fandom - Hikaru no go
title - frozen paradise
rating - pg-13
pairing - akira x ?
description – Akira's stoic personality differs the intensity he feels towards Hikaru…
disclaimer – Hikaru no Go isn't mine.
frozen paradise.
by miyamoto yui
Even though your face is everywhere, you're nowhere to be found.
I look up to the large television screen playing a clip with your famous, infectious smile and my neck starts to hurt. I stare at the advertisements long after yours is off the air.
I rub the back of my neck with my mittens and tighten my scarf as I pass by your photographed figure all over the walls. You're plastered everywhere, serving as a reminder that you're not ever where I expect you to be.
Always there before my very eyes, but never caught in between my arms.
As I continue to walk to the Institute in the bitter cold, my breath becomes visible before me. I shake my head as I think of how they got you to advertise for Go until it's become so popular that you are its sworn, endearing advocate.
Even though you wanted me to be next to you in these posters and prints, I refused to because I wanted to remain in the shadows with only my name known without a face.
Has that backfired against me?
Without a word, we nod at one another from across the room. You're greeting people in different circles as I politely make my way around the room. After talking to the new teachers, I settle into a corner table with other fellow Go teachers that we've known for some time.
As Waya-san talks about a trip to China he and Isumi-san have recently taken, I nod my head and listen earnestly. However, my eyes wander towards yours, catching secret moments into my mind while you nod your head and don't have any space to move.
I think about the concept of 'atari': being cornered.
But in my mind, there is no such thing as 'give up'.
Even if our gap widened, we'd be able to catch up to one another. That's what we said, but words aren't as truthful as we'd like them to be even if they're honest.
Three years ago, while cleaning after the youngest prodigies of our school, they clung onto our legs because we let them know how proud we are. We knew how it was to be so disciplined that if you had no outlet, then you were a ticking time bomb ready to burst from all your emotions.
When they happily said goodbye to us, I looked at you as you put your hands to your hips while analyzing a play before taking the black and white pieces away.
As the sun set behind you through the open window, because you were so handsome, I blurted out, "I love you."
You turned your head and smiled at me, obviously distracted. "What did you say? I didn't hear you too clearly."
You weren't joking though and I was too embarrassed to say anything as I turned away when I felt my face turning red…
Not meaning to be rude, I sit here half-listening to everything and responding when needed. But your magnetic energy always keeps me captivated.
As always, you're talking with everyone in the room as I sip some sake at the table. Even this is a barrier to the both of us, don't you see?
I don't know how to tell you all the feelings you give me and they're all so very confusing. It's like an adrenaline high filled with nothing but sunshine. That is the only way I can describe how much you mean to me.
You act like an idiot, but your guard is down. People are naturally attracted to interesting things, especially those that hold an odorless, yet sweet deathlike potion. People like you because you aren't afraid to say what's on your mind. You're too uninhibited to realize the depth of your charm.
From this alone, it is obvious how our worlds don't coincide except in front of a Go board.
But despite all this, I'm captured too, didn't you know? I'll sit here listlessly drinking one cup of sake after another, and conversing in small talk and polite nods like I always do. My heart is being crushed and I'm so jealous for you being able to smile that way when I'm not there.
I want to keep you all to myself.
I want to hold you away because it makes me so upset to see you laughing in a way I've never seen you to do, a half-grin with your teeth showing. You pat her shoulder as if you've always been friends. Why do you act that way in front of me? Do you even know that I'm here?
You have probably forgotten I'm just here. You probably don't know I want you to do those things with me with more than a friendly innocence, but a quiet, carnivorous want like I have towards you.
It's my fault.
I shout and scold you whenever we meet while you nod and laugh with your hand behind your head. And I won't let you interrupt me when all I want to do is hear your voice.
You probably don't know how many times I've had conversations with you inside my head. You don't know that when I play Go against myself, you're the only one I see in front of me. You're the only one worth projecting inside my mind.
Even though I don't look like it, you're driving me absolutely crazy.
I'm so frustrated with myself for being the way I am.
"You are very special to me" is all I can explain it as. These words hold more weight than 'I love you', don't you think? "You're the only one I trust with my life" is all I can say to tell how much you're worth to me.
But nothing comes out of my lips.
My body is so rigid that I can't even show you in gestures. Too reserved and used to holding back, I've solidified this way.
I don't know how to break out.
After a few hours, I can't stand being here anymore. I can't stand being someone who isn't anything to you.
