[taylor]
GOD FINGERPRINTS
by lanerose
I. Thumb
Shindou woke up noisily. Asleep, Shindou moved ceaselessly, limbs flailing, occasional words mumbled past his lips. The silence as he lay tensed beneath the sheets echoed more loudly than the soft clicking sound as the old man across the room placed magnets on a travel goban. Shindou's hands clenched at the blanket. The clicking ceased as he loosened the oxygen mask across his face.
"Oi, kid," a weathered voice rasped. The old man in the bed waited a moment, but Shindou didn't say a thing, didn't move, barely breathed. The old man shrugged, and started placing stones again. "Hiding under… the covers, Shindou? I guess the young grow up… slower these days than they did when… I was your age."
"Go away, Kuwabara-sensei." The young man turned on his side, pulling the sheet with him as he faced the wall, shoulders trembling.
"Feh. You're weaker than I… thought you were, Shindou." He shook his head, placing stones deliberately on the board in front of him. The plink they made didn't compare to the firm pachi of stones on kaya, but his still sharp eyes could see Shindou twitch as each one hit the board.
"I'm not -"
"They had to sedate you, you know?" Kuwabara interrupted conversationally as he placed a stone on the magnetic go board in his lap.
"Shut up, old man." Shindou said, his hands tightening around the covers.
The old man smirked. He looked away from Shindou with a half shrug as he continued, "Such a shame about young Tou-"
"I said shut up, old man!" Shindou sat up and threw his covers back. He started to get up, but tilted oddly at one angle and fell back onto the bed, glaring at the older pro all the while. Kuwabara grinned.
"That'll be whatever they gave you…" he wheezed. "Said it would knock you flat for a while."
"Thanks for the warning," Shindou growled. "What did I do to deserve getting stuck with you? Unlike some people, I don't have lung cancer."
"Not yet, you don't." Kuwabara laughed, but it choked him. He grabbed a nearby oxygen mask and took several slow breaths. When he had caught his breath again, the Honinbo lowered his mask to Shindou's almost concerned gaze and snorted. "I told them to put you here."
"Yeah, right." Shindou rolled his eyes. "How would you even know I was here?"
"I've got my sources." Kuwabara grinned, revealing his overly large, overly yellow teeth. "Besides, brat… you were out for so long they thought… that they'd messed up the dosage."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
The room fell quiet, save Kuwabara's wheezing breaths. Shindou flopped down onto his back, throwing his right arm over his eyes. The Honinbo watched him a moment longer, then leaned back against his pillows and focused on the board in his lap.
"You proved my theory, you know," the old man said conversationally. Shindou didn't reply, so Kuwabara continued, "About the Hand of God."
The old man couldn't hold his breath while he waited for Shindou to absorb that. The initial jerk of the younger man's body was unmistakable. Shindou didn't - couldn't hide it.
"Leave me alone, old man," the boy said, breathing ragged as the old man's. He turned his head away. "What would you know about it anyway?"
"HAH!" Kuwabara laughed loudly, regretting only the way that his chest seized as he did it. Shindou flipped back onto his left side, facing the Honinbo with eyes wide. Kuwabara waited a moment, and then continued, "You young people always seem to think… that you're the first to invent the wheel."
"What?!" Shindou sat upright quickly, and fell back to the bed even faster, his right hand against his forehead while he propped himself up on his left. Kuwabara's eyes gleamed when he met them. "What? But you - how -? When? With who?"
"Do you want to add where… and why, punk?" Kuwabara leaned deeper into his pillows.
"And you didn't warn us?" Shindou pushed himself up further, shaking. "You didn't say anything -"
"What would you have said yesterday… if I told you that you could die finding it?" Kuwabara turned to look at the blonde, who had deflated back down to his pillow. "What would he have said? I didn't even know… for sure. Tezuka resigned in mid-game."
"He -" Shindou stopped. He tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing. "What happened to him?"
"Never played again." Kuwabara shrugged. Shindou went very still, face paler even than earlier. "I hear he started teaching full-time at his father's dojo, and ran it after the old man passed away."
"I thought…" Shindou began. He shook his head. "No, we. We always thought he'd be pleased, that he wanted someone to find the Hand. But that can't be right, because if it was, then Touya wouldn't… Touya would be… Especially since he…"
Shindou swallowed back his words, but the old man across from him grimaced in a way that said he already knew.
"So that's why you lost," he commented, sighing and shaking his head. "Pity. My money was on you, brat."
"What do you mean?" Shindou's eyes were fever bright as he propped himself up once more. "What do you mean, 'that's why I lost', old man?"
Kuwabara took a long drag from his oxygen tank, seeming not to hear the boy. Shindou watched him warily until he lowered the mask.
"What are you going to do now, punk?" The old man asked after a moment.
"What am I -?" Shindou's eyebrows reached his hairline as Kuwabara nonchalantly placed another stone. He waved his arm at the Honinbo. "Hey, old man, you can't just say something like that and leave it at that!"
"You'll figure it out eventually." Kuwabara shrugged. "Play enough games and maybe then you'll be ready for it." Shindou drew back as if struck. Kuwabara turned to him then, eyes falsely wide and brows deliberately raised. "Brat, don't tell me you're going to give up on your rival just because he got somewhere ahead of you."
Shindou shook his head vehemently. "That's not - It isn't like -"
"Oh?"
The old man smiled. Hikaru would have hit him if he didn't have a thing about not hitting old guys. And if he could have managed to make it across the room without collapsing half-way there like some drunken loser, which was currently the bigger concern - not that he'd ever admit it. Kuwabara was kind enough to let Hikaru fume quietly for a few moments before speaking again.
"Don't think I'll surrender my title to you… easily," the Honinbo said.
Shindou rolled his eyes. "Who'd want it, old man?"
Kuwabara's eyes lit up even as he sniffed with disapproval. "Just because my body is weak doesn't mean my go isn't strong. You of all people should know that, Shindou-kun."
"What do you mean by that?" Shindou sat up straighter. Kuwabara-Honinbo waved his hand dismissively.
"Ask me that again if you ever manage to rip my title away from me," the old man closed his eyes and waved a hand dismissively. He shifted towards Hikaru and peeked out of the corner of his right eye. "Maybe I'll even tell you then, brat."
"Stupid old man," Shindou grumbled. He flopped back down before glaring at the Honinbo. "You'd better be ready. I'm going to rip it out of your hands this year just to wipe that fox-grin off your face, and then I'll force the rest of it out of you."
"Is that so?" Kuwabara asked, that fox-grin Shindou had mentioned climbing onto his face. Hikaru pulled his pillow into a more comfortable position, not bothering to respond. Kuwabara waited a few moments, till an unthinking sort of shifting began on the other side of the room. Then he whispered, "In your dreams, kid. In your dreams."
