Blue Part One

By Chash

            Nigahara Ken didn't like flying.  Every time a plane took off he held grasped onto the arm rests so that every tendon showed.  Once they were in the air he relaxed a bit, but the entire time he was tense.

            The things he did for love.  He was taking a round trip flight to Japan for it, even though the flight was long and unpleasant.  Naozumi was preoccupied and didn't seem to notice.  Ken didn't blame him.  Ken was, right about now, pretty confident he wasn't ever going to have to deal with Naozumi getting married, but he could imagine how he would feel flying to the other teen's wedding.  He wasn't going to imagine it, though, because thanks to the flight, he felt bad enough already.

            "Are you all right?" asked Naozumi.  He looked at Ken with concern filled blue eyes.  Ken's throat went dry, but he controlled his feelings enough to grin and nod.

            "Yeah… I just don't like flying."

            Naozumi smiled.  "I'm sorry.  You had to come back some time and look on the bright side—at least you aren't going back like I am."

            Ken hadn't mentioned to Naozumi that he was, in point of fact, going back to the United States.  He had decided that, screw the planes, screw his home, screw the goddamn world, he wasn't going to let go of Naozumi, even if he probably should have.  Naozumi would find out about that later.  One of these days, after the wedding, Naozumi was going to find out just how Nigahara Ken felt about him.

            First, however, Nigahara Ken was going to learn how to let go of the arm rests on the plane.  His tendons were beginning to frighten him. 

            Without looking away from the view out the window, Naozumi put a light hand on Ken's and squeezed.  Ken looked up and saw the back of a lavender head of hair.  Then Naozumi turned and smiled. 

            One of these days…

            Once he was finally off the plane in Japan, Nigahara felt a lot better.  For one thing, Naozumi had never let go of his hand, and was still holding it.  That alone was enough to put him in a good mood.  Of course, he was also off the damn plane, and that helped a lot.  As they left, someone's voice shouted for them.

            "Naozumi-ku~n!!!!"  Ken felt an abrupt coldness around his hand as Naozumi rose his arms to catch a bundle of hyperactive actress.  Cameras had been flashing the whole time, Sana's presence was rather blinding.  Behind her, he saw an expressionless young man who watched Sana as if no one else existed in the world.  That was Hayama Akito, he knew, Sana's fiancé.  He was, Ken supposed, handsome, in a stoic kind of way.  Hayama turned and looked at Ken.  At first, the teen had been dubious about Naozumi's description of how Hayama Akito's eyes had affected him.  Now something passed between them and Ken was quite sure that Hayama knew everything.  He knew how Ken felt about Naozumi, he knew what Ken was planning to do—he knew it all.  And then there was an almost imperceptible change in those eyes of his.  His mouth moved slightly.  Hayama Akito was smiling.  It would be called a twitch on the rest of the world, but Ken was confident that he was being smiled at.  It was very strange.

            Then he felt his arm being shaken rather violently and looked up.  Sana was smiling at him.

            "You're Naozumi-kun's friend, right?  Nigahara-kun?"

            "Yeah… and you're Kurata Sana-san…"

            "Right, right, no need to use san," said Sana, smiling.   "And this is Hayama!" she looked around.  "Oi, Hayama!?"

            "Yeah?" asked the young man, now standing next to her. 

            "Oh, there you are!  This is Naozumi-kun's friend, Nigahara Ken."

            "Yo," commented Hayama.

            "Nice to meet you," replied Ken.  Hayama was no longer smiling, but he no longer needed to smile.  They were done with the short interaction of eyes and the smile was no longer necessary.  It was a completed sentence, now gone.  Ken could still hear it, though.

            "Naozumi-kun asked you to come?  That's nice of you to join him.  He spends too much time alone.  You're his friend?"

            It wasn't so much what she said; it was the rate at which she said it.  Ken now realized more fully why Sana didn't have a large gaijin following.  She did some relatively harmless anime voice acting, but her characters, for the most part, spoke at such a speed that none of the gaijin voice actors could keep up.  He had thought it was part of her acting style.

            "Yeah…" he said, dazed slightly and unsure if he was really agreeing to what he thought, or if she had somehow snuck in "sell your soul for miso soup" or something while he was trying to follow her rapid speech.

            "That's good, Naozumi-kun needs lots more friends.  I'd like to spend more time with him, but we're never on projects together and I've got Hayama—isn't it strange I don't call him Akito yet?  He calls me Sana—where was I?  Oh yeah, I have Hayama and Aya-chan and Tsuyoshi-kun and Fuuka-chan and Tomo-kun and Masato-san and—"

            "Oi," commented Hayama.

            "Huh?  What what?"

            "Let him be," commented Hayama.

            "Why?"

            "You need to give him a chance to think."

            "Okay!  Anyway, where was I?" Hayama shook his head as she went off on her tangent again.  He could see, before Hayama looked away, a brief second where his eyes weren't dead.  It was only as he looked at her.  "Does Naozumi-kun have a lot of friends?"

            "Huh?" asked Ken, realizing suddenly that he was being addressed.  "Oh… well, why are you asking me?"

            "Who else would I ask?" asked Sana, her face the perfect image of naïve confusion. 

            "Nao?" suggested Ken.

            "Hmm…" Sana considered this for a moment.  "He never tells me anything!"

            "You never tell Kurata-san anything?"

            "Sana's fine!"
            "I tell Sana-chan lots of things."

            "Who are your friends?"

            "Ken's my friend."

            "Ah, ah," Sana nodded twice and looked at Nigahara for a moment.  Then she grinned. "Can I call you Kenni-chan?"

            Ken laughed.  "Sure you can!"

            "Yay!  Naozumi-kun and Kenni-chan!  Who are your other friends?"

            Naozumi thought for a moment.  "Bartender-san…"

            Sana smacked Naozumi over the head with the rubber Kodocha mallet she always seemed to have handy.  Ken had no idea where it came from.

            Hayama smiled slightly, the same way he had before, just at Sana.  Ken could see why Naozumi was content to loose to the other man. 

            But every once in a while, Ken could see the wish in Naozumi's eyes that she was his alone, and that behind them there was no Hayama, and possibly not even a Ken.

end part one