Work Text:
The four of them came into the kitchen on a wave of excited conversation and laughter. Sho's forced smile was genuine soon enough because Aiba was laughing along and that wasn't something Sho could resist.
"Ah!" One girl realized that Sho and Jun were in the room and pulled up short, smiling hugely.
Sho remembered that this was A-chan but could only hope they would be introduced with full names presently.
"What's funny?" he asked, trying for geniality. Their dates were overwhelmingly put together, at least to Sho's brain. They were wearing outfits that were very different but somehow coordinated and all of them had on very high heels. Sho resolved that if one of them fell over he would definitely catch her, because other than that he didn't feel like he was up to the task of making himself personable.
"Aiba-length pants!" A-chan said excitedly. Sho blinked, not sure if that was what was funny or a new topic of conversation. Aiba looked as confused as Sho felt. At no response, A-chan went on, speaking in a decisive, high-pitched voice, "Just as we expected! It gave us a thrill to see him wearing those, that's all."
"As you expected?" Aiba asked slowly.
"What exactly did Nino tell you about us?" Sho said suspiciously.
"We're being rude, A-chan," said the one Sho only knew as Nocchi. "I'm Omoto Ayano, please call me Nocchi."
"Kashino Yuka," said the second girl, long hair swishing as she gave a shallow bow.
"Nishiwaki Ayaka, but call me A-chan. With a tilde," A-chan finished.
Jun spoke up for the first time then. "A tilde?"
"You know, a swirly thing, between the A and the chan," A-chan said firmly, twirling one finger in the air to demonstrate. Jun looked like he was going to question her further but before he could she went on, "I like things how I like them so even in your head, put in the tilde, please."
Sho tilted his head at Jun, who looked a little bit smitten with A-chan (wait, A~chan, Sho thought) and her nit-pickiness.
"A~chan, the cards," Nocchi hissed.
"Oh, I have them!" Yuka exclaimed. She dug in the pocket of her short, ruffled skirt and handed something small to Aiba, then Jun, and finally Sho.
Sho looked down at his hands to find something that looked almost like a baseball card, with a picture and name on the front. He turned it over to find a list of facts and looked up, confused.
"Nino gave us cards about each of you so we figured we'd return the favor," Yuka said, smiling sweetly.
"Nino... gave you cards about us," Jun said blankly, but Sho could hear the anger underneath.
"What kind of cards?" Sho asked quickly. Nocchi looked at him like he needed to keep up.
"Those kind of cards, Sakurai-san." She pointed to the card in Sho's hand and he looked back down at it. The picture on the front was of Nocchi and the facts on that back gave key information about her, including likes and dislikes. Sho found he was less interested in Nocchi's card than what was on his own, so he opened his mouth to ask about it.
He was cut off by A~chan, who said, "We put in our dibs based on your cards but I was promised a demonstration before we settled on final dibs."
"I think we should have some wine before you go on," Jun said.
"Oh, you do have a snake!" Aiba said to Yuka, looking down at her card.
"Why don't we go sit down?" Nocchi said.
Jun turned off the burners on the stove and led them to the living room, where the members of the group perched themselves on the pristine couches, except for Aiba, who flung himself down without regard for propriety.
"I'm Sakurai Sho," Sho said suavely.
"They got the cards, Sho-chan," Aiba whispered loudly.
"It's called manners, you dolt," Jun said repressively, before turning back to the girls. "I'm Matsumoto Jun."
"Aiba Masaki," Aiba put in, but barely got it out before he added, "Can I see my card?"
"Nino said not to show them to you... but we could read the facts!" A~chan said. "They have such cute pictures, though, it'd be a shame not to show you. Nino said Sakurai-san drew them and that we should be sure to ask him to draw something for us while we were here."
Sho smiled tightly. He was going to kill his best friend.
"He must have meant Oh-chan, not Sho-chan," Aiba said, laughing. "My roommate is an artist. Could you start with mine?"
Yuka held up a card and read aloud from the back. "Aiba-chan, pet caretaker. Natural airhead, uses lots of onomatopoeia, makes people excited, cries easily, needs a smack on the head frequently, wears 7/8-length pants."
"You chose him based on that?" Sho boggled.
