[Havel]
by Shirono
Driving Home
“Shindou, no, wait,” Akira cries, at the end of his rope as he’s being shoved into the passenger seat of his rival’s new bright red, compact car. He tolerates a lot from Hikaru, but being kidnapped might just cross the line.
“Where are we going?” he demands when Hikaru slides into the driver’s seat, somehow both cool and vibrating nervousness at the same time. The doors lock.
“Nowhere,” he says, like it shouldn’t even matter, and he looks over his shoulder to back out of his parking spot.
After he’s pulled out onto the street, switched from reverse to drive with stunning fluidity, he adds, “There’s a lot to be said for nowhere.”
And it makes Akira pause, because sometimes Shindou is beautiful and breathtaking, even when, no, especially when he is being completely unreasonable.
His pause is far too long.
“I just won the Tengen title, Shindou!” he shouts, remembering himself, his situation. “Not twenty minutes ago! What are you doing?”
“Would you chill out for a few minutes?” Hikaru shouts back. It startles Akira. He wonders if he’s in danger, though he knows he’s not. Either way, he obeys, because Hikaru’s voice is commanding in a way he’s never heard it before.
It should be frightening. It would be, if it were anyone other than Shindou demanding his obedience.
...
The sun is setting on them as they drive. Akira can’t discern where they’re headed, but Hikaru seems to know perfectly. He drives with a singularity of purpose, all cool flow of wheel turns and gear changes. Akira finds himself so hypnotized by Hikaru’s driving, that he forgets he’s been kidnapped.
His phone rings.
“Don’t do it,” Hikaru says, voice heavy with warning.
Akira looks at the screen, and it’s Ashiwara, probably wondering why he never returned from the bathroom to finish the discussion. Ogata wouldn’t call him himself, obviously, just being so thoroughly beaten.
“They’re probably wondering if I’m dead, Shindou,” Akira hisses, flipping the phone open.
Hikaru grabs the phone from his hands before he can press the “call” button. Tosses it out the window.
“Shindou! What the hell is wrong with you?” He shrieks, and he’s only this afraid now, because maybe Hikaru has snapped, and without his phone, he can’t call the police.
“I’m only helping!” Hikaru shouts.
“What?" Akira shouts back, haughty laughter disguising his growing anxiousness. "Are you serious?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding around, Touya?"
It's a shouting match now.
“You just destroyed my phone!”
“You can buy a new one! You made over 14 million yen today! Look! You can’t disappear if you let them find you!”
“What?” Akira asks, gawking.
“We’re almost there,” Hikaru says, quieter now that Akira seems to be deflating. The problem with being furious at Hikaru is that Akira knows Hikaru does everything he does to him out of respect or adoration. And he will know which, he’s sure, soon enough. But until then, Hikaru will be stubbornly protective of the true nature of his mission.
...
They’re almost at the top. Driving up the side of some mountain, up a peak he’s visited before. It’s just a quaint, scenic drive, not far outside Tokyo, but it’s early winter and it’s cold. No one’s here now, no one would want to be up on a mountain when they can see their breath even when they're on the ground.
Hikaru stops the car with a jerk a few safe meters from the edge. Then he deflates, sighing with a howl, all over his steering wheel.
“Shindou, are you going to be okay?” Akira asks, as if he’s the one he should be worrying about at all.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”
Akira leers.
“I’ve just been assaulted, kidnapped, and had my personal property destroyed, but aside from that, I supposed I’m alright.”
Hikaru rolls his eyes.
“I did not assault you, you prick.”
Akira bristles at the language. “Oh? Then what do you call it?” he shouts, and just like that, after conscientiously assuring one another's well-being, they’re arguing again.
“I was rescuing you!” Hikaru shrieks, and shoves the car door open and steps outside. He slams the door shut as if it’s punctuation.
“Like hell!” Akira screams back, throwing himself out of the car. “What were you rescuing me from? My success?”
Hikaru slams his hands on the hood of the car.
“How can you be so...so...ugh!” Hikaru cries. “You!” He’s circling the car now, and so is Akira, and suddenly the two are standing in front of it, nose to nose, with the whole of Tokyo laid out beside them over the lookout.