Shindou was much quieter when he slept.
II. Index
"Go World Loses Two 'Bright' Stars!" read the headline of Go Weekly the week Shindou-Gosei and Touya-Ouza handed in their resignations. They turned them in separately. Touya left his with the receptionist at nine o'clock that July morning, with specific instructions to make sure that the chairman received it as soon as he came in. The chairman was still reeling - and trying somewhat frantically to get in touch with the Ouza - when his secretary came in at four o'clock with Shindou's resignation as well. Apparently, he had left it on the counter, and it had gotten shuffled in amongst the mail. Touya's letter cited personal reasons for his departure. The Gosei didn't even bother with that. One would that a thirty-four year old man could manage more than the words 'I quit' and his name, but Shindou had always been special.
" - would like to discuss your letter from this morning, so please, Touya-Ouza, please call the Institute as soon as possible," Player's Association Chairman Utada was saying when Ogata-Meijin pushed open his door near what should have been close of day. Utada hung up the phone and looked at the man in the white suit, relief lighting up his eyes as he gestured for the title-holder to have a seat. "Thank you so much for coming in on such short notice. It's just that none of us have any idea how to get in touch with him, and we thought you might -"
"Get in touch with whom?" Ogata asked as he settled into the chair, lacing his fingers together under his chin and watching the way that Utada's hand shook once he released the phone into its cradle.
"With Touya-Ouza, of course," the portly man said. He glanced furtively at the closed door before meeting Ogata's eyes. "He resigned this morning."
Ogata blinked.
"What did Shindou say?" He asked. The chairman threw up his hands.
"That's the thing!" Utada said as his arms fell haphazardly back to his sides. "Shindou-Gosei turned in his resignation as well! Now neither of them is picking up, and we can't seem to get an answer as to what happened!"
"Both of them?" Ogata blanched. Utada ran a hand idly through what remained of his hair, nodding.
"I've got Waya and Isumi 7-dan on the look out for Shindou, but thought you'd be the best to try and track down Touya." The chairman straightened in his seat. "Ogata, if there's any way you can contact him - I'm sure you know that we can only keep the media from finding out what they've done for so long. Amano-san has already been lurking outside my door."
Ogata nodded once, rose quickly from his chair, and headed out the door.
He checked Akira's apartment. He searched the Touya family household. He poked his head into the Touya go salon, and then he re-checked Akira's apartment. As he stood behind Akira's breakfast counter, Ogata spotted a cloth draped over the goban. He walked into the living area, and pulled it away. Nothing. Ogata pulled out his cell phone.
"Anything?" he asked when the receptionist put him through to the chairman.
"Nothing," Utada replied. "Waya 7-dan apparently used some trick with notebook indentations and a pencil to determine that Shindou caught a flight to Hokkaido."
"Hokkaido?"
"Hokkaido." Utada sighed, and Ogata could hear the resignation in his voice. "Amano knows. Touya emailed him a copy of his resignation letter, and mentioned that Shindou intended to quit as well - no other details. He's agreed to keep the story quiet in the hopes that we can change their minds, but…"
"I understand. We'll find them."
But they did not. An emergency trip to Hokkaido by Isumi 7-dan yielded only more unsettling information, and the loss of any idea as to where Shindou was.
"I asked him why he resigned," Isumi told the small group of searchers at a meeting upon his return, "and he threw up. His eyes -"
Isumi would not say more, only that Shindou had run from him, and so far as he could tell, caught a flight from Hokkaido the next day. For a little bit, Shindou would call his parents, and Touya would respond to email. One day they simply stopped.
Fifteen years later, two men stood outside the Japanese Go Institute.
"I miss it sometimes," the first, with long black hair and a t-shirt with the number 4 across it said, looking vaguely ill. The man beside him nodded, his short blond hair caught by the wind.
"Me too." The second man grabbed the first man's hand, and they walked away from the doors.
"Ramen?" The long-haired man asked. The short-haired man gave a long suffering sigh, but nodded and let his companion drag him off anyway.
III. Middle
When the fierceness and the heat of the game faded, Akira was the first person Hikaru looked for. His triumphant eyes lifted from the goban, and shifted straight to his right, to the front row seat in the audience where Akira had been seated before all had been lost in a dizzying whirl of black and white stones on kaya. The smile on his face was all of his exhilaration and none of his exhaustion.
Akira wasn't there.
"Shindou, you idiot, you did it!" Waya was shouting in his ear as he pounded him on the back. "I can't believe you actually found it!"
"Akira…?" The light in Hikaru's eyes faded as frantic shouts swallowed the sound. Across the goban, Hon Suyon had pulled one of Ko Yongha's arms around himself, leveraging the still stunned man out of his chair. Yongha's face had gone completely slack, eyes wide and wild, and Hikaru didn't blame him for any of it. To have lost that match - to come that close to the Hand of God and miss it - especially against Ko - would have been devastating. The man's still shaking hands and mussed hair said everything he needed to know.
"Akira…?" Hikaru repeated, turning around in a circle in the middle of the crowd that had descended upon him. No hand seized upon his wrist and pulled him close. No strong fingers grabbed his chin and dragged him over for a kiss, audience be damned. No voice ninja'd into existence by his ear to whisper that this, this, was the kind of match that he had always known his eternal rival would some day play. No one did anything at all, besides drown him in a sea of hand shakes and congratulations and well wishes, but at the back of the auditorium, Hikaru thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar lavender suit vanishing into the distance. The door closed before he could be sure, but Akira's continued insistence on wearing lavender and a pageboy haircut made him fairly distinctive.
"Akira - !" Hikaru called more loudly. He tried to push his way through the crowd, but it re-formed amoeba-like around him as he moved, people thrusting their hands upon him, through his hair, thumping his back, yelling at him, faces bright with smiles. Hikaru smiled back hesitantly back as the crowd's pseudopods wrapped around him and dragged him along.
Everyone wanted to talk to Hikaru at the after party. People were buying him drinks, and Kuwabara and Ogata were arguing over who had been more influential in shaping his go. Akira wasn't there, but he'd never liked this sort of thing. He'd gone home to set up a private celebration, Hikaru told himself.
Hikaru finally escaped back to their apartment hours later. He weaved back and forth as he climbed the steps to their apartment, guided more by instinct than by sight. The odd pit that had been forming all night in Hikaru's stomach grew when he stuck his key in the lock. He turned it. The deadbolt stayed firmly in place.
