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Nino’s been watching Ohno for a very long time. It started when, during Kyo to Kyo, the Juniors were all horsing around, and suddenly Nino was pinned to the ground by two arms he wasn’t used to being pinned down by, and it felt uncomfortably good and--
And then Nino began to think that Ohno was sort of beautiful.
And then that became all Nino could think of whenever the other boy was in the room.
His mother always did say that he had an obsessive personality.
But Nino doesn’t really interact with Ohno that much in Juniors, so he doesn’t really have to worry about what this strange attraction to him means, because all he has to do is hang out with Aiba-chan and MatsuJun and Toma, and he can pretend things are totally normal and he hasn’t fallen for that quiet MA boy he's only met, like, once.
And then, of all things, Nino ends up on a boat--a boat! a boat of all things!--told that he’s going to debut with Aiba, MatsuJun, Sakurai Sho and, in a horrifying twist of fate, Ohno Satoshi.
Nino fakes half of the seasickness as an excuse to get away from Ohno, but then one day when he really is seasick, Ohno leaves the group, leaves pretending that this is the best thing that’s ever happened him, and finds Nino sweaty and sticky and miserably leaning with his face over the toilet, rubs his neck and asks, “Are you alright?”
He gives up trying to pretend that he’s not in love with him.
Nino also gives up trying to not touch Ohno. He lasted two weeks--and that’s all he can take before he’s calling Ohno “Oh-chan” and leaning his head on his shoulder during interviews and sleeping curled up in Ohno’s lap.
Luckily, Ohno doesn’t seem to mind any of this, and it takes two months of conditioning before Ohno starts to lean into Nino’s touch.
And it’s not so bad, for a few years. Nino can pretend that Ohno is a phase, and he even dates and gets a girlfriend, and he loves her, but then after the break up, he doesn’t really feel broken up about it.
A drunken call from Ohno, screaming, “AISHITERU YO!” into the phone, and Nino is flushed, and jittery, and even though he knows Ohno doesn’t mean it, and won’t remember it in the morning, it’s enough to make Nino realize why the break up didn’t bother him.
It’s the first time since accepting that he’d never change his feelings towards Ohno that he feels angry about it. Angry that he put himself in this position where he’s close to Ohno but never close enough.
And so he does the only thing he thinks he can manage right now, with his feelings all jumbled like this. He calls Jun, and asks to come over and get drunk and talk, because he’s seen the way Jun’s eyes never leave Aiba’s back, how Jun makes sure to never be too close to his best friend, how Jun will sometimes snatch his hand away from Aiba’s when contact is made without thinking what it must look like.
He thinks Jun might understand him.
Jun tells him to stay away, to not get too close. To not get lulled into a false sense of security with Ohno. Nino wants to ask who hurt Jun, but he knows that will just make him close up and not tell him anything important for at least a year. For all Jun tries to be tough, he’s the most sensitive of them all.
This works for all of one week--all of one very trying week, because Jun has been watching Nino whenever he’s with Ohno, studying the two of them, and Nino isn’t sure what Jun is trying to do.
Until one day after practice, Jun tells him, “You might have a chance.”
The night before Nino leaves for Hollywood, Ohno is over at his house, and they’re playing one of the new video games Nino bought to keep him busy in LA.
Nino suddenly beats Ohno spectacularly, and he looks over to see that Ohno has dropped the remote and is staring at the screen, his expression blanker than usual.
“Oh-chan?”
Ohno slowly turns to face him, and Nino’s not sure what he sees there--well, actually, he thinks he might know what he sees, but Ohno is also slightly drunk and Ohno’s emotions always seem to change when he’s had alcohol.
“We’ll be best friends forever, right?” and Nino can see that the words sound childish even to Ohno’s ears, because as soon as Ohno says them, he looks embarrassed, and starts fiddling with the rug, the controller, anything to pretend he didn’t just say that.
Nino smirks. “Yeah,” he says, and even though it goes against his principles of keeping away from Ohno, from not touching too much or wishing for too much or wanting too much, he grabs his hand and squeezes.
They sleep in the same bed that night, for the first time in years.
When Nino returns, he heads over to Ohno’s house first. Not because he is desperate to see Ohno’s face or anything--he actually isn’t desperate to see Ohno’s face, which is actually pretty rare for Nino--but instead because Ohno had made him promise, two nights ago on the phone.
They’re sitting and sipping sake--not enough to get drunk, just enough to sit and talk, and Ohno says, “I missed you.”
Nino smirks, like he always days, that sardonic smile, and says, “I missed you too. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“No, I mean,” Ohno says, and licks his lips like he’s nervous.
Nino realizes Ohno really is nervous, and he’s surprised, because nervous is an expression Nino hasn’t seen on Ohno’s face very often.
“No, I mean,” he repeats, “I talked to the others and I realized I really missed you.”
Nino is just about to ask how really missing someone and just missing someone are all that different, and why he felt the need to talk to anyone about it--Nino’s slightly jealous, because Ohno has always talked to him about everything and then--
Ohno kisses him, sloppily--suddenly Nino realizes there are more empty sake bottles than there should be, and he thinks Ohno probably got a head start before Nino showed up at the door--and that’s when he realizes what the difference is.
“Oh,” he says, and stares at Ohno, who currently looks like he wants to crawl under a rock and die, despite the liquid courage. “Oh. I really missed you too, you know.”
(“You’ve been in love with me since Juniors? Why didn’t you ever answer any of my confessions?”
“You were drunk out of your mind! How was I supposed to know you were serious, dumbass?”)