hikaru shindou ⑤ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
protential) wrote2013-09-12 10:29 pm
protential) wrote2013-09-12 10:29 pm
it gets lonely to feel things all by yourself.
(continued from here.)
[It wouldn't take more than a minute to get those directions. Two minutes at max. Touya doesn't have to stick around here if he doesn't want to. Hell, Touya could've just sent him the directions via email and wouldn't have had to come over here at all. It isn't the fucking Stone Age anymore; there are search engines where two addresses are all you need to figure out where you're supposed to go. Touya came here under a kind of ridiculous pretense, Hikaru thinks, now that he's thinking about it, but he isn't going to bring that up just yet. Touya relies on pretenses as much as anyone else, projecting purpose and aplomb even when he feels anything but. It took Hikaru a while to realize that most people never see the other sides of Touya for themselves. Go Weekly crows about his stupid stately manner every other week, which Hikaru reads about and has to roll his eyes at. Everyone wears masks, with one for pretty much every occasion... Touya's masks are just more convincing and firmly attached. But, right now, Hikaru can see why most people cringe when they're stuck between Touya and his destination. Touya has this freaky laser-sighted precision when it comes to doing what he set out to do. It's just, in this case...
In this case, Hikaru is the destination, and he's glad for the towel that's covering most of his face. Touya can't see his own reddened cheeks, or the half-opened state of his mouth, the restless shift of his tongue beyond his teeth. I came for your room, delivered in that aerial voice, might as well be, I came for you. Hikaru remembers something randomly, then, just a random phrase, as Touya ascends the stairs in front of him: Home is where the heart is. That's a very sentimental thing for him to think--it's pretentious, too. But it's what he's thinking as he follows Touya up to his bedroom.
It doesn't look much different from how it looked yesterday. His goban has been cleared of that final, unfinished game, however. Over in the one corner, his previously unremarkable desk is more visible, serving as a pseudo-filing cabinet for important paperwork. The smell of incense is completely gone, thanks to Touya's psychotic airing out of his confines. In its place, there's something fainter, gentler on one's sanity, resembling a waft of sea breeze at dawn. It can be traced back to the pale scented candle Hikaru placed on the windowsill at some point. And his bedding is just as fresh and clean, no longer a miserable hovel, in a cloudier shade of blue. Like a day at the beach in the middle of winter.
Letting the towel drape around his neck, Hikaru goes over to the desk to grab a pen and a yellow notepad for Touya to write the directions on. He also picks up a notebook of blank kifu paper, since he might as well record their game while Touya is here. It still feels so dreamlike that he wants to make sure he's remembering it right.]
Man, Touya, you make it sound like I'm completely helpless. I would've figured out where to go with or without him. [It might just have taken him another hour of wandering around to get there. He glances over his shoulder at Touya, then at his goban, then back to Touya...] Anyway, I'd give you the grand tour, but what you see is what you get. [He drops the pen and notepad in front of Touya, then sits down at an angle from him, not directly opposite. No defaulting to seiza when his knees still kind of hurt...
In general, the bath must have been good for him, because he doesn't look so exhausted, greasy, or grimy, or like he'd crumble to pieces at a single touch. Only his longstanding sleep debt is there in the bruises under his eyes (they're a darker green, a forest green, right now).
Dryly:] Are you impressed yet?
[It wouldn't take more than a minute to get those directions. Two minutes at max. Touya doesn't have to stick around here if he doesn't want to. Hell, Touya could've just sent him the directions via email and wouldn't have had to come over here at all. It isn't the fucking Stone Age anymore; there are search engines where two addresses are all you need to figure out where you're supposed to go. Touya came here under a kind of ridiculous pretense, Hikaru thinks, now that he's thinking about it, but he isn't going to bring that up just yet. Touya relies on pretenses as much as anyone else, projecting purpose and aplomb even when he feels anything but. It took Hikaru a while to realize that most people never see the other sides of Touya for themselves. Go Weekly crows about his stupid stately manner every other week, which Hikaru reads about and has to roll his eyes at. Everyone wears masks, with one for pretty much every occasion... Touya's masks are just more convincing and firmly attached. But, right now, Hikaru can see why most people cringe when they're stuck between Touya and his destination. Touya has this freaky laser-sighted precision when it comes to doing what he set out to do. It's just, in this case...
In this case, Hikaru is the destination, and he's glad for the towel that's covering most of his face. Touya can't see his own reddened cheeks, or the half-opened state of his mouth, the restless shift of his tongue beyond his teeth. I came for your room, delivered in that aerial voice, might as well be, I came for you. Hikaru remembers something randomly, then, just a random phrase, as Touya ascends the stairs in front of him: Home is where the heart is. That's a very sentimental thing for him to think--it's pretentious, too. But it's what he's thinking as he follows Touya up to his bedroom.
It doesn't look much different from how it looked yesterday. His goban has been cleared of that final, unfinished game, however. Over in the one corner, his previously unremarkable desk is more visible, serving as a pseudo-filing cabinet for important paperwork. The smell of incense is completely gone, thanks to Touya's psychotic airing out of his confines. In its place, there's something fainter, gentler on one's sanity, resembling a waft of sea breeze at dawn. It can be traced back to the pale scented candle Hikaru placed on the windowsill at some point. And his bedding is just as fresh and clean, no longer a miserable hovel, in a cloudier shade of blue. Like a day at the beach in the middle of winter.
Letting the towel drape around his neck, Hikaru goes over to the desk to grab a pen and a yellow notepad for Touya to write the directions on. He also picks up a notebook of blank kifu paper, since he might as well record their game while Touya is here. It still feels so dreamlike that he wants to make sure he's remembering it right.]
Man, Touya, you make it sound like I'm completely helpless. I would've figured out where to go with or without him. [It might just have taken him another hour of wandering around to get there. He glances over his shoulder at Touya, then at his goban, then back to Touya...] Anyway, I'd give you the grand tour, but what you see is what you get. [He drops the pen and notepad in front of Touya, then sits down at an angle from him, not directly opposite. No defaulting to seiza when his knees still kind of hurt...
In general, the bath must have been good for him, because he doesn't look so exhausted, greasy, or grimy, or like he'd crumble to pieces at a single touch. Only his longstanding sleep debt is there in the bruises under his eyes (they're a darker green, a forest green, right now).
Dryly:] Are you impressed yet?
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By the time he abandons the pen completely, he's looked all around the room, the broad focus of the gifted, his eyes as search lights. Trinkets, and stickers, and signs of life. This is a colorful, charismatic place, just like Shindou is colorful and charismatic. Akira's gaze does yet another slow sweep across the bedroom, as if he's still not satiated by all these details, before he lingers on a bookshelf off to the side. Here, again, that focus. He rises enough to shuffle over on his knees.
His index finger skips against the spines of issue after issue of Weekly Shounen Jump. His examination lasts until he tugs one volume away from its shelf, and then he's flipping through its pages.]
I wasn't expecting to be impressed.
[It would have been kinder if Akira said he wasn't looking to be impressed, and ultimately, in his heart, they mean the same thing. But the moderation of his words can be inconsistent. His elaboration, too, isn't exactly clear cut...] But it's nice. It reminds me of you. [Even as it leaves his mouth, he stops to consider what he's just said. Thoughtfully, he's looking toward the ceiling. Then he drops his eyes back down to whatever random page of manga.] I mean, it's very much like you. It's very much...
[He shakes his head. Turns the page.]
I just wanted to see everything.
[He isn't the only one who's seen these things—certain individuals have seen much more, and for much longer. It's not fair that it took this long for Akira to be able to see it, too. It's not fair that familiarity belonged to someone else. And it's not fair, who it belonged to. What's so good about your bedroom? Yeah. Well.
Akira looks up from beneath the line of his bangs. The Jump issue is loose in hands gone idle.]
Thank you for having me, [he says, belatedly. He should have said it while he was standing in the doorway of the house.]
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[He looks up at yet again, when Touya takes it upon himself to inspect the bookshelf up close. There's a whole lot of history on those shelves--they tell a story of their own, if anyone could be bothered to read it. Manga, video game guides, sports magazines, just that sort of stuff was all he had for a long time... then books on Go started creeping in. Eventually, the books on Go crowded out everything else. It got harder to keep up with his old hobbies as his preoccupation with Go got that much deeper.]
But, good. That's good to hear. It's supposed to remind you of me, I think. Just like your room reminded me of you.
[Touya's hands all over a goddamn volume of manga shouldn't seem as intimate as it does. He says he wants to see everything, too, and Hikaru swallows, his throat working around a lump of anticipation. What else does Touya want to see, and when did he start wanting to see it? Is he trying to make up for lost time or something?]
Hey, while you're over there... grab that yellow binder for me. Right above you.
[It's positioned two shelves up from the manga collection, a brighter than bright yellow. It has the same dimensions as Sai's neutral purple binder. Its width and generous weight proves it has the exact same purpose of storing hundred and hundreds of records. This binder is Hikaru's personal archive, which he doesn't hide away like he does Sai's. It, too, offers all the games he can possibly remember, many of which Touya has never seen before, obviously. Not only the games against Sai. Everything. His efforts as an insei, and the pro exam, and...
Hikaru is poised to mark down Black's next move, but the way Touya is looking at him gives him pause. It isn't the indecent shine of yesterday, or a chilly, commanding spear aimed at his weakest of weak points. No, it's more like a sci-fi tractor beam, quantized and inexplicable, keeping their eye contact locked in place.]
You... [Self-consciously, he runs a few his fingers through his still-damp hair, knowing it's going to be a mess by the time it dries.] I'm glad you're here, [he says, because he shouldn't let Touya think that isn't true,] but you really didn't have to drop whatever you were doing for my sake. If you were doing stuff at school, or...
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Believe it or not? I believe it. [A little priggish, to be honest, in his enunciation... His fingertips give the page a delicate pluck, and he turns it pointedly. Then, he's confident, and that confidence is very warm:] Usually, when you're sloppy, you're still trying to accomplish something. It could be any number of things, but it's still there. For the sake of it? That would surprise me more.
[And although the force behind him doesn't lessen—does it ever?—his stare does demure shortly after landing so hard on Shindou. He presses his lips together, and presses the pages of Shounen Jump shut. The binder, right above him, is a thing he can recognize. After witnessing the compilation of Sai's games, Akira can only assume that this plastic archive is colored for all the bright wonder of Shindou's Go. "Wonder" not necessarily meaning "glory", but Akira would be lying if he said he didn't want to see all the progression.
Even so, he sounds embittered when he draws it from its shelf.] If I decide to do something, it's because I have good reason to do it. [What Shindou said isn't a personal attack. It's not one, and a vein straight through Akira tells him as much. But it all just feels like Shindou doubts him. When it feels like Shindou doubts him, it feels like Shindou thinks he's incapable. If Shindou thinks he is incapable, Shindou also thinks he's incapable of doing the right things for Shindou. And if that's true... if Akira can't place the proper stones, or ace the proper school exams, or make the proper snap decisions... then there's no need for Shindou to bother.
If there's no need for Shindou to bother, it makes sense that he would leave Akira alone for weeks at a time, and then, eventually, longer. It makes sense that he'll recede completely. And so any sliver of what sounds like doubt just gives Akira's voice the depth of a bad wound. As with any animal, there's the bite that comes with injury, and the defensiveness of vulnerability. His head dips forward, when he speaks like that; the shape of his hair cuts across his expression.]
So if you're glad, just be glad, for now. Right?
[The defensiveness of vulnerability feels suspiciously like embarrassment. It sounds like a breathy note of uncertainty.]
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I'm glad you're here. I'm thankful... that you're here. I'm feeling better, too. Now that you're here. [He isn't lying about that, for what it's worth. "Better" is just a murky assessment in and of itself. In the tub, though, for the first time in a while, he didn't think about what it'd be like to lean back and fill his lungs up with water. (Sai did that and never seemed to regret doing it.)] After yesterday, I feel like... I should pay more attention to, uh... how you're feeling, too. So, if there's... [He gestures vaguely with an empty hand, because no one ever taught him how this sort of thing is supposed to go. His eyebrows are knitting together with threads of confusion, of frustration, and his mouth can't decide if a frown is appropriate. He feels like he's only making things worse, but he still wants to try something.]