"What…?" Hikaru twisted the key again - still nothing. He ran a hand through his blond bangs and pulled the key from the lock. He looked at it for a moment, and then squinted at the door. Hikaru sighed. "Right. Fifty-five, not fifty-three."
He meandered down to the next door, and checked the number first. The number five was written twice in large numerals neatly side by side. Hikaru and Akira told everyone it was a coincidence because neither of them was willing to admit that they'd kept looking until they found one that was number fifty-five. Waya at least would never have let him live it down. Hikaru pushed his key into the lock, and tried to ignore the way his stomach flipped as the deadbolt slid away.
The apartment was dark when Hikaru opened the door, so he didn't call out the usual greeting. The lights flickered on when Hikaru tipped the switch just like they always did, and he walked down the hallway into the living room. The goban still held game he'd half-finished recreating last night - the first game Touya Akira and Ko Yongha had ever played - Akira's loss by resignation. Odd. He'd thought Akira would want to analyze the new one right away.
Peering over the breakfast bar, Hikaru could see their dirty breakfast dishes still stacked neatly in the sink. A shiver ran down his spine. Hikaru pulled his suit jacket closed, wrapping his arms around himself.
"Akira..?" He called as he walked past the darkened bathroom and down the hall to their closed bedroom door. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat, clenching them in the fabric. "Akira? I'm home, Akira! Akira?"
Hikaru drew his right hand out of his left coat pocket and reached slowly for the door knob. It was warm beneath his trembling palm as his fingers wrapped around it and turned. Swallowing, Hikaru opened the door.
Empty. The room was empty.
The bed sat beneath the window as it had all these years, but there was no half-awake Akira in it, glaring at him for interrupting his beauty sleep. There wasn't a sleeping Akira in it, either, and awake Akira had never had any use for sitting in bed.
"It makes it hard to sleep there later," he used to say when Hikaru patted the space on the bed beside him. "Why did we buy a couch if we're not going to sit on it?"
Akira hadn't been sitting on the couch. He hadn't been sitting seiza before the goban. He hadn't been doing the dishes and grumbling about how it had been Shindou's turn and he wouldn't do them for him again but today was special.
His clothes were still in the closet. Akira's ugliest pastels hung at one end with Hikaru's brightest yellows at the other and that common ground of grey and navy blue professional wear in the middle. His underwear was still in the drawers, his books were still on their shelves, his toothbrush was still in the bathroom, his dirty breakfast dishes were still in the sink and the goban was still set in the living room -
Akira wasn't there, though, and Hikaru didn't know where he'd gone. Hikaru looked around the empty living room, at the game still on the board. Akira had finished it, had played it through to his resignation.
Hikaru stumbled backwards until he hit the wall. He slid down to the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees.
He never wanted to play go again.
IV. Ring
Shindou Hikaru woke just before sunset that day, as the last rays fell through Player's Association Chairman Honda's office windows onto Touya, who lay neatly on the over-stuffed couch across the room. Touya. They had a match scheduled for that day, final game of the Meijin tournament. They had sat down to play it, and… And…
"Touya!" Shindou called, sitting up. His rival shifted, but didn't stir. Shindou pushed himself up and walked over to the other couch, grabbing Touya's shoulder and shaking it. "Touya. Touya, wake up!"
"Wha-? Shindou -?" Blue eyes blinked slowly, and then opened wide as Touya shot into a sitting position.
"Gah, Touya!" Hikaru jumped back.
"Shindou?" Akira asked, looking around the room, eyes wide. "What are we doing here? Don't we have a match?"
"Geez, Touya!" Shindou ran a hand through his hair and settled back on his heels. "Why do you think I woke you up?"
Touya got up and walked to the door. Shindou followed him and watched as Touya turned the knob and tugged on it. The door stayed shut. He wriggled the handle, but it didn't budge.
"What the…?" Touya banged on the door. No response.
"Hey, let us out!" Shindou shouted, but either the Institute had closed for the day or no one was around to hear them. Neither option made much sense - someone had put them here, someone had to know they were here. Touya moved away from the door. Shindou took his place pounding on it, shouting, "Hello? Anyone out there?"
"Shindou." The blond turned around. Touya stood behind Honda's desk, holding a DVD case in his hands. He looked at Shindou, and his eyes were wide. "This is the recording of our match today."
"What?" Shindou stalked to the desk and pulled the disk from Touya's hands. The official seal of the Japanese Go Institute graced the upper right corner. Neatly printed red Kanji in the center of the cover read the words: 20XX Meijin Championship, Game 7. Beneath that: Shindou Hikaru Gosei vs. Touya Akira Meijin. Hikaru looked up at Touya. "This is impossible."
"Is it?" Touya asked as Shindou turned the DVD case over in his hands. Akira's blue eyes stared intently Hikaru, drawing his gaze. "We sat down to start the game, didn't we?"
"Well, I thought we did, but -"
"We should watch it." Touya gestured at the DVD player on the nearby shelf.
Shindou looked at Touya uncertainly, but walked over to the bookshelf. The DVD gleamed in Shindou's hand when he pulled it from the case, its shiny silver surface throwing rainbows onto his face. He ignored the open DVD player as he stood there staring at it, shifting it this way and that.
"Put it in already," Touya snapped as he took a seat on the couch where Shindou had woken, facing the TV.
"Are you sure -"
"Put it in, Shindou." The dark-haired man glared at his blond counterpart. "Maybe you're willing to wait forever to find out what happened during that game, but I'm not."
"Gah, Touya!" Shindou said when he looked up and caught his rival's expression. The DVD dropped from his hands to the floor. He scooped it up and threw it into the player before he could think about it any more, coming back to sit next to Touya on the couch.
Touya didn't wait - didn't give Hikaru any further chance to hesitate or vacillate or whatever before he clicked the play button, and Hikaru found he was oddly grateful for that. Akira's ever so slightly trembling hands filled a gap in Shindou's nerves, though. At least they were in it together.
Two hands went through nigiri, and the stones changed hands.
"I'm white," Hikaru observed. Touya nodded. Shindou's bright yellow watch, with the number 5 where every numeral should be could not be mistaken. For that matter, neither could Akira's lavender sleeves and aristocratic hands.
The game began innocuously. They played their opening moves practically on top of each other, which was strange but not unheard of. 3-3 made a valid response to 3-4, and 17-16 fought 16-16 as well as any other move. Slowly, though, patterns began to form. Ko on the upper left star. Ko on the lower right star. Ko on tengen - triple ko.
"Is that…?" Shindou started, but Touya shushed him. The board filled, the triple ko going back and forth as the game went on, neither taking advantage of the moment to claim one, though each had several opportunities. Their stones kept overlapping, though - on top of each other, played under each other, in each other's pocket, somehow, and -
"Our go is…" Hikaru started, but Akira grabbed his hand.
