You hear that for your unfailing, seemingly never ending energy, days on earth are measured in suns. Consistent, dependable, relentless.

You're happy to play the role—there is honestly nothing else you'd rather be or do other than this—but the thing about being the main source of light for several lightyears around is that you have to get used to the darkness.

It fascinates you; it always has. For all that light you exude, you still cannot brighten up everything. There are things that will remain hidden no matter how hard you try to illuminate them. Where there is light, there must always be shadows.

That must be why you're so captivated by the earth's moon.

He darts in and out of your rays like he's playing a game with you that only he knows the rules to. Somehow you do not feel like you're losing. As the earth goes around the sun, and the moon goes around the earth, you follow along the circlicue of motion like it's the most interesting dance in the cosmos.

Maybe it's because the moon is the largest non-planetary satellite in the inner system. Comets and asteroids are pretty, but they're always just passing by. The planets are cool and all, but they literally revolve around you.

Maybe it's because the moon cannot simply exist; he has other preoccupations. He has his own role for the earth that he plays as tirelessly as you do yours. Is it so out of this world to think that makes the two of you kindred spirits? Do the people of earth see the two of you as a set the way you do?

You'll never know.

What you do know is that there's nothing else you can do with the eons of energy stored inside you but let it all out. You do not have to shine the brightest, but you do have to keep on shining… And if the moon can feel your earnest light too, then it's even more worth it.

---

You hear that for your many faces, worn in rotation and whimsical without whim, months on earth are measured in moons. Cyclic, dynamic, radiant.

Damn straight.

You're the mothering moon. You don't just control the tides, you demand poetry, you inspire dreams. You're constantly switching it up, and you delight at every turn. You give the earthlings a reason to look up at the sky even when the darkness of space takes over. The other planets may be bigger or more colourful, but they don't do for the earth the way you do.

You love being the moon—there is honestly nothing else you'd rather be or do other than this—but the thing about being a planet's only satellite is the fact that you're a fraud, and you can never forget it.

You are described with delicate beauty, but you know that there is nothing inherently beautiful about you. Whatever side of yourself you show the earth does not matter because it does not look at you for yourself, it looks at you for what you reflect.

The odes, the pining, the hope in the darkness; they are not testaments to your pockmarked skin but to the remnants of a sun that do not not let the earthlings be lonely even when he must leave them. What would they call beautiful if they could not even see you?

If the best part about you is that you're an acceptable replacement for someone else, that you're getting credit for something that someone else does, is it any wonder that you're seriously bitter?

So yeah, the sun.

You can't catch a break with that guy around. You feel his light on some part of you for every single whatever-counts-as-a-measurement-of-time in your immortal existence. The few times you manage to pass through the earth's own shadow, you're darkened to the red hues of anger you truly feel; but even this is a byproduct of the sun's work. Because of course it is. Your existence is so directly tied to that burning hunk of gas' it's like the Asteroid Belt itself was linking you together.

(Sometimes, you resent the earth, too. They could stand to appreciate you more, yes, but they also force you into their orbit. Entire civilisations would fall to ruin even if you managed to break free. That's a pressure of responsibility no celestial body should ever feel, atmosphere be damned.)

So you're angry, bitter, (kind of jealous, if you're being honest with yourself)—but at least you're pretty, right?

---

Eclipses technically don't take place all that often, but things like frequency matter less when lifespans are measured in millenia. In any case, eclipses sneak up on them with a rhythm that the two of them have grown used to. The sun thinks that's what makes it special, knowing that they have to wait but never for too long. (The moon thinks he could stand to continue waiting.)

When the next eclipse lines up, the sun lets out a little solar flare of delight. Hello, Moon!!!

The moon remains silent, playing every part of a rotating rock in the vacuum of space.

The solar winds swirl with energy, eagerness writ clear across his surface. So many things have happened since we last saw each other! I currently have two (2) black spots; can you see them? And a few lightyears away from Jupiter there was a meteor shower, sooo pretty—but, ah, too far away for you to see, I think… Meteor showers are overrated, anyway, and they make me kinda sad, too. All those poor asteroids, burning up into practically nothing, and all I can say about them is that they were pretty as they withered away.

If the moon were capable of conveying interest on his stony facade, he would. For the first time in a long time, the sun has said something that actually inspires him to continue a conversation. When he reflects the sun's light, he sends a message back. What do you mean, 'they're pretty as they wither away'?

The sun is so overjoyed to hear from the moon that the halo of his corona fluctuates with excitement, subject matter notwithstanding. Oh! Like, meteors don't really make their own light, you know? A moving meteor glows because it passes through a planet's atmosphere so quickly that the friction literally burns the rock. The meteor leaves the planet's atmosphere smaller than it was when it entered. That'll keep on happening until the meteor disintegrates into nothing or collides with something else.

It is only because the sun was radiating so brightly before that the moon notices him dim. It makes me glad you're here, Moon, he says. You don't need to zip past the planets and lose yourself in the process for a temporary shine. I can just keep giving you my light! The solar prominences are back. Sirius knows I have enough to spare!

The moon has never thought about it like that before. Is the sun's light actually a gift instead of a tease, a burden, a stolen glory?

The moon has always been difficult for the sun to read, and nothing about that changes now. He never ends up saying anything back, leaving the sun to wonder if maybe he said too much. (What's new?) In any case… Aw, it looks like it's time for you to go. I'll see you at the next eclipse. Right, Moon?