Though you're awkward, you're sincere. You treat everyone the same though: You give them your full attention. Though you say what's in your head, I never truly know what you're thinking. It should be simple, but it isn't.
Your words are direct and open, but so much so that they hurt. How do I interpret them?
Sometimes, there are only things I want to see.
I hurriedly say my goodbyes with a cordial nod and dash for the door. When my red face glances at yours, I bow my head to run away once more. I take my winter coat and quickly walk away at this late hour.
I leave the liveliness as the quietness settles with the new snowfall. It is quite a while until I reach my apartment, but I don't care. The frigidness doesn't make it feel like it's my home. It's comfortable, but it isn't warm.
Like my heart, it's just become a place I occupy as shelter because there's nowhere else for my feelings to go.
"Touya! Touya!"
As I think that maybe I'm dreaming, you run up behind me. You melt me as you squeeze your arms around my shoulders and press your hot cheeks against my icy ones.
I clear my throat and grimace as a reflex. I yell, "What are you doing, baka?!"
He lets go as he runs in front of me with all of his excess energy. He tilts his head to one side while observing me curiously. A serious expression encapsulates his entire face, making his bright eyes even deeper.
"Why did you leave so early?"
"I was trying to see if I could catch the last train home, but I missed it." With my mitten, I nudge him towards the direction of the party. "They'll miss you if you don't get back."
"I'll miss you because you're not coming back."
My heart stops as his hand takes a hold of my sleeve. "I came here because you gave me that look."
"What look?" I always-"
He pulls my on my neck, over my scarf; and as I look into his eyes, for the first time ever, he's truly angry with me. "I've watched you for years. I even know what pieces you'll move before you even think of a strategy because I've always wanted to surpass you, but you haven't ever been honest to me."
"What? I always tell you what you want whenever you ask me something."
"And the words I want to hear aren't the ones you ever say to me. You show me in the way you give me things or the way you stare at me. You give me hints, but I'm not the kind to really, fully understand things unless someone teaches me or tells me point blank."
I hold my breath as he tells me, "Until a few months ago, I never knew how important it was for someone to tell it to me. It may seem childish, but I didn't know that I really felt this way. For years, I always thought that if I told you and showed you how much I cared that that was enough. That words weren't needed between us."
After all this time, I have always been the most special to him. But, the person I cherish most in the world cries before me because he never knew how I felt. He's never known because of the sorrow of waiting for me to say anything and my hesitancy due to the fear of him rejecting me.
"Hikaru…"
He lets go of my arm as he steps back while still watching me with attentive, caring eyes that are full of tears.
"Now I'm so confused because one of the students I tutor just poured his feelings out to me and I'm falling so blindly into him."
My heart falls onto the snow.
"And when he told me, I finally understood I was always this honest with people so that someone would tell me they found me. Just like when we played one another all these years." He falls to the ground with his hands on the snow, holding onto the spot where my imaginary heart splattered. "And I don't know what to say except that I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…"
I look at the top of his mismatched hair, unable to raise my head. I can't even open my mouth as my hidden tears bleed down my face. I can't even apologize and I can't make him stop telling me sorry because I'm too shocked.
I pick him as he stands before me, but I take my hand away not wanting to become more attached than I should…
I hadn't realized that I was even more frigid than this snow. Because of my silence, I made you feel lonely even though I felt so much for you. And now, the words I wanted to say wouldn't make any difference because I kept them so buried for such a long time. They would remain there forever, wouldn't they?
The hourglass of our time together like this stops suddenly.
Quietly, the snow falls around us. And I tip over to kiss the top of his head when I pull on his collar to make him bend his head. Then, without a word, I leave him.
*/*/*/*
So, now, as I stare into his eyes, we bow our heads to the final match. It is the first time I've seen him since that day when we were both twenty-one.
He smiles at me and comments, "You look like your old self. It's been three years, two months, and twenty-three days since I've seen you."
I laugh.
I had lost my way and I became confused. Even my Go play style was becoming uncertain to the point that I was scolded by Ogata-sensei and my own father. But having lost my most precious possession that day, I worked hard to get myself together in order to let him see the person Hikaru first met, but with the confidence that had never been there until he came to my life. Now, it had come and was embedded within me.
Just because you work at something doesn't mean it'll automatically be yours. Life isn't that simple, right? And even if you plan and calculate, it'll never turn out quite the way you want or expect from it. In fact, there are parts that are much better than you'll ever project in a predicted scenario or within your imagination.