"Don't say it, Shindou." Akira's eyes were wide, staring fascinated at the screen. His spare hand stayed in his lap, and he shifted uncomfortably.
"But our go is -"
"Shut up, Shindou," Akira turned from the screen to glare at him, but Shindou wasn't even paying attention any more as he yanked his hand from Touya's and jumped to his feet.
"It's FRENCH-KISSING, Touya!" Hikaru shouted. "Our go - it's - - it's - - it's - - !"
Akira grabbed the collar of Hikaru's blue button down and shoved his tongue down Hikaru's throat until the words vanished away. For a moment, Shindou froze, but then he returned the attack as fiercely, slipping his mouth away and sliding down to suckle on Touya's neck. Akira moaned.
Over Hikaru's shoulder, the game was winding down, and Akira couldn't decide which was more intense - their go on the screen, or Shindou's lips at his throat and his hands up his shirt. White claimed tengen - and the game with it - just as Hikaru shifted his hips forward and rubbed against him and Akira resisted the urge to scream with pleasure. He shoved Shindou back, and the blond fell onto the overstuffed couch where Akira had woken earlier.
"Tengen's mine this time," he said, and Hikaru looked confused but not unwilling as Akira pounced.
Not even Honda opening the door on them, still mostly naked two hours later, could spoil it completely.
V. Pinky
"What would it take for you to tell me about Sai?"
The words had burst out of Akira's mouth before his mind caught up with them. He wondered if Shindou had known this would happen when he looked up, eyes bright with challenge, and asked what it would take for Akira to repeat what he'd just said. He wondered, because Shindou should have flinched. Shindou always flinched at Sai, the rushing current of his words and thoughts splattered against the rock of Sai's presence between them. Akira intended to wear that barrier all the way down one way. The trickle of information that slipped through on occasion gave him confidence that it would happen some day. Shindou looked up at him, face still and eyes steady, and in a flash Akira realized that Shindou's promise meant that he, too, was eroding that barrier.
"Let's play a game," Shindou said, his voice higher pitched but still clear. "Winner gets his answer. No komi."
"No komi? What if we tie? Won't whoever plays white be at a disadvantage? What if -?" Akira's breath caught in his throat as Shindou shook his head.
"Life doesn't always give you the advantage, Touya." Shindou grabbed Akira's hand and pulled him into the living room, pushed him down to kneel before the goban. His green eyes glowed as he grabbed the bowls of stones and offered one to Akira. Akira pulled off the lid. Black stones.
"And if we tie?" Akira asked. Shindou reached into his bowl and pulled out a handful of stones. Akira hesitated. Shindou held his fist closed over the board, waiting. Slowly, Akira pulled two slate pieces from the bowl before him and placed them on the board. Shindou's snow white shells clattered down. Even.
"We'll know then," Shindou said. He swept the white stones back into his bowl with a single swoop of his hand.
Akira pulled his own stones from the board, dropping one back into the bowl and cradling the other between his index and middle fingers. Funny, how large a nineteen by nineteen grid could seem some times. Shindou was watching him when Akira looked up, gaze steady and not even glancing at the board between them, which made sense since it was empty, but…
He could stop this now. He could drop that last piece of slate back into the bowl, close the lid, and tell Shindou that there wasn't time for this today. He could. Just because Shindou had issued a challenge didn't mean that he had to accept it. Just because he'd always, always, accepted Shindou's challenges before didn't mean that he had to take this one. Just because Shindou had asked him for everything didn't mean he had to risk it.
Akira looked up, staring into the deep green eyes that waited for him and, without quite intending to, placed the first stone. Without glancing at the board, without blinking, Shindou replied.
The stones flowed onto the board, smooth as the current of the ocean while Akira drowned himself in Hikaru's eyes. They played blindly, never looking at the board. He felt each shell Shindou placed not with the tips of his fingers but with the resonance of a sense he hadn't known he had as his hands moved uncontrolled across the board. Play the hane here, start the ko battle near tengen. Eternity in a moment washing over them.
Shindou placed the last stone.
"He was my teacher," the blond said, hands falling back to his sides, "and he was my ghost."
"I knew, I think," Touya said, realizing as he said it that it was true. He swallowed. "I love you."
Shindou's eyes closed, and Touya let his own fall shut as well. He was dizzy; he was going to throw up. He heard Shindou get to his feet, and then he stopped listening, because nothing could keep Shindou here after that. A hand rested on his shoulder, and he jumped, eyes flying open.
"Idiot," Hikaru said, smiling at him, "Did you think I didn't know?"
Hikaru's lips were chapped, and he tasted like some horrible combination of lemon-lime soda and ramen, but he was warm, and he was soft, and he was still there.
"Hikaru…" Akira said. Hikaru's lips curled up beneath his. Akira tilted his head down and opened his eyes to emeralds that twinkled and shone at him. He didn't bother with thinking as he surged forward, reclaiming Hikaru's lips and knocking him backwards so they sprawled on the floor near the board, bodies entwined as all of their some days finally arrived.
The next morning, Akira woke up slowly. Hikaru still lay where he had fallen, dead to the world. Akira sat up, wincing at the skuzzy feeling of his unbrushed teeth, and climbed slowly to his feet. He would brush them, and make breakfast, and by then Shindou would be awake enough that they could actually talk about things instead of just running into them like they had last night. As he headed to the bathroom, though, the game caught his eye.
He knelt before the board, studying the positions and trying to remember how they had gotten there. He didn't. He counted quickly.
"Tied," Akira said softly. Fingers grabbed his chin, and Akira let them turn his head so that Shindou, who was apparently a light sleeper, could kiss him, fuzzy teeth and all. He liked the feeling. Shindou leaned back, and smiled like the burst of the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
"Told you we'd know," he said. "Ramen for breakfast?"
"No! Shindou!" Green eyes laughed at him. Akira narrowed his eyes, and glanced down at the game. "Shindou, do you remember -"
Shindou surged forward and took the words from him. Then he sat back on his heels, all but licking his lips until Akira tried again. "Do you -"
"Nah," Shindou said, shaking his head, and throwing his hands into the air, not meeting Akira's eyes in a way that was too deliberate to be accidental as he asked, "Does it matter?"
Did it?
"We'll play again later, right, Touya?" A hint of green peeked out from the corner of his rival's eye. Sai was a ghost. He loved Shindou. Did it matter? Touya got to his feet, ignoring the tightness he could see as Shindou held his breath.
