The Inevitable Progression of Our Adolescent Wars
Fandom: Hikaru No Go
Pairing: Hikaru/Akira, Akira/OC, Hikaru/OC
Rating: PG13
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I.
It was the setting sun hitting the side of Touya's face, illuminating the clean lines and pale skin, that makes Shindou think--oh, oh in the quiet trailing behind another of their ubiquitous arguments. It wasn't that he hadn't noticed, in the passing few years, that Touya Akira had been a beautiful boy and was a beautiful man. More that it had become as natural and un-thought-of as knowing that the sky was blue, and Ogata-sensei smoked too much, and Go formed the point around which his life revolved.
He needs a haircut Shindou thinks wildly, and although it's true--Touya's bangs have grown long enough to be easily swept to the side, the thought strikes him as wildly, hilariously inappropriate. A small, choked-off noise disturbs the air, and Shindou is horrified that it seemed to have come from him.
Touya stills on the path beside him, startled at the sound. "Shindou--?"
And Shindou knows want so fierce, there, at 18:27, that it tears the breath from his lungs, because this...this...
Even the calluses on his right hand aches with the effort of not reaching towards Touya, wrapping that sun-warmed curve of cheek. It would be so right, to fold and be folded, and it was like the day would never end with surprises, because Shindou suddenly sees how their Go had been leading up to this. For days, weeks, months, Touya's Go has been twining around his, supple and beautiful; and his had responded in turn, hypersensitive to changes in gote and sente.
"Shindou?" His name again, and Touya actually sounds a little hesitant, just the smallest catch in the syllables of his name. It's usually Shindou's loudness to Touya's quiet, acerbic asides—what passes for normalcy between the two of them. Shindou snorts internally at his thoughts, since when had either of them, or this pulsing, living pull between the two of them ever been normal?
"Nothing," he answers, grinning at Touya's little huff of disapproval, even though he finds it hard to meet Touya's steady gaze. "I was thinking about how ragged you're looking--how am I supposed to maintain my reputation as a pro when my rival can't be bothered with basic grooming," he teases. There, not quite the whole truth, but true nevertheless.
Touya's eyes bug out a little at this, and Shindou thinks ruefully that spluttering and indignant, hair blowing in his eyes and cheeks flushed with outrage, Touya Akira and his stiff, old-fashioned mannerisms and his fluid, brilliant Go, is still the most beautiful thing Shindou's ever seen. Never mind his bitchy comments about Shindou's own grooming, and the fact that he's wrong and vindictive and did Shindou mention DEAD WRONG about playing sabaki in midgame, and that his mother still buys his (terrible horrible) clothes. It doesn't matter. None of it really does. None of it ever did.
"—your shirts! They're downright disreputable, and what's wrong with perfectly good sleev—"
"—better than looking like an old man—"
"—give Shirakawa-sensei a run for his money, distracting your opponents—"
"—just jealous that old man Shirakawa's cooler than you, even if he's been around since the dinosaurs died—"
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II.
Shindou's got both of his arms wrapped around Touya, and it's deathly silent except for the muted buzzing of insects outside the open window. Shindou's go-ke has been knocked over, and black go-ishi lie scattered in random patterns on the floor. Shindou's never realized just how fragile Touya is, even though he knows Touya can't keep more than two drinks in his skinny body before getting drunk and always forgets to eat when not prompted.
Shindou's shorter, but at least he actively tries to keep up with his metabolism. Touya, just…Shindou's aware that the length of Touya's fingers and the still-growing breadth of shoulders indicate the beginnings of a powerful build like Touya-meijin, but he can wrap his fingers around Touya's bony wrist. It scares him a little how easily his best friend can be broken, how despite the outward calm and brilliant strategic mind, Touya is just a growing child-man running towards something a little too fast, burning too quickly,
He needs Shindou, Shindou realizes, just as much as he himself needs Touya, because they feed each other's hunger, keep each other on the right side of being consumed. But now Touya's face is a furnace, and Shindou's insides feel like they're being boiled, and even though they cling to each other like drowning men, it's not enough; it still feels like being burned to death.
My parents have arranged for an omiai
Strange how just a few words can distort one's world. He'd been frozen, then seared, watching the breeze slowly stir Touya's hair, his eyelashes that hide his gaze, the trembling of Touya's fingers on yet another terrible, ugly move. Touya's mouth moved, but Shindou's ears were rushing loudly, the sound like so many implacable waves, that he didn't hear a word.
He remembers Ashiwara-san once saying that people played Go because it resembled the lack of absolutes, the closest a game-maker had gotten to represent the intricacies of life. If that's true, then Shindou's go-ban has suddenly formed fractals from its orderly 19 by 19 array. He feels like he's been playing only two dimensions, blind to all the others. This new terrifying landscape leaves him frozen by indecision, unable to see the comprehend even the most basic of moves.
