"the magician"

part one

ONE

Ohno hates this weather. He thinks, after so long, wouldn't he be used to it? He should be used to it by now, right? He's not. Dark and gloomy and just humid enough to be uncomfortable, it itches at his skin. He rubs his arms absently, looking at the skies. The last time it'd been sunny had been, what, one month ago? Two? He can't remember. He'd thought that, maybe, it'd be sunny today, because today's his birthday.

But the weather is worsening. There's a storm coming, Ohno can smell it.

"Oh-chan, are you even listening to me?" Aiba laughs; Ohno jumps back to attention. Right. His party.

"Daydreaming again?" Sho asks, setting the plates. "You'll lose your own head one day, Satoshi-kun."

"And no one will even notice a difference," Jun teases. "Here comes your mom with the cake."

Ohno brightens. His mom makes the best cake. And it's beautifully decorated, with pure white frosting and his name written in blue. It probably had taken her ages to save up for the ingredients, and Ohno had told her all the fuss wasn't necessary, told her not to strain herself so much, but she'd waved him off, saying that it wasn't everyday that her son turned nineteen.

Mom finishes lighting the last candle and the room is bathed in the candles' soft glow. It makes everything look blurry and comfortable around the edges. "Make a wish, Satoshi," she says, sitting down. His friends smile in anticipation and Ohno takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to remember this happy scene forever. He'll have to sketch it later.

Ohno makes his wish, and blows out the candles.

He hears thunder in the distance.

TWO

The next day, it's pouring rain. Torrents and torrents of it, nonstop for what feels like hours. Ohno is confined inside the apartment, too dampened by the stifling humidity to even feel like drawing. He sits slouched beside the window, listening to the thunder, counts the seconds until the resulting flash of lightning. One, two. One, two, three. One. The lightning flashes quick and sharp, highlights thousands of individual raindrops for a fraction of a second. Flash. Flash.

Ohno sits up. There's a person. In the rain. A small figure, completely swathed by the water, is slowly making his way down the street in front of Ohno's house.

Another flash: Ohno catches the outline of a top hat, a heavy raincoat (or was that some sort of cloak?), a small travelling bag. No umbrella. The hand not holding the suitcase is firmly pulling the brim of the top hat over the man's eyes. Ohno can see the high collar framing the man's neck, the curve of the man's chin, the hand holding down the hat with shining wet fingers. The man slows, stops, looks around. He doesn’t see Ohno, staring at him from his window. He takes off his hat.

It's a boy.

Ohno watches, transfixed, as the boy raises his head up to the sky and lets the rain fall on him, soak him entirely.

Before he's realized it, Ohno's grabbed an umbrella and is out the door, jumping down the two flights of stairs, running through puddles until he’s close enough to see the other person's face. The boy turns to him, narrows his eyes at Ohno through the rain.

"Who is it," the boy calls.

"I’m Ohno," Ohno calls back. "I have an umbrella."

The boy grins, and Ohno feels like the rain is lessening, suddenly. "Well, come here then. I'm already wet though."

"That's okay," Ohno says, stepping closer. The boy is the same height he is, with his black hair is plastered to his skull. His face is friendly and he looks amused. Cute, Ohno thinks. Definitely cute.

"You're a nice guy, coming out to greet a stranger in the rain," the boy says. "I'm grateful. The wind blew me in here, if you can imagine. I was headed to Balhurst, but it just started pouring - I was lucky to find this town at all, it's not on my map."

"This town is small. It used to be just farmland. Where are you from?" Ohno asks, eyes sliding to the boy's unusual clothes, the top hat in his hand.

The boy shrugs. "All over, really." He follows Ohno's gaze and grins, twirling his top hat around his wrist. "My profession demands a lot of travelling."

Ohno says, "What do you do?" and the boy laughs, reaching into his hat and pulling out a coin. He takes Ohno's hand and presses Ohno's fingers around the metal. The boy's skin is soft against Ohno's, and cool from the rain. He holds Ohno's fist in his hands for a few seconds before depositing a kiss on the knuckles of Ohno's fingers. Ohno's barely registered the feeling when the boy lets go - and there's a tiny, yellow chick in the middle of Ohno's palm.