"After I brush my teeth." He said sharply. Shindou jumped, but Touya heard the smile in his shouted complaint:
"Touya!"
by lanerose
I. Thumb
Shindou woke up noisily. Asleep, Shindou moved ceaselessly, limbs flailing, occasional words mumbled past his lips. The silence as he lay tensed beneath the sheets echoed more loudly than the soft clicking sound as the old man across the room placed magnets on a travel goban. Shindou's hands clenched at the blanket. The clicking ceased as he loosened the oxygen mask across his face.
"Oi, kid," a weathered voice rasped. The old man in the bed waited a moment, but Shindou didn't say a thing, didn't move, barely breathed. The old man shrugged, and started placing stones again. "Hiding under… the covers, Shindou? I guess the young grow up… slower these days than they did when… I was your age."
"Go away, Kuwabara-sensei." The young man turned on his side, pulling the sheet with him as he faced the wall, shoulders trembling.
"Feh. You're weaker than I… thought you were, Shindou." He shook his head, placing stones deliberately on the board in front of him. The plink they made didn't compare to the firm pachi of stones on kaya, but his still sharp eyes could see Shindou twitch as each one hit the board.
"I'm not -"
"They had to sedate you, you know?" Kuwabara interrupted conversationally as he placed a stone on the magnetic go board in his lap.
"Shut up, old man." Shindou said, his hands tightening around the covers.
The old man smirked. He looked away from Shindou with a half shrug as he continued, "Such a shame about young Tou-"
"I said shut up, old man!" Shindou sat up and threw his covers back. He started to get up, but tilted oddly at one angle and fell back onto the bed, glaring at the older pro all the while. Kuwabara grinned.
"That'll be whatever they gave you…" he wheezed. "Said it would knock you flat for a while."
"Thanks for the warning," Shindou growled. "What did I do to deserve getting stuck with you? Unlike some people, I don't have lung cancer."
"Not yet, you don't." Kuwabara laughed, but it choked him. He grabbed a nearby oxygen mask and took several slow breaths. When he had caught his breath again, the Honinbo lowered his mask to Shindou's almost concerned gaze and snorted. "I told them to put you here."
"Yeah, right." Shindou rolled his eyes. "How would you even know I was here?"
"I've got my sources." Kuwabara grinned, revealing his overly large, overly yellow teeth. "Besides, brat… you were out for so long they thought… that they'd messed up the dosage."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
The room fell quiet, save Kuwabara's wheezing breaths. Shindou flopped down onto his back, throwing his right arm over his eyes. The Honinbo watched him a moment longer, then leaned back against his pillows and focused on the board in his lap.
"You proved my theory, you know," the old man said conversationally. Shindou didn't reply, so Kuwabara continued, "About the Hand of God."
The old man couldn't hold his breath while he waited for Shindou to absorb that. The initial jerk of the younger man's body was unmistakable. Shindou didn't - couldn't hide it.
"Leave me alone, old man," the boy said, breathing ragged as the old man's. He turned his head away. "What would you know about it anyway?"
"HAH!" Kuwabara laughed loudly, regretting only the way that his chest seized as he did it. Shindou flipped back onto his left side, facing the Honinbo with eyes wide. Kuwabara waited a moment, and then continued, "You young people always seem to think… that you're the first to invent the wheel."
"What?!" Shindou sat upright quickly, and fell back to the bed even faster, his right hand against his forehead while he propped himself up on his left. Kuwabara's eyes gleamed when he met them. "What? But you - how -? When? With who?"
"Do you want to add where… and why, punk?" Kuwabara leaned deeper into his pillows.
"And you didn't warn us?" Shindou pushed himself up further, shaking. "You didn't say anything -"
"What would you have said yesterday… if I told you that you could die finding it?" Kuwabara turned to look at the blonde, who had deflated back down to his pillow. "What would he have said? I didn't even know… for sure. Tezuka resigned in mid-game."
"He -" Shindou stopped. He tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing. "What happened to him?"
"Never played again." Kuwabara shrugged. Shindou went very still, face paler even than earlier. "I hear he started teaching full-time at his father's dojo, and ran it after the old man passed away."
"I thought…" Shindou began. He shook his head. "No, we. We always thought he'd be pleased, that he wanted someone to find the Hand. But that can't be right, because if it was, then Touya wouldn't… Touya would be… Especially since he…"
Shindou swallowed back his words, but the old man across from him grimaced in a way that said he already knew.
"So that's why you lost," he commented, sighing and shaking his head. "Pity. My money was on you, brat."
"What do you mean?" Shindou's eyes were fever bright as he propped himself up once more. "What do you mean, 'that's why I lost', old man?"
Kuwabara took a long drag from his oxygen tank, seeming not to hear the boy. Shindou watched him warily until he lowered the mask.
"What are you going to do now, punk?" The old man asked after a moment.
"What am I -?" Shindou's eyebrows reached his hairline as Kuwabara nonchalantly placed another stone. He waved his arm at the Honinbo. "Hey, old man, you can't just say something like that and leave it at that!"
"You'll figure it out eventually." Kuwabara shrugged. "Play enough games and maybe then you'll be ready for it." Shindou drew back as if struck. Kuwabara turned to him then, eyes falsely wide and brows deliberately raised. "Brat, don't tell me you're going to give up on your rival just because he got somewhere ahead of you."
Shindou shook his head vehemently. "That's not - It isn't like -"
"Oh?"
The old man smiled. Hikaru would have hit him if he didn't have a thing about not hitting old guys. And if he could have managed to make it across the room without collapsing half-way there like some drunken loser, which was currently the bigger concern - not that he'd ever admit it. Kuwabara was kind enough to let Hikaru fume quietly for a few moments before speaking again.
"Don't think I'll surrender my title to you… easily," the Honinbo said.
Shindou rolled his eyes. "Who'd want it, old man?"
Kuwabara's eyes lit up even as he sniffed with disapproval. "Just because my body is weak doesn't mean my go isn't strong. You of all people should know that, Shindou-kun."
"What do you mean by that?" Shindou sat up straighter. Kuwabara-Honinbo waved his hand dismissively.
"Ask me that again if you ever manage to rip my title away from me," the old man closed his eyes and waved a hand dismissively. He shifted towards Hikaru and peeked out of the corner of his right eye. "Maybe I'll even tell you then, brat."
"Stupid old man," Shindou grumbled. He flopped back down before glaring at the Honinbo. "You'd better be ready. I'm going to rip it out of your hands this year just to wipe that fox-grin off your face, and then I'll force the rest of it out of you."
"Is that so?" Kuwabara asked, that fox-grin Shindou had mentioned climbing onto his face. Hikaru pulled his pillow into a more comfortable position, not bothering to respond. Kuwabara waited a few moments, till an unthinking sort of shifting began on the other side of the room. Then he whispered, "In your dreams, kid. In your dreams."