I mean, you told me... I'm always arguing about everything, and... [He had been tempted to say Touya was responsible for a majority of their arguments, but then they'd argue about that.] I'm never listening to what you say, and... [It takes all the willpower in the universe to look back down at their game. Black's move. Right. It was a fearless move, upping the tempo of the moment, laying foundations for an eventual win. White's response was brilliant, though.] You wouldn't be saying those things if you didn't have a good reason to say them.
[His voice hasn't been this soft since that time he took a heavy-duty sleep aid and then stayed awake to talk to Touya, on the phone, when Touya was away in Sendai for an official function. He doesn't really remember what he said, but at some point he claimed Touya's Go was so beautiful it could make him cry just thinking about it. Seriously embarrassing stuff--]
I am very sorry for causing you all this trouble.
[Then, believe it or not, he arranges his hands on his knees and bows penitently before Touya. It isn't a complete and total prostration of the body, but it's shockingly close.]
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And Shindou came running into his life like muddy boots over tatami mats. It was horrifying. It was mystifying. Infuriating, insulting, exhausting. Shindou pinched a special thread inside of Akira, with two fingers, and snipped it soundly. Akira forgot how to whisper, whenever he saw Shindou's face. He's thinking, now, how good it can be to whisper. He's thinking he should have given much more of it to Shindou, who is no less captivating than he is infuriating. Akira wants to watch his face, not the top of his head while he bows.]
Shindou, you don't have to... I'm not angry. [Shindou is capable of making Akira more angry than he thought possible, but right now... right now, Akira leans in to settle his hand on the floor between them. Peace offering. Position of hope. He tries to keep it looking lax, not tight under stress.] I would like to say it's... I'd like it to be for good reason. But, Shindou, do you know what? [His fingertips press firm against Shindou's floor. Even now, Akira is just bad at being lax.] I just get worried.
[His other hand is resting atop the binder's glossy face, the curve of his fingers almost protective. He tries to be soft like the sleep aid, like the yield, wanting his voice to meet Shindou's in the middle.]
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Hikaru, maybe because he's a coward, decides to just shut his mouth again. Hesitantly, he looks up through his bleached bangs at Touya--his darker roots are more obvious now, and he's going to have to get that taken care of before New Year's Eve. Then he sits upright like a tall pole of koinobori, with a look on his face that's about as windblown, too. He glances back down at the kifu, then back up again, comparing the brilliant person on the page to the one who's waiting across from him.
Still so soft:]
You just get worried about everything, and I know that's just the kind of person you are. But, Touya, I want to be... I want to be the kind of person who takes your worries away, not adds onto them. [Oh, god. It sounded a hell of a lot better in his head than when spoken out loud. Hikaru ducks his head slightly, cursing himself, but his eyes are still trained on Touya's concerned face. He might as well be playing backgammon for how out of his depth he feels.] That's what I've been trying to say to you all along.
[And it's in that moment he slides the kifu--now completed--his two pens moved on their own, like automatic writing--over to Touya's outstretched hand. A peace offering, then. A proposal. A promise. Just the evidence of what amazing things they can achieve when they're together.]
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This is the longest Akira has seen Shindou go without touching up his roots. It's an uncomfortable observation. And it makes him wants to slide his fingers against the nape of Shindou's neck, to touch the dark hair there... If he did that, he could say, "It's okay." He could tell that to Shindou, and he would mean it, and maybe Shindou would even believe him, and look up at him through his bleached bangs, eyes an outbursting of color.
When Shindou is upright, Akira lets out a stilted breath, one almost of relief. They're staring at each other, level, now. And Akira blushes.]
The kind of person I am. [It sounds like a skinned knee, and he's well aware of that; for once, too, he's self-conscious for it. His blush isn't a burst of flames, but it's enough that he can feel his blood rushing in his ears. The color came to his face the moment Shindou ducked his head but kept his eyes on Akira. Saying a thing like he just said, and choosing to look at Akira still...
Akira's fingertips reach to make contact with the kifu's corner. He takes his eyes from Shindou's face only for the sake of looking at their game. After a thick swallow, he lifts the page completely. He doesn't want to crease the paper—he must be careful... His other hand is balled up tight atop Shindou's binder. It's balled up tight, as if in refusal of letting something go.]
But I'd rather just... [His mouth clamps shut, lips pressed tight enough to make them sore. Then:] I would rather worry and be around you, than not have that. It's okay if you... whatever you add onto me... [He has to swallow again. His eyebrows are low, dark in their heaviness. He's thinking of 12-5, 11-5, 9-7... Did Shindou notice 10-7, too? The face he made there? What did Shindou think of what he looked like during 10-7, 14-9, 12-6? Should he have looked differently? Better? More, or less?] As long as you're adding yourself, too. That's all...
[That's all I want. That's what he worries about. He just wants Shindou to let him see it. Shindou's Go, and Shindou's hair, and Shindou's all along. In the end, he doesn't say that; he doesn't finish his sentence. He just shakes his head, willing warm blood further from his face, and runs his eyes over and over the kifu in his hand.]
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Although Hikaru's knees despise any movement, he grits his teeth and pushes himself forward, scooting closer to Touya. Closer, then closer still, until he can finally reach over and place one of his hands on top of one of Touya's, and now they're both atop the yellow binder. He wishes he knew the magic words that would make Touya loosen up and relax like an unspooling thread. In any moment, in every moment, it seems like Touya is expecting the worst possible thing to happen, and Hikaru is largely responsible for that.]
You're too young to have permanently high blood pressure, Touya.
[The first time they were scheduled to play each other, which Touya had to forfeit on, due to his father's health scare... That administrator came up to him and led him out of the playing room, and Hikaru had about twenty seconds where he thought he was about to hear something he wouldn't be able to live with. He could feel his heartbeat ringing in his ears, and his head was full of deep-space static, and his mouth felt like it'd peel away, that's how dry it was. If anything bad happened to Touya, if anything bad were to happen to Touya... how could I possibly survive that? And that's how he felt before he lost Sai, and before he understood what real loss could feel like.
But he can't just come out and said he's afraid Touya will have a four-alarm heart attack before he turns thirty. God. God, this fucking idiot.]
Tomorrow...
[He doesn't want to crease the fresh lines, the fresh numbers, either, so he's very careful when he tugs the kifu out of Touya's hand. He sets it down beside the binder, and now there's nothing in between them anymore. He expects Touya's full attention from now on.]
Tomorrow, [he says, no less soft and serious,] I'll text you as soon as I wake up. Every day, I'll text you when I wake up, or just around that time, so you can know I haven't gone anywhere. Even if I don't feel like going out, you'll know it doesn't mean I'm trying to leave you. And that way... you won't have as much junk to worry about, hopefully. [And maybe having a routine would be good for him on a personal level. His smile is sudden and very soft at the edges, and his eyes are still evergreen.] Does that sound good to you? [he asks, his head tilting in closer, his thumb stroking over Touya's.]
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The quiet sweep of Shindou's thumb disperses those storm clouds into mist like a priest's devoted shiu prayers. Clarity smooths over Akira's face, and his mouth feels full. "Tomorrow" sets something special to spread over his tongue. "Every day" adds even more flavor to something that feels like syrup. If Akira had an innate talent for Go, it took years of practice to uncover it. He wasn't born knowing extraordinary moves. But the movement of his head seems extraordinary now, as he tilts in return, in a way complimentary to Shindou. He'll learn the finesse, the best angles, with time—and that thought creeps into his lungs like a comfortable paralytic—but the heart of it is brought here by the natural occurrence of magnetic fields. When he replies, his mouthful of syrup has run down his throat, and wonder of wonders, he's not hoarse with stress, raw-nerved. Shindou's closeness, and the closeness of his words, are acting like a lozenge, like medicinal honey. Akira's voice is the murmur of a cotton yukata.] If you say it, you'd better mean it. If you mean it, it sounds good. But if you don't mean it, you can stop talking. I only want to hear you're not trying to leave if you're really... [He could make a speech on this, give a lecture. A dressing down. They're kissing, though—probably, Akira is being kissed, but maybe he leaned in. He thinks he wanted to do that.
Beneath Shindou's hand, the tension starts to leave Akira's fingers. Like bloodletting, ire and fear seep out and away. It feels sort of helpless to be so easily reassured, when Akira is accustomed to seeking out results. But when he raises his other hand to touch the back of Shindou's neck, like he'd thought about before, he's relinquishing control, and trust, and even all solicitudes that wind with them. He is the one to part their kiss, his own inhale following along after him, but it looks more like he thinks he should be worried, rather than that he actually is. His hand remains at Shindou's hairline. Shindou's hair, still damp enough from the bath to be felt, feels like a special privilege.] I mean it, [he finishes, and whatever he's thinking, he really does mean. The certainty of that, the weight of what it means to him, lurks close by.]
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He kisses Touya like he's getting used to it, less curious and then more comfortable with it, doing it for reasons other than because he can. The first time, he kind of bumped their noses together en route, unsure of the angle and where to land... but now he knows how this puzzle should fit together. He can taste Touya's tension, a little bitter like licorice, reminding him of the last time he apologized by sharing a bag of candy with him. Given the chance, he's pretty sure he could figure out how to make Touya melt. Nothing would be more gratifying then watching him dissolve like sugar into a skillet.
Staying close, Hikaru says,] Every day. Every day. That's what I'm telling you. I mean it, too. You can't look at me right now and tell me I don't mean it, because I seriously do... [That hand at his hair somehow convinces him to close his eyes, letting him savor a touch like this for the very first time. Sai may have cradled his little head and told him things would be better by morning's light, but that wasn't anything like this. This is more than a kindness. More than a blessing. No word exists in any language that can describe what this means to him.
If Touya keeps touching him, and playing Go with him, then everything will have been worth it. That's what he's trying to tell himself, at least.]
Do you like it?
[And he doesn't specify what he means by that question, and he doesn't believe he needs to, either. At long last, after their fifth kiss, he's asking if Touya thinks it's something worthwhile. He's also asking if Touya wants to do it again.]
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But he'd like to think... he looks at Shindou's eyes. They're mercurial in their coloring, but never any less compelling in one shade over another. And they're so strong. The strength of them is overwhelming, and Akira feels and has always felt this unshakable desire to align with that strength. He'd like to think, while he looks at Shindou, that Shindou means it. That they mean the same things. And he would like to think that this comfort is good enough a thing that Shindou will think of Akira and find it too hard to flee him.
Shindou shuts his eyes, but Akira keeps watching his face. His fingertips shift back and forth, quite slow, quite new, against the ends of Shindou's hair. Even performing the action is enthralling. Akira answers,] Mmhmm. [It's an inadequate sound on its own, only reinforced by the continued stroking of his fingers. He tries to get a feel for this part of Shindou, for this space of him—for being in his space this way—like a game he'll retread in his head for days and days. This is Shindou's scent just after washing. This is how warm the nape of his neck feels. Akira's touch is growing more confident, and it gives him the confidence to use real words.] Yes, [he says at first, and his hand curves further in exploration, until he's touching a spot behind Shindou's ear. He thinks he can be bolder.] It's nice. [A catching of breath, while Akira gathers himself. He isn't afraid of how he presents himself: needy or clingy or overbearing, foolish in what really must be yearning... he doesn't stop to consider those things. But he is afraid of being unworthy to hear the answer he wants when he asks this question.]
Isn't it?
[Isn't it nice, and wouldn't it be nice, if Shindou thought well enough of this to make it last. And if it's so nice, then Shindou could continue to seek it out. That's what Akira wishes for. He wants to be sought, and he wants Shindou to value every day enough to seek him. It's starting to feel like things could be that way. Akira bites his upper lip, taking a moment to relish the novelty. It makes him blush to be asked by Shindou if something sounds good, or if he likes something. So often, too often, when Akira is voicing his opinion, it's a negative one, designed to rile. But here, Akira's palm is full of the hope that Shindou might want more of him. Here, Akira's palm fits against Shindou's jaw line when he leans in to kiss him in his own way, studious in manner, looking to learn how to design a kiss in exactly the right approach. (Perfectionist, fixated on the minutiae of details.) His other hand, before so like granite, tugs out from beneath Shindou's. It's so he can hold Shindou's head with both hands—the side of his face, and up into his hair—while he insistently tries to be nice. He is trying very hard, in that. A little too hard. When Shindou is asking if Akira wants to do this again, Akira is saying, let's. For once, let Shindou want a thing just as much.]
