and i hate it, and i love it, and i want it to go away, and i want it to stay forever.

[protential]

[It looks like Akira didn't even try to get under the covers, this time. He went straight into Hikaru's bedroom, where he paused only to shed his formal suit, search through Hikaru's closet for comfier, more casual replacements, and then collapse onto Hikaru's bed in a heap. Not even a breath later, he's completely dead to the world: all fifteen years of him, slightly curled inward, nose to pillow, unwieldy and stubborn. Hikaru sighs. Following after Akira, he also pauses to grab the light blue afghan he has sitting at the end of the bed. He unfolds it, and he tugs it up and over Akira's prone form until he's got him covered from the neck down. Like this, Akira's dark hair looks more like a splotch of ink on a watercolor of a bright, cloudless sky. A disruption. A bad omen, maybe. Like thunderheads or something.

Hikaru takes out his phone and sends an apologetic text to Waya. The fun evening in they were both planning, with pizza and movies and other trappings of adulthood, is going to have to wait. something important came up, he writes, wisely not mentioning the high schooler who's taken up refuge in his bed. sorry for the short notice. Then he goes around and picks up Akira's jacket, and his turtleneck, and his dress pants, and the one sock he managed to pull off en route to the bed. If Akira would just get more sleep at night, like before the start of his day, then he wouldn't have to do this kind of thing so often. He wouldn't have to look like he does now: the ink splotch, the disruption, the bad omen, the Go prodigy who's painfully sleep-deprived. Just looking at him is on this side of exhausting. Hikaru is twenty-four years old, a three-time title holder, in the prime of his competitive career--and he's having to babysit this one particular student of his yet again.

Well.

Maybe it's his fault for not setting any boundaries in the first place.]

You are so...

[He drags his fingers down his face, and he sighs, heavier this time, before he eases himself into bed beside Akira. It really is his fault for not setting any boundaries at all, given how he's getting under the afghan with Akira, too, like he would during a sleepover, when they were both much younger. It doesn't feel right to leave Akira alone when he looks so worn-out and vulnerable, which has to be ridiculous, just ridiculous, but that's just how it feels. Hikaru curses himself even as he tucks the blanket more securely around Akira's chin, and he curses himself further when Akira, as if on instinct, shifts in closer to him.]

You're a real nuisance, you know that, [he murmurs quietly, wearily, closing his eyes. He doesn't expect to fall asleep arranged like this, and then that's what happens, because he's just as guilty of working too hard and too long into the night in front of the goban.]

Comments

[protential]

[The room is still spinning. It's still spinning, even after Hikaru sits down on the couch, even with Akira anchored to his side, head to shoulder, hands joined--it feels like it's never going to stop spinning. Fortunately for him, it isn't the most unpleasant feeling in the world. It's more like he got on a kinetic ride at the amusement park, one that tilts and whirls, and then goes all around... but it's enough to know he's pretty sloshed right now. Probably shouldn't have accepted Akira's half-full wineglass when it was offered to him. He drank from it greedily, like he couldn't stop himself from doing it, thinking of how Akira's lips played on the same surface mere seconds before. Somehow, the wine was sweeter than it had any damn right to be, and Akira stared at him the entire time, taking him all in. The draining of Akira's glass was just one more thing he couldn't stop himself from doing tonight. Right up there with suggesting Akira can come and stay here with him, and Akira can play against him without a solid handicap, and Akira can hold his hand like they're more than they are--all the things he shouldn't be doing, but he's doing them anyway. He's really at fault for letting things get to this point. He should have drawn a line in the sand a long time ago, like when Akira was four or five years old, and he'd cry if Hikaru went to hang up the phone without saying "I love you" to him first. Akira was always a very sensitive child. Sensitive, and intractable, and definitely incorrigible. Audacious as hell, too. Akira had the audacity to say that thing about coming home, and the way he smiled and blushed was ridiculous, and, god, just...

It's Hikaru's fault for being so fucking lonely all the time.

The room is still spinning. Akira's steady exploration of his fingers is the only thing holding him back from motion sickness. With some effort, Hikaru focuses his attention on his hand and how Akira gently is touching it. His fingernails are short and blunted, like any long-term Go player's should be, with the skin itself a little ragged where he's been biting at it. There's a hangnail on his index finger, a sore-looking one, but he doesn't flinch as Akira passes over it. He simply leans back and allows Akira's words to flow over him, melting around him, spreading like honey into his every crack and crevice.] ...Are you expecting me to resign? [he asks in a low voice, when Akira seems to have said all that he wants to say. He doesn't stumble over his thickened tongue in asking--it's more like the words are blurring together, too relaxed to be distinct.] Or do you want me... to... for me to, you know... keep playing to the end? Right up to the end? If you could choose how it goes... [He's too drunk to worry too much about the implications of Akira's dream. Again, it's natural, it's only natural, for Akira to dream of defeating his teacher on even terrain, but thinking about what'll happen after that can get Hikaru feeling anxious. It can be disillusioning to finally reach an overarching, all-important goal such as that. It could mean Akira losing respect for him, for his Go, and who knows what else.] A game so close we'll have to check, and recheck, each moku, after...

[He sighs weakly, wistfully, and then he turns his head inward, as if he can hide himself from the bleakest of outcomes. He's got his mouth against Akira's hair, which is soft, and fragrant, like a stroll through a peaceful herb garden. The closer Hikaru gets to Akira, the easier it is for him to think he should be even closer than they are. It's no different than momentum, than the tempo of a head-to-head game. Nuzzling into Akira's hair, he can't even try to resist the closeness anymore. He can't dig in his heels when he isn't even sure of where his feet are anymore. They've gone halfway numb, or maybe they're floating away, up and into the sky, while the rest of him is left behind, heavy and earthbound. Heavy and heavier.]

M'never gonna go easy on you, Akira. I hope you know that by now.