send a mail to Aiba, asking whether he and Ohno wanted to come eat dinner in the blue house.
Aiba didn't answer but within five minutes he and Ohno were moseying through the door of the blue house and to the dining room to eat with Sho. Mayu-chan came inside with them and headed straight for her food dish in the kitchen, tail wagging in a hungry fervor. Sho definitely thought she was bigger than when he'd found her.
"Man, I didn't know our rent covered meals, too," Aiba said, twinkling at Sho. "If we're going to eat here this often I should stop buying groceries."
Ohno ignored him, sitting down and mumbling a quick "itadakimasu" before pulling off a lid with each hand.
Sho decided to ignore Aiba as well and sat down next to Ohno, feeling a kinship with the guy who so clearly gave food the respect it deserved.
"Where's Nino?" Aiba asked, unfazed at being dismissed in favor of Jun's cooking. He sat down on the other side of Sho and started poking through the dishes Jun had left to see what was available, giving a loud cry of excitement at what he found in one of them.
"His bedroom," Sho answered, feeling like he was relaxing for the first time that day. Being a workaholic was second nature to him but it only really worked if he had some downtime with friends and good food, otherwise he got seriously cranky and sometimes stopped eating altogether.
"His actual bedroom?" Ohno said, surprised.
"He talks!" Sho teased. "Yes, his actual bedroom. He hasn't even lost a game or anything so I don't know why he's retreated."
Ohno gave a distracted "Hmm," expressive brows pulled tightly together in a display of concern. Aiba looked from Ohno to Sho and back again, clearly confused.
"Is it so awful that he's in his bedroom?" he wondered aloud. "Obviously he's crazy for missing fried chicken but he does work like a million hours a day, he must daydream about sleeping for a lot of it."
"I promised him I would worry less," Sho said, not really to either of the others. He shook out his shoulders, trying to release his worry, and smiled at Aiba.
"What did you two do today?" he asked, directing his question to the one not currently wolfing down rice at an alarming pace.
"Well," Aiba started, tension starting to go up immediately, "Oh-chan is putting together a submission for some weird art competition where you take molds of faces and make them into sculptures. So I left him here and went to play with Yuki-chan and Seiji-kun and Tsukimi-chan and Aki-chan and WanWan and Georgy."
Sho paused. "All together?" he ventured.
"No, those are my Sunday appointments! Well, those were my appointments this Sunday at least, as booked by my trusty receptionist."
Ohno inclined his head majestically before returning his attention to his bowl.
"Everything went well except WanWan got excited and peed on my favorite pair of cutoff jeans and I had to figure out how to use the washer in the green house and got bubbles everywhere but don't tell Matsujun, okay, because I'll fix it," Aiba said, speeding up as he went along and forgetting to breathe.
"Maybe Jun-kun should fix it," Sho said diplomatically.
Aiba shook his head at Sho. "Just pretend I didn't tell you, okay?" he said, leaning close and grinning.
"Date!" Sho squawked, confronted with sparkling eyes and conspiratorial smile and Aiba, who smelled like cut grass and fried chicken and maybe, if Sho was honest with himself, a little bit like dog pee.
Aiba blinked at Sho, still far too close for Sho's peace of mind. For a long second the only sound in the room was Ohno murmuring to himself about how tasty the food was.
"The group date," Sho clarified hastily. "Tomorrow? Don't forget," he finished lamely.
Aiba sat back in his seat and threw back his head in a laugh. "Right!" he said, amused. "The group date. Tell me about our dates, Sho-kun."
"Uhhh," Sho said, pondering. "They're staff for Nino's drama. And they're pretty."
"And?" Aiba prompted.
"I haven't talked to them much," Sho admitted. "I think they're in their early twenties, but they seem older because they're really good at their jobs. They wear a lot of bright colors... one wears really short skirts and another wears shorts a lot... the third one has dimples and laughs a lot, but they all laugh a lot."
"Sho-kun," Aiba said gravely. "What are their names?"
"I only know what they call each other," Sho said, shame-faced.
"All right. The one with the dimples is called?"
"I've only ever heard them call her A-chan," Sho answered.
"And the one with the short skirts?" Aiba said patiently.
"Yuka-chan," Sho said, focusing and trying to picture the woman in question. "She smiles kind of like you do, Aiba-chan," he mused, not really thinking about what he was saying. Ohno snorted out a chuckle on his other side.
"And the lady who wears shorts, her name?" Aiba laughed.
"Nocchi," Sho said. "Oh, but they dress really nicely," he added, "I'm not describing them well but it makes sense that they're in charge of making other people look good."