"I'm a magician," the boy says, smiling slightly.

Ohno holds his hand still, so still. He can feel the warmth of the little chick on his skin, can feel its softness, its fluttering heartbeat. Ohno holds this tiny, living creature in the palm of his hand but he can't take his eyes off of the boy in front of him.

"Really?" Ohno breathes.

"Really," the boy says, his smile growing. "My name's Ninomiya."

THREE

The rain eventually stops. Ninomiya thanks Ohno for his kindness and starts off towards the town centre. Ohno's feel follow under their own volition, but Ninomiya doesn't seem to mind the company.

Ninomiya's a chatterbox, which Ohno likes. He learns a lot about the other boy in a short while: Ninomiya is sixteen, he's been travelling by himself for almost ten years, and has been doing magic tricks his whole life, although it wasn't until he ran out of money during his travels that he realized that people would pay him to see his talent. And actually there was that one time in Gratuul where no one would pay him for his show so he'd had to resort to con games to earn some cash. Conning took a lot less effort than magic shows, but getting caught doing magic shows doesn't get you sent to jail.

Ohno soaks in everything, more interested in Ninomiya than he has been in anything for a long time. It's not just the novelty of Ninomiya's profession that sparks his interest, it's Ninomiya himself - a new person, so strange and exciting that to Ohno, he seems to glow underneath his heavy dark clothes. Their town probably hasn't had a visitor in years, save for the few workers who take care of imports and exports, and even then, it's always the same few people. The town is tiny; it isn't on the way to any major cities, there are no tourist attractions. It's so self-contained that Ohno wasn't even the least bit surprised when Ninomiya said it wasn't on a map. What baffles Ohno is the fact that Ninomiya wandered in here at all. Ohno, like everyone else here, has never been outside the town, but he's heard stories, and he's reasonably sure that any place would be more exciting than here.

He wants to explain this to Ninomiya, who seems to be losing some of his energy as they walk around; the few townspeople they see either give them suspicious glances or stare blatantly, but not in a good way. Ohno wants to explain that it's natural that they're wary of Ninomiya's presence, because seriously no one ever visits here, and it's Ohno's who's the weird one, someone who runs up to a mysterious figure in the rain without the slightest bit of hesitation.

"Don't you have any inns around here?" Ninomiya complains, sounding fed up.

Oh, Ohno thinks. Is that what he'd been looking for. "You can stay at my place," Ohno says.

Ohno knows he's weird. If Jun was here, he'd probably hit Ohno for offering his home to a stranger, then hit him even harder if Ohno tried to elaborate: it was the natural thing to do. Ohno doesn't know if this is the way he'd act with any new person, or if it's just Ninomiya who brings out these actions, but Ohno trusts his instincts, and for some inexplicable reason, he trusts Ninomiya. It might be the way that Ninomiya smiles at him.

"Really?!" Ninomiya exclaims. "Awesome! You're something else, Ohno-san, I'm lucky to have met you!"

Ohno thinks it's the other way around.

FOUR

After dinner, while Ohno and Ninomiya are helping clean up (Ohno's mom had been ridiculously easy to charm - a kiss on the hand from Ninomiya and she was already setting up a plate for him at the table; Ninomiya had winked at Ohno and Ohno had laughed), there comes a distinct knock at the door.

"Sho," Ohno recognizes, wiping his hands on his pants and going to the door. Sure enough, it's Sho, with Aiba and Jun as well.

"Hello," Ohno greets.

"Is it true?!" Aiba shouts, shoving Sho out of the way. "The whole town is talking about it! You brought home a stranger? Someone new?! It's not true, is it?"