The sun always asks even though he must know the moon physically has no choice but to be there. It used to be annoying before, but now he's thinking he can't wait. See you, Sun, the moon responds just as his orbit pulls him out of alignment.

With communication lost between them, the moon can only be amused as the sun's light sharply dims in surprise before slowly increasing in happy luminescence. Far be it for him to pass such judgment, but the sun looks kind of pretty like that.

---

"Aiba? Nino? Get up; we're almost ready to start."

The two of them blink into awareness at Ohno's gentle but insistent call, unsurprised to find him dressed like an astronaut.

Despite their bulky costumes, Aiba and Nino had managed to slump against each other for a nap on a green room couch while waiting for Waku Waku Gakkou dress rehearsals to start. They're doing an astronomy skit primarily centered on the earth, but other prominent celestial bodies would make an appearance—all portrayed with the typical Arashi charm.

Jun walks by in his unflattering-but-somehow-it-works inflatable Earth costume just as Sho finishes a sit-up. "Aiba Sun, Nino Moon, Sho Rising. We're on stage in 15," he directs with a finger pointed accordingly before following a staff member out of the room.

Ohno helps Sho coordinate his limbs into the proper places of his generic, round, red outfit (he's Mars), and they walk out together.

Aiba and Nino are still on the couch, reeling from the very weird dreams they had while napping. Nino chances a glance over at Aiba, his already tan skin glowing even more from the shimmery gold face paint the make-up team applied on him to match his character.

It was an easy assignment at the time—who else of Arashi would be fit to play the sun than their resident sunshine incarnation himself?—but something about seeing Aiba like this makes him uncomfortable in a way it didn't before he had fallen asleep.

By the way Aiba is looking at his face, similarly sparkly from the silver face paint, Nino surmises Aiba is feeling much the same way.

One of the stylists pops their head into the room. "Aiba-san, Ninomiya-san. Is there something wrong with your make-up?" they ask out of concern from how intensely the two of them are still looking at each other.

Their comment startles the two members out of their reveries. "I think we should change roles!" they shout at once as they scramble off the couch.

"Eh?!" The stylist has no choice but to watch the two of them frantically struggle out of their costumes, desperate to pass the huge, puffy fabric suits off to each other.

"Yeah, I think it's a great idea! It'll surprise the audience, wouldn't it?"

"Besides, my member colour is yellow! Aiba can't believably play the sun."

Aiba rescues himself first then aims to help Nino out of his own costume, but many hands make heavy work. The zipper gets stuck.

"You idiot! Are we sure your brain isn't the thing that disintegrated into nothing? Get me out of this!"

Aiba stills at Nino's word choice. He was on his way to convincing himself that it wasn't possible, but Nino just confirmed it. They've shared a lot of things before, but a dream as immersive as this one is a first.

Nino realises his mistake and stops struggling with the costume just as Jun storms back into the room.

The tableau is this: Nino's moon is mostly zipped and stuck up above his head. His face is peeking out one of the arm holes while both of his arms are extending straight out of the neck hole. Aiba's arms are awkwardly bent in an effort to gain leverage on the zipper. The costume-matched morph suits they're wearing leave nothing to interpretation. The stylist is heaving from the exertion of finding someone capable of stopping the madness. Jun is so visibly furious it's like he's trying to represent global warming using only his skin tone.

"I would ask what the is going on here, but frankly I don't care. Aiba, get back in costume. Nino, if you're on stage in the next 5 minutes, then I won't leave you stuck in that thing even after rehearsals are over. And for god's sake, would it kill you to eat a vegetable?"

There is no response from the disaster duo, so Jun rolls his eyes. "Five minutes!" he reminds as he stalks out of the green room.

Nino sneers at Jun's retreating form as he resettles himself into the moon costume. "If I were the real moon and he were the real earth, I'd eject myself out of orbit and let him drown in his own oceans." He leaves without another word.

It's much easier to get back into a costume with a calm demeanour than it is to get out of one while panicking, so Aiba catches up to Nino easily. He wants to say a clever thing he would do to Jun's Earth if he were the real sun, but it's too hard to think of one. Instead he asks, "Where would you go?"

"Jupiter so I could get more stupider. It's tiring being the smartest person in every room I walk into."

Aiba hums. "Jupiter is pretty far away, even from the sun."

Nino stops walking, and Aiba follows suit. His make-up is smeared, the hallway they're in is poorly lit, and the triangular rays on his costume are bent, but Aiba still seems to glow.

Or maybe it's just the smile Aiba gives him, seeming to read something in Nino's posture that he didn't say out loud. "Well, I'm glad you're here, Moon."

Aiba grabs his hand and leads them to walk again towards the stage. Nino looks down at the joined hands and wonders if he heard the last syllable correctly.

---

A/N (8.24.2022): The final line refers to the fact that the words for moon and liking someone romantically are pronounced the same in Japanese. Also, I was so obsessed with the realisation that the kanji for days and months were the same as the kanji for sun and moon. This parallel is seen in English as well, so I shouldn't have been surprised, but !!!

With this, it should be the end of my Arashi as inanimate objects fixation, haha! Actually, I am legitimately quite proud of this one. I haven't seen anyone have this take on the moon before, where it's a pompous and angry figure. (If you know of one - fanfic or poem or short story - drop it in the comments! I'd love to read it.)