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Really nice, [Hikaru agrees, then, and he almost doesn't recognize his own voice anymore. It's very low, more of a vibration than a sound, caught up in his throat. His heart can't figure out if it wants to speed up or slow down.] Hey, Touya, I'm... [He forgets whatever it is he wants to say as soon as Touya kisses him again. Maybe he intended for it to be another apology. Maybe he wanted to ask if Touya forgives him for all the stupid shit he's done. Touya moves ahead and insists on the kiss being nice, for him, for the both of them, and he's trying hard to make it feel as nice as it does. And it's just like Touya, really, the way he's applies himself diligently to every undertaking. Like something isn't worth doing unless he's going to be the best at it. Hikaru can't deny how much he likes that about him.
With just the slightest change in angle, their mouths can fit together much more securely. It's warm, and it's damp, like everglades, a little bit soft but not so unyielding. He can tell Touya was drinking tea sometime before coming over here. The flavor shoots through his head in a wave of delirium, knowing he's close enough to taste what Touya himself was tasting. He ends up grasping at Touya's waist with both hands, trying to stay upright, to not fall over before an overwhelming breakthrough. If Touya doesn't pull away, Hikaru's going to find out exactly what he's been--
Downstairs, the front door swings open wide. "Hika-ruuuu!" his mother calls up to him, sounding more than a little frazzled, and then there's the clunk-clatter of her dropping groceries all over the floor. "Are you awake up there, Hikaru? I need your help carrying all of this inside!" Hikaru, to his credit, doesn't immediately launch himself across the room to separate himself from Touya. He looks more like he's blinking his way out of a long, soothing daydream, feeling confused by the interruption, closer to annoyed. Their lips have to part again, and, kind of incredibly, there's a thin thread of saliva between them that he rubs away with his fingers.
He turns his head to the side, trying to catch his breath, before he can respond:]
Y-Yeah! I'm, yeah--I'm awake--I'll be right down! Just give me a second! I'll be... right there...
[He looks back at Touya, his gaze now sharper with comprehension--and then he breaks out into the most outrageous grin ever. If his mom did catch him making out in his room with another boy, he wouldn't even care. He would not give a shit. But the possibility that they could get caught makes him feel like he's inhaling helium right out of a balloon. He doesn't have enough time to cover his mouth before he starts laughing--high-pitched, and exuberant.
He can't remember the last time he laughed like this, but it feels really good.]
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He looks completely mystified, lost in marvel, his lip still glistening.] Uhm, [he says, and then his eyebrows raise sharply. Quick, flustered, he turns his face to the side. His hair fans out for a frantic second before settling back near his chin.
Being interrupted by Shindou's mother is embarrassing, but not to the full degree of his discomfort. What he saw in Shindou's laughter, the bright and compelling warmth of his pleasure, was frightening in all it offered. There's more of this, he knows. More laughter, and more shine to gain from each other's mouths. He blinks his eyes a couple times, but they open no less wide, and he seems at a loss as to how he should process all the stirring Shindou's mirth has done. Shindou's helium is carrying over, making Akira light-headed, and slowly, deliberately, he takes his own top lip between his teeth.
It's a moment more before he glances back at Shindou, just past the curtain of his straight, dark hair, its gloss protective.] You should let her know you have a guest. [—"A friend over"? Could he have gotten away with saying that instead? His fingers worry a bit while he wonders that; his hands are clasped loosely at the base of Shindou's neck. He should slide them down and away, perhaps, or else wrench them away completely. But he likes the feeling of letting his thumb stroke against Shindou's skin, and the body heat that has come with that exuberance.
Akira looks down, but no less near with his hands and his body, before he raises his eyes up to Shindou at a questioning angle.] You could tell her I'm here to study with you. I want to... [His lips press together, just seconds long.] I want to look at our game again, anyway, so...
[What he really wants is to demand, with a face free of the uncertain blush he has now, that Shindou hold onto him again. Both hands, both sides of his waist. It felt like its own sort of praise, to be held in somebody's hands. To be held in Shindou's hands. Akira sighs, a shallow pool of sugar water, its sweetness stopped short by his own rote restraint. One mustn't hyperventilate. He's tried not to do that even in the face of Shindou Hikaru, but that's when it's most difficult...]
Does she know it's me with whom you're spending New Year's Eve? [He frowns just a little, thoughtful and maybe disapproving, and his thumb strokes Shindou's hairline in another direction.] I should... maybe, a gift for her, for your father... for New Year's...
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But he does know how much he likes Touya's hands, and how much he likes having those hands at his neck. Even with the interruption, Touya is still touching him, keeping him close, maybe because he doesn't want to stop being near him. Hikaru snorts his way through another giggle, his head lolling to the side, his eyes still focused on the colorful canvas of Touya's cheeks. Something tells him he's going to remember this for the rest of his life. This particular moment, right here. Yesterday morning, he was convinced he was going to going to die, literally die, a funeral and everything, and now everything is so different. Finally, he swallows the last of his helpless laughter, then sighs a little, his chest aching from effort. He closes his eyes and sighs again, more audible this time.]
Oh, man...
[It's kind of weird that they can kiss like that and Hikaru still doesn't know what it actually means for them. Are they just... messing around? Are they a thing now? They're already rivals, and colleagues, and sometimes they seem like friends, although that's another lingering question he hasn't tried to answer. Opening one eye, somehow flirty about it, Hikaru wonders what his mom would say if he went downstairs and said his boyfriend was here to study Go with him. He wonders what Touya would say if he said that.]
Touya, I can't tell her anything until you decide to let me go, [he murmurs, then. He doesn't sound unhappy about Touya's clinginess, even when his mom calls to him, once more, from the bottom of the steps. His breathing is heavier and a bit uneven, too, like it is when they're in the middle of an engrossing game.] I'll go down there, and I'll help her out, and I'll come right back after that. Don't go anywhere, okay? Don't leave. We can look at our game together, and... [His fingertips press against Touya's elbows, then move along Touya's forearms, curving inward, to alight on a pair of delicate wrists. He's gentle, even apologetic, about tugging Touya's hands away from his neck. He pauses only for a moment to kiss the soft, smooth heel of one of them, nearest to the intuition line. Simply because he wants to.] You can tell me what that face you made at 10-7 was about. 10-7, 14-9, 12-6...
[Both eyes open now, he guides Touya's hands all the way down, then draws himself away and gets back onto his feet. Touya probably wants to make a better impression with a gift, or something like that, which is endearing and also this side of pointless. His parents aren't going to be all that impressed with a professional Go player, no matter how spectacular he is. Stretching his arms behind his back, Hikaru says,] Oh, she doesn't know about the, uh... the details, just yet... [She doesn't know anything about his plans, and Hikaru has no desire to tell her until the very last second. He's in too good of a mood to deal with the inevitable bullshit.] But don't worry about that kind of thing. Seriously. They're not expecting a gift or anything.
[He nudges Touya's knee with his bare, wiggling toes. He hasn't stopped smiling.]
I'll be back before you know it.
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Akira curls his fingers inward, as if holding on to that quiet kiss. He settles his hands neatly over his knees. And maybe he can convince himself of this, too, when he says,] I can wait.
[It works, at least for time spent waiting for Shindou to come back up the stairs. He strains to try to listen to the interactions between Shindou and his mother, and all that happens is his heart drops. But she sends her son back with snacks, and Akira tries hard to soften his own rigidity. The softening happens little by little. He ends up staying for a couple hours, and by the end, he's sitting on the floor next to Shindou's bed, leaning with his side against it, resting his head against the edge of the mattress. He's got this smile, effaceable but persisting, made stronger the longer he looks over at Shindou. He writes down those directions, finally, too, during some pause. When he leaves, he presses the paper into Shindou's hands, staring, staring, his line of sight direct and unchangeable. He tells Shindou what time to come to his house, the evening after tomorrow, and his eyes are crisp and clear in saying that he won't—can't—tolerate Shindou's truancy in this.
Akira spends December 30th at the Go salon, its last day before closing for the holiday, in part to deliver a New Year's gift to Ichikawa-san. It's a box of distinguished looking sweets, old-fashioned, and she laughs and tells him that's just like him, before giving him her own gift of sandalwood soaps. She also slips him an otoshidama envelope, cheering for him for this coming year. He does wonder sometimes how old he's going to be when she thinks he's as much of an adult as anyone else.
He leaves the salon, he has a quiet dinner, and he goes to sleep. Then he's up early the next morning, December 31st, and he's cleaning his house with a fervor. Everything gets dusted; he makes sure all surfaces gleam with age and care. He takes a shower around nine in the morning, and then he takes another one at four in the afternoon. Lunch time consisted of setting out tea and rice crackers for himself, and then getting distracted halfway through the crackers, instead hurrying off to set his futon out on the porch and beat it extra clean. Later on, he washes his face, and his hands, and then dresses himself for the evening.
He expects Shindou at nine o'clock. Families usually spend this time prior to midnight together, Akira knows, when the New Year is arriving, and he should perhaps feel a little guilty for asking Shindou to come here for it instead. All he feels is the seasickness of anticipation, though, like trying to walk steadily across the rolling sea. When he opens his front door, he already looks ready to speak up against a challenge, on his toes. His kimono must be a hundred times softer than the tension at his temples. It's a stirring, rich blue, not quite saturated enough to be cobalt. The thin obi at his waist is colored like pearl, with thin lines of sea green pattered like scales. He ushers Shindou in with little waves of his hands, and his house already smells like tea, like wood, and clean water. He wastes no time in pulling Shindou towards an open sitting room, space heater glowing close by, and pouring some of that tea.
The air of utter dignity surrounding him doesn't last all that long, once he's kneeling by where Shindou sits.] I definitely don't want to miss observing any of the Honinbou league matches in the coming months, so, no, I won't be in school while those are going on. But the term ends in March, remember, so there are going to be exams. I'll just have to be studying. That's all.
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He has a dream about Sai's hair. Not Sai himself--just Sai's hair, long and dark, the tresses coiling like snakes, all stretched out across his floor and up and down his bedroom walls. Even the door and windows are covered in thick layers of hair, blocking out most of the light. It's already wrapping around his wrists, and his ankles, and he can't get away from it no matter how hard he tries. It splashes over his chest, rushing and rustling horribly, and it fashions itself as a noose around his neck. When he tries to scream for help, a massive knot of hair plunges right into his mouth--and he wakes up like that, twisted up in his blanket, soaked to the bone in freezing-cold sweat. It's just before dawn. His room is empty, cold, tinged grey, and there's smoke drifting up from the candle that finally burned itself out. It feels like there's something stuck in his throat. He coughs, then coughs harder, fully expecting to get rid of whatever it is. The weird feeling doesn't go away even after he drinks a glass of water.
As promised, he texts Touya about an hour later, and he doesn't say anything about his dream or the fact he's thrown up twice out of sheer paranoia. good morning, he writes, as jovial as he can make it. i'm getting my hair cut today! Later in the afternoon, he sends along a few selfies of him sitting in a hairdresser's chair, with a bubblegum-snapping color tech stationed at his shoulder. She's in the middle of applying a pale, goopy mixture to his bangs with a small brush, whatever it is they use for bleaching purposes. It's one of those things he doesn't know anything about beyond the fact it works as advertised. He looks tired, noticeably so, but he's smiling a little anyway.
That night, he has another dream about being suffocated by hair.]
