[Arashi] [Sakumiya] Her Silver Lining
Jun. 1st, 2014 06:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radhajDisclaimer: Those people are not mine. Damn.
Warnings: Transgender character. Sexy stuffs later on. Nothing super kinky this time. Maybe
Summary: The job might not be the most prestigious and by far not something she had envisioned herself doing to support herself at this point of her life. But perhaps this whole thing was exactly what she needed to finally feel confident in who she was.
Chapter 7
When they returned to sit at the bar, there was someone new sitting on a stool that had previously been free next to theirs, but Aiba was immediately sliding to their side and only paid attention to them, with a teasing grin and an exaggerated whistle that showed he had seen all too well what had happened to have them both, still, glowing in flustered happiness.
“Heeey,” he started, obviously about to say something that would embarrass both of them immensely, but as always, Ninomiya was one step ahead.
“Another beer please, Master,” he ordered pointedly, reminding the man on the other side of his previous comment about wanting to be left alone on a date, and the other man pouted but got the hint.
“Ayy,” he said in an affirmative, sliding right back the way he had come from. Shouko couldn't help but giggle into her hand softly, finding this both a little mean and adorable at the same time. At least Aiba seemed to be taking it all in good spirits. Although honestly, she had a hard time even imagining the cheerful bartender getting upset or taking anything to heart.
She was startled from her calm musings when Ninomiya suddenly let out a really long sigh beside her. When she turned to look at him to find out what was the matter, he was glaring at the handsome newcomer that was sitting on the other side of her.
“Was it a mistake for me to think that it was possible to have a date in this place without getting constantly interrupted?” Ninomiya asked, his voice sounding almost rhetorical and not really directed at anyone. But the stranger's dark eyebrow twitched, betraying the fact that he was the intended target of the words, “We don't need a chaperone, J. Why are you even here?”
The unknown to her (but apparently very familiar to her date) man lifted his own glass of beer to his lips and took a slow sip before he answered.
“I don't see why I should explain my presence in my own establishment,” he said in a rather dismissive tone and Shouko frowned. Own establishment? But wasn't Aiba?... “Besides, I was just sitting here silently, so you can't really accuse me of interfering.”
Ninomiya snorted.
“Right,” he drew out sarcastically, but fortunately, Aiba chose that moment to reappear with the beer.
“See, Jun-kun, isn't Shouko-chan cute? Nino-chan really got himself a beauty this time,” he cooed making the girl blush, but then “Jun-kun” turned to look at her fully, prompted by the words, and she found herself backing away closer to her date. The unknown man had a really intense gaze. And very dark eyebrows. She felt a little... intimidated. But after half a second of observing, the man's features softened and he smiled, extending his hand towards her.
“Matsumoto Jun,” he introduced himself, “The owner of this place.”
A little confused, she reached out to shake his hand but the moment it was close enough, the man grasped it and gallantly brought it to his lips instead, kissing it. She blushed even darker.
“S-Sakurai Shouko,” she stuttered, while Ninomiya snorted beside her again.
“Here he goes again, pretending to be all smooth,” he muttered under his breath, but loud enough for all of them to hear. And was it just her or did he sound... jealous? Her cheeks burning, she gently extracted her hand and put it into her lap, away from the stranger's soft hold.
“Owner? I thought Aiba-san....” she started, but the bartender, who was still standing close-by, hurried to interrupt.
“Oh, no no, I'm just a lowly barkeeper,” he explained, gesturing emphatically. She blinked. Ninomiya had said the bar belonged to a friend so when he had introduced Aiba she had assumed... Well, but maybe this Jun was a friend as well, despite the fact that their relationship seemed a little hostile at the moment. Then again, Ninomiya didn't treat Aiba all that much better either, if in a different way.
She didn't know how she felt about that. He was more than nice to her but...
What was she thinking? It was none of her business anyway. Just because she had been going out with him for a week or so, didn't give her a right to frown upon the way he had built up his relationships with his friends. Obviously, there was more to it than met the eye.
“Jun-chan is the one that owns it and was nice enough to hire me,” the bartender was still talking in the meantime and, from her position pressed against Ninomiya who was casually drinking his beer, she had a great view of how Jun's eyebrow twitched again.
“That's Matsumoto-san to you, employee!” he chided, not too seriously, just less than amused by the way he had been addressed. But Aiba ignored him and instead leaned in closer to Shouko conspiratorially.
“Don't pay any mind to Jun-kun,” he whispered into her ear, “He's just grumpy because he had hoped that Nino would have Ohno-kun with him tonight.”
“Ohno-kun?” She repeated, looking from Aiba to Matsumoto (who was now glaring) and back again. Another unfamiliar name and she was already having a slight problem keeping up.