“I come in the bathroom, and you know what I see? I see you crying over the sink, and I can hear you thinking that you want to be anywhere but there. That you don’t want to go back to Ogata’s glare and a thousand questions about how you decimated your own mentor in three games! That you want to go away, far away, disappear...”
Akira is still, quiet. Hikaru is getting worked up, and he's made himself vulnerable in a way he hasn’t seen him since the last game of the first Hokuto Cup match, years ago. He remembers being able to read all of Hikaru’s thoughts when he cried. Is that what Hikaru did just now? Did he really hear all the things Akira was thinking as he cried over the sink?
“Shindou,” he says, carefully. “Why didn’t you ask me? Tell me what you were doing?”
Hikaru turns to face Tokyo, a vast expanse of lights on a black canvas under a rust-colored sky, and shoves his hands in his pocket.
“Did I frighten you?” Hikaru asks with a nervous chuckle, running his hand through his bangs. His hands won't keep still. “I’m sorry. I really am. I was upset. And I didn’t want to give you the chance to say no.”
Akira put his hand on Hikaru’s sleeve, tugging his focus back to his face. His eyes go sad.
“Why are we here, Shindou?” he asks, just above a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Hikaru says, and it almost riles Akira up when he says it. “I just wanted to take you away.”
Akira feels something in his chest go heavy.
“This is where I come when I want to disappear. When I’m tired of all the interviews, all the gawking and the signatures, you know. Here, it’s just me and the stars.”
It makes Akira look up, and Hikaru is right. It’s stars as far as the eye can see, and it’s suddenly overwhelming. Akira’s knees wobble, and Hikaru catches him by the arms as he trips on his own sense on wonder.
…his back is hot, he finally registers, where it’s pressed over the hood of the car. It’s almost too hot, but Hikaru’s leaning over him, and the spot where Hikaru’s breath is on his neck seems significantly hotter. Looking up, he watches the vapor of his breath mix with the infinite bowl of stars above him. After a moment, Hikaru shifts, leaning his head forward and putting his face between him and ursa minor.
Shindou’s eyes are almost as breathtaking. Glittering with something that isn't stars and planets but is somehow just as beautiful, just as immobilizing.
He doesn’t know how to stop himself when his neck cranes up and he presses their lips together.
Hikaru kisses back, gently, like it’s the most natural thing they’ve ever done, and maybe it is. Akira doesn’t care what it means or what it is, but he knows he’s supposed to be doing this, and Hikaru knows it too.
Akira pulls back and looks Hikaru in the eyes again. Lets his head fall back onto the cooling metal, and turns his focus to the heavens above him. He feels small again.
“Nothing makes sense,” Akira whispers, all of his fears welling up inside him. The stars above him blur, and he realizes that he’s tearing up. He shuts his eyes.
“It never did,” Hikaru whispers back, lightly kissing the side of Akira’s jaw. “It’s scary from up there, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Akira says. He wants to laugh, denying that he knows perfectly what Hikaru’s talking about. He wants to wipe his eyes but his arms are pinned under Shindou’s body and he doesn’t have the strength to wriggle them out. So his tears fall down the sides of his face, landing very uncomfortably in his ears.
“You have a title now, Akira. You. You’re Touya Tengen, now. How does it feel? Beating your sensei like that? You think you can’t feel a little frightened from up there? So high above us?”
“Shindou...” he says, shaking his head. Hikaru’s right and it’s making him feel insane.
“Scoot up,” Hikaru says, gesturing with his chin.
“What?”
“Up. Get on the hood. My back hurts.”
Akira only stares.
“Unless you really want me to just get off of you.”
Akira frowns. “Not necessarily.” He says it plainly, as if he were saying I don’t really want you to get up from the couch.
So he leans up and shimmies himself up the hood of the car, hooking his heel on the bumper and sliding the rest of the way until his spine is an echo of the curve of the hood. Hikaru climbs on top of him, folding his arms and resting his head on his hands laced together on Akira’s chest.
Akira has the fleeting notion that this would normally be weirder than it is, but they’ve never been normal, so this is probably just fine the way it is.
“Akira,” Hikaru says, and he finally notices that Hikaru’s been using his first name.
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t then end, you know. It’s only the beginning.”
