hikaru shindou ⑤ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
protential) wrote2013-12-03 01:34 am
protential) wrote2013-12-03 01:34 am
idk what this au even is.
major changes: 1) all the sai stuff never happened, 2) hikaru and akira were friends from an early age
hikaru's mom and akira's mom have been friends since preschool. they pushed akira and hikaru together ever since they were babies, literally. best friends from the very start. at age 2, akira started learning go, which started getting in the way of his friendship with hikaru. by mid to late elementary, they were estranged from each other, even though they had to keep seeing each other/pretend things were mostly fine during get-togethers of both families. they still went to each other's birthday parties, etc. akira would give hikaru a lucky charm each year in addition to a normal gift. hikaru gave him mostly clothes for the satisfaction of seeing him wear them. they never stopped calling each other by their given names.
hikaru's mom is even more of a 'keeping up with the jonses' type of person. her best friend's son is a polite, well-spoken genius. she berates hikaru constantly for his failings, and it's pretty much ongoing emotional abuse. a lot of "why can't you be more like akira-kun" and other guilt trips. hikaru dyeing his bangs led to a pretty spectacular meltdown.
hikaru didn't get into go because he thought it was stupid game for old men. but at some point in his childhood, he did express a little bit of interest in maybe learning, and his parents just laughed him off, because they believed him incapable of doing something so cerebral with his time. he should just get into sports and hope for a scholarship.
akira fails to come to hikaru's 13th birthday party because he has an official match. hikaru refuses to see him later that night, and ghosts him completely for months.
hikaru's birthday is september 20, akira's birthday is december 14.
pro exam is in october of each year, in between their birthdays.
A - akira (2) begins learning go
.
.
.
B - akira (11, he'll turn 12 soon) passes the pro exam; hikaru (12) hears about this from his mom and is bewildered
C - hikaru (13) starts getting into go; akira (12) has been a pro for one year
D - hikaru (14) has become an insei, but he doesn't take the pro exam because he's in the middle of one of his quitting episodes; akira (13) has been a pro for two years
E - hikaru (15) fails the pro exam; akira (14) has been a pro for three years
F - hikaru (16) passes the pro exam; akira (15) has been a pro for four years
hikaru is more of a delinquent due to being supremely bitter about this shit. he becomes close friends with mitani, not akari, and never joins any go club. later on, he does play mitani in go when he's just starting out. as little kids, akira would read books to hikaru; hikaru would share his manga collection with akira. after they broke up, hikaru began to reject bookishness in any form. he resents how smart akira is and purposefully slacks off in school. he's in real danger of not even graduating from middle school.
akira, who is also bitter, pours even more of himself into learning go. subsequently, he's better at go than he is in canon, and he's much more in danger of burning out without a rival or anything to really keep him going. when he finds out hikaru is learning to play go (first from hikaru's grandfather, then from spotting hikaru coming out of a beginner's class), he becomes ultra thirsty to play hikaru, no matter how bad hikaru is. akira is more of a dick to other people, even when he's speaking politely. akira and ogata's relationship is a lot colder, more adversarial, and more fraught.
they play each other a few times, even though hikaru claims as in canon that they'll never play each other. he just wants to understand how far away akira is from him. hikaru loses horribly each time and feels humiliated. he's legit afraid of playing akira and avoids it as much as possible. akira will randomly try to get to him by saying an opening move and asking what he thought of first. fuck off, akira.
at waya's suggestion, hikaru gets into netgo. he's a decently strong amateur, making some waves, and akira recognizes him somehow after seeing one of his games. requests to play. akira wins, but it still feels good to play him... hikaru's pseudonym is 'genji,' from a book akira read to him when they were kids.
hikaru has been playing go for less than three years when he passes the exam. he has quit several times, flaking out for various reasons. the reason he picked up go was, paradoxically, out of anger. he wanted to try to understand akira after akira skipped his 13th birthday. (he also wanted to prove his parents wrong about him.) hikaru learned the basics from his grandfather and then attended shirakawa's weekend beginner classes. mostly self-taught, though. books on strategy, replaying games from every era (hikaru admires shuusaku a lot but not to a crazy extent), insei sessions, morishita study sessions, go salon outings with waya and isumi-san. literal genius-tier, but he's too self-pitying and hateful to see that at all. he's actually his own harshest critic, kind of taking the place of canon akira. there are many rumors that he's akira's rival because of how often they're seen together at the nihon ki-in. hikaru fears any sort of rivalry with akira because he'll never do it justice, among other issues. akira will whiteknight for hikaru if he feels like someone isn't respecting him enough, even when hikaru is just a crappy insei.