--Holy shit, Touya, [he exclaims the next day, on New Year's Eve, as soon as Touya opens the front door. Touya's kimono earns the full sweep of his attention, from top to bottom and back again.] I didn't know you were gonna go all the way with it. You should've told me you were dressing up...! [He's surprised, but pleased, and now he's definitely feeling underdressed, like he should have gone and rented his own kimono. All he has on is a silky black dress shirt, unbuttoned, adorned with blooming flowers and golden shapes along the shoulders, with a plain grey shirt underneath that. At least the pair of jeans he's wearing are clean and creaseless, more or less brand-new. He thought he looked pretty good when he left the house this afternoon (after telling his mom he was going out for a while, but not that he'd be back anytime soon). Touya, though, has totally blown him out of the fucking water. It's hard not to wonder at how slender Touya looks when his waist is defined by that scale-etched obi.
The Touya family home is pretty much the way Hikaru remembers it: curiously traditional, and its own sort of step back into the past. It reminds him of his grandfather's place, and how he's supposed to be over there right about now. Oh well. He can't say he's feeling guilty for blowing off a family reunion, because, well... he doesn't feel guilty at all. Or, he does feel a little guilty, because every time he goes over to his grandfather's, he takes the time to visit Sai's goban and talk to it about recent events. Lately, he doesn't know what he's supposed to be saying, but this year he won't be there to wish Sai a Happy New Year.
In any case, Hikaru dumps his backpack on the floor and sits down with a rolling gust of a sigh.] Well, fine, [he says, shrugging one shoulder,] but if your brain explodes by the time your exams come around, you can't say I didn't warn you first... [His phone, somewhere in his backpack, plink-plonks with an incoming text message. He ignores it.] But I should be able to make it to all the matches, too, so we can sit through them together. That should be fun. [Another text message. Another one after that. Then there's a buzz as someone tries to call him--it immediately goes to voice mail--and that same someone leaves him an audio message, even. He ignores all of that, gratefully sipping from his cup of tea. His gaze seems to get lost in the slowly rising steam.]
You look beautiful, by the way.
[A casual, unmistakable compliment.]
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He leans down, until his head settles near an odd little statue set up atop the table. It's an ugly thing, probably weathered bronze, old by the looks of it: a small man, very round, very joyful, with a carp strapped to his back. The carp is ridiculously large in proportion to the man, and it's grotesque, seeming to writhe even in its metal cast. Its face is fearsome, odd when seen so close to the round man's giddy smile. Akira had texted a picture of his hand holding this statue to Shindou shortly after Shindou sent those pictures of his hair being tended. I didn't know we even had this, he wrote. He'd found it in a closet while retrieving bedding for the extra futon. I'll make sure it's out to greet you tonight. Sure enough, Akira peers up at Shindou from right next to it, his face serious. He doesn't say anything while he stares—his face too serious—and simply straightens his back after a few more seconds. His hands settle into his lap.]
It'll be fun, [he says decisively, as if this is confirmed by the fat statue, the hideous carp, and its greeting to Shindou here.] After tomorrow... we'll have those matches. So, in that case, [so, so,] then, I'm glad we have tonight. [His hands aren't resting in his lap anymore. They're twisting. He looks at their color when pressed against the dark swath of his kimono, and then he takes a breath and says,] This one... this kimono I'm wearing tonight, it's my first time. It was given to me when I started high school earlier this year, and... I was saving it for a special occasion. But I do this every year. Different ones, sometimes, whatever color I decide on... [And he swallows, and he opens his mouth like he's going to say another thing, but it stalls when Shindou's phone starts up its buzzing all over again. Akira looks curious, then suspicious, then a little stormy.]
Are you expecting someone?
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Every year... [He's missed a few years already, in other words, and he thinks he should try to be there for a few years to come, at least. He smiles quietly around the rim of his teacup when Touya leans down beside the weird-looking statue, his beauty a poor match for the slimy, angry carp. That stare could peel paint from the walls for how serious and withering it is, which only makes it funnier in juxtaposition.] Idiot, [he murmurs, amused, and more endeared the longer he looks at the two of them.] That creepy little thing looks like it belongs in a museum. Like it's a thousand years old.
[A thousand years old, huh?
Hikaru exhales and sets down the teacup, listening to Touya explain his history with kimonos, listening and listening and not thinking about anything but the smooth texture of Touya's voice and what he'd look like in different colors. Really trying not to think about anything but Touya. It takes him a second or two to realize Touya is asking him a question.] What? No, I'm not... [Unconsciously, he lifts a hand to tousle his own hair, which is very soft to the touch, back to its normal volume and shine.] Ahh, sorry, that's probably one of my stupid cousins wondering where I am. [Then he unzips his backpack and reaches into it, searching around for his noisy phone.] Every year, what happens is me and my parents, and my aunts and uncles, and all of my cousins, we'll go to my grandparents' house to ride out the New Year. The adults just use it as an excuse to get drunk as hell, while the rest of us go into the backyard and play hacky sack until we get bored. [He locates the phone at last, and he powers it off without checking his messages. His fingers end up brushing against the modest-sized box he has tucked away in there.]
Basically, I'm not missing out on anything by not being there. I'd rather be over here. [With you.
He carefully pulls out the box--it's a clean white, faintly patterned with silvery bells--and sets it on the coffee table in between him and Touya.]
Did you want to open this now or later?
[A gift for New Year's. Nothing too special. For Hikaru, there's a lot of untapped pleasure to be had in buying things for Touya and getting to see him wear those things in the days that follow.]
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He twists them tightly in his lap, instead, to the point it hurts a little bit. That's fine.]
I didn't want to keep you from something you wanted to do, [he says, and he's quiet, but his voice is as much of a scrape as it ever is.] But I don't like, either, that this night with your family isn't something to miss. [He means that he's sorry for that, that he's upset on Shindou's behalf.
The bells on Shindou's box have a such a lovely highlight slanted across them, from where Akira sits. He wants to hold it in his hands, but he wants to savor the anticipation of waiting for it, too. And, besides...] I also... I have something to give you, too. I was going to do that after we prayed, tonight. A little after midnight. We won't stay out too much later after that, though. We'll want to come back inside and get warm.
[He's begun worrying at his fingers one by one, moving from one stiff knuckle to the next, his hands sore with anxiety. That's not unusual.]
I had somewhere in particular I wanted you to open yours. We can do it at the same time, if you want.
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Oh, don't worry about it, [says Hikaru, though it's skeptically said, because he hasn't looked forward to family get-togethers for several years now.] I'll go see my grandpa sometime this week, and he's the only one I'd want to talk to, anyway, about Go and stuff... [He can't remember the last time his uncle Daisuke didn't make a drunken fool of himself, or his cousin Kyoko didn't pressure him about his lack of a love life.] You know, in the Heian era, with everyone spread out all over the place, they'd just send nengajo to one another and that was good enough. No real reason to sit in the same room all night. Self-reflection was more important. [Sai was pretty amazed to learn that nengajo could be transmitted in an instant via email. Sai was pretty amazed about a lot of things...
Hikaru's eyes finally trade the periphery for looking directly at what Touya is doing with his hands. After we pray? he wonders, too, and then he realizes Touya is talking about a New Year's visit to the shrine. That's another one of those timeless, unforgettable practices both Sai's era and this one share. Kind of incredible, when he really thinks about it. Tradition. Culture passing through the ages. His family never went to the shrine together.]
Hmm, that sounds good to me. Opening our gifts at the same time--yeah, I'd like that. [The longer he watches Touya punish his own fingers, the more it annoys the hell out of him. Those fingers are responsible for arranging the most beautiful patterns and shapes Hikaru has ever seen. Casually, like it's natural at this point, Hikaru reaches over and insists on interrupting the monotony of cracking knuckles. His fingers curve around and into Touya's, and they're still chilly from the cold air outside.] You didn't have to get me anything, though, [he adds, flashing a real smile. Materialism stopped being the goal a long time ago.] But are you gonna give me any hints about it?
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Shindou's cool hand is more of a blessing in practice. Akira's fingers do remain stiff, but oh, thankfully, they've gone still. Though not domesticated, he's at least a little more tame.] No hints. You'll have to wait and see. [Akira doesn't want to encourage hinting. He doesn't quite approve. Shindou should get into the habit of telling Akira things outright, instead of nudging here and there and then letting Akira spend a solid week in fixated torment over an offhand remark. Well, that's not exactly Shindou's fault, but it feels like his fault, a little bit...
Finally, Akira squeezes Shindou's hand.]
I want to take you there, to the shrine. Get your coat.
[And he'll retrieve his own, a smooth-colored haori just as traditional as the rest of him. For a little extra warmth, he situates a fur stole atop his shoulders. It's fancy in a way that compliments the kimono, a vintage silhouette—but it's really fancy. That might be real fur. When he arranges it about himself, he does it with this intense determination: he does many things in this way, but it's the methodical intent of desiring some sort of result. A bird might do this when strategizing during spring.
The way to the shrine really isn't so far. The houses in this area are mostly old, and spaced a bit apart, but the road is straight—only one turn, onto another road, and then, soon, they'll reach where they're going. There are others out walking, too, little clusters here and there, almost nobody about by themselves. Taking these steps with Shindou is feeling different from how Akira thought it might. He's walked this way with his parents as far back as he can remember. Never before did he feel the need to tuck his chin into his rabbit fur and pray for the air to be colder so its bite might camouflage his cheeks. The nearer he settles at Shindou's side, the more he wants to hide his mouth.] Next time, [he says, while they walk, and even as he begins to speak, he knows he should have tried harder to hide it after all.] We could bring lanterns. It's nice to do that. [And when they get close enough to the shrine that his nerves can't take it, Akira reaches for Shindou's hand. When they walk throughout the shrine, buying charms, observing festivities, Akira finds special intervals during which to stroke the side of Shindou's hand with his thumb. It feels, all at once, invigorating, and like the earth is about to bottom out beneath his feet. At last, the bells begin to peal out from the shrine itself. They ring clear in the way you want the sky to be for the best spread of stars you could see. They're ringing over and over, and Akira stares unbroken at Shindou's face from the sixty-second bell to the last, the hundred-and-eighth, marveling at the sight and what it means. To witness Shindou awash in all these sounds is poignant in a way Akira is only barely beginning to understand. Once that last bell clears, Akira manages an actual murmur in Shindou's presence:] See, there, that's what it's like. [But that doesn't describe what it's like at all.
They wait in line to ring the bell at the altar, and with every second, Akira hopes Shindou doesn't take his hand away. He puffs out great clouds of steam, his lips feeling too cold for comfort, and when they've arrived at the front of the line, he hands the package he's been carrying over to Shindou. It's a bit more than modest in size, a box wrapped in paper colored like mother-of-pearl, and when Akira relinquishes it to Shindou, he snaps,] Don't open it yet, you're just holding it for a minute, [all full of suspicion. Then he steps forward. He rings the bell himself. Its chime fills him with a dread he can't explain.
Please, he prays, and he can't recall ever begging the gods in the way he does right now. Please, please, please... But he doesn't know what words should follow that. All he knows to do is picture Shindou's face, in a hundred different ways, wearing so many different smiles and frowns. He can only hope that whoever listens to his prayers right now knows what to do with these images.
When he steps away from the altar, and when Shindou is taking his turn, Akira wonders whether a weight has been lifted from him, or whether it's just been exchanged for another. But watching Shindou's back incites an even keener yearning in the side of Akira's chest.
He insists, with rote harshness, that Shindou open his gift first, as if he couldn't wait to give it, as if he couldn't wait for Shindou to receive it... as if he's been waiting far too long already. It's an album. Old-fashioned, and probably genuinely antique, all black lacquer shimmering with gold and silver maki-e. Delicate on its cover are curving branches, splaying leaves, and two cranes. One crane stands poised, with the other gliding in to meet it. The birds said to live for a thousand years...
If ever Akira has meant for his voice to be graceful, in speaking to Shindou, it's now. He only manages to some degree.] Our kifu... I want you to keep copies of them inside here. It doesn't have to be only that, though. Anything you... Whatever you feel belongs in here, it's for that. But for a start, please put copies of our games in this. I'm giving this to you, but that's what I'm asking for. From now on. [He tucks his hands into the sleeves of his haori, worried for what he'll do if they're free.] Starting this year.