Shindou was much quieter when he slept.
II. Index
"Go World Loses Two 'Bright' Stars!" read the headline of Go Weekly the week Shindou-Gosei and Touya-Ouza handed in their resignations. They turned them in separately. Touya left his with the receptionist at nine o'clock that July morning, with specific instructions to make sure that the chairman received it as soon as he came in. The chairman was still reeling - and trying somewhat frantically to get in touch with the Ouza - when his secretary came in at four o'clock with Shindou's resignation as well. Apparently, he had left it on the counter, and it had gotten shuffled in amongst the mail. Touya's letter cited personal reasons for his departure. The Gosei didn't even bother with that. One would that a thirty-four year old man could manage more than the words 'I quit' and his name, but Shindou had always been special.
" - would like to discuss your letter from this morning, so please, Touya-Ouza, please call the Institute as soon as possible," Player's Association Chairman Utada was saying when Ogata-Meijin pushed open his door near what should have been close of day. Utada hung up the phone and looked at the man in the white suit, relief lighting up his eyes as he gestured for the title-holder to have a seat. "Thank you so much for coming in on such short notice. It's just that none of us have any idea how to get in touch with him, and we thought you might -"
"Get in touch with whom?" Ogata asked as he settled into the chair, lacing his fingers together under his chin and watching the way that Utada's hand shook once he released the phone into its cradle.
"With Touya-Ouza, of course," the portly man said. He glanced furtively at the closed door before meeting Ogata's eyes. "He resigned this morning."
Ogata blinked.
"What did Shindou say?" He asked. The chairman threw up his hands.
"That's the thing!" Utada said as his arms fell haphazardly back to his sides. "Shindou-Gosei turned in his resignation as well! Now neither of them is picking up, and we can't seem to get an answer as to what happened!"
"Both of them?" Ogata blanched. Utada ran a hand idly through what remained of his hair, nodding.
"I've got Waya and Isumi 7-dan on the look out for Shindou, but thought you'd be the best to try and track down Touya." The chairman straightened in his seat. "Ogata, if there's any way you can contact him - I'm sure you know that we can only keep the media from finding out what they've done for so long. Amano-san has already been lurking outside my door."
Ogata nodded once, rose quickly from his chair, and headed out the door.
He checked Akira's apartment. He searched the Touya family household. He poked his head into the Touya go salon, and then he re-checked Akira's apartment. As he stood behind Akira's breakfast counter, Ogata spotted a cloth draped over the goban. He walked into the living area, and pulled it away. Nothing. Ogata pulled out his cell phone.
"Anything?" he asked when the receptionist put him through to the chairman.
"Nothing," Utada replied. "Waya 7-dan apparently used some trick with notebook indentations and a pencil to determine that Shindou caught a flight to Hokkaido."
"Hokkaido?"
"Hokkaido." Utada sighed, and Ogata could hear the resignation in his voice. "Amano knows. Touya emailed him a copy of his resignation letter, and mentioned that Shindou intended to quit as well - no other details. He's agreed to keep the story quiet in the hopes that we can change their minds, but…"
"I understand. We'll find them."
But they did not. An emergency trip to Hokkaido by Isumi 7-dan yielded only more unsettling information, and the loss of any idea as to where Shindou was.
"I asked him why he resigned," Isumi told the small group of searchers at a meeting upon his return, "and he threw up. His eyes -"
Isumi would not say more, only that Shindou had run from him, and so far as he could tell, caught a flight from Hokkaido the next day. For a little bit, Shindou would call his parents, and Touya would respond to email. One day they simply stopped.
Fifteen years later, two men stood outside the Japanese Go Institute.
"I miss it sometimes," the first, with long black hair and a t-shirt with the number 4 across it said, looking vaguely ill. The man beside him nodded, his short blond hair caught by the wind.
"Me too." The second man grabbed the first man's hand, and they walked away from the doors.
"Ramen?" The long-haired man asked. The short-haired man gave a long suffering sigh, but nodded and let his companion drag him off anyway.
III. Middle
When the fierceness and the heat of the game faded, Akira was the first person Hikaru looked for. His triumphant eyes lifted from the goban, and shifted straight to his right, to the front row seat in the audience where Akira had been seated before all had been lost in a dizzying whirl of black and white stones on kaya. The smile on his face was all of his exhilaration and none of his exhaustion.
Akira wasn't there.
"Shindou, you idiot, you did it!" Waya was shouting in his ear as he pounded him on the back. "I can't believe you actually found it!"
"Akira…?" The light in Hikaru's eyes faded as frantic shouts swallowed the sound. Across the goban, Hon Suyon had pulled one of Ko Yongha's arms around himself, leveraging the still stunned man out of his chair. Yongha's face had gone completely slack, eyes wide and wild, and Hikaru didn't blame him for any of it. To have lost that match - to come that close to the Hand of God and miss it - especially against Ko - would have been devastating. The man's still shaking hands and mussed hair said everything he needed to know.
"Akira…?" Hikaru repeated, turning around in a circle in the middle of the crowd that had descended upon him. No hand seized upon his wrist and pulled him close. No strong fingers grabbed his chin and dragged him over for a kiss, audience be damned. No voice ninja'd into existence by his ear to whisper that this, this, was the kind of match that he had always known his eternal rival would some day play. No one did anything at all, besides drown him in a sea of hand shakes and congratulations and well wishes, but at the back of the auditorium, Hikaru thought he caught a glimpse of a familiar lavender suit vanishing into the distance. The door closed before he could be sure, but Akira's continued insistence on wearing lavender and a pageboy haircut made him fairly distinctive.
"Akira - !" Hikaru called more loudly. He tried to push his way through the crowd, but it re-formed amoeba-like around him as he moved, people thrusting their hands upon him, through his hair, thumping his back, yelling at him, faces bright with smiles. Hikaru smiled back hesitantly back as the crowd's pseudopods wrapped around him and dragged him along.
Everyone wanted to talk to Hikaru at the after party. People were buying him drinks, and Kuwabara and Ogata were arguing over who had been more influential in shaping his go. Akira wasn't there, but he'd never liked this sort of thing. He'd gone home to set up a private celebration, Hikaru told himself.
Hikaru finally escaped back to their apartment hours later. He weaved back and forth as he climbed the steps to their apartment, guided more by instinct than by sight. The odd pit that had been forming all night in Hikaru's stomach grew when he stuck his key in the lock. He turned it. The deadbolt stayed firmly in place.