in the pro exam that hikaru failed to pass, the people who became pros were kadowaki, honda, and adachi.
the pro exam that hikaru passes with includes ochi, waya, isumi-san, and basically all of the canon events; it's simply shifted forward in time. however, ochi doesn't receive training from akira, and he gets subsequently crushed by hikaru. this also means hikaru has been friends with waya and isumi for a lot longer. he also somehow squirmed his way into joining the nine stars club. he did play hong su-yeong in a go salon during his first year as an insei, but he didn't pass the pro exam that year due to kadowaki. one extra loss kept him from becoming pro, and he quit for a while after that, disillusioned. (akira, naturally, freaked the fuck out.)
akira has already attended the first hokuto cup with yashirou and someone else, probably a literally-who from a different go association. akira destroyed ko yeong-ha. hikaru was there to watch the hokuto cup, and realized just how admired akira is the world over. hong su-yeong confronted hikaru in the lobby and realized hikaru wasn't actually participating, and found out he wasn't actually a pro. a real shock to the system. still, after the cup, they played each other informally and hikaru won. akira was kind of blown away by the level of play. ko yeong-ha was confused about why this guy wasn't a pro.
~~more tentative stuff below~~
becomes pro
beginner dan series game with touya meijin (as requested by touya meijin), who legit crushes him; everyone is shocked about that, since beginner dan series games are supposed to be cordial and encouraging. hikaru was playing the game extremely seriously, he played the best he ever has, maybe even disturbed kouyou at one point with one of his weird deep creative moves--but of course it was not enough to win even with reverse komi. in observing the game, kuwabara says the meijin has recognized hikaru as a bona fide rival but ogata doesn't believe it. most people think hikaru isn't anything special and akira is the only hope for japanese go.
kouyou invites hikaru to join his study sessions, and hikaru turns him down right there in the room of profound darkness. the request was shocking, and hikaru rejecting it is even more shocking. akira hears about it from a photographer, ochi/waya hear about it from hikaru and are like holy shit!!!
wtf was that (but more polite), akira asks of his dad
kouyou says hikaru wouldn't have been satisfied with an easygoing game and is aiming to attain the same strength as the top pros... or, an even greater strength than that. the strength to play the divine move. (ie, he has sai's depthless intensity despite sai not existing.)
hikaru passes the qualifiers for hokuto cup #2, joining the team as second board (yashirou third board?)
hikaru and akira have a sexual encounter in the wake of that
hikaru has his first official match with akira soon after that, but akira misses it (see below)... hikaru thinks he finally went too far, he's being ghosted, is akira really going to sabotage his own record because he hates hikaru that much?!
but it's kouyou's heart attack. hikaru flips the fuck out about his target and semi-mentor nearly dying and rants about how kouyou could just forget all this bureaucratic shit and go directly to people he wants to play, on no one's schedule but his own, etc. etc. kouyou has never heard anything like this because everyone is either afraid of him or too deferential to him. real talk from a teenager, how funny. asks hikaru if he should retire and hikaru is like uhhhh i didn't say that, just ignore what i said; kouyou uses it as an excuse to retire
this is all going on during qualifiers for hokuto cup #2
plays in hokuto cup #2. he wins both of his games, is completely wrecked emotionally for how invested he is in go and everything, he has a mental breakdown afterward about everything going on and quits go again
kouyou's heart attack freaks the fuck out of hikaru, because this could be him in 40 years, or it could be akira. if it's akira, he doesn't want anything to do with this; he doesn't want to have to care about akira's well-being. he quits again, barely nascent in his career, which drives akira up the wall even worse than canon. akira tries to track him down for an explanation, etc. eventually, near the end of july, akira tries one more time to confront hikaru, this time at home. he demands hikaru play him for real, once and for all, so they can each have some closure about each other's go. during the game, hikaru becomes distraught about their broken friendship, his decade of jealousy towards this game, and his hurt over being told he's incapable of playing this game--a game he actually loves, no matter how he acts otherwise. this conversation doesn't "fix" things per se, but hikaru agrees to continue playing. (poor isumi-san later gets a redo of his pro exam match with hikaru, and he'll pass the next exam.)
kouyou has an antique fan (belonging to akira's great grandfather) that he intended to give to akira when he came of age, but akira never had any interest in props. ends up giving it to hikaru as part of their weird mentor-type relationship, with the caveat that he will take it back from hikaru if hikaru ever quits go again. touya family drama ensues.