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He doesn't know when exactly he started being attracted to Touya Akira. It's probably more like he had that attraction for a while and only began to notice it somewhat recently. Maybe his attraction to Touya is another facet of his unrepentant obsession, a reflection owed to that hardened, battle-tested diamond inside his heart... Unsurprisingly, Waya wasn't any help when Hikaru asked him, using vague language, what he should do if he has a crush on somebody. Isumi-san said they could talk about it later, and then they never did, in a departure of schedules and priorities. He spends most of his free time with Touya these days, at least when he isn't trying to bury himself in his own bed. On the way to the shrine, it's surreal to think he was convinced of his own death only a few days ago. He's pretty good at pretending he isn't convinced of it even now. If he decided to run off, Touya would chase him the fuck down, no question, so it's for the best if he keeps walking down this road. He didn't anticipating seeing so many people--even the small clusters count as so many to him. He makes a soft sound of agreement about the lanterns, judicious, even though he can't predict where he'll be a year from now. He should try to be here, but that doesn't mean he's going to be...
By the way, he doesn't realize how nervous he is until Touya reaches for his hand and he can feel the woeful clench of his own fingers. This is just a new experience, like cameras at a hotel, or his first study session, or whatever else, and he always get nervous before doing something new.] This is my first time ever going to a shrine for New Year's, [he says, then, with a half-hearted giggle. A belated confession, a vulnerability. But he forces himself to loosen up his fingers so they can get tangled in Touya's, all warm and safe.
On the shrine grounds, a good amount of his nervousness evaporates when he notices the food stalls set up in various places. He definitely doesn't let go of Touya's hand as he drags him from stall to stall, mooning over what looks delicious. There are some vanilla-frosted, rabbit-shaped biscuits that he seriously has to try; he buys a few to share with Touya, and he still doesn't let go of Touya's hand. The charms are mystifying artifacts, something else he knows nothing about, and he almost gives Touya a stroke by asking if he can open them up and see what's inside. He's irritated about being snarled at for no reason, his frown bent at a crooked angle, but he still doesn't let go of Touya's hand. Later on, waiting for the bells to start reminds him of his nervousness all over again, because he doesn't know what to expect, at all, and Touya is being firm about giving no hints. He doesn't let go of Touya's hand.
The bells aren't as loud as overwhelming as he imagined them to be, but they're much more resonant than not. They make the air itself hum, smooth and deep and timeless, and he's uncomfortably reminded of the heavier atmosphere that followed Sai everywhere. A smattering of applause answers each tone, while Hikaru is too busy focusing on the sound itself. He ends up closing his eyes for a dozen or so chimes, absorbing the sound. When they slowly open again, he's already looking over at Touya, who's already looking at him. That prompts him to smile, to remember how to smile, squeezing Touya's hand. Then it's over and done with, and the relative silence is a startling thing.] That was pretty cool, [he admits, which also doesn't describe what it was like at all.
He's surprised to find out individuals are allowed to ring the bell, too. Standing in line, though, he seems distracted, more and more restless, cold and clammy, even nauseated, as he waits for his turn at the bell. By the time he gets up there, and he's ringing the bell for himself-- Sai, he thinks, with the same desperation of a man searching for water in the desert. Sai, I don't know if you can hear me, and I don't have time to tell you everything, but if you are listening, could you just... please, please, for me, could you just... Thankfully, no one gets on his case about lingering in front of the bell for his prayers. He returns to Touya's side, having received no sign at all, no matter the pleading. He's stupid for thinking it would be any different.
Touya's gift looks way too large, too valuable, now that he's looking down at it again. He glances up at Touya hesitantly, then starts to unwrap it, taking care not to rip the paper to an unnecessary degree. As the corner of it comes into view, he bites the inside of his cheek, not sure what he's looking at yet. Then there's the rest of the album, with its skillfully painted branches and elegant, shimmery cranes. He still isn't sure what he's looking at, other than something that's very old, very beautiful--he should be handling it with sterile gloves. Then Touya speaks up with his one heart-wrenching request.]
Jeez, Touya... [The shadows don't make the glimmers of Hikaru's eyes any easier to deal with. His shoulders hitch up higher--he's feeling too much all of the sudden--and then he exhales, long and hard, his fingers skirting over the edges of the album.] This is beautiful. I didn't... I wasn't expecting anything like this. I'll put our kifu in here, if you're sure... if you do want me to have this. It looks like something important. [It looks like a damn heirloom. He almost--but then he doesn't touch the crane that's gliding down to meet the other. He's afraid of smearing the maki-e somehow.] Thank you. [He leans in and kisses Touya on the cheek. They're both cold.
His gift to Touya is absolute dogshit compared to the album. It's too late to take it back, but he's embarrassed about pulling the box out of the pouch of his hoodie and handing it over. Inside the white box is a simple jewelry box, pure white velvet, and inside of that... a relatively unremarkable wrist watch. It's a meeting of black and white on the dials and hands, its own tsuke, with a single bigger watch face and two smaller ones for different time zones.] I just saw it in the store the other day and I thought of you. [His smile is almost too weak to be called a smile.] The colors, like stones, and... I thought it'd look good on you. And it has these extra time zones, so you can... so, wherever your parents are, you'll know what time it is for them. [Fucking phone apps can handle that sort of thing, Shindou. What were you thinking.] I set this bigger one to JST, and this other one, here, to CST, for Beijing... and this one down here, uhm, that's on GMT for now. If you're traveling somewhere, you can use it, for yourself, I guess...
[A little defensive, as if he's assuming Touya will hate it:]
It would look really good on you.
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The watch, unwrapped at last, beckons those flutters into a new course. They're bubbling up his throat, to his ears, alighting at his eyelashes. He meets Shindou's defense with no prickling of his own; he sets down arms in favor of a docile exhale. He means it when he says,] It's beautiful. [And when he says that, he thinks back to what Shindou told him earlier—You look beautiful. And just now, right now, Shindou also told him—and I thought of you. Tonight, Akira set rabbit fur upon himself, and he hoped it made him look wonderful. That's ridiculous. It's ridiculous that he saved a kimono to wear until he could wear it all through the night for Shindou. But Akira is beautiful, and Shindou saw a beautiful thing and thought of him, and so if Akira can be even more beautiful than that...
He's pressing the box back into Shindou's hands, but not in an act of rejection. His wide sleeve slides against his forearm; he bares his wrist, offers it to Shindou, his tendons taut as if designed for music.] It will look good on me. [He's confident in that, and it only matters because that's how Shindou's eyes will see it: good, on him. He waits for Shindou to buckle the watch around his wrist, and some other festivities, even further away, give off the resounding crackles of their fireworks finale. Akira's voice carries the same distant glimmer when he says,] Thank you for giving me something so fine. Happy New Year, Shindou. [He smiles.] It's time to go home. I'm cold.
[He wants to walk with his shoulder pressed to Shindou's; he wants to take Shindou's sleeve with the hand just below his new watch. He'll guide Shindou back down the road, and he'll let Shindou back into his home, and he'll set Shindou down before the space heater. He'll bring out more tea, mild but steaming, and then he'll bring out the beautiful tray always reserved for this sort of thing, its lacquer dark and rich, its gold leaves thin and twining across sleek surfaces. He'll pour sake like he's an adult, even though he hasn't asked his father if he can do that. Just a cup will be fine, just a few sips between the two of them, for the year to come, for their time together. He rolls his wrist. A watchband snug against him shouldn't feel so inspiring. He feels enclosed by it; Shindou thought of him and gave that feeling to him. A mouthful of spices to usher in the year doesn't seem like enough of an offer in return, but it's all he can imagine, walking home, wanting warmth.]
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Still, Hikaru tries not to sound so overwhelmed when he repeats himself:] Thank you for giving this to me. [And then:] We'll have to play again, soon, so I can have a game to put inside it. [And he tries not to cry when he carefully tucks the album under his arm and then helps get the watch around Touya's wrist. Touya is accepting of this much, though he deserves so much better than this. It does look good on him. Hikaru spends a moment running his fingers along the sides of it, making sure the leather strap (that's real leather, and it should match the jacket he gave him) is a close, comfortable fit. Doing so gives him a rather strange feeling, one that he has no clear comparison for. Like, let's say, if Touya were a girl, then maybe this would be like placing a diamond necklace around her neck. That kind of a gesture. Stupid and sentimental, right? Ridiculous, isn't it? His fingertips, lamb-gentle, linger over the shadow of Touya's pulse. He wants to... again, he wants to kiss Touya there, to chart out his heartbeat while they're playing a game. He wants to make Touya's heart speed up and slow back down.] Happy New Year, Touya, [he echoes, quiet enough that only Touya should be able to hear him. Then he uses the sleeve of his hoodie to wipe at his eyes, left and then right, whisper-laughing at his own emotions. He's able to smile a little more after that.
The walk back to the house is uneventful, at least to begin with. He does stay close to Touya's side, close enough to feel the fur brushing against him--and then he gives into impulse and drapes his arm around Touya's slender waist. In the dark, it isn't like anyone's going to see what he's doing, and he doesn't know that he'd care if anyone did. Touya feels like normal flesh and blood--not obsidian, and not a shooting star.] I'm surprised it isn't snowing, [is his idea of an explanation, directed at the darkness ahead of him.] It's fucking cold out here.
[The tea is a warm, welcome relief upon their return, and the space heater, too, and the intensity of Touya's gaze has a way of warming him up from the inside out. Offered the cup of sake, he's both a little surprised and a little pleased that Touya's willing to serve this tonight. His mouth tugs into a smirk as he thinks back on all the warnings his mom gave him about alcohol consumption. If he weren't careful, she told him, he'd end up like his useless uncle Daisuke, always in debt, drowning in drink. Or he'd turn into a floozy like Kyoko, suffering one failed relationship after another, unable to settle down. Hikaru didn't understand half the shit she talked about, not at his young age, but doing something expressly forbidden had plenty of appeal. He went straight to his father's stash--and he regretted it not too long after, having made himself sick. Even before he got sick, he kind of hated the taste and the feelings it gave him. Being numb, blurry, out of control of himself...
But as he's taking the first sip of sake, as he's closing his eyes, he's suddenly confronted with the vivid sight of Sai's hair plastered all over his bedroom. Sweat beads up under his collar, cold as ice, and he takes another sip of the sake, and another one after that. It wouldn't be bad if he had one night to stop thinking about Sai and how afraid he is. It wouldn't be so bad. Before he can change his mind, he drains the entire cup and then sets it down with a gasp, and with more of a smirk, at that. Touya gives him a disgruntled look, and he can only think to say,] What? You're not going to keep up with me? [Generally speaking, Touya is nothing if not corruptible when it comes to a challenge from Hikaru. It doesn't have to involve Go.] Oh, don't be a baby. Just pour some more, Touya. I'm not feeling anything, not yet... [Maybe he just wants some company for whatever stupid thing he's doing right now. Wouldn't be the first time he's drawn Touya into one of his disasters.]
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He ends up with a kink in his back from keeping so straight and still, in walking. It's worth it.
It's the lingering sensation of Shindou's arm about his waist, perhaps, that brings Akira to present the sake. He wants so badly to be impressive, which is typically a humiliating desire: the defenselessness of that, feeling at the mercy of somebody's attention... But he'd polished this ceremonial tableware already, hadn't he? Earlier in the day? He worries—always, about something—but if he doesn't show all these things to Shindou tonight, he might not get another chance. Maybe there's no reason to fear that, but the conviction in it has been growing all throughout the day.
In the end, it seems to be less impressive by itself. Akira would have been content to sit here and sip, together with Shindou, warm tastes of sake guiding them towards sleep. (Would he have been content, though? How rarely does that happen?) Of course, Shindou's smirk shakes him out of any measure of peace. As usual. Akira's look grows more like a needle by the second, thin, direct, and bringing a sharp pinch.]
You're not— [As always, it doesn't take much to get Akira riled up. A baby, Shindou calls him. That's a stupid insult in any context, not even worthy of inciting offense. And yet, Akira doesn't think he can bear Shindou thinking he's a baby.] You're not supposed to feel something! You drink it just a little, it isn't for gulping down like a barbarian, it's just what you do before going to bed... [But he looks down at his own cup, its cloudy contents, both fragrant with spice and too pungent with alcohol. He's glowering at Shindou again soon enough.]
