Arashi, Sleight of Hand

Title: Sleight of Hand [Ohno/Nino]
Rating/Warnings: PG for Aiba and Kis-My-Ft2 trying to help.
Summary: Ohno and Nino have a standing bet.
AN: I found this half-finished in my folder and just sort of plugged the rest of it in. This is not in any way the Remix pinch hit I am supposed to be working on. If you want to see the full explanation for the trick that Nino does, you can read it here.

Sleight of Hand

Ohno and Nino have a standing bet.

The rules of the bet are simple. Nino will show Ohno a card trick. Ohno has to guess how the trick is done. Ohno is not allowed to ask any questions, but he may ask to see the trick redone. Ohno may take as many guesses as he likes, but for every wrong guess he has to give a kiss to Nino. If he guesses correctly, Ohno may ask Nino for anything he likes.

“You remember your card, right?” Nino asks casually, holding out the deck. “You were paying attention this time?”

“Of course I do,” Ohno answers, reaching out to pull the top card, the card he’d definitely just laid down, which happens to be the three of clubs. Only when he flips it over, it looks a lot more like the eight of diamonds, and Ohno frowns. “Eh?”

“Ah, not what you expected?” Nino wiggles his eyebrows, then reaches into his pocket, where Ohno had put a random card at the very beginning of the trick. He pulls out the card with a flourish, revealing the missing three of clubs. “Looking for this instead?”

“Amazing!” Ohno exclaims as he examines the card, and Nino beams because Ohno is definitely the best audience. Ohno hands back the card and demands, “Show me again.”

“Guess first,” Nino reminds, shuffling the deck while Ohno thinks.

“Maybe I really did just forget,” Ohno admits, scratching the back of his neck.

“No,” Nino laughs, leaning over to collect his kiss. “That’s not it. But pay more attention this time, Oh-chan.”

Nino does the trick four more times that day, in between photoshoots, and earns four more kisses. The last one is rather long and involved, and although Nino doesn’t really object, he does ask if Ohno’s honestly trying his hardest.

“Hm?” Ohno brushes his nose along Nino’s jaw, making him shiver. “Trying at what?” And then his hand is warm on Nino’s stomach, and Nino’s kind of forgotten as well.

The next day they try again, in the dressing room waiting for their turn at an interview. Sho’s reading a paper and Jun is concentrating on a script, but Aiba drifts over to watch. Even though he’s familiar with the terms of the bet, as they all are, he tries to help anyway.

“Nino’s really magic, huh?” Aiba whistles on the third go. Ohno is busy rifling through the deck to make sure that there really aren’t two or maybe three jacks of spades.

“Flattering,” Nino laughs, “but Oh-chan’s already guessed that. And anyway, Oh-chan, the card you pick is different every time, so putting more than one card wouldn’t work. How would I know which one to pick?”

“Maybe you’ve got a whole extra deck in your pocket,” Ohno supposes. Nino lets him check all his pockets as much as he wants before taking a kiss from him, as well as one on the cheek from Aiba for his guess as well.

A couple days later, they’re still going on with it as they start rehearsals for their next batch of shows abroad. Kis-My-Ft2 proves an interested audience as well, and Nino’s never been one to pass up a chance to show off.

“Ta-da!” Nino tugs the six of hearts out of his pocket and hands it to Senga to examine. The rest of Ft2 peer over his shoulder, Miyata reaching down to flick the card a little, and then all four of them turn to eye Ohno.

“I think,” Ohno says slowly, because he thinks he’s starting to get a handle on this one, “that you’re palming my card and getting it in your pocket after I see it.”

“Ah, but then why aren’t there two cards in my pocket at the end of the trick?” Nino asks.

“Hmm,” Ohno furrows his brow again. Ft2 is making the same face.

Fujigaya shows up at that moment, demanding to know why four-sevenths of their unit are screwing off like always instead of practicing. He charges into the midst of them and shoves them into a motion like a purple-furred tornado. Ohno gets caught up in the whirlwind as well, but Nino reaches over to tug him free by fisting a hand in Ohno’s T-shirt.

The tide of kouhai subsides, out the door and back to practice, leaving Ohno grinning sheepishly at Nino.

“Don’t think you’re getting out of your payment,” Nino says, and Ohno just grins harder, then kisses him twice to make up for it.

It only takes until that night for Ohno to work out the rest of it, and Nino is just changing for bed when Ohno announces that he wants to see it one more time. Shrugging on his T-shirt the rest of the way, Nino complains that he will have to put his pants back on to do it since it requires pockets.

But it doesn’t take Ohno much work to talk him into it. The trick, from beginning to end, goes like this:

Nino gives Ohno the deck to shuffle in any way that he likes, and then tells him to take the top card off the deck and to put it in Nino’s pocket, not letting either of them see it. Then he asks Ohno to pick a number between one and twenty in his head, to count that many cards down into the deck, and to remember what card he has.

Nino then takes the deck back, and counts out the number of cards Ohno asks him to, laying them face down in a pile on the bedside table as he does, so that the card Ohno has just looked at must necessarily be on top. But when Ohno flips the top card over, as usual it is not his card. Instead, Ohno’s card has moved to Nino’s pocket.

“Got it?” Nino asks, twirling the nomadic card between his fingers.

“Yeah,” Ohno nods. “The card I put in your pocket, while I’m counting down into the pile, you pull it out, right? You palm it and stick it on top of the deck so when you count down the same number of cards as me, there’s an extra card, and my card is still on the top of the deck. Then when I’m busy looking at the wrong card, you can slip my real card into your pocket.”

He looks up at Nino for confirmation, but Ohno’s already sure he’s got it right, and Nino’s grin proves it.

“Very good, Oh-chan,” he congratulates, dropping the deck of cards on the bedside table and reaching down to strip his pants back off. “You win. So what do you want?”

Ohno reaches over to stop Nino’s hands on his belt, giving Nino a grin of his own before answering, “I want you to show me another trick.”

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  By Neena Shareefa, 2012.08.13 @ 7:12 pm

  This is adorably cute :3
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  By nekokirin3104, 2013.09.14 @ 5:54 pm

  Nino and his sly ways of getting a kiss. And Ohno matching him with his own brand of sly in the end. This was an adorable read! Thanks for sharing! <3

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