“Nino's best friend,” Aiba supplied her cheerfully, “They're really close so Nino-chan brings him here together with him sometimes, and Jun-kun here has been trying real hard to get him interested... Ah, I say they're close but not in that way, there's no need to be jealous or anything...”
As he seemed to likely do often, Aiba was quickly getting flustered and started tripping over his own words and she tried to smile to reassure him that it was okay, but her brain was rather busy trying to process the information she had just been given. So... Matsumoto was trying to get Nino's best friend, who was obviously a guy, to date him? And Aiba also apparently thought it was imperative to reassure her that there wasn't anything more than friendship going on between this Ohno and her date...
“If you're quite finished talking about every single friend I have, could you get me another beer?” Ninomiya was still not enjoying any of it apparently and she could admit that this date was turning out even weirder than their first one, which said a lot. But she couldn't say she wasn't enjoying it. Still, to appease his mood, she turned to him again and shyly hugged herself to his arm a little while Aiba left them for the moment and Matsumoto seemed to focus his attention elsewhere.
“It's okay, it's nice to hear about your friends,” she whispered to him softly and timidly, “As you said earlier, we don't know that much about each other's lives...”
He looked at her then, looking insecure. It seemed like the unexpected turn of events was upsetting him more than she had thought.
“I just wanted you to really have a nice date with me this time. I'm not used to having this much trouble with achieving that,” he said in a low enough voice that she was the only one to hear, and suddenly she understood. After the last date had turned out a little... strange, he probably really tried to come up with something where things couldn't go wrong. Because it was that important for him to make up to her for last time. She felt really touched and smiled, shifting so she could lay her head down on his shoulder while still clinging to his elbow.
“But I'm having a really nice time?” she said, meaning it from her heart, “Your friends are nice and just because they join in a little, it doesn't mean we're not having a lovely date. After all,” she grinned a little cheekily then, “We already proved last time that things don't need to go strictly as planned for us to have a lot of fun,” she pointed out and that got her a small, grudging chuckle from him. Shouko rewarded him with a peck on his cheek. He glowed with happiness at that.
“You're too nice to someone who keeps screwing things up,” he muttered, looking at her fondly and she shook her head.
“You haven't screwed up anything,” she reassured him and leaned in to kiss him on the lips, for once feeling brave enough to initiate something. But unfortunately, Aiba chose that moment to return with the beer. Nino actually groaned as this caused her to back away immediately, but the bartender just looked at him cluelessly.
“Am I sorry again?” he asked, but Nino's only answer was a weird, guttural exclamation and waving of hands that had a meaning too mystical to comprehend, amusing the barkeeper to no end and causing a bit of a commotion in the bar as a few people turned to look.
But Shouko found herself looking at her date's third beer, a little troubled. She knew she should have expected it, but as it was, she had sort of hoped to be driven back home by him. Which meant that she didn't make a back-up plan. She could maybe walk. It had been a short drive after all. But it would be so late by the time they left... And taxis were so expensive...
“Don't worry, Shouko-chan,” Aiba's soft voice suddenly pierced through the commotion and interrupted her thoughts as, for once, the bartender was the most observant of them and noticed how subdued she suddenly became even as her date was causing comical ruckus, “I always drive him back home on nights like this, and I'll take you too this time. It's no problem,” he explained to her nicely and she immediately felt relief. But this seemed to bring Matsumoto's attention back to them as well.
“Yes, you see, while Ninomiya here pretends he's all above living off his parent's riches and acting like a spoiled brat, he does, in fact, still naturally expect people to do things for him,” he mocked, and although it was supposed to just be a joke, Shouko felt her date, who was back to sitting normally by then, tense up, “Or maybe that's just how his character is in general.”
Aiba intervened immediately this time, going up another notch in her opinion of his ability to read the mood.
“There now, I was the one to offer it in the first place since I can't drink on the job anyway,” he said hurriedly, throwing Matsumoto a rather ugly look, “Let's not look down on all the work Nino has done to get to this point. Who knows if we would have bothered to do the same in his place.”
That caused her to look at Nino questioningly which pretty much ended up acting as a cue for them to give up on having a private date and just start talking. Which was, all things considered, about time.
'All that work' (it turned out through some careful probing, a rather uncharacteristically shy Nino and some help from both Matsumoto and Aiba) encompassed getting good enough with his hobby of playing music that he was able to turn that into a source of income. When he had written her a song, she had thought it was amazing of course, but she wouldn't have guessed just how serious he was about it from his attitude.
Composing songs, swallowing his pride, banging on the doors of music agencies and praying, begging to be noticed. All of that started before he was even sixteen, apparently, and still had to cope with his parents getting in his way every opportunity they had. It was a testament for how difficult that had been for him that Nino kept on requesting more alcohol as the story spun on. But he was lucky – which was just a simpler word for “incredibly talented and hardworking” – enough that it had worked out for him in the end. He did get noticed and by now had quite the reputation in the industry, writing songs for some big name artists.