You don't normally do that sort of thing in good company! [he scolds, a genuine admonishment, but it's not like he's putting his foot down against the challenge. That's undoubtedly what it is, he knows. Shindou, after all, is already a full cup ahead. So Akira shuts his eyes tight, steeling himself, and then he knocks back his own cup, tilting back his head, practically dumping it down his throat. He's never taken in an entire mouthful of alcohol; he's just sipped it during special occasions, politely. The picture of him now is anything but polite. His scowl has that familiar quality of old iron, strong and capable of spearheads, and he has to use the back of his bare wrist to dab at his bottom lip, catching too-hasty sake. Then he sniffs, belligerent, and whips back the fold of one of his wide sleeves. It slides up to his elbow; his forearm shows all pale and sturdy; in the rest of this smooth motion, he smacks the bottom of his cup back down against the lacquer tray. It claps down like a warning. Right away, he's refilling his own cup, and he does it with a flourish, bringing the pot first low, near to his cup, and then raising it high and away so the sake falls in a long, thin stream. It's smooth. Once more, he lifts his cup, sleeve flowing in a fluid gesture, and then he's gulping it back again.
This time, he gasps when his mouth leaves his cup. It's sharp, high, and immediately followed by a stern huff while he tries to gather himself.] If you're going to guzzle all my sake, you'd better pour it for yourself. [He wants that to smart on Shindou's nerves, but it's not how he intended: Akira sounds closer to ductility, like gold, instead of all wrought iron. Maybe a little bit easier to melt. But, as it stands, he's two cups to Shindou's one. He's determined to circumvent the astringent shock to the whole of his mouth, the cringing in his jaw and throat, and instead stares Shindou down, back straight, shoulders hiked high. He's lost any of the delicacy he wore when he stood, pristine, in the winter cold. His fur has been set aside, and now that he looks peeved, it's easier to notice how his eyes are absent of the affectionate refraction of light they held before. Instead he's just bright with bluster.]
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The flavor is seriously awful, too piquant on his tongue, but he isn't going to let that stop him so soon. Grumbling about the lack of hospitality, he retrieves the pot of sake and pours himself a second cup, albeit with much less finesse than Touya. It's two cups to two after a hasty few swallows on his part, the near rebellion of his throat, and an even more obnoxious smirk. He looks more like a bramble patch that Touya has to decide if he wants to walk through to reach his goal, whatever that is. Not wrought iron. Not even an ounce of gold. And, since he isn't content to wait around and see if Touya's going for three, Hikaru snaps up a third cup and commits to drinking it.
He kind of loses track of what happens after that.]
...Touyaaaa.
[His voice floats up from someplace on the floor of the sitting room. He's currently--well, he isn't sure what happened to his limbs, exactly--curled up near to Touya's legs, his forehead pressed against one much-too-sharp knee on accident. Around the time they ran out of sake, he said they should get more of it and then he melted down here like a handful of gallium at room temperature. He's flushed all over, and he's definitely overheated, even after stripping off his hoodie to try to cool down. He lifts his head up a little, then lets it fall back down, continuing to address Touya's knee with all the seriousness he can muster.]
We should play each other.
[They're absolutely not in any state to do anything more than crawl into bed, but Hikaru doesn't understand that at all. He feels like an unraveled version of himself--every hard surface gone to feathers, every edge sanded down to nothing. Even his voice is more like a velvet, a soft cushion for his freely formed thoughts.] We haven't played in... [One day, two days, three...] It's been like forever, [he says, the whine of velvet crushing into itself,] and I want to play you so bad. I want a game to put in the thingie you gave me. [Turning over, slow and steady, he's now on his back and he's looking up at Touya's face from right beside him. There is no doubt in his mind that Touya Akira is the most beautiful person he has ever had the privilege of meeting. As everything else blurred away, Touya's beauty only became clearer to him.] The important thing. [He tilts his heavy, very heavy head against Touya's nearest leg, almost nuzzling him like this. No more thorns, or spines, or stickers. No more jagged parts. He remembers something that makes him laugh out loud, but then he forgets whatever it was.] Let's plaaay already. Let's play. [His smile is its own invitation. His unpolished, half-lidded eyes, also.]
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You know, it's fine. That's fine, says his brain. There's really no reason to be so locked up, to frown or hold a spine made of surgical steel. There's no problem. And what would also be fine, what would really be all right, is if Akira were just to relax, to rest his cheek against the coffee table, to watch his surroundings quietly, instead of with hawk-like alertness throughout every moment. Akira is not, perhaps, unraveled, not sanded down, nothing done to him—instead he simply feels the ability to lay down arms. He considers calming down for the first time in forever, and he's even able to tell himself, I never feel like this, do I? Once he passes this point, he doesn't need to drink so quickly, so furiously. He can just take slow mouthfuls, no pressure, only thinking it's an okay thing to do, not even minding the taste, anymore.
It's really not so bad, he's realizing. It. Anything. Everything's more all right then he's been making it out to be, in all this time. He watches Shindou's movements, everything he does, but he hasn't enough clarity to commit every motion to memory. Remarkably, this doesn't frighten him. Even that much is fine. The sake's gone, now. Well, that's not bad, either. It just is. It just is the way things are, and Akira exists with that, and it's...
Whatever...]
Mmmhmm, [he says, a gentle response to Shindou's whining, its murmur like moss. A moment later, he lifts his head up from the coffee table, and looks down to find Shindou reclining right next to him. They stare at each other, both overshadowed by eyelashes gone heavy, and for once, for once in his life, Akira's stare isn't set against the backdrop of a war zone. He's just watching Shindou, his eyes moving from feature to feature on Shindou's flushed face, like a feral cat miraculously domesticated.
He pushes his hand into Shindou's hair, finally, and how nice to feel all of that, soft and pleasant and just so good to have. His thumb rubs a soothing gesture against Shindou's ear, before he settles into stroking Shindou's hair with all his fingers, slowly, very slowly. Just that much is taxing, and he barely has the energy for it; he lays his head back down against the table.]
If you're looking for an easily victory, [he says softly,] I think I could still do pretty well. [And, wonder of wonders, his voice is perfectly fine. That's what's unusual. He doesn't sound scraped raw, windblown, or like his throat is buckling beneath stress. There's no urgency coming out of him. Absolutely none. He remembers to start stroking Shindou's hair again, his hand having gone still. Then, thoughtfully, belatedly, he corrects himself:] An easy victory. If you want to, you can get the goban out of my bedroom and bring it here. I'd like to play you, too. But I'm not getting up right now, so if we're playing, you'll need to go get it yourself.
[His words are like deliberate steps taken across stones above a pond. He's content, comfortable, but each thing he says takes an extra half a second to be produced from his word bank by a brain gone murky. Meanwhile, his hand brushes across Shindou's forehead, warm benevolence. Akira is all flushed, too. He's shrugged out of the top half of his kimono's outer layer; it's fallen down his shoulders, having gathered at his elbows. The second layer, a nagajuban colored like a high tide on a rainy day, is coming loose, no longer arranged neatly across his chest. Only the last layer, the juban, is still done up properly: its silk looks sleek, in a fresh, clean white. Frankly, the silk has come to feel too stifling, but Akira is simply too sleepy to do anything about that...
His eyes are closed, his bangs fallen away from them, his cheek still resting on the cool surface of the table. But he's awake enough to say,] Yeah, we can play. [He thumbs gently at Shindou's temple.] My goban is... um, I think I have it on next to my desk... [He pauses. Once more, a casual amendment:] On the floor next to my desk, so... yeah, it's fine. Will you please bring me an orange from the kitchen, too? And will you please peel it for me...
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It's right around now that Hikaru identifies his peaceful, magnanimous feelings as a gift given to him, because Touya is pushing his fingers through his hair, again and again. Belatedly, Hikaru makes a weakened noise of pleasure, then a lower one that's glottal, nearly drifting off to sleep right then and there. Something about the way Touya's doing this to him is like he's been wanting to do this longer than he'd ever admit. Maybe that's a weird thing to think, but that's pretty much what it feels like to Hikaru. He has his own insight into how Touya thinks of things--if Touya knows him best, then Hikaru knows him right back--so he can tell what he's thinking by how he's moving his fingers. That reminds Hikaru of something all over again--something funny--but he doesn't grasp the memory any firmer than before.]
Mmm... s'fine if I lose, though, or if I win, as long as you're the one playing me. [The stressed-out, career-oriented part of his brain very much doesn't want to lose, but that isn't what's speaking to Touya. He's mercury dripping through long fingers, born of the earth, primordial, all purest love for Go and the reason he's even still playing this game after losing almost everything. The simple act of placing the stones is satisfying on a deep, deep level, win or lose, in victory or defeat. Especially when he's responding to moves from his rival (his beautiful, intelligent, courageous, impressive, infinitely more deserving rival). What he's feeling now just gets buried under the day-to-day agonies of qualifiers, or the next Oteai, or whatever, whatever the hell. He spends too much time worrying about whether or not Touya likes his Go, whether or not Touya thinks his Go is essential, when they could be playing each other.] But I'm not getting up either, [he declares, his whole body unfurling like flower petals left in the sun. The last person to stroke his hair, with more of a motherly intention, was Sai himself.] So you've gotta go and get your own orange to peel from the kitchen. But, I do have... right here, right, somewhere...
[He wriggles around sloppily, no better than a fish on dry land, until he can reach behind himself and dig into the back pocket of his jeans. From there, he pulls out a small traveling Go board that's folded in half, its magnetic pieces safely tucked within. He has no idea if he can manage the coordination to move such tiny pieces, but he tosses the board onto the coffee table anyway.] Let's play, [he says, whining again, even though he has no idea if he can sit up properly, either. His spine is doing an incredible impression of a cooked strand of spaghetti and now he wishes he had some ramen to eat up.
For the third time, he remembers what was so damn funny, so drop-dead hilarious, and this time he doesn't forget the gist of it within a few seconds. He giggles helplessly, covering his reddened face, too humid by half.]
Oh my god, there's... Touya, you just made me think of some... some something I did... it's so stupid, but it's great, and it's too stupid to tell you, though...
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[Then I'm happy. Then I have what I need. Then it's worth it. Then I'm going to be okay. Akira isn't sure whether he says any one of those out loud. Maybe all of them. Maybe none of them. After a point, he just can't tell. But he opens up his eyes, enough to look at the travel size board Shindou has produced. It's so little. Such a special thing. Akira laughs softly, the sweetness and fluff of freshest snow and the way it falls at midnight.] This is good. We should be playing on this all the time. [Maybe—yes. Perhaps. Akira might have the strength to raise his other arm, to set it on the table, to use his fingers to unfold the board. Maybe. Perhaps. He might.] Hmmm, [he says, puzzling over his unwieldy grasp on the portable board, and it feels good to fumble without immediately getting angry. Doing something poorly might be less awful than he's been thinking all this time.] Hmmm. [Presumably he'd have better luck if he sat up and used both of his hands, but he doesn't feel like sitting up, and he doesn't want to remove his other hand from the boon of Shindou's hair. If Shindou is thinking Akira has been wanting to do this, he's right. What Akira has here is amazing: the freedom to touch Shindou, and the freedom to keep from worrying about touching Shindou. Earlier, when Shindou sent him those pictures from the hair dresser, Akira had wondered what it would feel like to touch it. Now he doesn't have any intention of being without that feeling.
Meanwhile, Shindou's started laughing. Akira can at least lift his head to watch these giggles, the flush, the silly raise of Shindou's hands. Akira draws Shindou's hair back from his forehead, observing as best his eyes will allow, thumbing at Shindou's hairline.]
Just tell me. I want to laugh with you. Tell me what I make you think about.
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But he's more preoccupied with the thing he remembered after forgetting it so many times.] No, no, [he says, giggling behind his hand,] I can't tell you what it is. There's no way I can tell you. [He can't even imagine what Touya's face would look like, if he heard what's so funny. So funny and so, so, so stupid. He tries to keep a straighter face, all grim and stubborn--oh, pfffttt, more like there's no way he can stop himself from spilling the beans.] Okay, okay, so... hey, remember when you... you had that match with Yoshida 9-dan, to get into the Kisei league, last summer, and you... you gave me the kifu for it, afterward, and you didn't wanna recreate it for me. But you gave me the kifu and you told me to study it at home, instead, and I was like... whatever, you weirdo, all right, fine.