That is what you are to me because this is what you taught me.
With your existence and care.
So, even if it's hopeless in one way, I want to continue to be with you because you'll always be with me somehow.
After all, I was never the same after meeting you.
"Never give up" you told me with that cute grin of yours, even though you hit me on the head the first time you said this to me when we were children.
I stop laughing and smirk. "I won't ever let you beat me, Shindou."
Because I can't let you go, this is what I'll hold onto…
"And I'll keep on running after you, Touya."
That means more to me than anything else in the world…
That night, when we stop the title match for the day, a young man waits for him at the Institute's entrance. I smile at the grin that becomes even brighter on his face when he runs over to him as soon as the elevators open to let us out.
And I am ever saddened at the greatest loss of my life.
It is because I didn't think far enough. My aggressiveness when I play isn't the way I am when I deal with people.
Though we've done nothing wrong, I can't help but repeat the scene inside my head once in a while. It eats away at me at certain times until I can't breathe or sleep. But they're just illusionary, oscillations of the past within my emotions.
No matter what anyone says, your first love is your frozen paradise.
In your head, that person can never melt. Their smile is always remembered in one brilliantly vivid frame inside of your mind. And your memories are photographs etched in the seams of your heart.
They'll always be a part of you. And to cut that off means suicide.
"Hey, stop staring off to space. You always do that when you're fascinated," a voice says to me matter-of-factly.
"Stop treating me like a kid, Seiji." I pout as I eye him in a mock unforgiving way.
Like when I was a child, he pats the top of my head to spite me. With a nonchalant attitude, he instructs, "You should call me Ogata-sensei when we're in public. I remember this little kid when he'd hold my hand and-"
"Seiji!" I shout with an annoyed, crimson face hoping no one else heard.
He chuckles as he steps outside with me. He opens his umbrella while pressing his hot hand gently on my back.
I take away his umbrella and close it.
He raises an eyebrow as I pull on my already wet white blouse. I look at him and grin while trying to look innocent.
As he covers his mouth with his hand while gazing at me, I see his cheeks move to reveal the outlines of a playful grin.
If I was only this honest before…
This is the regret that never ever leaves me…
As we're parked under a bridge, he kisses my collarbone while I sit on his lap. The rain pours as I breathlessly whisper into his ear over and over those three words I couldn't say before as if they're a spell that can cure something while wounding me at the same time.
The hurt doesn't go away. Just like the rain, it just makes it more beautiful.
My arms wrap around his shoulders as I shout all the things that are no longer words, but bottled up feelings inside of me. His hands touch my lower back and he holds me tighter as he tells me without moving his lips all he's had to watch me go through while carrying his own burdened heart.
Tears out of pain from my regret and our extreme feelings colliding are mixing. They fall down my face along with the sweat. You kiss my eyes and then lick my lips before kissing them.
In between your eyes, I clearly see the possessive look you've always given me, but never could tell me all these years. How you've been watching me and taking care of me since I was little and until now…
As you wrap your jacket over my back, you hold onto me with closed eyes. I wipe away the tint from the window next to us and open it. The rain falls without stopping and my eyes want to drift off to sleep.
Yes, in between these two arms, without knowing, here is my home.
You had thought farther than me.
But I can't even imagine what you've had to go through in order to get to me…
As a rock song plays on your radio, I lean up to lick your ear so that you'll wake up. "Seiji," I tease relentlessly and seductively like when I used to challenge him when he was a student studying under my father. "One more."
He smirks as he kisses my chest while I shiver under the contrast of the cold wind and his touch…
Let me make it up to you, so that you won't ever have to think of all that ever again…
I'll replace all those frozen, lonesome memories into wonderful, living ones, Seiji.
Owari.
-
Author's note – I wrote this more than a month ago. And it is not something easy to write even if the concept is simple. So, why would I write something so depressing and mess around with characters I like A LOT? It's because after thinking long and hard about what to write today, I finally decided on how to approach the first draft of this particular fic. I wanted something, again, that delves away from my usual.
Even if I'm a little sad, these are facts of life like Seishirou and Subaru not ever having a happy ending because Sei's…yeah. (I'm still in denial. Until X is finished, 16 has not happened in my mind. XD) Once in a while, I've gotta steer away from my favorite pairings. Challenges are my way of life. ^_^
Love,
Yui
Saturday, July 16, 2005
5:09:25 AM