[Fic] I Love You, Stranger

[nilielh]

Title : I Love You, Stranger 6
Rating : PG
Pairing : Ohno/Nino
Disclaimer : fiction, yo!
Summary : Losing the love of his life to an accident 2 years prior, Nino decided it was high time he moved on; but things had its major turn around when at the same day he finally found the strength to let go, a man who looked exactly like Ohno appeared out of nowhere.

“Name is Matsuda Hiro, thirty one years old; born in Hiroshima but his family moved to Okinawa the year after he turned five. He has an older brother and sister, both married and both are now staying in Tokyo with their families while his parents still live in Okinawa and according to my contact, they are running a ramen shop business.” Jun read the report out loud, not missing a beat and raised his face when Sho cleared his throat noisily.

“So his name isn’t Ohno Satoshi? Why am I not even surprised?” Sho muttered in a mocking tone while trying to keep a straight face.

Jun chuckled and shifted his gaze onto Aiba, who was  obviously keeping his thoughts to himself. “See, this is what I’ve been worried about and I’ve already warned you both about this. Are you waiting for me to say ‘I told you so’ because I will.” Sho added with a grimace and Jun had to literally remind himself that this was their group’s very own mother and that the older man’s reaction was as natural as his instinct for mothering, stopping himself before he could even think of throwing his phone right at Sho’s face.

“I never pegged you to be such a pessimist, Sho-san, seriously. Will you shut up for a second and let me finish first?” Jun grumbled, rolling his eyes and lifting his phone, squinting as his fingers moved and scrolled down the contents of his contact’s mail.

Sho promptly ignored him. “My contact said he did, however, tried his very best to look more into this guy, to look for every single details he could dig about this Hiro, from the time his family left for Okinawa until he settled here permanently, but there is just something he couldn’t exactly understand.” Jun paused, reading the mail again and furrowing his brows as he did so.

“What? What is it?” Sho asked impatiently from his place in the corner while Jun was silently mumbling something to himself, his phone just a few inches away from his face.  When he was done, he he looked up, and shook his head at Sho and Aiba.

“Nothing," Jun said, frowning. "I... the private investigator said that it would be better if we meet with him tonight so he can show us the printed documents along with the reports he is telling me about.”

Sho looked entirely disappointed and Jun couldn’t really blame him, simply because it was the same for him, only he was trying to be subtle about it. He knew that though they never say it out loud, they were expecting something more than what his contact had sent him; but what exactly they were expecting, that he didn’t have the slightest idea.

Honestly, the report should have been enough to put this madness to rest but Jun couldn’t exactly pinpoint why a part of him just wouldn’t accept the validity of the details he’d read just moments ago. Plus, there was something in the way his contact phrased his words that actually left him confused, as if there was something really important the man purposely omitted but still made it a point to actually dropped a little hint somewhere in between, if only to make him feel more confused than he already was.

“Can’t he, I don’t know,  just send us copies of those documents so we can see them now?” Sho asked again, now pacing the floor agitatedly; Jun wondered idly what would be Nino’s reaction if ever the slighter man was with them this time or if he was even going to allow this, knowing that they were actually the ones who came up with the idea of accepting Ohno’s death and forcing Nino to do exactly that.

Quite frankly, Jun didn’t know how he could make things easier, especially now that even he himself didn’t know where he stood; as he was torn between wanting to believe in something he deemed impossible and wanting to just turn around and forcing himself to believe the fact that what they were trying to uncover was nothing but mere foolishness.

The thing was, Jun knew himself enough for him to keep moving forward, because as much as he hated losing, he also hated not being able to put his mind to rest. And to put it simply, this was just one of those rare times he actually chastised himself for being the control freak he’s always been teased about.

Jun returned his gaze onto Sho and shook his head. “I already asked him that but he said no; he said the papers are important and we won’t probably understand most of it without the reports he was talking about. Also, he said this particular case is a little complicated and that he wants to talk with us personally for him to be able to point out the details he wasn’t able to include in the mail.”

“This is getting ridiculous every damn minute,” Sho muttered, “And I don’t know why it suddenly feels like we’re missing something… like, I don’t know, I can’t even describe it. Damn, am I even making sense?” he said, mostly to himself and Jun couldn’t help but nod his head in agreement.