So I go home, and I replay this game, and... right from the start, it's obvious you're gonna win. You're just kicking his ass up and down the board, all over the place. And Yoshida's been having that nasty streak of losses, you know, everyone knows about it, and... and you, didn't, give, a fuck. You didn't show him any mercy whatsoever. Just kept slicing apart his territory like it was made of butter. And it was... [He thinks he's going to start laughing again, but then his voice hits the melting point:] It was the hottest thing I've ever seen. God, Touya, I totally lost it by move seventy-five or so... I could just tell--this game--what you were doing to him--was meant for me. I could just tell. You were telling me you'd go straight through me, too, if you had to. You'd knock me down and humiliate me com-plete-ly, if I didn't keep up with you. [He closes his eyes and lets his sweaty hand fall away from his face. He's smiling hugely, his eyes roaming behind his eyelids like he's dreaming right now.] And I just... [Okay, he's back to giggling uncontrollably. It's just so funny, because he has the emotional maturity of a dumb kid in elementary school.]
I jerked off to it.
[More than once. Even now, there's a hot twinge in his stomach that could spill over into a burning oil slick if he wanted to entertain it.]
I jerked off all over your fuckin' kifu.
[He says it like it's nothing shameful, like there's nothing to bury in his subconscious, even though at the time he was insanely embarrassed. He doesn't know why he was so embarrassed back then. It is what it is. It's whatever.]
And then, then, I had to tell you to make me another copy, obviously, and you got mad at me for losing it somehow, like I said I did, [an honest mistake, Touya,] and you still gave me another one... another...
[His eyes open back up, glittering like jewels at the bottom of a pond.]
S'really funny.
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Just the name Yoshida 9-dan brings Akira's hand to still, deep in Shindou's hair though it is. He remembers that summer. He was angry for what felt like much of that summer, his head and his bones feeling colder then than even the weather right now. Here, he isn't looking angry. He is frowning, he has lost the sensitivity and sweetness at his lips, but he isn't angry. Forlorn, more like. Disappointed, like he'd put all his hope in something only to see it thoroughly drowned. His game with Yoshida was so carefully crafted, such an intimate construct, all the passion he couldn't verbalize distilled into those handfuls of stones. Each placement was a little burst of electricity. It was all supposed to come together to form a manifesto written of utter desire, drawn up with the hottest of intentions behind it. Yes, definitely, Akira was thinking about knocking Shindou down. Shindou was supposed to see this game, read it, and know. When he didn't, Akira was left feeling honestly, honestly heartbroken, the crush of it as intense two weeks later as it was when it first cracked him. God, it pissed him off.
Months later, Shindou is saying he read the whole thing after all. Months later, Shindou is saying he reacted in exactly the way Akira imagined during the nights he pushed his face hard into his pillow.
Up from underneath the collar of his white juban, Akira is strawberry red. His lips are pressed together, tight, kind of painful for it. He's holding his breath. In realizing that his fingers are still caught up in Shindou's hair, Akira wonders what to do with that, now. He tries swallowing, but that feels strange, and so he lets out his breath too quickly, hard and heavy, his voice once more unable to stay quelled in his throat. Shindou's eyes are jewels, and Akira has never wanted more to bury himself in treasure. Akira had wasted so much time being absolutely glacial with fury (with hurt), all because stupid, stupid, stupid Shindou wouldn't just tell him that he...
Akira wets his bottom lip with his tongue.]
Did you jerk off to the second one I gave you, too?
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Mmm, well...
[And Hikaru was so embarrassed back then. It wasn't the first time their rivalry had made him hot under the collar, but it was definitely the first time he'd ever masturbated to goddamn kifu. On the Internet, he aimlessly searched for an explanation, reading about kinks and fetishes and the like, before deciding it was a random anomaly. A bunch of wires getting crisscrossed in his brain or something. Either way, he definitely wasn't about to tell Touya he took his expertly played game and used it like a common porno magazine. Hell to the fucking no. Even asking for another copy was nerve-wracking on its own, his mind awhirl with fear and desire. He thought for sure Touya would look at him long and hard and know he was some kind of pervert, but then Touya was just... really pissed off at him, and for longer than usual...
He laughs into a less excitable sigh, tilting his head farther back, nudging into Touya's hand. He wants Touya to continue playing with his hair. In the meantime, he says,] Yeah, I did, [like it's simply part of the conversation they're having. He could be discussing what he wants to eat for breakfast.] But with that one... [It takes him a try or two, but now he's tapping a finger against his temple. A thinking man, you see.] I put it in one of those plastic sleeves, so I wouldn't ruin it. [He's a fucking genius, Touya, and he's pleased with himself for being able to adapt so well.] That's why... I keep all of our games... in plastic sleeves. [Inside the bright yellow binder. Touya himself was allowed to slide their game from the kifu room into one of the clear plastic sleeves. Touya, unknowingly taking part, made it even more erotic...
The game with Yoshida isn't the only time Hikaru's been a deviant.]
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[He's still peeking, as if suspicious, or maybe kind of afraid. Shindou could easily leap up, start laughing, and say he couldn't believe Akira fell for this. No, he wouldn't do that. But he could, if he wanted to. Or he could turn his face away and stop talking, or he could leave Akira's house and go to his own and just not ever come out. Or...
Akira's hands fall slowly away from his face. The best thing would be for Shindou to want to stay here.]
I wanted to ask you... ever since you said it. I wanted to ask you, I was thinking about asking you, but I didn't. So I, what it is, is, Shindou, because, you told me I looked beautiful, and I wanted to know what part of me made you think that. If I know what part, I'll make sure it always looks that way, and, too, I would make you lots of copies of my kifu, if you liked having them, if it feels better to do, right on it... [He's so tired. Akira is so tired, but he doesn't want to go to sleep now that he might be able to hear all of these answers. Now that he's able to ask all these questions in the first place. He's squinting through his sleepiness, but his eyes are no less bright for it, no less determined to cultivate a win.] You should have told me, because when I gave it to you, I wanted you to be alone with it. I wanted you to think about what I was saying to you. You told me you could tell what I was feeling, when you looked at how I played, so I wanted to make you think about it.
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Maybe it's in how Touya has moved his hand away, and the rest of himself, it seems, closing himself off like he's trying to hide. Maybe it's in his muddled tone, like memorial bells off in the distance, uniform in their sorrow. Maybe it's in what he's saying, though that's so much harder to follow along with, especially when Hikaru feels like he could fall asleep at any moment. He'd rather go to sleep than deal with any of this complex, complicated relationship stuff. He didn't mean to make Touya take his hand away, or get all upset with him, or anything like that. Touya was supposed to laugh about it, like Hikaru was laughing, because jerking it to kifu is the definition of absurdity. It's just funny, okay? It's hilarious! It doesn't have to be this life-changing revelation! It doesn't have to make Touya look like he's ready to fall apart...
Feebly, Hikaru offers this much:] You didn't ask about it, so I didn't... say... [anything about it. And Touya has more to say to him, all these questions to ask and he's actually flat and forlorn when he asks them. Honestly, it's more like a list of demands, the things he needs to know, the things he needs very soon to understand. Hikaru tells himself to sit up for this, that he should be doing something to make Touya feel better--but he still can't negotiate with the alcohol that's taken his extremities hostage. He just tilts his head against Touya's leg, like he did not too long ago, his mouth a pouty curve. His fingers somehow get caught up in Touya's nagajuban, the calm color of it like something he wants to sweep over him. He could pry it loose if he isn't careful.]
You're always beautiful, [he says, then, more than a little confused about why Touya thinks he has to do something in order to be beautiful.] It's not just a part of you, it's all of you, all of you, all the time. Even the ugliest sweater you have doesn't change that about you... [He was jerking off to Touya long before he was jerking off to Touya's kifu. A little frustrated, yet lost in a haze, he keeps tugging at the layers of Touya's kimono like an insistent little kid trying to get his mom's attention. He's trying to convince Touya to look down here, to look at him, if not to come down here entirely. It would feel a lot better if they could speak face-to-face, with their arms wrapped around each other. He doesn't like the feeling that Touya is moving away from him.]
I didn't want to do something you didn't like, or you, uh... you didn't want me to do. I didn't know if you wanted me to do it. I mean, I asked you... just the other day, I asked you, if you were turned on, if I turned you on, with my Go, if it did that to you, and you said... you didn't say yes, you just said... [Indirectly, it could be that Touya did say yes. Indirectly. Well, I wasn't upset with you. But Hikaru didn't know what to do with an indirect answer, and Touya didn't linger on the answer, either. Hikaru's tugging only gets stronger from here, reinforced with the last of his strength.] Hey, Touya...
[There's real yearning in his voice, fully exposed by the sluice of alcohol:]
When I touch myself, I'll think about you, every time, all the time, it's only you... and I told you, I know I told you: I'm always thinking about you.
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Akira's outer kimono has sunk down to his waist, by now, and his nagajuban is slipping down his shoulders—even the silken collar of the juban is in disarray, no longer a last bastion of propriety. It's loose enough to see that his flush meets the raise of his clavicle. In the midst of it, he looks lost.] I did say yes, [Akira insists, sounding faint and puzzled both. Didn't he do that? Shindou said, I couldn't tell if you were upset with me, or— And after that, Akira answered, No, I'm turned on, I promise you that. I want you all over me even though we are where we are. Didn't he say that?
No. He didn't, did he?
He's still frowning, yeah, but it's while he tries hard to think back, think deep.] I said... I meant... [But things aren't fitting together for him. At last, he says, exasperated,] I meant yes. Obviously. Obviously! [This is the first time he's been even a little riled up since having that third cup of sake.] I always mean yes. [Once again, he's not angry like he would be. As he bobs atop the surface of the alcohol, he just feels disheartened. Can Shindou really not know? Akira doesn't want to bully him into knowing. If Shindou doesn't want that badly enough to pursue it as his own idea, is it even worth having? (Too detail-oriented, always... this is its own perfectionism.)
The tugging, at last, is just too much. It's jostling, and a little bit annoying, but mostly gratifying for the neediness it shows. Akira likes that, and it doesn't occur to him to be ashamed of that, when he can be reveling in it instead. It's good to be grasped at, when Shindou is doing the grasping. Akira reaches down to find Shindou's tugging hand, and pries his fingers away a little less than gently. Then he's able to clasp their hands together, instead. His head is slipping away from his other hand: it's sliding lower and lower until his face is down against the tabletop all over again. The relief of this, of hearing Shindou say these things, every time, all the time, only—it could reduce Akira to complete pacific rapture.]
Oh, I'm so glad.
[It's a mumble, but heartfelt. Sounds like weight lifting far and away. It takes a moment to get into motion, but Akira does his best to peel himself away from the coffee table, so he can sink the rest of the way down onto the floor. It's tough to wriggle, sluggish as he is, but he manages to work his way into pressing his back up against Shindou. He doesn't know that he can do much more than this, so as a potentially final act, he takes greater hold of Shindou's hand, and then forcibly situates Shindou's arm over his waist. He's just commanded himself into being held.]
If that's what you're doing, good. Keep doing that.
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But any frustration he feels is sublimated when Touya deigns to join him down on the floor. Hikaru has some trouble arranging himself in the best way, but now his front is pushing against Touya's back, and they're aligned together, just like that. His arm has been thrown artlessly around Touya's waist; one of his legs is slotting in between both of Touya's, which seems natural to him. They're really close together. Even closer than they were when he was letting Touya dry his tears on that unreal, too-shrill morning. His breaths stir into Touya's hair like a warm breeze, slow, slower, slowing down. Touya smells like the slight electric tang produced by the space heater, and also the sake itself, and also, also, the shampoo he diligently used on himself. Hikaru presses his face into Touya's hair, somewhere around his upper neck. He might be happy with this.
