[Arashi] Mochi Face

[neko_kirin3104]

Title: Mochi Face

Group/pairing: Arashi/Yama Pair (Ohno/Sho)

Prompt: 007 Crave

Word Count: 2132

Rating: PG

Summary: Silver Wolf is furious and Ohno is forced to cancel his fishing trip. Who knew mochi can be so troublesome?

Disclaimer: I own nobody

Notes: Inspired by a prompt from je_prompts and because Sho-chan did look fat in this week’s News Zero, but then so what?!

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The call came barely a minute before his boat was due to leave the harbor. If it had been any other person, he’d have thought he was being pranked. But the way his heart constricted the moment he heard the news, and the fact that it was delivered by someone whose reliability was unquestioned, he just knew it was for real.

This being the first time anyone had ever called him about a matter enough to make a healthy heart burst with anxiety, Satoshi Ohno naturally panicked. He even nearly slipped and fell into the water in his rush to get to the captain and tell the older man he was cancelling his fishing trip today.

“That’s new,” the Captain chortled, but then stopped upon turning around and seeing the visibly ruffled look on his face. “Geez, Ohno-kun, what’s wrong?”

Ohno only managed to say he was leaving his equipment and gears in the boat and that the Captain could keep the payment in full, before jumping off to the harbor and racing for the main road, putting on his cap and a surgical mask along the way. He usually took the train to go to places, but for emergencies such as this, he’d pay any cab double to get him as quickly as possible to his destination.

About twenty minutes later, he met up with Sho Sakurai’s manager outside the Tokyo Teishin Hospital. He immediately asked what happened, his voice slightly muffled by the mask he was wearing, and the unsurprisingly cranky guy started scolding him for not looking out for his partner more responsibly.

“Sho-kun collapsed at a Myojo photo shoot this afternoon!” Silver Wolf growled under his breath, taking care not to let bystanders hear what he was saying as he strode towards the elevators with Ohno practically running at his heels. “The doctor says he’s been starving himself! What is that all about?!”

Ohno flinched at the sharp edge in the other man’s tone as they stepped into the elevator car. He watched in tensed silence as Silver Wolf pressed the button for the fourth floor and the doors started to slide close. The older man then let out a deep sigh, crossing his arms over his chest before turning on him once again.

“Have you two been fighting?” This time, the manager’s voice was tempered, almost sympathetic.

Ohno shook his head slowly, then went, “Ah!” when he suddenly remembered something. It wasn’t about the two of them fighting, though.

Silver Wolf raised an eyebrow at him and prodded, “Yes...?”

“It’s not me,” he replied quietly, furrowing his brows. “It was Nino.”

“The mochi incident?” Silver Wolf exclaimed in disbelief, referring to how Sho had almost walked out of the VS Arashi set in rage last week after Nino teasingly compared his face to a mochi.

“It was more than that,” Ohno said, trying to reconstruct what exactly happened on that day inside his head. “Well, it did start from that. Ah... I don’t think it’s Nino’s fault at all. I think it may have started way before that.”

“What is it really, Ohno-kun?” the manager scoffed impatiently.

“There were these comments online about him being fat,” Ohno went explaining, rubbing his fingers to his chin. “Matsujun showed them to me after that thing with Nino. And we did talk about it...”

By talk, he meant he had asked Sho about it, and his ever-so-independent Sho-chan had smiled and assured him there was nothing to worry about.

“I just never really liked mochi,” Sho had said, giggling, before leaning into his embrace and touching him in places that short-circuited his brains almost instantly.

He did not tell Silver Wolf that, of course. It was bad enough that the man had walked in on them in the middle of doing it that one time he decided to use the spare key Sho had given him for emergencies to actually give his charge a wakeup call.

The older man had surprisingly been cool about it. Even checking up on them every once in a while to make sure that he wasn’t doing anything to cause Sho any distress.

Because if anyone knew how difficult it was to deal with an upset Sho Sakurai, it was Silver Wolf.

Ohno was jolted out of his quiet reverie by the sharp chime announcing their arrival at the fourth floor. When they stepped out of the elevator, Silver Wolf at once pulled out a mobile phone from his coat and furiously dialed a number.

“He’s in 410,” he told Ohno, pointing down the hall, before screaming at whoever it was unlucky enough to have answered his call.

From what he managed to catch as he strode down towards his partner’s room, Ohno figured out that the cranky manager was scolding the people responsible for keeping track of news about Arashi online for not informing him about the “Fat Sho” comments.

But it hardly mattered to him, especially after he opened the door and saw the serene form of his partner lying on the hospital bed, looking as pale and as unanimated as the dull white sheets.

Ohno quietly walked to him and gently rubbed a hand to the younger guy's cheek. Sho Sakurai stirred out of his light sleep and began to smile even before he opened his eyes.

“Satoshi...” he mumbled weakly.

“You lied to me,” Ohno replied accusingly, pulling down his mask to show the disappointed pout on his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Sho whispered, reaching out for his hand. A tear slid down the younger guy's eye as their fingers intertwined.

“Hey...” Ohno gently ran his thumb along his partner’s lower eyelid. A loving gesture that defeated its own purpose when it subsequently triggered more tears.  “Sho-chan, seriously. Stop crying!”

Sho closed his eyes tight and kept on sobbing. Ohno just clasped his hand tighter while patiently waiting for him to calm down. He knew more than anyone how the younger guy hated looking weak in front of other people. So these were really tears that started out in frustration rather than anguish.