"Ah," Ohno says, and moves aside to reveal Ninomiya standing behind him. Without his heavy cloak and jacket and top hat on, the teenager looks much thinner, almost frail. It's almost hard to believe he's sixteen, but there's something about his eyes - even though he's young, he looks like he knows things, has seen things that Ohno can't even begin to imagine.

Ninomiya bows slightly. "Hello," he says. "My name is Ninomiya. You must be Ohno-san's friends." Aiba's jaw goes slack.

"Oh my God it is true," Sho says.

"Ohno," Jun immediately turns to him, "Are you sure he wanted to come here? You didn't kidnap him or anything, did you?"

Ohno shakes his head, but Jun's already correcting himself, "What am I saying, how can you possibly kidnap someone. I'm already going insane."

"Um," Ninomiya says.

Aiba jolts out of his stupor and shuts his mouth with a snap. He grabs Ninomiya's hand and starts shaking it vigorously. "Hello, kind stranger! My name is Aiba Masaki, and I'm really happy to meet you! Where are you from? Why are you here? How long are you planning to stay? Forever? Say forever."

"Give the man some space to breathe!" Sho says, pulling Aiba off of Ninomiya. "I'm Sakurai Sho. Sorry, Aiba's just easily excited. We don't really get many visitors here, so when we do, it's quite an occasion." He takes Ninomiya's hand too, shakes it a few times firmly. "I hope you like it here, however long you're planning to stay," he adds, shooting a glare at Aiba. "And this is Matsumoto Jun," Sho says, indicating to Jun, who's standing with his arms crossed and wears a less-than-pleased expression on his face.

Ninomiya holds out his hand to him, but Jun makes no indication to take it.

"Pleased to meet you too," Ninomiya smiles, and drops his hand.

"Jun," Sho sighs, but Jun ignores him.

"Don't think that just because you're new here that you're some instant celebrity or something," Jun says coolly. "We don't meet many strange people, so when we do, it's natural to be suspicious of their purpose here. Our town may not be much, but it's still our home. Don't get any funny ideas."

"Hey," Ohno cuts in. "Don't be like that."

Jun narrows his eyes at him. "And you, how can you just invite someone into your home like this? Do you know anything about this person gives enough reason to let him live with you?"

"Er," Ohno says. He knew Jun would bring that up, and he hasn't had enough time to think of a good answer yet.

"Hey you," Ninomiya interrupts, stepping up to Ohno's side. "Ohno-san's being very generous to allow me to stay here, I don't plan to take advantage of his hospitality. I got caught up in the thunderstorm, that's why I'm here. I'll be taking my leave as soon as the weather clears."

So soon, Ohno thinks, then mentally smacks himself. Of course Ninomiya wouldn't stay longer, why would he? There's nothing here in this town for him. There was barely enough for its own citizens to make a decent living.

Jun's lips purse. He's not used to people talking back to him. Aiba and Sho are looking at each other in that what-should-we-do-should-we-say-something sort of way, and Ohno's never good in situations like this. But Ninomiya doesn't seem like he's going to take back anything he said, so eventually Jun grits out, "You'd better keep your word."

"Or what," Ninomiya pushes. Ohno's hand grabs Ninomiya's wrist, trying to warn him to back off, but he's ignored.

Jun's voice lowers. "In this town, we take care of our own. Don't underestimate us. We built this entire city from nothing."

"Is that why it looks like crap," Ninomiya says lightly, and ducks just in time to avoid Jun's fist.

"Jun!" Sho and Aiba grab him, Aiba yelling for Jun to calm down. Ohno squeezes Ninomiya's wrist hard to get his attention.

"Why are you doing this?" Ohno whispers, panicked.

"He's your friend, right?" Ninomiya hisses. "He should respect your decisions! Here he comes, shooting you down, shooting down your guest, and I'm just supposed to take it?"

"No," Ohno tries to explain. "Jun - he, he takes care of us when we can't. You're not one of us, you don't understand."

Ninomiya stares. "Just, please," Ohno tries again. "Jun's not usually like this, it's just that you're here, and it's weird, that's why, okay? Please." That makes no sense and Ohno knows it, but Ninomiya seems to understand. He sighs and his shoulders slump, losing their tension.