"I can smack you when you need it, Aiba-san," Yuka said teasingly, and Sho watched as Aiba blushed.
"I chose Matsumoto-san," A~chan said. "Matsujun--"
"What," Jun interrupted. "No."
"Matsujun," A~chan said again. "Hot butler. Strong features, excellent cook, spews poisonous words frequently, perfectionist, passionate, dances like a mollusk. I'm not sure what that last part means."
"It means that I am going to kill Nino."
"I have dibs," Sho said.
"I chose you, Sakurai-san," Nocchi said. "Sho-kun, manager who thinks he's a mother. Smart, stupid, rapper--"
"Why."
"Interrupter," Nocchi continued, looking reprovingly at Sho. "It says that here, too. And it says you have your bellybutton pierced, is that true?"
Jun and Aiba turned curiously to Sho. "Really?" Aiba asked.
Sho hesitated, which was a mistake because it led to Aiba pouncing. He lifted Sho's shirt and exclaimed over the sparkling bellybutton ring he found adorning Sho's stomach, and suddenly the room was filled with girlish giggling and Aiba's high-pitched laugh.
"You said something about a demonstration?" Sho yelled desperately, shoving Aiba away.
"Nino suggested we choose the way we did but we thought we'd ask you to do a couple things for us, to be sure we have the right couples for this date," A~chan said.
"That was just you, A~chan," Yuka said. "I'm happy with Aiba-san." Aiba beamed at her and she beamed right back.
"I'm happy with Sakurai-san," Nocchi said quietly, and Sho smiled, inexplicably relieved. Nocchi definitely scared him the least.
Jun looked supremely disgruntled. "So I'm the only one who has to audition?"
A~chan pouted. "I just wanted to see you guys do pull-ups, that's all."
"I can make you happy without resorting to pull-ups," Jun promised brashly, then laughed, embarrassed.
"Ohhhh," A~chan said happily, hands coming up to frame her face.
"I thought you said something about wine, Jun-kun," Sho said. "Please let there be wine."
*
There had probably been too much wine. The group date couples were scattered across the room. Jun and A~chan were on one couch, heads together as they laughed about something, Jun almost as loudly as A~chan. Sho had watched them as they'd prepared the pizza earlier, the way Jun's eyes had widened when A~chan pontificated about the nutritional value of cherry tomatoes. Now A~chan was perilously close to sitting on Jun's lap.
Aiba and Yuka were dancing to no music, neck and neck as to who was the drunkest person in the room. Yuka had confessed earlier that the main reason she'd chosen Aiba was the card's listed fact that Aiba had shelves and shelves of manga, and the two of them hadn't stopped discussing their favorites ever since, though they took breaks to talk about other things, such as Yuka's snake, Aiba's monkey (in a corner near Sho when Jun was out of the room), and the real reason they were on this group date.
The last topic had been while Nocchi and Sho were nearby, though Yuka hadn't seemed to notice as she confessed to Aiba that A~chan had set up the group date so that Nocchi would have to go out and start getting over her last boyfriend. Sho had turned to Nocchi in consternation but she had shaken her head at him, lips pressed together.
Sho had taken a liking to Nocchi when they'd been eating earlier because Nocchi took every bite of food very seriously, leaning back and seeming to meditate while chewing. He couldn't be too intimidated by her after that, and then they'd started talking about all sorts of things, mostly about the industry in which they both worked, however differently.
Now they were sitting in close proximity on the bottom step of the stairs, watching their friends in varying levels of intoxication.
"I don't think A~chan is looking for more than one night," Nocchi said softly to Sho. "Will that be a problem with Matsumoto-san?"
Sho looked at Jun and wondered, saying, "I have no idea. I've never met anyone Jun-kun's dated or heard him talk about it."
"It's probably fine, though, A~chan has no doubt announced her intentions already," Nocchi said fondly. "If Matsumoto-san wasn't up for a one-night stand he would have backed off by now."
Sho was increasingly glad A~chan hadn't picked his card.
"Yuka-chan," Nocchi mused next. "I'm not sure what she's looking for."
"Music!" Yuka yelled right then, shaking her hips. "Dancing!"
"I think I know," Sho said wryly.
"Let's go dancing, Maa-kun!"