Unfortunately:] We haven't played yet, [he mumbles, even as he's hearing good and keep doing that on repeat in his head.] You said you'd play me, you said that, but we haven't... [The floor has to the worst place to fall asleep, with no lumbar support to speak of. Touya's going to wake up with every muscle locked into place tomorrow, riddled with knots and kinks, and he's going to kill him tomorrow, for everything he's doing now. Hikaru's arm tightens stubbornly, his fingers spreading over Touya's chest. As close as possible. Closer than that.] Play me tomorrow, please, and I'll keep doing what I'm doing. Otherwise...
[Otherwise he's going to fall asleep, which he does, finally, all at once.
He wakes up first. It's bright in the sitting room, with natural sunlight splashed all over, and he intensely regrets opening his eyes and the fact he might be dying, actually getting ready to curl up and die, if the crushing-crackle of his head and his bowels is any indication. His mouth tastes like spicy curdled piss, putrefied, fucking diseased, and...
He's still holding onto Touya.
And, boy, oh boy, Touya is going to murder him. He remembers enough to be confident of that much.]
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On any average night, Akira is a heavy sleeper. Once he's out, he's comfortably unconscious until it's time to get up the following day. The Akira sleeping now might as well be a sack of potatoes. The sunlight doesn't rouse him when it first comes glaring into the room, and the heat—god, the heat, with the space heater left on all night, so close to both their bodies—it just serves to further swaddle him. He could almost pass for comatose, until he finally starts to stir, and when he does stir, the first idea his brain comes up with is that maybe he stayed sleeping so he wouldn't have to deal with feeling so fucking awful. Akira doesn't know if regaining consciousness has ever hit him with such immediate misery.
He shifts onto his back, which, oh, that's so sore, and then he just lies there for a good minute or so. His eyes aren't open, but it's clear he must be awake just from the disgust splaying over his face. Then comes something from his throat, a sound, not very strong, but almost like a test. Just that much makes him wince...
He covers his face with both his hands.] Glass of water, [he says, husky in the worst way. He waits a moment, then groans, harsh and frustrated and then pained by it. Squirming away from Shindou proves to be a Herculean task; actually pulling himself upright is a feat of wonder extending far beyond even the greatest expectations laid upon the son of Touya Kouyou.
Akira feels like he might vomit.
But he's nothing if not the sum of his willpower, and at last, he's able to stand on his feet. His outer kimono is clinging to him only by the rumpled twist of his obi. Meanwhile, the innermost layer of his clothing is no longer crisp and clean; its silk feels like a mistake, after spending all night overheated. Even his hair looks exhausted, tangled together too much on one side... Altogether, even a glance tells well enough that Akira feels like crumpling back down onto the floor. He doesn't do that. He refuses, of course, to do that. Instead he's trudging, marching, like creeping through trenches, heavy and strong with the intent to survive at any cost, even if it means killing another man with his bare hands. Luckily for Shindou, the kitchen is Akira's target. His awful, heavy steps lead away to it, and then the kitchen sink can be heard running. It shuts off. Presumably, Akira is gulping a glass down.
That happens another two times. Sink on, sink off, then quiet. After that third glass, there's some quiet clinking from the kitchen, and then Akira is stomping through the house again. Really stomping, with a force like thunder... Somewhere, a little further away, a door slams. It likely rattles its frame. Moments later, a bath is heard being drawn. An interlude of peace, perhaps. But after just a couple minutes, the bathroom door opens back up, and Akira calls,] Make toast. [It's not a suggestion. Then he loudly shuts himself away again.
When he gets into the bath, Akira has it in mind to just stay soaking here all morning. (Is it even morning anymore? For god's sake.) It sounds physically beneficial, and spiteful in a showy way, both of which are appealing. Then it occurs to him Shindou might not wait around to let him exercise that spite. Shindou might just leave, slinking out of the house, retreating to his bedroom, maybe for god knows how long...
In the end, Akira doesn't stay in the bath for nearly as long as he'd like. He stomps over to his bedroom, instead, to get dressed in the loosest sweater and flannel pants he owns. When he finally emerges, it's in a state of dishevelment that would scandalize anyone else who knew him: dry eyes, discolored underneath, and the pinch of his brow probably set in stone by now. His hair, still damp, is pulled up off his neck, pinned high at the back of his head with a plastic claw clip. Touya Akira, so known for his ability to revolutionize, manages to take all of these qualities and distill them into exactly the properties of razor wire. (You know, it's used more to keep something safe and enclosed than anything else.)]
The bath is ready for you.
[It could be the tolling of that final bell, the quiet intonation of a stately shinigami, laden with finality. All he intends to do while Shindou is in the bath is park himself at his low dining table and take alternating swigs of water and black coffee.]
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It wasn't like this when he was staying over here prior to the Hokuto Cup. They were all on edge, really nervous, ready to assign blame, but Touya floated like a cloud from room to room, in his natural element. Touya wasn't trying to break the floorboards with his feet. He didn't sound like his own angry stampede. Even the swirly, unresolved memories of last night tell Hikaru all he absolutely needs to know. If not the whole getting drunk thing, then the stuff he said while they were drunk must have pissed Touya right the fuck off. Disgusted him, surely. Touya looked like he couldn't wait to get away from Hikaru, as far away as possible.
Touya calls to him, then, demanding toast, and that's the whip crack across his heart that forces him to sit up, wide-eyed, like he's expecting another strike. Then it's quiet again, aside from the running water in the other room. Hikaru nearly withers down to his roots, before deciding he can't give up so easily here. It isn't until he's crawled on all fours into the kitchen that he attempts to stand back up again. As he moves upward, his clothing sticks to him in odd places from sweat gone dry and also drags over and across him, all wet friction, from fresh sweat coming in. It's just too damn hot in this house, he thinks. More like a fucking sauna-- Opening the refrigerator feels like he's stepped across the world and arrived at the Himalayas. It feels incredible, wonderful; the stuff of legends. He sags against the door and basks in the wafting frost for at least a full minute.
The toaster itself looks like it's as modern as ever, thank god. He makes four pieces of toast without setting fire to anything. Then he realizes he has no idea if Touya wants butter or jelly or something on his toast, and he doesn't know if Touya will freak out if he doesn't get what he wants. Back in the fridge, he discovers it's pretty well stocked with all sorts of spreadables, so much so that he has to wonder if this is all the Touyas fucking eat. Probably admirers of Touya-sensei's from all over the world have sent them various things to try out. No coherent family could want strawberry and lychee and margarine and cream cheese and peanut butter all at the same time. There's even a canister of Vegemite that smells like black death when Hikaru checks on it. He very nearly throws up on the floor of Touya's kitchen.
Instead of trying to figure out what Touya likes, he just brings out a tray with the plate of toast and a dozen of the available spreads. He sets it down on the dining table and squints at it, thinking it looks more than a little insane, like he's having breakfast with the Mad Hatter. His blinding headache doesn't give him any better ideas, though. Now he's taken care of all of that, and Touya is still whiling away in the bath... He should probably get out of here. He should leave. But if he left right now, behind Touya's back, it'd probably be worse for him in the long run. Sometimes you just have to sit down and face the music. Some games you're just going to lose, no matter what you do. That's why he reaches for his backpack and retrieves his phone, powering it back on.
So, thankfully, nothing is on fire when Touya returns from washing up, dressed in clothing for comfort's comfort. Hikaru, though, is sitting in front of the table, his phone pressed to his ear, and his other hand grinding through his hair like he's trying to tear it out by the roots. The bent arc of his back makes him look, frankly, devastated. Just exhausted, beyond exhausted, but also like he has to carry something even heavier for another thousand miles.] I know, [he says, low and miserable, in the middle of what sounds like a root canal with no anesthetic.] I know, I know. I know he wants to talk to me when he gets home. I know that. I'm sorry. I'm... yeah, I know that. I'll apologize to them, too. I know they're--I know, Mom, you don't have to say it like that. I'm just-- [And the call seems to end there, because he doesn't say anything else. She hung up on him. That much of a guilt trip, and she's the one hanging up on him. Fucking whatever.
He avoids Touya's gaze while he picks up his backpack and quickly, quietly, drags it and also himself all the way to the bathroom.
It doesn't take him too, too long to finish up in there, even though he likewise wants to linger. He emerges from the fragrant steam in the pajamas he was supposed to wear last night, just a grey shirt on grey plaid for pants, monochromatic and unoffensive for it. With him, in a tense grip, he's carrying a bottle of aspirin that he found in their medicine cabinet. He sets it down beside Touya's elbow without saying a word. A peace offering, maybe. Or maybe it's common sense. Then he sits down a respectable distance from Touya, one hand already moving to shield his burning, bloodshot eyes from more sunlight.
Finally, the rattling of an old radio:]
No one should have that many jams and jellies in their fridge.
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But he's been particularly harsh so far, upon waking, hasn't he. Shindou looked cowed by him, which maybe, might have been the goal? But Akira didn't feel good about it. There was no satisfaction to be had in seeing that Shindou feels so awful. Shindou may be an irresponsible idiot, pushing the both of them too far with the sake last night, but anything after that was...
All Akira knows is he fell hard into dreams all hot and sticky, dreams where he said outrageous things to Shindou, dreams where Shindou told him things that made him feel like moaning. He can only be relieved that neither of them would ever have said things like that out loud for real. Akira can remember hearing himself talk, but not what it felt like coming out of his mouth, so... dreams, all hot and sticky. He rubs his face.
While Shindou is in the bath, Akira eats two of the pieces of toast, and then the other two. He makes four more, and eats one of those slices, too. While he's in the kitchen, his hand passes over a bowl of oranges on the counter, but he thinks he'd be sick if he tried to eat one of those.
Close to half of the various spreads have been uncapped, when Shindou returns from washing up. Akira sets down his coffee, his mug hitting the table a little too hard, as if startled. Jams and jellies. Akira doesn't have an answer for that. He just doesn't know what to say to it. He purses his lips, and then he rubs at his face again, more harshly this time... he sighs into his palms, too, a big rush, shoulders dropping.
Finally, he sets his elbows on the table, and settles his hands at either side of his face, his fingers pushing up into stray strands of hair. He looks across the way to Shindou, regret and remorse dimpling one corner of his mouth.] Do you feel any better? [Thankfully, he sounds less like a vengeful killer. Very tired, throat dry, but not reaching for a knife. Then, although he doesn't want to, he says,] Your mother must have been worried.
[He means that—must. As in, he'd like to demand it of her. He kept her son out all night, well into the next morning, no calls, no... he couldn't hear what she was saying, but he did hear her voice, from over the phone. That's how loud she was. Shindou had looked like a pressing of flowers: thinned out, lacking life, and squashed between too many heavy things. Akira exhales thinly, pushing one of his hands up against his forehead, his bangs in disarray.]
Eat some of this.
[He was supposed to say, "I'm sorry," but he's pushing the plate of toast toward Shindou, instead, before he reaches for the aspirin.]
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For whatever reason, Touya asks him if he feels any better. His lips come part--and it's audible to his ears, that's how sensitive he is--even before he knows what to say. Then he says,] I feel like a truck ran over me, then backed up, then ran over me again. [Touya, on the other hand... even with his dry eyes, his discolored skin, his hair pulled up all slapdash and damp... even with all of that, he looks like he's ready to tackle anything. Hell, he could go sit for a match and still probably beat the poor bastard who has to deal with him.]
My mother...
[Hikaru starts to shake his head, but he can tell that's only going to give him motion sickness. He stops, sighs to himself, and then swallows the thought entirely. The last time his mother yelled at him like that, it was when he had crossed the road without her permission and almost got hit by a car. Six years old, if he remembers right. Additional proof he's always been an irresponsible piece of shit.
He sighs again and moves his hand away, looking down at the pieces of toast. He looks at them like they've personally wronged him somehow. Then, dubiously, he picks up one piece. He sets it back down.] I'm not hungry, Touya. [Then he picks it up again and starts nibbling along the crispiest edge. No spreads for him. No jams or jellies. Anything more flavorful than this would make his stomach fight its way out of his body.
Oh, that thought from before is bubbling back up his throat, as painful as a wash of stomach acid.]
She told me to apologize for... [How did she put it, again? Oh, yeah:] imposing myself on your hospitality.