“I know what you mean, Sho-san” he said, “There’s something so familiar about that stranger and I’m sure that’s the reason why you’re feeling that way now. I felt it, too, and I know it sounds creepy but~”

“That Hiro guy and leader is the same person,” Aiba muttered for the first time, startling Sho and Jun out of their wits as Aiba straightened up and stared straight into their eyes.

“I'm sure of it. We need to go and meet this guy and see it for ourselves. I think it’s better if we call Nino-chan and-” he stopped mid-way when Jun’s phone blared to life the second time that day with Jun almost dropping the device down the floor in surprise.

“Is it your contact again?” Sho asked, anticipation evident in his voice.

Jun shook his head and flipped his phone open, pressed the received key and slapped the phone against his left ear.

“Kazu, you okay? Do you want me to pick you up now? No, we’re not; we were just about to buy dinner, you requested hamburger steak and - what?! No, we're still here, what are you talking about? Where are you? Hey, slow down, slow down -" he said, then promptly shut his mouth when Nino all but screamed on the other line. "Shit. Holy fucking shit. Okay, okay, fuck. We’ll be there in ten minutes, stay put and don’t do anything stupid. No, Nino, stay there and we’re coming to get you. Bye.”

“What happened?” Aiba and Sho asked at the same time as Jun grabbed the keys from the bed and went straight to the door, the other two following closely. For a moment there, Sho thought there was nothing that may ever surprise him, not after everything and especially not after knowing about the existence of a certain someone who’s probably a dead ringer of their precious leader, but then it all changed when Jun turned, stopping for a while just to say,

“Nino said he found Leader and he’s with him right now.”

“What?!” Sho and Aiba hissed simultaneously.

“Guess this takes the whole ‘how the fuck are we supposed to tell Nino’ out of the equation, right?” Jun muttered under his breath and turned around again, doubling his steps with his heart beating hard against his chest.


++

He spent the next few minutes following the man around with keen eyes, every single movement the man made struck one more nerve deep inside him and the familiarity of those movements were making him dizzy but he couldn’t find the courage to actually ask the man again in fear of further making a fool out of himself. The man on the other hand seemed to give up fully, right after the first three tries of discreetly shoving him away and Nino was glad, at the very least, to be allowed the little pleasure (or torture?) of observing the man despite that throbbing pain in his chest.

A crooked smiled made its way to his lips and he winced, his left hand moving absently to trace the corners of his mouth while he caught a glimpse of the man staring at him intently on the other side of the room. Nino wanted to look away, down or just shift his gaze somewhere, anywhere, except the man’s eyes because he could feel his knees weakening and he couldn’t stand it. There was something written across the man’s eyes that made Nino questioned his sanity but it was gone before Nino could even begin to wonder what it was.

“Can I offer you anything?” the man asked rather politely from where he was still standing and Nino felt more than a little crazy, discovering that the man’s voice not only resembled that of Ohno but actually sounded literally like him. “I only have water and, um, yogurt? Uh, sorry, I haven't the time to buy the groceries yet.” he said, pausing when Nino stood up and shook his head.

“J-Just water is fine.” he managed to say through the awful mess that was practically clouding his brain and the man quickly nodded his head, turning around to the direction of what probably was the kitchen and Nino released a deep breath at the same time.

The man then came back with a bottled water, smiling sheepishly as he handed it to Nino and Nino accepted it with trembling fingers.

“ Are you sure you're not hungry? I mean, I can try and make something, or if you prefer instant noodles, then that would be better -"

“No, no, it’s fine…” Nino said, feeling his cheeks heat up at that unexpected concern, ducking down as he opened the bottle and drank it without looking up. “I am really very sorry for the trouble. I mean, I just. Maybe I should just go and -”

“It's fine, don’t worry about it. And please stop apologizing; I should be the one doing that instead. Should I, well, go get something for...for that? I think I have ice in the freezer and some painkillers, let me just go find them -"

“Nino, are you here?” someone shouted from outside the door, following it with a few pounding of fists and Nino stood up hesitantly, the look on his face surely betraying him. The man stared at him for a moment and Nino bowed his head in shame, words of apologies rolling out his lips the moment after.

“Sorry, t-those are my friends,” he said, bowed in apology and straightened up, surprised that the man was already walking towards the door with an unreadable expression on his face. “I... They came to pick me up."

The man turned just before he wrapped his hand around the door’s knob and smiled at Nino in a way that almost made him want to drop everything and just take the man into his arms without any intention of letting him go, now and forever more.