"What…?" Hikaru twisted the key again - still nothing. He ran a hand through his blond bangs and pulled the key from the lock. He looked at it for a moment, and then squinted at the door. Hikaru sighed. "Right. Fifty-five, not fifty-three."
He meandered down to the next door, and checked the number first. The number five was written twice in large numerals neatly side by side. Hikaru and Akira told everyone it was a coincidence because neither of them was willing to admit that they'd kept looking until they found one that was number fifty-five. Waya at least would never have let him live it down. Hikaru pushed his key into the lock, and tried to ignore the way his stomach flipped as the deadbolt slid away.
The apartment was dark when Hikaru opened the door, so he didn't call out the usual greeting. The lights flickered on when Hikaru tipped the switch just like they always did, and he walked down the hallway into the living room. The goban still held game he'd half-finished recreating last night - the first game Touya Akira and Ko Yongha had ever played - Akira's loss by resignation. Odd. He'd thought Akira would want to analyze the new one right away.
Peering over the breakfast bar, Hikaru could see their dirty breakfast dishes still stacked neatly in the sink. A shiver ran down his spine. Hikaru pulled his suit jacket closed, wrapping his arms around himself.
"Akira..?" He called as he walked past the darkened bathroom and down the hall to their closed bedroom door. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat, clenching them in the fabric. "Akira? I'm home, Akira! Akira?"
Hikaru drew his right hand out of his left coat pocket and reached slowly for the door knob. It was warm beneath his trembling palm as his fingers wrapped around it and turned. Swallowing, Hikaru opened the door.
Empty. The room was empty.
The bed sat beneath the window as it had all these years, but there was no half-awake Akira in it, glaring at him for interrupting his beauty sleep. There wasn't a sleeping Akira in it, either, and awake Akira had never had any use for sitting in bed.
"It makes it hard to sleep there later," he used to say when Hikaru patted the space on the bed beside him. "Why did we buy a couch if we're not going to sit on it?"
Akira hadn't been sitting on the couch. He hadn't been sitting seiza before the goban. He hadn't been doing the dishes and grumbling about how it had been Shindou's turn and he wouldn't do them for him again but today was special.
His clothes were still in the closet. Akira's ugliest pastels hung at one end with Hikaru's brightest yellows at the other and that common ground of grey and navy blue professional wear in the middle. His underwear was still in the drawers, his books were still on their shelves, his toothbrush was still in the bathroom, his dirty breakfast dishes were still in the sink and the goban was still set in the living room -
Akira wasn't there, though, and Hikaru didn't know where he'd gone. Hikaru looked around the empty living room, at the game still on the board. Akira had finished it, had played it through to his resignation.
Hikaru stumbled backwards until he hit the wall. He slid down to the ground and wrapped his arms around his knees.
He never wanted to play go again.
IV. Ring
Shindou Hikaru woke just before sunset that day, as the last rays fell through Player's Association Chairman Honda's office windows onto Touya, who lay neatly on the over-stuffed couch across the room. Touya. They had a match scheduled for that day, final game of the Meijin tournament. They had sat down to play it, and… And…
"Touya!" Shindou called, sitting up. His rival shifted, but didn't stir. Shindou pushed himself up and walked over to the other couch, grabbing Touya's shoulder and shaking it. "Touya. Touya, wake up!"
"Wha-? Shindou -?" Blue eyes blinked slowly, and then opened wide as Touya shot into a sitting position.
"Gah, Touya!" Hikaru jumped back.
"Shindou?" Akira asked, looking around the room, eyes wide. "What are we doing here? Don't we have a match?"
"Geez, Touya!" Shindou ran a hand through his hair and settled back on his heels. "Why do you think I woke you up?"
Touya got up and walked to the door. Shindou followed him and watched as Touya turned the knob and tugged on it. The door stayed shut. He wriggled the handle, but it didn't budge.
"What the…?" Touya banged on the door. No response.
"Hey, let us out!" Shindou shouted, but either the Institute had closed for the day or no one was around to hear them. Neither option made much sense - someone had put them here, someone had to know they were here. Touya moved away from the door. Shindou took his place pounding on it, shouting, "Hello? Anyone out there?"
"Shindou." The blond turned around. Touya stood behind Honda's desk, holding a DVD case in his hands. He looked at Shindou, and his eyes were wide. "This is the recording of our match today."
"What?" Shindou stalked to the desk and pulled the disk from Touya's hands. The official seal of the Japanese Go Institute graced the upper right corner. Neatly printed red Kanji in the center of the cover read the words: 20XX Meijin Championship, Game 7. Beneath that: Shindou Hikaru Gosei vs. Touya Akira Meijin. Hikaru looked up at Touya. "This is impossible."
"Is it?" Touya asked as Shindou turned the DVD case over in his hands. Akira's blue eyes stared intently Hikaru, drawing his gaze. "We sat down to start the game, didn't we?"
"Well, I thought we did, but -"
"We should watch it." Touya gestured at the DVD player on the nearby shelf.
Shindou looked at Touya uncertainly, but walked over to the bookshelf. The DVD gleamed in Shindou's hand when he pulled it from the case, its shiny silver surface throwing rainbows onto his face. He ignored the open DVD player as he stood there staring at it, shifting it this way and that.
"Put it in already," Touya snapped as he took a seat on the couch where Shindou had woken, facing the TV.
"Are you sure -"
"Put it in, Shindou." The dark-haired man glared at his blond counterpart. "Maybe you're willing to wait forever to find out what happened during that game, but I'm not."
"Gah, Touya!" Shindou said when he looked up and caught his rival's expression. The DVD dropped from his hands to the floor. He scooped it up and threw it into the player before he could think about it any more, coming back to sit next to Touya on the couch.
Touya didn't wait - didn't give Hikaru any further chance to hesitate or vacillate or whatever before he clicked the play button, and Hikaru found he was oddly grateful for that. Akira's ever so slightly trembling hands filled a gap in Shindou's nerves, though. At least they were in it together.
Two hands went through nigiri, and the stones changed hands.
"I'm white," Hikaru observed. Touya nodded. Shindou's bright yellow watch, with the number 5 where every numeral should be could not be mistaken. For that matter, neither could Akira's lavender sleeves and aristocratic hands.
The game began innocuously. They played their opening moves practically on top of each other, which was strange but not unheard of. 3-3 made a valid response to 3-4, and 17-16 fought 16-16 as well as any other move. Slowly, though, patterns began to form. Ko on the upper left star. Ko on the lower right star. Ko on tengen - triple ko.
"Is that…?" Shindou started, but Touya shushed him. The board filled, the triple ko going back and forth as the game went on, neither taking advantage of the moment to claim one, though each had several opportunities. Their stones kept overlapping, though - on top of each other, played under each other, in each other's pocket, somehow, and -
"Our go is…" Hikaru started, but Akira grabbed his hand.