And it just went on evolving into a lot of other things from there as the guy completely let go of all inhibitions and pretenses, finally letting himself fall apart for the first time in a long time.

In the course of such tears, Sho Sakurai garbled on and on about how increasingly hard it was to keep up with an idol’s life, expressing his regret for all the things he had had to give up just so he could bring joy to the people who looked up to them. So that he could make them laugh and smile, even at the expense of his own happiness.

He confessed to getting tired of constantly having to try his best to please everyone. That no matter how many times he told himself not to get affected by every negative write-up he heard or read about himself, they still always ended up hitting him hard where it hurt the most.

“I’m tired of belonging to everyone, Satoshi,” Sho croaked. “I’m just really tired.”

Such were the sentiments that poured out of Sho Sakurai that day. And in the course of it all, Ohno just held on to him, holding him as close as possible to his heart.

“You don’t always have to try so hard, Sho-chan,” Ohno said reassuringly, while gently stroking his partner’s hair. “You don’t always have to be so perfect.”

Silence fell upon them for some time. Ohno shifted a little on his perch at the edge of the bed to hold his partner a little more tightly against him. It was the first time he heard his Sho-chan talk about his frustrations like that, and it really broke his heart.

Sho Sakurai had always been the hardest working member of their group, so it really came as a surprise to Ohno that the younger guy had been harboring these kinds of feelings towards their job.

He knew, though, that despite his outburst, his Sho-chan was still years away from giving up on Arashi. No matter how much a part of him wanted to just quit and get it all over with, his naturally stubborn instincts would keep him grounded—literally stuck—to this line of work.

So Ohno didn’t really find it weird that after just a few minutes of crying over his life, Sho was stressing once again over his idol reputation.

“They all think I look awful!” his partner moaned in anguish.

“Well... You do kind of look a little weird, lately,” Ohno replied teasingly, earning him a rather painful jab to his side. “Seriously, though. You did gain a little weight. But you don’t look awful.”

“Says you,” Sho scoffed sardonically.

“Well, the world may own Sho Sakurai the idol, after all,” Ohno said, before gently raising his partner’s face by the chin to look straight into those round, expressive eyes still glistening with residues of tears. “But this Sho Sakurai, right here, belongs to me. And I say he’s the same beautiful, perfectly un-perfect man I have fallen in-love with.”

“Satoshi...” Sho whispered, the warmth of his breath caressing Ohno’s face while he gingerly took off the mask still hanging from his ears. “You are such a man.” The younger guy then leaned forward and, with eyes fluttering close, gave his lips a light kiss. “But your lines are always good.”

And it was on such a rather promising note that they could’ve ended the afternoon, if not for the startling sound of the door suddenly bursting open. Sho practically jumped away from Ohno who very nearly fell off the bed.

“MOCHI!” a familiar voice called out from the doorway.

Sho’s face almost literally flared up as he turned to the intruder. “What the—?!”

Ninomiya didn’t even flinch at the look of anger openly thrown at him. He even walked nonchalantly to Sho’s bed and placed the box he was holding on the side table. “I brought some.” The still unperturbed guy then opened the lid and fished out a piece to offer to Sho, saying with a rather apologetic smile, “Truce?”

Sho just looked suspiciously at the pastry for a long time, and would’ve even crumbled it with his glare had Ohno not elbowed him mildly on the side and gestured for him to take it. His face relaxed with a sigh and he reached out to take the cake, even managing a nod and a smile at the now widely grinning Nino.

“Sho-chaaaaan!!!” Aiba then came barreling through the door, flinging himself at Sho so hard that Ohno instinctively jumped away. The man then proceeded to rub his face on the dumbfounded patient’s hospital gown while howling, “Sho-chaaan! Oh, Sho-chaaaan! I’m glad you made it!”

MatsuJun who was following close behind hit the overly passionate man square on the head, grunting, “He wasn’t dying, you idiot!”

Aiba then chuckled and said, “I know. I was just trying to make Sho-chan smile. See? He’s smiling now! Look! Look!”

Indeed, when Satoshi turned to look at his partner, he saw no trace of the anguished idol he had comforted a short while ago. His Sho-chan was gradually regaining his fun-loving failboat character. And it was all thanks to the rest of the guys who completed their wacky brood of five, who wasted no time at all to start fooling around and wage general crack-havoc, that it took merely a couple of minutes before five sets of laughter began filling the room.

“You guys seem to be having fun,” Silver Wolf observed from the doorway.

“Wolfie!” Nino exclaimed excitedly, to which the cranky manager was quick to snap, “Don’t call me that, you brat!” and thus giving them more reason to laugh to their hearts’ content.

Ohno laced his fingers through his partner’s, who quickly clasped his hand in turn. They looked into each other’s eyes as the other guys tried to pull Silver Wolf away from playfully choking Nino.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

Sho chuckled and squeezed his hand, “These guys... How can I even think of leaving them?”

“You just had a weak moment.” Ohno sat once again on the bed, and it took everything he had not to wrap his arms around his partner. He just clasped the younger guy's hand tighter under the blanket and added, “We’re allowed to have one once in a while, ne?”

Sho sighed and leaned into him as closely as possible without inciting suspicion. “I’m glad I have you, Satoshi,” he whispered above the chortling noises from the other guys, who curiously enough were now trying to pry MatsuJun away from Aiba.

“I’m glad we have Arashi,” Ohno whispered back, heart swelling with delight at the genuine look of happiness on his partner’s face.

~1992*4##111~