this is the experience from which you've felt exiled for so long.

[protential]

[Hikaru is going to win tomorrow.

That isn't a bout of overconfidence on his part. That isn't anything so mundane as an ego trip. He just knows he's going to win as surely as he knows the cool air he's breathing, or the plush carpeting spread under his hands. The move he sealed at the end of today--for the seventh game--in the sixty-third Honinbou title match--is going to win him the game tomorrow. He wonders if Akira has already figured it out. Other people, they probably have no idea, no fucking clue, and they don't matter a single whit; Akira has known him for long enough to know why he was smiling when he sealed that move. He wants to ask about it, though. They have rules about not talking to each other about Go the night before they play each other, but he's dying to tell Akira which move he sealed up. To confirm that he will, in fact, take away the title tomorrow. Akira should be able to read far enough ahead to see it, anyway, but Hikaru wants the confirmation.

Instead, he says,] You should come have breakfast with me.

[The tension is getting to be downright unbearable, stretching across his skin as heat and frustration and dehydration, even. They have rules about not seeing each other before a game, and it's driving him a little insane from deprivation, he thinks. At the moment, they're both sitting against the thin door that connects their hotel rooms, knowing they aren't supposed to touch the damn thing, much less open it up. They laid down all these rules years ago for their own benefit, to limit their distractions, because they really could distract each other all night if they wanted to. Hikaru, at least, could have his fingers buried in Akira's hair and his mouth on Akira's neck for hours and hours, definitely, definitely. The temptation would be far too great to make bruises out of their current position. He's done that before while playing casually.]

In my room. Room service. That way, we can avoid the cameras, and...

[He presses his head and shoulders against the door, trying to get comfortable, and his fingers curl against the carpet. Every time he closes his eyes, he can see so clearly the winning move he sealed not that long ago. By tomorrow, their record will stand at 4-3, and Shindou Hikaru, the dark horse of a challenger, merely twenty-one years old, will have won his first title from the perennially brilliant Touya Akira.]

I can make sure you're eating something.

[He wonders if Akira remembered to lock the connecting door.]

Comments

[ashlar]

[Hikaru knows all the sorts of pauses. He knows when Akira is being thoughtful (much of the time), and he knows when Akira is being defiant (still an awful lot). Thoughtful pauses have a wonder, in their way, with Akira churning and drawing conclusions, and these things show when he speaks during interviews, or encounters a person he's gauging. The defiant ones are higher, tighter, a hard stare. A careless cast of his eyes. Or when unseen, like right now: laden with empty air, the weight of which smothers any suggestion of a hum, any murmur of acknowledgement. Akira doesn't say a thing until he decides it's the time to say it. Tonight, he draws out that decision for as long as he's able to undermine his own tongue. It gets the best of him before he's satisfied with it.

At last:] Ogata wants coffee. Early. [In his own hotel room, Akira shifts in place. Ogata had finally won the Honinbou title he so coveted. He was quite pleased with himself. He was less pleased upon the following challenge to his title, when Akira moved up the ranks in preliminaries. And he wasn't pleased at all when Akira felled the league and knelt before him, fearless. Ogata's eyes were an accusation of impudence. Akira was, perhaps, impudent, when he won that final match. He bowed low in the way he was always taught to bow to Ogata as a child. His hair slid over his shoulder, slipping forward, though not quickly enough to curtain the satisfied look of his lips before it was seen. "Thank you very much," he said, and he meant that. He had learned a great deal from Ogata Seiji: an interesting way to raise one's chin, compelling placements of crucial stones, and the pleasure of overcoming a person's resentment.

Frankly, Hikaru is lucky Akira says anything at all to him tonight, defiant pause or no. Akira's final match when first vying for Honinbou had seen himself and Ogata at 3-1. Before the first round, Akira kept the rules he shared with Hikaru as usual. But later, the evening before the second round, Akira was cutting and abrupt. He paid, personally, for a room in a completely different hallway from the one he'd had before—and in a completely different hallway from Hikaru's. He refused the closeness of the dividing door. He refused visitors and dinner. The next day, he won by resignation, and claimed the Honinbou title. After pleasantries, he took Hikaru into the hotel room he'd gotten for himself, and they didn't check out until the day after next. Room service. Hikaru had to bully him into eating, rather than designating his mouth only to mark triumphant awards against Hikaru's thighs and shoulders. Akira would have put up with being dehydrated. But, regardless... that night just before the win...

Tonight, he speaks up again. He says,] I heard he went drinking this evening, so he's in a bad mood. I'm sure he wants to tell me all about his bad mood in the morning. [He's going to tell Akira to defend the title from Hikaru, actually. He's done that already, but Akira can see it coming another time. Ogata is feeling disgraced, Akira knows, so he'll say something about how Akira can't let himself be disgraced. That's mostly likely it.

There's no real challenge in Akira's voice as he gives his vague relay. He's not goading Hikaru to offer him something better, since it wouldn't be difficult to do that. The challenge lies completely unsaid: Akira did remember, about locking the door between them. Neglecting to do it was intentional. A little vindictive, but more than that, needy. If Hikaru's next move is as Akira foresees, Akira wants to make him open this door, tonight. Whatever happens, the both of them will end up trounced.]

I don't have any reason to avoid the cameras, anyway. Do you?

[Still not quite a challenge. More of a suggestion. An offer, almost, like Akira is extending the option for Hikaru to receive a reason from him. But that's exactly where the provocation lies. There are rules. There are valid moves, and illegal moves. Akira speaks quietly, so that his voice melts into the wood between them, urging Hikaru to work for it, to earn clear language.

Late as it's getting, Akira is still dressed. His suit jacket has been set aside, but his dress shirt is tucked into his dress pants, his belt remains soundly buckled, and his necktie hasn't been loosened at all. This is less defiance, and more a matter of Akira feeling stuck. If he undresses, his hands will be on his own body, and if he starts to touch himself, the teeth-grinding frustration will grind at him as well, and he won't want to stop touching himself until Hikaru touches him instead. As much as he wants Hikaru to open that door in acquiescence, the demand of lawlessness is also for his own sake.]