Reject (Part 15)
Sprout
Summary:Aiba finally tells Ohno everything about what happened between him and Sho. Meanwhile, someone else hears this and doesn't approve of it at all.
It’s been a week since the festival, but Aiba still felt like that the night before had been amazing as the scene kept replaying over and over in his head. Besides that, Aiba had been way too distracted with Sakurai and he was all he could think about until he remembered he had a son. For a week, every time Aiba kept getting distracted, Kazu would cry until he finally got his father’s attention. Either Kazu wanted to eat, play, or simply have his father’s attention towards him at all times.
“Aiba-san.”
Aiba sighed as he cradled Kazu in his arms and stared at Sho from the kitchen. He was currently helping Aiba’s father set up the grill and sand couches for dinner tonight at the beach. Aiba had suggested the idea when he came across a post on some website on the internet last night (he went from researching to be a father to romantic ideas because he got distracted by Sho once again).
“Aiba-san.”
Maybe he and Sho would sit beside each other and hold hands underneath a blanket Aiba had planned on bringing along with him tonight.
“Aiba-san!”
Aiba slightly jumped on his chair and almost fell on the floor but luckily someone held him down. It was Ohno without Jun in his arms. Aiba assumed that Jun was either with Ataru, or was in his mother’s arms instead.
“A-ah, Oh-chan.”
“You seem distracted lately,” Ohno pointed out and took the empty seat besides Aiba. “I noticed how Kazu-chan cries more often and it takes you a while to get to him.” It brought shame onto Aiba when Ohno had noticed how irresponsible he was becoming because of his distracted thoughts. He immediately glanced at his son whose eyelids were drooping.
“Ah…”
“Is something bothering you?”
“Well…” Once again, Aiba became distracted and his eyes immediately attached themselves onto Sakurai. Within a second, however, Sakurai, who was so focused on the laborious work before him, finally glanced up in Aiba’s direction and they met eye-to-eye. Aiba swore he could see a huge dorky smile on Sakurai’s face, but he wasn’t sure because he quickly looked away.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Aiba nodded in agreement as he watched the realization settle on Ohno’s face.
“Did something bad happen last week between you two?”
“Well… it’s not bad, but… Ah!” Aiba exclaimed, startling Kazu who was almost falling asleep in his arms. “I don’t know how to talk about it.”
Ohno chuckled lightly behind the back of his hand. “Don’t worry, Aiba-san, I won’t judge you or anything.”
Sighing, Aiba eventually, and finally, told Ohno about every Sakurai Sho related. From how he had this weird-good feeling after meeting Sakurai at the hospital he worked in, how the man had helped him with Kazu’s case, how Sakurai took a three month vacation just to be with them, how Sakurai had openly confessed and kissed him without warning, how Sakurai unexpectedly held his hand, and how Sakurai had made his heart go crazy last week at the festival. When he was finally finished with his explanation, he expected Ohno to give him weird looks but Ohno just smiled at him knowingly. After all, Ohno was the one who gave him the advice to pursue whatever feeling he had for Sakurai and Ohno was the reason why Aiba had let Sho hold his hand in the first place.
“I’m probably just confused,” Aiba laughed awkwardly when Ohno kept his silence. “Besides, I’ve never had this feeling ever before in my life. Maybe it’s probably just a feeling that comes and eventually goes?”
“It won’t go,” Ohno finally spoke as his grin became wider. “It’ll stay… you may seem confused, but you’ll figure it out sooner or later.”
And that was exactly the problem: how will he figure out? And if he didn’t figure it out, how will things end up? Aiba just wanted to pull his hair from the stress the suddenly came in unannounced, but he couldn’t because he had Kazu in his arms.
Kazu…
Aiba smiled as he stared at his son’s slightly chubby cheeks. They were pink and full of life and it reminded Aiba of happiness, despite the struggle of taking care of Kazu. Sighing contentedly, he held his son closer to his chest and embraced him a little so not to stir Kazu awake. Kazu was the joy in his life that Aiba would never let go of, even if the thought of Sakurai kept distracting him.
“Good luck,” Ohno patted Aiba on the back as he hopped off the seat. “I-- Oh! I’m sorry, Aiba-san, I didn’t see you there.”
“It’s okay,” Aiba’s mother smiled slightly but her eyes were glued on her eldest son.
Aiba, too distracted with his sleeping son, didn’t notice his mother staring at him wide-eyed, and neither had he noticed that she was there the entire conversation he had with Ohno.