"We're dancing now," Aiba said, giving a particularly emphatic twist of his shoulders. "And I can't drive, Yuka-chan, I have the drunk--drunken... alcohol."
"What do you think, Sho-san?" Nocchi said. "Should we corral those two off together and then go, so that A~chan and Matsumoto-san can be alone?"
Sho really wanted to protest but knew he had no grounds for it. He was tipsy, though, so he said, "Shouldn't we chaperone ... at least two of them?"
"Oh Sho-san," Nocchi said, eyes kind. She took Sho's hand and held it, and he was just the right level of drunk to see it as the sympathy it was without over-thinking it.
"Fine," Sho sighed.
Yuka danced over to them, dragging Aiba, and Sho noticed again how pretty she was. It made the sour jealousy even stronger in his stomach, although he found it hard to resent someone as sweet as Yuka. She was boyish and feminine together in a very appealing way, even to Sho's biased eyes.
"We can dance here if you play some music. Or Nocchi can sing! Nocchi~ sing us a song," Yuka wheedled.
"Nocchi should walk Sho-san home," A~chan interjected from across the room. "He doesn't have the day off tomorrow like we do."
Nocchi looked at Sho, then back to A~chan, who was behind Jun and motioning frantically for them to get the hell out of there.
"Yuka-chan," Nocchi said, after looking apologetically at Sho. "You could go dance in Aiba-san's house."
"Ah!" Aiba cried, stilling their swaying and looking down at Yuka. "Do you like Morning Musume, Yuka-chan?"
"Yes," Yuka said joyfully. Within minutes they were gone, though Sho could hear them laughing dementedly as they walked to the green house.
Nocchi squeezed Sho's hand. "I'll walk you home, Sho-san," she said, and Sho sighed again.
"I'm sorry I'm such a terrible date," he said as they were crossing the driveway.
"It's all right," Nocchi said. "Yuka-chan wasn't wrong when she said that I've been saying I'm not ready to date."
"Because of your ex-boyfriend?" he asked.
"Yes and no," she said, then looked at him measuringly. "I was never all that broken up about him, Sho-san, to be honest."
"Then why...?"
She stopped walking, hand still in Sho's, and he paused, too, looking at her in the moonlight. She was silent long enough that he asked again, "Why didn't you want to come on this date then, Ayano-san?"
"Please, call me Nocchi already," she said playfully. When he didn't respond, just looked down at her seriously, she groaned. "Fine, but you can't tell anyone. I didn't want to come for the same reason you didn't: I'm already in love with someone else."
Sho choked on air, bending over and coughing as he tried to breathe. "I'm not in love," he spluttered at last.
"All right, maybe not yet," Nocchi conceded. "But I am, and I have been for a long time. And I know how hard it is to watch someone you're into being into someone else."
"What, but you hadn't met Jun-kun or Aiba-chan before this, right?" Sho said, completely lost.
"But I'd met Yuka-chan," Nocchi said, looking down at her feet. "I've known her forever. A~chan, too, but Yuka..."
"Yuka," he said, shocked.
"Come now, Sho-san," she said with her usual bluntness. "How can you be so shocked when your unrequited love is the same gender, too?"
Sho choked again. "Stop," he said, "I'm not--" I'm not ready, he thought. Even though he wasn't in love, Nocchi was hitting on more of his feelings than he felt comfortable hearing, or even considering in his own head.
She started walking again, pulling on his hand. "Don't think about it too much," she said. "It's a beautiful night and you don't have to worry about me misunderstanding this as a date."
"Nocchi," Sho said suddenly. "You're wonderful."
She smiled at him. "You could talk to us sometime, in the dressing room, Sho-san."
"I'd be happy to talk to you wherever," Sho said honestly.
"I'll give you my number," Nocchi said, sounding shyly pleased. Then she knocked her shoulder into his, smirking. "We can support each other in our fruitless affection."
"Hmph," Sho said, but he couldn't help grinning back at her. "Come inside and have a beer, lady."
*
They took their beers to the living room, where they were confronted with Nino and Ohno, plus Mayu and Hana. The two dogs were on opposite sides of the room, both sleeping, but the two people were about as close together as two people could be. Ohno was on lying on his stomach, propped up on his elbows and playing a video game, while Nino was pressed tightly to his side and leaning on his hand.