Jun's lips curl down when Ninomiya steps closer and lifts up his arm as if to offer his hand again. But instead Ninomiya flicks his wrist and pulls a single white rose out of his sleeve, offering it to Jun.

"What's this," Jun says, still suspicious.

"Take it or leave it," Ninomiya shoots back, waiting.

Jun considers for a moment, but then reaches his hand out. As soon as his fingers touch the stem, the rose begins to change colour. Starting from the top of the stem and seeping upwards, the white petals of the rose all turn a beautiful, royal indigo.

"Purple," Ninomiya snorts. "Figures." Jun, Aiba and Sho all stare at the rose in complete shock.

"Oh, and he's a magician," Ohno says.

FIVE

Sho pulls Ohno aside in the middle of Ninomiya's anecdote about how the time when he worked as a maid for a wealthy family for three days to earn some extra cash and nearly ended up engaged to the household's only son and heir. Aw, Ohno thinks, I want to hear how it ends. He'll have to ask Ninomiya to tell the story again later.

"Ohno-kun," Sho says, leaning in close and keeping his voice quiet. "I know you mean well, helping out a person in need of a place to stay, but I think Jun's in the right here. You probably haven't put as much thought into this as you should have. Ninomiya seems like a nice guy, but he really riled up Jun earlier. He's obviously quite confrontational, and if it happens again..."

"It won't," Ohno says.

Sho gives him a look. "You don't know that."

But Ohno thinks he does. It's because of that flower. Ninomiya gave Jun a magic flower. Ninomiya is a magician. So it was like he was giving Jun a part of himself. That's right, isn't it? Ohno had asked Ninomiya to be nice to Jun and so he'd offered Jun a flower.

"Anyway," Sho continues. "It's you I'm more worried about. He'll be staying here overnight, I gather? You should take care."

Ohno blinks. Sho sighs, "I mean, make sure he doesn't steal anything from you."

"Oh. No, it's okay. He's good. I like him," Ohno says.

Sho looks exasperated. "How can you trust him so easily? You don't know him, Satoshi-kun."

Ohno knows that. But he also knows that Ninomiya is not a bad person. He'd thought anyone could see that. It's from the little things that Ninomiya does: he holds the door open for Ohno, he is polite to Ohno's mother, he gave Ohno the last piece of chicken on his plate at dinner. He talks to Ohno openly, like they'd known each other all their life, and doesn't find it strange that Ohno barely replies back. He'd given Ohno's mom a kiss on the cheek to thank her for the meal, making her blush with pleasure, and had given Ohno a one-armed hug right afterwards, even though Ohno hadn't done a thing to deserve it. It all strikes Ohno as a form of gratefulness, like Ninomiya is very grateful for every bit of their kindness.

It's more than that, though. Ohno had noticed that sometimes Ninomiya would glance between Ohno and his mom and then look away, as if uncomfortable to be watching their interaction. Ohno had wondered if maybe, perhaps, Ninomiya was not used to seeing a lot of affection. Ohno had wondered if travelling alone made a person very lonely.

"Earth to Satoshi-kun," Sho says, tapping Ohno's nose.

"He finishes my sentences," Ohno says abruptly, just as he's thinking it. "Before I do, I mean. Like, I'd wanted to say, 'pass the water pitcher, please,' but I only said 'pass the' and he'd already done it. Stuff like that."

Sho raises an eyebrow. "That's why you trust him?"

In the background, Ohno can hear Aiba and Ninomiya laughing together, clear and happy. When Ohno turns around, he even catches sight of a smile on Jun's face before it's violently suppressed.

"Among other things," Ohno admits, and leads Sho back to the group.

to be continued.

(I actually have the entire fic finished, it just needs a lot of editing. I will probably be posting up the other parts once a week in twos, so please do check back often!)
(And thank you for reading. Any comments/criticisms would be very much appreciated.)