less dramatic equivalent to sai's secret: why he started playing go? (tells akira he'll explain it to him one day after akira expresses how glad he is to have hikaru here with him; how hikaru's go, no matter what, is enough for him?)
hikaru's mom and akira's mom have been friends since preschool. they pushed akira and hikaru together ever since they were babies, literally. best friends from the very start. at age 2, akira started learning go, which started getting in the way of his friendship with hikaru. by mid to late elementary, they were estranged from each other, even though they had to keep seeing each other/pretend things were mostly fine during get-togethers of both families. they still went to each other's birthday parties, etc. akira would give hikaru a lucky charm each year in addition to a normal gift. hikaru gave him mostly clothes for the satisfaction of seeing him wear them. they never stopped calling each other by their given names.
hikaru's mom is even more of a 'keeping up with the jonses' type of person. her best friend's son is a polite, well-spoken genius. she berates hikaru constantly for his failings, and it's pretty much ongoing emotional abuse. a lot of "why can't you be more like akira-kun" and other guilt trips. hikaru dyeing his bangs led to a pretty spectacular meltdown.
hikaru didn't get into go because he thought it was stupid game for old men. but at some point in his childhood, he did express a little bit of interest in maybe learning, and his parents just laughed him off, because they believed him incapable of doing something so cerebral with his time. he should just get into sports and hope for a scholarship.
akira fails to come to hikaru's 13th birthday party because he has an official match. hikaru refuses to see him later that night, and ghosts him completely for months.
hikaru's birthday is september 20, akira's birthday is december 14.
pro exam is in october of each year, in between their birthdays.
A - akira (2) begins learning go
.
.
.
B - akira (11, he'll turn 12 soon) passes the pro exam; hikaru (12) hears about this from his mom and is bewildered
C - hikaru (13) starts getting into go; akira (12) has been a pro for one year
D - hikaru (14) has become an insei, but he doesn't take the pro exam because he's in the middle of one of his quitting episodes; akira (13) has been a pro for two years
E - hikaru (15) fails the pro exam; akira (14) has been a pro for three years
F - hikaru (16) passes the pro exam; akira (15) has been a pro for four years
hikaru is more of a delinquent due to being supremely bitter about this shit. he becomes close friends with mitani, not akari, and never joins any go club. later on, he does play mitani in go when he's just starting out. as little kids, akira would read books to hikaru; hikaru would share his manga collection with akira. after they broke up, hikaru began to reject bookishness in any form. he resents how smart akira is and purposefully slacks off in school. he's in real danger of not even graduating from middle school.
akira, who is also bitter, pours even more of himself into learning go. subsequently, he's better at go than he is in canon, and he's much more in danger of burning out without a rival or anything to really keep him going. when he finds out hikaru is learning to play go (first from hikaru's grandfather, then from spotting hikaru coming out of a beginner's class), he becomes ultra thirsty to play hikaru, no matter how bad hikaru is. akira is more of a dick to other people, even when he's speaking politely. akira and ogata's relationship is a lot colder, more adversarial, and more fraught.
they play each other a few times, even though hikaru claims as in canon that they'll never play each other. he just wants to understand how far away akira is from him. hikaru loses horribly each time and feels humiliated. he's legit afraid of playing akira and avoids it as much as possible. akira will randomly try to get to him by saying an opening move and asking what he thought of first. fuck off, akira.
at waya's suggestion, hikaru gets into netgo. he's a decently strong amateur, making some waves, and akira recognizes him somehow after seeing one of his games. requests to play. akira wins, but it still feels good to play him... hikaru's pseudonym is 'genji,' from a book akira read to him when they were kids.
hikaru has been playing go for less than three years when he passes the exam. he has quit several times, flaking out for various reasons. the reason he picked up go was, paradoxically, out of anger. he wanted to try to understand akira after akira skipped his 13th birthday. (he also wanted to prove his parents wrong about him.) hikaru learned the basics from his grandfather and then attended shirakawa's weekend beginner classes. mostly self-taught, though. books on strategy, replaying games from every era (hikaru admires shuusaku a lot but not to a crazy extent), insei sessions, morishita study sessions, go salon outings with waya and isumi-san. literal genius-tier, but he's too self-pitying and hateful to see that at all. he's actually his own harshest critic, kind of taking the place of canon akira. there are many rumors that he's akira's rival because of how often they're seen together at the nihon ki-in. hikaru fears any sort of rivalry with akira because he'll never do it justice, among other issues. akira will whiteknight for hikaru if he feels like someone isn't respecting him enough, even when hikaru is just a crappy insei.
in the pro exam that hikaru failed to pass, the people who became pros were kadowaki, honda, and adachi.