"Don't say it, Shindou." Akira's eyes were wide, staring fascinated at the screen. His spare hand stayed in his lap, and he shifted uncomfortably.
"But our go is -"
"Shut up, Shindou," Akira turned from the screen to glare at him, but Shindou wasn't even paying attention any more as he yanked his hand from Touya's and jumped to his feet.
"It's FRENCH-KISSING, Touya!" Hikaru shouted. "Our go - it's - - it's - - it's - - !"
Akira grabbed the collar of Hikaru's blue button down and shoved his tongue down Hikaru's throat until the words vanished away. For a moment, Shindou froze, but then he returned the attack as fiercely, slipping his mouth away and sliding down to suckle on Touya's neck. Akira moaned.
Over Hikaru's shoulder, the game was winding down, and Akira couldn't decide which was more intense - their go on the screen, or Shindou's lips at his throat and his hands up his shirt. White claimed tengen - and the game with it - just as Hikaru shifted his hips forward and rubbed against him and Akira resisted the urge to scream with pleasure. He shoved Shindou back, and the blond fell onto the overstuffed couch where Akira had woken earlier.
"Tengen's mine this time," he said, and Hikaru looked confused but not unwilling as Akira pounced.
Not even Honda opening the door on them, still mostly naked two hours later, could spoil it completely.
V. Pinky
"What would it take for you to tell me about Sai?"
The words had burst out of Akira's mouth before his mind caught up with them. He wondered if Shindou had known this would happen when he looked up, eyes bright with challenge, and asked what it would take for Akira to repeat what he'd just said. He wondered, because Shindou should have flinched. Shindou always flinched at Sai, the rushing current of his words and thoughts splattered against the rock of Sai's presence between them. Akira intended to wear that barrier all the way down one way. The trickle of information that slipped through on occasion gave him confidence that it would happen some day. Shindou looked up at him, face still and eyes steady, and in a flash Akira realized that Shindou's promise meant that he, too, was eroding that barrier.
"Let's play a game," Shindou said, his voice higher pitched but still clear. "Winner gets his answer. No komi."
"No komi? What if we tie? Won't whoever plays white be at a disadvantage? What if -?" Akira's breath caught in his throat as Shindou shook his head.
"Life doesn't always give you the advantage, Touya." Shindou grabbed Akira's hand and pulled him into the living room, pushed him down to kneel before the goban. His green eyes glowed as he grabbed the bowls of stones and offered one to Akira. Akira pulled off the lid. Black stones.
"And if we tie?" Akira asked. Shindou reached into his bowl and pulled out a handful of stones. Akira hesitated. Shindou held his fist closed over the board, waiting. Slowly, Akira pulled two slate pieces from the bowl before him and placed them on the board. Shindou's snow white shells clattered down. Even.
"We'll know then," Shindou said. He swept the white stones back into his bowl with a single swoop of his hand.
Akira pulled his own stones from the board, dropping one back into the bowl and cradling the other between his index and middle fingers. Funny, how large a nineteen by nineteen grid could seem some times. Shindou was watching him when Akira looked up, gaze steady and not even glancing at the board between them, which made sense since it was empty, but…
He could stop this now. He could drop that last piece of slate back into the bowl, close the lid, and tell Shindou that there wasn't time for this today. He could. Just because Shindou had issued a challenge didn't mean that he had to accept it. Just because he'd always, always, accepted Shindou's challenges before didn't mean that he had to take this one. Just because Shindou had asked him for everything didn't mean he had to risk it.
Akira looked up, staring into the deep green eyes that waited for him and, without quite intending to, placed the first stone. Without glancing at the board, without blinking, Shindou replied.
The stones flowed onto the board, smooth as the current of the ocean while Akira drowned himself in Hikaru's eyes. They played blindly, never looking at the board. He felt each shell Shindou placed not with the tips of his fingers but with the resonance of a sense he hadn't known he had as his hands moved uncontrolled across the board. Play the hane here, start the ko battle near tengen. Eternity in a moment washing over them.
Shindou placed the last stone.
"He was my teacher," the blond said, hands falling back to his sides, "and he was my ghost."
"I knew, I think," Touya said, realizing as he said it that it was true. He swallowed. "I love you."
Shindou's eyes closed, and Touya let his own fall shut as well. He was dizzy; he was going to throw up. He heard Shindou get to his feet, and then he stopped listening, because nothing could keep Shindou here after that. A hand rested on his shoulder, and he jumped, eyes flying open.
"Idiot," Hikaru said, smiling at him, "Did you think I didn't know?"
Hikaru's lips were chapped, and he tasted like some horrible combination of lemon-lime soda and ramen, but he was warm, and he was soft, and he was still there.
"Hikaru…" Akira said. Hikaru's lips curled up beneath his. Akira tilted his head down and opened his eyes to emeralds that twinkled and shone at him. He didn't bother with thinking as he surged forward, reclaiming Hikaru's lips and knocking him backwards so they sprawled on the floor near the board, bodies entwined as all of their some days finally arrived.
The next morning, Akira woke up slowly. Hikaru still lay where he had fallen, dead to the world. Akira sat up, wincing at the skuzzy feeling of his unbrushed teeth, and climbed slowly to his feet. He would brush them, and make breakfast, and by then Shindou would be awake enough that they could actually talk about things instead of just running into them like they had last night. As he headed to the bathroom, though, the game caught his eye.
He knelt before the board, studying the positions and trying to remember how they had gotten there. He didn't. He counted quickly.
"Tied," Akira said softly. Fingers grabbed his chin, and Akira let them turn his head so that Shindou, who was apparently a light sleeper, could kiss him, fuzzy teeth and all. He liked the feeling. Shindou leaned back, and smiled like the burst of the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
"Told you we'd know," he said. "Ramen for breakfast?"
"No! Shindou!" Green eyes laughed at him. Akira narrowed his eyes, and glanced down at the game. "Shindou, do you remember -"
Shindou surged forward and took the words from him. Then he sat back on his heels, all but licking his lips until Akira tried again. "Do you -"
"Nah," Shindou said, shaking his head, and throwing his hands into the air, not meeting Akira's eyes in a way that was too deliberate to be accidental as he asked, "Does it matter?"
Did it?
"We'll play again later, right, Touya?" A hint of green peeked out from the corner of his rival's eye. Sai was a ghost. He loved Shindou. Did it matter? Touya got to his feet, ignoring the tightness he could see as Shindou held his breath.
"After I brush my teeth." He said sharply. Shindou jumped, but Touya heard the smile in his shouted complaint:
"Touya!"