Disclaimer: I don't own Hikago
Upon reaching nine-dan, Shindo Hikaru had decided to leave Japan for quite a while, saying he needed a change of place. His last official match against Akira was a battle long spoken of in the newspapers. And today… it would be his last game facing his dear friend and eternal rival for a long time. In a way, it was their way of saying good-bye to each other. But maybe, until now, they hadn't realised how deep their friendship and love for each other had reached. Only this final game before the departure had been able to open their eyes and suddenly, Go and feelings, game and reality had lost their boundaries and one was flowing into the other.
As always they had met up at Akira's house, late in the evening, when nothing or no one would disturb them. Most of the times they met they played intense and passionate games, only sometimes they just sat together and talked. None of them had achieved to gain a title yet, although Akira had challenged thrice, once for the Meijin and two times for the Judan and Hikaru had challenged once, for the Honinbo. Surprisingly, after so many years of playing Go together, they were still able to erupt into their famous wall-shaking discussions. Once, it had happened in Akira's study group, scaring his students away for the duration of the fight, but they looked at Akira and Hikaru with a different kind of awe afterwards, seeing that their usually cool and collected sensei was a passionate man after all. But it was rare that someone else besides Hikaru Shindo could evoke the temper of Akira Toya.
Only today, they were clearly not up for a fight. Both were conscious that this game together would be the last for a long period of time. They had agreed to play on the internet, if they found the time, but internet was nothing compared to a real game. The only player ever that had managed to make the flat internet – Go seem alive and deep was the legendary Sai and he had not been seen for ages.
They were sitting, facing each other over the Goban in Akira's sparse and nearly empty room. Hikaru, despite or maybe because the difference to his own home, found the space and emptiness comforting.
Hikaru had convinced Akira to wear clothes Hikaru considered more comfortable when he was at home. Their ideas of 'comfortable' were vastly different, Akira usually wearing more or less a lighter version of his professional clothing, being used to them since he was very small, whereas Hikaru thought along the lines of trainers and T-shirts. Akira, after many heated discussions, gave in to Hikaru, although not because he saw the necessity of it, but because he had been growing tired of Hikaru's constant bugging. So tonight he wore black trainers and a loose black shirt, wearing an open, claret red chemise over it. His black hair, cut in the same style as always, was slightly ruffled, for not long ago, when he had been talking to Hikaru he had unconsciously run his hand through it and afterwards forgotten to brush it. Hikaru didn't tell him, though, for he rather liked the funny look the few unruly strands of hair gave his friend.
When they finally started playing, it was already past midnight. Both were tired, but it didn't matter to them.
They took their time playing, each savouring the sensation of seeing and feeling the others sophisticated play, knowing that there were few people in the Go world that could match their sense of Go.
By the time they reached the end of middle-game, Hikaru, after a long thought, consciously but unconsciously so, left an opening in his forms. He didn't know why he did it, yet he felt like doing so, being in a contemplative, almost trancelike state, as he watched the light playing on Akira's face and hair, while he was thinking of his game and his soon departure.
Akira didn't know why he jumped right into the opening, Hikaru had built for him, he didn't know why he jumped in far too deeply. And instead of taking Hikaru's black stone in the heart of his formation, Akira started weaving a net of white stones around it, all the while watching Hikaru's territory closing in around him.
Some moves before the end Akira long hesitated between taking Hikaru's stone and cutting his way out, escaping. Neither possibility seemed right.
Hikaru watched Akira's hand hovering over the board for some time, and as Akira didn't seem willing to place the stone that would decide the outcome of the game, he gently caught Akira's hand and led it over to the side of the board. Akira looked up, surprised, but he let it happen, only watching, as Hikaru took the stone out of his fingers to carefully place it back into the Go-ke, without letting go of Akira's hand.
There was a long silence, in which the two players sat staring at each other, contemplating and trying to understand how their game had ended in a position such as the given, Hikaru never letting go of Akira's hand. Both of them were very conscious of that touch, and later they would know that this gesture of Hikaru had been the bridge that crossed their mutual openings.
"You purposely left that opening…" Akira said.
After a long pause, Hikaru answered in a low voice. "I opened myself to you."