the pro exam that hikaru passes with includes ochi, waya, isumi-san, and basically all of the canon events; it's simply shifted forward in time. however, ochi doesn't receive training from akira, and he gets subsequently crushed by hikaru. this also means hikaru has been friends with waya and isumi for a lot longer. he also somehow squirmed his way into joining the nine stars club. he did play hong su-yeong in a go salon during his first year as an insei, but he didn't pass the pro exam that year due to kadowaki. one extra loss kept him from becoming pro, and he quit for a while after that, disillusioned. (akira, naturally, freaked the fuck out.)
akira has already attended the first hokuto cup with yashirou and someone else, probably a literally-who from a different go association. akira destroyed ko yeong-ha. hikaru was there to watch the hokuto cup, and realized just how admired akira is the world over. hong su-yeong confronted hikaru in the lobby and realized hikaru wasn't actually participating, and found out he wasn't actually a pro. a real shock to the system. still, after the cup, they played each other informally and hikaru won. akira was kind of blown away by the level of play. ko yeong-ha was confused about why this guy wasn't a pro.
~~more tentative stuff below~~
becomes pro
beginner dan series game with touya meijin (as requested by touya meijin), who legit crushes him; everyone is shocked about that, since beginner dan series games are supposed to be cordial and encouraging. hikaru was playing the game extremely seriously, he played the best he ever has, maybe even disturbed kouyou at one point with one of his weird deep creative moves--but of course it was not enough to win even with reverse komi. in observing the game, kuwabara says the meijin has recognized hikaru as a bona fide rival but ogata doesn't believe it. most people think hikaru isn't anything special and akira is the only hope for japanese go.
kouyou invites hikaru to join his study sessions, and hikaru turns him down right there in the room of profound darkness. the request was shocking, and hikaru rejecting it is even more shocking. akira hears about it from a photographer, ochi/waya hear about it from hikaru and are like holy shit!!!
wtf was that (but more polite), akira asks of his dad
kouyou says hikaru wouldn't have been satisfied with an easygoing game and is aiming to attain the same strength as the top pros... or, an even greater strength than that. the strength to play the divine move. (ie, he has sai's depthless intensity despite sai not existing.)
hikaru passes the qualifiers for hokuto cup #2, joining the team as second board (yashirou third board?)
hikaru and akira have a sexual encounter in the wake of that
hikaru has his first official match with akira soon after that, but akira misses it (see below)... hikaru thinks he finally went too far, he's being ghosted, is akira really going to sabotage his own record because he hates hikaru that much?!
but it's kouyou's heart attack. hikaru flips the fuck out about his target and semi-mentor nearly dying and rants about how kouyou could just forget all this bureaucratic shit and go directly to people he wants to play, on no one's schedule but his own, etc. etc. kouyou has never heard anything like this because everyone is either afraid of him or too deferential to him. real talk from a teenager, how funny. asks hikaru if he should retire and hikaru is like uhhhh i didn't say that, just ignore what i said; kouyou uses it as an excuse to retire
this is all going on during qualifiers for hokuto cup #2
plays in hokuto cup #2. he wins both of his games, is completely wrecked emotionally for how invested he is in go and everything, he has a mental breakdown afterward about everything going on and quits go again
kouyou's heart attack freaks the fuck out of hikaru, because this could be him in 40 years, or it could be akira. if it's akira, he doesn't want anything to do with this; he doesn't want to have to care about akira's well-being. he quits again, barely nascent in his career, which drives akira up the wall even worse than canon. akira tries to track him down for an explanation, etc. eventually, near the end of july, akira tries one more time to confront hikaru, this time at home. he demands hikaru play him for real, once and for all, so they can each have some closure about each other's go. during the game, hikaru becomes distraught about their broken friendship, his decade of jealousy towards this game, and his hurt over being told he's incapable of playing this game--a game he actually loves, no matter how he acts otherwise. this conversation doesn't "fix" things per se, but hikaru agrees to continue playing. (poor isumi-san later gets a redo of his pro exam match with hikaru, and he'll pass the next exam.)
kouyou has an antique fan (belonging to akira's great grandfather) that he intended to give to akira when he came of age, but akira never had any interest in props. ends up giving it to hikaru as part of their weird mentor-type relationship, with the caveat that he will take it back from hikaru if hikaru ever quits go again. touya family drama ensues.
less dramatic equivalent to sai's secret: why he started playing go? (tells akira he'll explain it to him one day after akira expresses how glad he is to have hikaru here with him; how hikaru's go, no matter what, is enough for him?)