The problem was, the man surely didn’t want that and the evidence of it was probably more visible now than it was minutes ago.

“It’s okay,” he said, and he was smiling indulgently. "Oh, let me just open the door, just a second.” he added and Nino found himself nodding at the same time the other man turned to open the door, still with a  little smile hanging at the corners of his lips.

“Nino!” Jun shouted just as the door opened, his right hand suspended in mid-air and probably caught in the middle of pounding his fist against the man’s poor door and looking a lot like he had just seen a ghost with the way he stood there, still and pale as he stared at the man in front of him.

Jun bowed his head, as if on autopilot. “I.. m-my f-friend i-is-” Jun stuttered and if not for the fact that the reaction was pretty much a valid one, Nino might have already been in the process of plotting the best way to humiliate Jun and not even the younger man’s threat to starve him to death would be enough to stop him but because the situation called for it, Nino stayed put and forced himself not to think of anything besides the desire to run towards them.

“HOLY. SHIT,” Sho muttered from behind Jun and the expression on the older man’s face mirrored what was already written across Jun’s own, only a bit more prominent since it was actually his first time to have seen Ohno’s look-alike. It wasn’t Jun’s first but he’s still pretty much shaken up, because the huge resemblance was entirely visible seeing the man up-close like this. He turned abruptly when he felt Aiba’s cold hands on his elbows, hissing something unintelligible under his breath as he tugged Aiba’s trembling body firmly against his.

“S-Satoshi-kun?”

The man smiled hesitantly before shaking his head, opening the door a bit wider and stepping back to give the other three men the permission to come inside by motioning his hand. Sho and Jun still looked fairly shocked to comprehend anything and the man simply bowed his head.

“Ah, sorry, I must really look like your friend, huh? All of you thinks I'm him, but sorry, I'm -"

“Matsuda Hiro-san,” Nino muttered from where he was. "Matsuda-san, meet my friends." he said, cutting the other man off. The other four's attention shifted on him, and despite Nino's efforts to hide the way the corner of his lips sting, he couldn't.

The next thing he knew was Jun shoving his way inside without a single word and Nino then found the younger man already standing in front of him, completely bypassing any proper form of request to be invited inside, his eyes narrowing at the same time his right hand went to Nino’s face and tipped Nino’s chin up with a roughly uttered curse.

“What the fuck is that? Who the hell did that to you?!” Jun questioned, eyes squinting in a way so dangerous that made Nino shiver as Jun grazed a gentle thumb against the bruise at the corners of Nino’s mouth.

“Jun, please,” he tried, pulling away from the younger man’s grip but Jun was obviously stronger, plus the fact that he’s actually a lot angrier for Nino to push through with his attempt of asking Jun to back off and just leave him be. “It's...It's nothing, okay? I probably just ate something funny, don't worry about it."

Jun’s lips thinned and his brows knitted in a way that made Nino want to cringe because facing a pissed Jun was even scarier than facing a hundred fangirls chasing him out in the streets.

“You’ve got a freaking black and blue bruise showing up on your face and you’re saying it’s nothing?! This isn't nothing! Who the fuck did this to you! Tell me and I swear to god, I'm going to-”

“It was me,” Ohno’s look-alike stated from the door, stopping Jun in the middle of his threat and bowing his head until his face almost reached the floor. “I...It was me. I'm sorry.”

Sho and Aiba were pretty much glued on their feet, their gazes moving between Ohno’s look-alike and their two other band mates.

“What the hell?!” Jun gritted, putting his hand down and already in the position to probably claw the other man’s eyes out. Nino quickly moved and put himself in between, hands held in front of Jun.

“Jun, please, stop!” Nino muttered, looking down and away, trembling. And with a shaking voice, “He's got nothing to do with this, okay? Okay? It’s my fault because I kissed him! He punched me in the face because I kissed him, okay?! So, please… just please, Jun, please~”

Jun gasped in a sharp breath, his words probably caught in his throat as he stumbled forward with a grunt before grabbing Nino into his arms, cradling Nino in the safety of his embrace as Nino gave up fully and sobbed quietly, clutching his fingers against the fabric of Jun’s shirt.

Few steps away from them, the stranger struggled on his feet and leaned heavily against the wall, hands moved to clutch at his own chest while he stared straight at the scene in front of him with a confused and pained expression on his face.