"…"
"But you jumped right into the opening… far too deeply for any possibility of rescue."
"…"
"I was surprised you didn't immediately take that stone. You would've had me easily."
"I didn't… want you… that way…", Akira's voice trembled.
"So, instead you started spinning your web around my offer and now… we are one at the mercy of the other…" Hikaru's voice trailed off.
Akira hesitated. "This game… it meant… something more."
Hikaru closed his eyes for a moment. "Yes."
Hikaru, who still held Akira's hand, slowly slipped over to Akira, leaving the game on the goban as it was, hanging in this 'life for a life' situation, unfinished.
Hikaru almost unconsciously caressed Akira's hand, running his thumb over his palm, gently touched fingers with fingers. Akira felt shivers running over his skin, but he let Hikaru do, as his friend traced his hand slowly and lightly, like a tickling, over the soft, pale skin of Akira's wrist, up the inside of his underarm.
As Hikaru looked up from watching, mesmerized, his coarse hand touching Akira's fine skin, he found Akira staring at him.
Hikaru couldn't help but smiling at the thought, that Akira looked so… young when he was nervous. Suddenly, there was no trace of the self-confident, twenty-year old nine-dan player, but he seemed rather a teenage boy, facing a situation he could barely comprehend, wide-eyed and with a cutely innocent, slightly opened mouth.
"Akira…" Hikaru couldn't help but to reach up with the hand that wasn't holding Akira's arm to his face. Carefully he brushed outward over Akira's eyebrow until he caught a strand of shining black hair and in the same movement he put it behind Akira's ear. All the while he kept Akira's widened dark eyes locked with his as his face slowly but constantly leaned nearer.
Their lips touched for an instant in an almost fleeting movement.
"What do you want?" Akira breathed, suppressing a shudder of flurry, and Hikaru heard, although Akira tried to hide it, how vulnerable the other was in this instant.
Hikaru lightly leaned his forehead against Akira's and closed his eyes as he said. "I've opened my heart to you…" His nose was gently brushing Akira's, "I desire yours in return."
He didn't open his eyes, but instead felt Akira's skin rubbing against his, as the latter turned his head slightly so that their cheeks were touching. After some moments he heard Akira's light whisper. "You've had my heart since that day you first set foot in the Go salon… picking me out, claiming me. You've always been in my heart since."
Hikaru slowly opened his eyes, cherishing the warm feeling these words spread through his body.
He let his hand slide down from Akira's head to his neck, and stroked the side of his throat with his thumb. Akira's free hand hesitantly moved forward until he met Hikaru's back and, lightly, rested there.
Their lips met for another instant of a so-light kiss, nervously, anticipatingly electrifying even in its shortness.
"Don't leave me…" Akira whispered, his lips and voice trembling, as unable to hide the opening of his heart as when they had been playing.
Hikaru drew Akira gently forward, so they could rest in an awkward embrace, while sitting on the floor.
"It will only be two years…" Hikaru whispered hoarsely into Akira's hair, while being all too conscious how long a time-span 'only two years' was. Some part of him whished he had never agreed to go abroad. He whished he could hold Akira like this forever, sitting on the floor of the otherwise empty house, in the middle of the night, when even the crickets were quiet, their unfinished game on the Goban beside them. Quietly, he asked, although the question sounded stupid in his own ears. "Can I take your heart with me… when I go…?"
Instead of an answer Akira moved his head up to catch Hikaru's mouth with his, drawing him into a kiss that was barely longer than before, but unequally more passionate and forceful.
"You already have it…" Akira breathed.
A moment later Hikaru returned the kiss likewise and closing his eyes, almost crying, he murmured.
"Just you'll take care of my heart, Akira, while I'm gone…"
They kissed fiercely, fingers entwining in each others hair, no one bearing to let go of the other.
It was then, that they finally knew that an opening didn't only make you vulnerable but it allowed you to become much, much more, together.
The unfinished game of the open hearts rested for two years in Akira's room, untouched, until the day Hikaru finally returned. Akira would look at it every day and smile melancholically in memory of that last night Hikaru had spent in Japan and he would find himself waiting, but looking at the forms on the Goban, knowing that the other's heart was his as much as his was the other's.