"Final question, Sho-kun... dibs?"
"Dibs?" Sho repeated blankly.
"Are there any in place yet or are we going to fly by the seat of our pants," Aiba returned.
Sho tried to think through which staff he'd rather call dibs on, given the chance. "Yuka-chan has the prettiest hair but I think I heard her say she has a pet snake--"
"DIBS," Aiba yelped, excited. "Dibs dibs dibs!"
"I want dibs on the one with dimples," Ohno said, startling Sho out of his bemused stare at Aiba.
"Oh-chan, you don't get to call dibs," Nino said from behind them. He sat down at the head of the table and scratched his head sleepily, looking like a little kid in his well-worn yellow pajamas. "You have to be going to a group date to get to call dibs."
"Dibs on the one with the mole on his chin," Ohno countered.
Nino laughed, looking a little less tired. "Dibs accepted."
"Nino," Sho began, then thought better of his original question, which was distinctly worried in tone and content. He tried to think of a new topic and said instead, "You know more about your staff, Aiba-chan wants to hear about our dates for tomorrow."
"Nino, have some fried chicken!" Aiba interrupted. Nino smiled at him and nodded, letting Aiba fill his plate with lots of delicious food as Sho watched, wishing he could learn that trick.
"Aiba-chan, here is what you need to know about them. They are out of your league, all three of them. They're even out of Jun-kun's league, and none of us can pretend to be in his."
"The way he can cook," Ohno put in blissfully.
"Yes. And his strong facial features, and how he can make a girl all trembly just by snapping at her."
"Just girls?" Aiba said slyly.
"So, they're way better than you all deserve," Nino said, pretending not to hear Aiba. "Yuka-chan, who conveniently has dibs on you, Aiba-chan, has legs up to Oh-chan's shoulders and loves scary movies that would make Sho-chan cry."
"Wait, they have dibs already?" Sho broke in. "They haven't even met two of us!"
"I facilitated everything," Nino said mysteriously. "On to A-chan, who has dibs on Jun-kun. A-chan will confuse the hell out of Jun-kun, and I wish I could get a camera into his house to record it."
"That's not really a description," Sho said.
"And then Nocchi, who has the poor taste to have dibs on you, Sho-chan, even though you keep interrupting me. Nocchi has short hair and big eyes and is nearly as smart as Sho-chan," Nino said, directing the last part to Aiba.
Sho thought that over. "Did you just compliment me?" he asked, bewildered.
"No," Nino said. "Eat your food and shut up."
When Nino had finished perhaps a third of the food on his plate he stood back up.
"Shall we go, Taka?" he asked, holding his hand out to Ohno.
"I don't have any pajamas, Yuuji," Ohno said, taking Nino's hand.
"Oh Taka, you don't need any pajamas, I will clothe you with my love," Nino said smarmily. He reached his other hand and grabbed a firm handful of Ohno's butt, grinning at the others. "I'll keep this one tonight, Aiba-chan."
They headed back to the hall, hands clasped tightly together. Nino paused at the door and turned back to Aiba.
"You can keep that one, if you want to exchange," he said, and Nino and Ohno disappeared down the hall.
Sho gawped at Aiba, feeling like a piece of meat bought at the market. Aiba patted his hand.
"If only keeping you wouldn't break the time-honored rule of dibs," he said, lacing his voice with melodramatic regret. "I would have taken you back to my house and ravished you."
Sho startled, knocking one hand hard into the table and nearly launching his bowl into the air with the other. Then he looked away, blushing, mind rejecting Aiba's teasing in favor of something less personal to which he could change the subject immediately.
"Aiba-chan, do you really think they're ravishing each other?" he asked, pretending he hadn't just embarrassingly given himself a bruise he'd be sporting for days.
Aiba abandoned his cheesy leer and shrugged. "Hard to tell, Oh-chan is cagey about stuff like that. If he's ravishing Nino then he goes both ways, because he's had girlfriends before and not all of them were fish."
"He can't be any cagier than Nino," Sho muttered.
Aiba tilted toward Sho, gesturing excitedly. "How are we going to find out? I think we should devise an experiment."
"What sort of experiment tells you if two people are banging?"
"An awesome one," Aiba declared. "I'll start planning it immediately."
He stood and waved cheerily to Sho. "See you tomorrow, Sho-kun! I'll be at the yellow house at seven."
Aiba left and Sho found himself alone again, this time with a table full of used dishes. He decided he needed to take his mind off things and went to the kitchen, grabbing a pad of paper from next to the phone.
"All right," he said to himself, putting pencil to paper. "Conversational topics for successful group dating."