Driving Home
“Shindou, no, wait,” Akira cries, at the end of his rope as he’s being shoved into the passenger seat of his rival’s new bright red, compact car. He tolerates a lot from Hikaru, but being kidnapped might just cross the line.
“Where are we going?” he demands when Hikaru slides into the driver’s seat, somehow both cool and vibrating nervousness at the same time. The doors lock.
“Nowhere,” he says, like it shouldn’t even matter, and he looks over his shoulder to back out of his parking spot.
After he’s pulled out onto the street, switched from reverse to drive with stunning fluidity, he adds, “There’s a lot to be said for nowhere.”
And it makes Akira pause, because sometimes Shindou is beautiful and breathtaking, even when, no, especially when he is being completely unreasonable.
His pause is far too long.
“I just won the Tengen title, Shindou!” he shouts, remembering himself, his situation. “Not twenty minutes ago! What are you doing?”
“Would you chill out for a few minutes?” Hikaru shouts back. It startles Akira. He wonders if he’s in danger, though he knows he’s not. Either way, he obeys, because Hikaru’s voice is commanding in a way he’s never heard it before.
It should be frightening. It would be, if it were anyone other than Shindou demanding his obedience.
...
The sun is setting on them as they drive. Akira can’t discern where they’re headed, but Hikaru seems to know perfectly. He drives with a singularity of purpose, all cool flow of wheel turns and gear changes. Akira finds himself so hypnotized by Hikaru’s driving, that he forgets he’s been kidnapped.
His phone rings.
“Don’t do it,” Hikaru says, voice heavy with warning.
Akira looks at the screen, and it’s Ashiwara, probably wondering why he never returned from the bathroom to finish the discussion. Ogata wouldn’t call him himself, obviously, just being so thoroughly beaten.
“They’re probably wondering if I’m dead, Shindou,” Akira hisses, flipping the phone open.
Hikaru grabs the phone from his hands before he can press the “call” button. Tosses it out the window.
“Shindou! What the hell is wrong with you?” He shrieks, and he’s only this afraid now, because maybe Hikaru has snapped, and without his phone, he can’t call the police.
“I’m only helping!” Hikaru shouts.
“What?" Akira shouts back, haughty laughter disguising his growing anxiousness. "Are you serious?"
"Do I look like I'm kidding around, Touya?"
It's a shouting match now.
“You just destroyed my phone!”
“You can buy a new one! You made over 14 million yen today! Look! You can’t disappear if you let them find you!”
“What?” Akira asks, gawking.
“We’re almost there,” Hikaru says, quieter now that Akira seems to be deflating. The problem with being furious at Hikaru is that Akira knows Hikaru does everything he does to him out of respect or adoration. And he will know which, he’s sure, soon enough. But until then, Hikaru will be stubbornly protective of the true nature of his mission.
...
They’re almost at the top. Driving up the side of some mountain, up a peak he’s visited before. It’s just a quaint, scenic drive, not far outside Tokyo, but it’s early winter and it’s cold. No one’s here now, no one would want to be up on a mountain when they can see their breath even when they're on the ground.
Hikaru stops the car with a jerk a few safe meters from the edge. Then he deflates, sighing with a howl, all over his steering wheel.
“Shindou, are you going to be okay?” Akira asks, as if he’s the one he should be worrying about at all.
“Yeah,” he mumbles. “I’m fine. Are you okay?”
Akira leers.
“I’ve just been assaulted, kidnapped, and had my personal property destroyed, but aside from that, I supposed I’m alright.”
Hikaru rolls his eyes.
“I did not assault you, you prick.”
Akira bristles at the language. “Oh? Then what do you call it?” he shouts, and just like that, after conscientiously assuring one another's well-being, they’re arguing again.
“I was rescuing you!” Hikaru shrieks, and shoves the car door open and steps outside. He slams the door shut as if it’s punctuation.
“Like hell!” Akira screams back, throwing himself out of the car. “What were you rescuing me from? My success?”
Hikaru slams his hands on the hood of the car.
“How can you be so...so...ugh!” Hikaru cries. “You!” He’s circling the car now, and so is Akira, and suddenly the two are standing in front of it, nose to nose, with the whole of Tokyo laid out beside them over the lookout.