Aiba was the first to see the set up on the sand not far from the beach house. It was absolutely stunning: there was a huge sand-table in the middle of the sunken-in sand and it was surrounded by four sand-couches on either side… although there were a few lop-sided sand-couches here and there. Grinning, he threw red blankets over the sand-couches and over the sand-table and made sure that there wasn’t a single spot that was . Once he was done with his part of the decor, he announced that everything was ready with a loud scream. Soon, everyone came bustling in and out of the beach house with plates, utensils, bowls of ingredients for the hot pot as well as a stove set and an extension cord for the stove to work. As soon as everything was set up and the children were fast asleep in the living room, everyone took their seats except for Aiba. He looked around nervously, hoping that there would be an available seat besides Sakurai… And there was! Grinning, Aiba bounced towards Sakurai’s direction but then someone got in his way and took the empty seat. It was his mother. Aiba pouted and dragged his feet across the sand. The only available seat now was next to his father. And he was really hoping to hold Sakurai’s hand tonight too…
Aiba kept glancing over to Sakurai’s direction, but his mother somehow seemed to have the right timing of blocking it. When he thought that he would finally have the chance to, however, he saw that his mother had spotted him and blocked his view once again. What was up with her?...
Dinner wasn’t that bad. The food was good and Aiba was so full that he was ready to crash from food coma, but he was upset most of the time that he wasn’t able to have contact with Sakurai the whole time. It was because of his mother, who kept blocking any contact the whole entire time. And speaking of which, she had asked him to wash dishes with her before going to bed.
“Masaki,” his mother began once everyone was upstairs in their own rooms. “I want you to stay away from Sakurai.”
“W-what?” Aiba stuttered at the sudden command. Did he hear it right, or was his ears playing tricks on him?
“I heard what he did to you,” she explained. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I came down the stairs and I heard it… from now on, I want you to stay away from him. I’m going to ask him to leave and that you should consider resigning from that hospital.”
“Wha-- Ma!” Aiba dropped the dish on the floor he was trying to rinse from the sudden outrage that overcame him. “That’s unfair! Just because--”
“I don’t want my son to be gay!” She yelled and finally, turned to face him with an angry glare on her face. “I want you to date properly and marry a woman. Make me more grandchildren. I don’t want you to see Sakurai anymore. That’s that!”
“Ma--”
“What happened here?” Came his father’s voice as he descended down the stairs with a worried look on his face. Following close behind him was Sakurai, Yuusuke, Kaori and Ohno.
“Nothing!” Aiba squeaked as soon as he met with Sakurai’s worried eyes. “It was nothing!” He realized then that everyone’s eyes were on him so he bent down to pick up the shards of broken ceramic, but he saw another pair of hands. At first, he thought it was his mother, but when he looked up, he saw Sakurai instead whose eyes were only full of worry. He was relieved to see his face up so close because he hadn’t experience it for a whole week (Sakurai had to go back to city for an emergency and came back sometime this afternoon in time to help out with tonight’s dinner). Their faces were a few inches apart and if they moved closer…
“Stay away from my son!” His mother shrieked and pushed Sakurai back with strength that Aiba had never seen before.
“Ayako!”
“Sakurai-san, from today on, I want you to stay away from my son,” she ignored her husband as she continued, her eyes showing nothing but hostility towards the doctor. “As well as Kazunari. I don’t want your filth to rub against them.”
“Ma, what are you going on about?” Yuusuke asked in an alarming tone. “Sakurai-san has never done anything horrible to nii-chan before, or Kazu-chan.”
She scowled at the doctor. “Sakurai-san tried to make my son fall for him.”
“What?” This time, his father stepped in.
“You heard me. Sakurai-san is trying to turn my son gay.”
“Ayako…” his father paused as he walked behind her and pulled her back. “...There is nothing wrong with that.”
Aiba felt a little flutter in his heart and gave his father hopeful looks, but when he saw the daggers in his mother’s eyes, all hope was gone. Wait… did I just admit that I like Sho-san? His eyes widened as he glanced at Ohno and then Sakurai. Was this what Ohno meant? Except he happened to figure it out in such a bad timing.
“Well I don’t accept it,” his mother spat. “I want you to leave Sakurai-san. Don’t ever see my son again.”
“Ayako…”
His heart sped as he watched Sakurai, whose eyes had never left the shards of ceramic on the floor. He seriously thought that Sakurai was going to stand up for himself but Sakurai just simply stood up without a word, not even a glance towards Aiba and walked upstairs. Several minutes later after his mother was finally calm and everyone else cleaned up, Sakurai came back downstairs fully dressed and was holding a luggage. Aiba immediately stood up and ran towards him. He wanted to scream, to tell Sakurai to say and forget about his mother’s vile comments, but when Sakurai finally looked at him, his eyes seemed to say “I’m sorry” before he turned and made for the door. Aiba, who was too shocked, stared at Sho’s back and watched it disappear behind the closing door.
TBC
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