This was, apparently, what he was doing every day, morning till night, except for Wednesdays, somewhere in a private studio of his. Wednesdays, however, were supposed to be his free day of choice which he usually spent with the aforementioned Ohno-kun, playing video games in his home which was, seemingly, the mansion right next to the Ninomiya family one.
Pieces of information kept turning up. Ohno was an artist of his own, but more a painter than a musician, and the three men shared a multitude of anecdotes about the man, all of which left a rather interesting image of the man in Shouko's head.
Matsumoto (who soon turned into Matsujun even in her own head), turned out to be an old classmate of Nino's. The man's family was quite well off too, but of course nowhere near the level of the Ninomiyas. Whenever Aiba found some time in-between the customers to return to their side, conversation invariably turned direction towards one of his many pets. Matsujun, although fully able to live off the profits from his club, preferred to let out his own artistic whims through a lens of a camera and had his own studio as well, just upstairs. Ohno-kun was suspiciously bad at Mario Kart although he played it a lot. Nino knew Aiba for the longest, meeting him on accident when he stopped to watch some kids play baseball in a park, and the lanky man ended up coming along with him into every other significant friendship that Nino made. Ohno has actually painted a portrait of Matsujun, although he refused to do the same for any of the other friends, and that apparently made the club owner rather hopeful that his feelings were not entirely one-sided.
Shouko found herself listening with a lot of interest and laughing more than she had in months, the stories that the three friends told her amusing and at the same time telling her so much about the man that had made her believe a relationship was possible for her for the first time in her life. He was far from perfect, of course. He was snarky and had far too much fun mocking his friends, he acted overly confident and egocentric and tended to blame every single mistake that he made on Aiba, no matter how ridiculous it got. But he was also the most caring and the most hardworking person she had ever met.
She of course noticed that whenever the conversation seemed to start straying her way, Nino always intervened and distracted everyone by talking about something else again (usually about his prowess in one video game or another). She was thankful for that. There was little of her life that she could talk about without her “big secret” getting revealed. Besides, none of her stories would be fun to hear during this light-hearted date/evening with friends. And although she very quickly became fond of both Aiba's clumsiness and Matsujun's sweetness that hid under a deceptively fierce exterior, she wasn't sure she wanted to be that open with them yet.
Of course maybe it didn't matter. Matsujun's scrutinizing gaze seemed to hold the same sort of perceptiveness that Nino's had, and the young Ninomiya had seen through her immediately. She knew not to underestimate any of his friends' skills of observation either. But it didn't matter. Even if he knew, he was waiting for her to be ready to acknowledge it.
The evening flew by. Sure, it was far from a romantic, private occasion with a lot of dancing that they thought it would be, but it was still amazing nonetheless. When Shouko left the club into the cool, night city air, her cheeks were flushed in happiness. Holding onto her more than tipsy date's hand, she got into the back of his car and waited for Aiba to wrap up his shift and come out to drive them. The moment they got comfortable, Nino opened his mouth to speak and she put a finger against his lips to silence him.
“It was amazing,” she said, “You have nothing to apologize for. Your friends are wonderful and I feel like I know you much better after this than I would have had we spent the night dancing. Not... that I would have minded that either, but it can wait until the next time.”
“Next time?” he asked, clearly amused, and she blushed as she realized that she was the one just assuming there would be one this time, “I still have to learn about you though,” he pointed out, “That's a little unfair.”
She averted her eyes.
“That can wait for the next time too?” she asked, hopefully, and he immediately softened as he realized how unsure she still seemed.
“That can wait as long as you need,” he agreed. She lifted her head and smiled, thankful for his understanding once more and for a while they just sat there, in the darkness, looking into each other's eyes, until suddenly they were moving closer to each other again.
The feeling of his lips against hers was still a novel feeling for her, just as his tongue in her mouth, exploring, stroking, taking and giving. She let him carry her away again, even though the feeling of his hands, daringly, sliding lower down her body until they rested just over her ass was a little distracting. But it was also in a good way. She wrapped her arms behind his neck, finding her whole body moving more into the kiss as she slowly got the hang of it and...
The front door of the car suddenly opened, causing them to startle apart, and Aiba fell gracelessly into the driver's seat, oblivious, yet again, to what he was interrupting.
“Hey, I-”
“Goddamn it!” Nino swore, losing patience and although she didn't approve of the profanities, she had to inwardly agree with the sentiment. Aiba turned backwards to look at them, confused.
“Am I sorry again?”