Sho was not at all surprised to see that hand was on Ohno's ass.
"Nino," he sighed. "We have a guest."
Nino turned and grinned at them. "It's just Nocchi," he said, unconcerned. "Come sit down!"
Sho motioned toward the couch, looking as apologetically at Nocchi as he could, and for a moment they watched Ohno kill aliens while Nino groped his ass. Ohno didn't seem to care that there was someone he'd never met in the room, neither pausing nor shifting to try to get Nino off of him.
"These two, too?" Nocchi asked. Sho turned wide eyes at her, worried she was going to blurt something out about Sho's ... tendency toward jealousy where Aiba was concerned.
"Hmmm?" Nino said, hand giving a sudden, vicious squeeze. Ohno died on-screen with a spurt of unhappy screams.
"Nino~" Ohno whined.
"You have to be able to concentrate no matter what," Nino said blithely. "This is bootcamp and you are failing."
Sho watched, bewildered, as Ohno started the game again while tilting his butt in Nino's direction obediently. "I don't know what is happening," he said to Nocchi. "And they won't say."
"They won't, huh," Nocchi said. The tone of her voice was strange enough that Sho ripped his gaze away from Nino's fingers flexing inexorably tighter as Ohno tried to concentrate.
Nocchi dropped down to the floor next to Nino.
"Ninomiya-san," she said sweetly. Nino gave her an exceedingly suspicious look and leaned closer to Ohno.
Nocchi only smiled and spoke in even more saccharine tones. "A~chan found a stain on one of the shirts you wore for filming yesterday. Since it wasn't made during working hours, you're going to have to pay for it."
Nino didn't move. "You lie," he said balefully.
"Why would I lie?" Nocchi said innocently. "I told A~chan we should cover for you but you know her, she's a stickler for the rules. I suppose I could try again..."
"What is it you want exactly, dearest Nocchi?" Nino asked, eyes narrowed, not even noticing that Ohno had paused the game to watch the goings-on.
"I was just wondering whether you and--I'm sorry, we haven't been introduced."
Ohno sat up, dislodging Nino's hand despite the ensuing growl. "I'm Ohno Satoshi," he said agreeably. "Nice to meet you, Nocchi."
"Likewise," she said, and Sho saw her smile become more genuine. Then she turned back to Nino and it became shark-like. "I'm sure I could convince A~chan, Ninomiya-san, if you just answer this one tiny question."
"Spit it out," Nino hissed.
Nocchi looked him right in the eye. "Are you and Ohno-san really fucking?"
Ohno snorted out a chuckle. "I like her," he said, seemingly to no one.
"Yuuji doesn't like her, Taka, whose side are you on?" Nino said, throwing an arm over Ohno's shoulders possessively.
"Does Yuuji pay the bills?" Nocchi mused aloud. "Will Taka's love make up the difference in Ninomiya's bank account?"
There was a long pause as Nino tried to make Nocchi's head explode with the power of his glare. Finally he turned and shook a finger at Sho.
"If this goes beyond the four of us, Sho-chan, I will lose ten pounds, I swear by my DS and Ohno's ass and milk buns and my mother."
Sho paled and shook his head frantically, trying to look as trustworthy as possible. Nino turned back to Nocchi and pasted a magnanimous expression on his face.
"Oh-chan and I," he said grandly, "Are bonded for life. Passionately. Inextricably. ... Heterosexually."
Sho, flabbergasted, gestured wildly at Nino's hand, which had made its way back to Ohno's butt, this time actually sliding his hand inside the pajama pants and (Sho prayed) over Ohno's underwear.
"Yuuji's love for Taka does not need to be analyzed by closed-minded individuals," Nino sniffed. "We're not fucking but our love is true." He turned to Ohno and jerked his chin, clearly asking for back-up.
Ohno thought for a second, and then two. Finally he said, sounding obstinate, "Yeah."
Nino stared down Nocchi. "So you'll talk to A~chan? About the stain?"
"Oh Nino," Nocchi said kindly. "There was no stain." She offered her beer bottle to Sho and he clinked it with his own, hoping Nino's inevitable revenge on her wouldn't spill over to Sho. He looked back at Ohno, who was giggling helplessly, and Nino, who still hadn't thought to close his mouth.
It was worth it.