“I come in the bathroom, and you know what I see? I see you crying over the sink, and I can hear you thinking that you want to be anywhere but there. That you don’t want to go back to Ogata’s glare and a thousand questions about how you decimated your own mentor in three games! That you want to go away, far away, disappear...”
Akira is still, quiet. Hikaru is getting worked up, and he's made himself vulnerable in a way he hasn’t seen him since the last game of the first Hokuto Cup match, years ago. He remembers being able to read all of Hikaru’s thoughts when he cried. Is that what Hikaru did just now? Did he really hear all the things Akira was thinking as he cried over the sink?
“Shindou,” he says, carefully. “Why didn’t you ask me? Tell me what you were doing?”
Hikaru turns to face Tokyo, a vast expanse of lights on a black canvas under a rust-colored sky, and shoves his hands in his pocket.
“Did I frighten you?” Hikaru asks with a nervous chuckle, running his hand through his bangs. His hands won't keep still. “I’m sorry. I really am. I was upset. And I didn’t want to give you the chance to say no.”
Akira put his hand on Hikaru’s sleeve, tugging his focus back to his face. His eyes go sad.
“Why are we here, Shindou?” he asks, just above a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Hikaru says, and it almost riles Akira up when he says it. “I just wanted to take you away.”
Akira feels something in his chest go heavy.
“This is where I come when I want to disappear. When I’m tired of all the interviews, all the gawking and the signatures, you know. Here, it’s just me and the stars.”
It makes Akira look up, and Hikaru is right. It’s stars as far as the eye can see, and it’s suddenly overwhelming. Akira’s knees wobble, and Hikaru catches him by the arms as he trips on his own sense on wonder.
…his back is hot, he finally registers, where it’s pressed over the hood of the car. It’s almost too hot, but Hikaru’s leaning over him, and the spot where Hikaru’s breath is on his neck seems significantly hotter. Looking up, he watches the vapor of his breath mix with the infinite bowl of stars above him. After a moment, Hikaru shifts, leaning his head forward and putting his face between him and ursa minor.
Shindou’s eyes are almost as breathtaking. Glittering with something that isn't stars and planets but is somehow just as beautiful, just as immobilizing.
He doesn’t know how to stop himself when his neck cranes up and he presses their lips together.
Hikaru kisses back, gently, like it’s the most natural thing they’ve ever done, and maybe it is. Akira doesn’t care what it means or what it is, but he knows he’s supposed to be doing this, and Hikaru knows it too.
Akira pulls back and looks Hikaru in the eyes again. Lets his head fall back onto the cooling metal, and turns his focus to the heavens above him. He feels small again.
“Nothing makes sense,” Akira whispers, all of his fears welling up inside him. The stars above him blur, and he realizes that he’s tearing up. He shuts his eyes.
“It never did,” Hikaru whispers back, lightly kissing the side of Akira’s jaw. “It’s scary from up there, right?”
“What are you talking about?” Akira says. He wants to laugh, denying that he knows perfectly what Hikaru’s talking about. He wants to wipe his eyes but his arms are pinned under Shindou’s body and he doesn’t have the strength to wriggle them out. So his tears fall down the sides of his face, landing very uncomfortably in his ears.
“You have a title now, Akira. You. You’re Touya Tengen, now. How does it feel? Beating your sensei like that? You think you can’t feel a little frightened from up there? So high above us?”
“Shindou...” he says, shaking his head. Hikaru’s right and it’s making him feel insane.
“Scoot up,” Hikaru says, gesturing with his chin.
“What?”
“Up. Get on the hood. My back hurts.”
Akira only stares.
“Unless you really want me to just get off of you.”
Akira frowns. “Not necessarily.” He says it plainly, as if he were saying I don’t really want you to get up from the couch.
So he leans up and shimmies himself up the hood of the car, hooking his heel on the bumper and sliding the rest of the way until his spine is an echo of the curve of the hood. Hikaru climbs on top of him, folding his arms and resting his head on his hands laced together on Akira’s chest.
Akira has the fleeting notion that this would normally be weirder than it is, but they’ve never been normal, so this is probably just fine the way it is.
“Akira,” Hikaru says, and he finally notices that Hikaru’s been using his first name.
“Hmm?”
“This isn’t then end, you know. It’s only the beginning.”