Notes: IreallyhatethischapterandIthinkitsucks but hopefully that's just me and you guys will enjoy it. Thank you for all the support! <3
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no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 05:51 pm (UTC)Please don't hate this chapter because I love it so much. This chapter put a smile on my face when I read it.
I am always curious about Nino's life and thanks to this chapter I get to know more about him ^_^ I can't wait to find out more about Shouko's life.
I love Nino more and more. I also like their friendship .
Thanks for sharing! I can't wait for the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:45 pm (UTC)Aww, well then, that is all that matters to me <3
Yes, this was the first little glance at Nino's life that we got, and Shouko's turn is coming soon too. Both their lives have quite a few interesting details to them if I do say so myself :)
Thank you for the comment!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-01 09:14 pm (UTC)I had lots of fun seeing Nino struggling with hits friends... They're just so adorable together!!!
No wonder Sho feels that happy beside him... He has just this caring aura, right?
Sweet!!!
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 12:10 am (UTC)And boy, does Aiba have a sixth sense to know exactly when to interrupt? xDDDDDDDD That was funny :P Poor Nino ahahahahaha Hope he'll finally have some alone time with Shouko soon *wink*
Thanks for writing this :D
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:47 pm (UTC)Aiba really was on a roll this time, hopefully he's not gonna make a habit or that, or I fear for his safety what with Nino's temper xDD
Thank you for the comment :)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 02:04 am (UTC)1 thing i can say bout this chap...i love aibaXD
He does know when to interrupt doesn he :P
And nino is cute...getting embarrased and frustrated
by his own friends in front of his date:D
Shoko is getting bolderXD Go Shoko-chan~~
Cant wait for the next one~
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:50 pm (UTC)Aiba is a big dork and had the worst of luck this time xD
Yes, Shouko is slowwwwwwwwwwwwwwly getting some confidence. It does help when you're surrounded by such nice people, right?
See you next week then! xDDD Thank you for the comment <3
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 06:32 am (UTC)It might be a little hard and embarrassing for Nino hearing his friends talk about him in front of his date but for me it's really sweet hahaaha I don't know why..maybe because I know that Aiba and Jun wouldn't spill something stupid or defamatory about Nino....I just hope Shokou-chan would open up to Nino's friends and I'm quite sure that Aiba and Jun wouldn't mind her "secret" providing that Jun likes Ohno (ooohhhhh Juntoshi is <3)
Aiba and Jun's presence really made their date more meaningful (of course the kiss is always the highlight wwaaaaahhhhh)....
I love Aiba very much but let me spank him for his adorable innocence! hahahahaah his always in a bad timing...Shokou-chan became bolder here but yeahhhh,,,interrupted tsk tsk tsk.....
well,just like what she said, there will be a next time! oh yeah! and it will be ehemmmm ***coughs...
Thank you very much for this beautiful update!!!! mwaaaahhhh :D
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 06:33 am (UTC)*gives you Masaki flowers and Masaki ice cream.... :)
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:55 pm (UTC)I think it could only be called half-date, but it was surely a lot of fun and brought Shouko and Nino closer together as much if nor more as a very romantic date would have.
I think Nino, in spite of his loud mouth and very self-confident attitude, doesn't deal that well with praise. And people talking about all the stuff he managed to do to get where he was is indeed high praise. That was mostly why he was reluctant about it, but I think he is secretly very happy at the same time, to be acknowledged like that by the people most precious to him.
Oh yes, Aiba was the involuntary star of the chapter, but not in that good of a way xD And there will be better opportunities for Shouko and Nino indeed.
<3 <3 <3
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 05:08 pm (UTC)Thanks so much for this chapter, I really like it! It's so cute, the kisses between Nino and Shouko... aaaaah ♥... and it's interesting to get to know more about Nino and his friends ^^ I loooove Aiba! He's so awesome XD So adorkable! Oho seems to be interesting as well =3 Of course he has to be a painter, right? ^^ I'm curious, if we will get to know him as well with the progress of the story =3
I'm already looking forward to the next chapter! Sorry for my short comment, I'm so tired right now =___=
PS: I wish you a Happy Happy Birthday! ♥
no subject
Date: 2014-06-02 07:58 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for your wonderful comment. And yes, we'll get opportunities to learn more about all of them, I'm pretty sure. Jun in particular will probably have quite the role in the Nino/Shouko story even if he didn't yet seem too important. And who knows, maybe Ohno is appearing sooner than aanyone would think :)
It is absolutely fine, your thoughtful comments are precious no matter the length <3 Rest up well :*
Thank you 3:
no subject
Date: 2014-06-08 10:49 am (UTC)Uh I'm really getting curious about the other characters as well now =3 Looking forward to the next chapters! ^^
no subject
Date: 2014-06-04 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-06-04 10:31 pm (UTC)Hopefully Shouko will be able to understand it right :) Thank you again!