Both of them are kneeling: Touya's knees cradled between his, Touya's arms wrapped around his back, Touya's face buried between shoulder and neck. Shindou has one hand buried in dark hair; the other is wound tight around shaking shoulders. He can feel Touya's heartbeat keeping time with his own, and Shindou wishes they could just stay like this forever, because--because--
If anyone is in control of his own destiny on the go-ban, it's Touya Akira. But off it, he's the twenty-year-old scion of a good family, a good lineage…and Touya's always played by the rules. He'd sooner commit seppuku than disrespect his mother and father.
Shindou knows this, just as surely as he knows that the shinpu will be delicate and lovely and everything he's not. He knows that he'll be invited to the ceremony, and that he'll apologize loudly and profusely because of a tournament the same day in Osaka or Kumamoto or Kyoto. He knows without a doubt that Touya will agree that the tournament is of greater priority with a horrifying blankness behind his eyes. He knows he'll lose all his games, especially those the day after Touya's wedding, because one Shindou Hikaru will be drunk as a dog and be thrown out of six bars for drinking too much.
All this he knows, so he lays his lips gently on Touya's forehead, the only kiss he's allowed to give.
"Atari," Touya whispers, so quiet that Shindou can barely hear him. It's not really true, anyways, because Touya's never really even had that one liberty.
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III.
Shindou doesn't see Touya again until they meet four months (two weeks, five days, ten hours, forty-eight minutes) at the Fujitsu Cup. After an acquaintance of his had kindly picked Shindou off the floor of Waigaya, and driven his completely smashed ass back to the hotel, Shindou had stayed in Hiroshima.
Someone had called from the Touya residence late one night, and Shindou had thrown the phone halfway across the room. There was no message.
He doesn't speak with Touya before the match, nor is he approached. Touya's surrounded by some of the other players and Shindou has purposefully-but-not lost his recently cultivated sense of punctuality, since he rushes in barely six minutes before their match begins and is skewered by Shirakawa-sensei's gimlet. It doesn't matter, even if Ogata-sensei can go boil his idiot head and that look on his face, because the least fucked-up relationship Ogata-sensei has ever had is that amorphous thing he has with Ashiwara-san, and he's got no right, no fucking right—
Shindou suddenly catches the glance of a sea-blue eye, and neither he nor Touya can look away.
Someone drops something nearby.
Shindou can't help but flinch, and Touya yanks his gaze away, as if he were afraid of Shindou. Shindou feels like he's been sucker-punched and launched flying and tossed back into some sort of freedom he never wanted in the first place, and it makes him angry, deaf and insensible to everything except the pounding of his heart and the sick rush in the bottom of his stomach.
They kneel, murmur their greetings across the goban and it's like nothing has changed, Touya's Go is as fluid and devastating as before, and Shindou's stupid heart skips a beat when he lifts his head to find Touya smiling at him, just the smallest, saddest little curve of his lips that along with his Go says everything that neither of them has ever been able to put into words. Shindou's too loyal to give up something that never really belonged to him, and Touya's never looked for anything else and both of them are too wrapped up in each other to have anything resembling self-preservation even as they tell themselves stupid lies that what they have is healthy.
Shindou tries to tell himself that it's enough, that he has Touya's Go and Touya's tentative, beautiful smile. He knows it should be enough, he knows that it's greedy and selfish and unrealistic to want more than that, but he just can't help himself from wanting. When he unclenches his left hand he leaves a shallow curve of red crescents on his palm, and it's nothing at all like if he'd leaned over and placed his hand against the shape of Touya's beautiful mouth.
Neither of them plays spectacularly, although Shindou has the satisfaction of seeing Touya's eyes widen imperceptibly when he lays down a particularly audacious little formation that has the benefit of taking sente back and winning him the match by a hairsbreadth.
Touya declines to stay for drinks, quietly citing his wife's new condition. Izumi and Waya murmur their congratulations but Shindou can't even say anything through his numb lips. None of it seems to touch Touya, who turned to ice the minute they rose, retreating somewhere deep. He leaves without even a backwards glance at Shindou, as if he'd even forgotten Shindou was ever there.
Shindou drinks only slightly less than he did the night after Touya's wedding, which is to say, until his eyeballs almost fall out, makes an ass of himself fighting with the bartender, pukes over Waya—twice, and wakes up the next morning desperate and wanting and just as miserable as he was before the first drink went down.
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IV.
"Shindou-san—"
The voice is Chiyoko's, and the frantic tone of her voice jolts Shindou up faster than an eyeblink. He gives a sardonic thought to the fact that it's lucky Makoto had just broken up with him, or this call at—he glances at the clock on the table—3:36 would have been the last straw in a remarkably problematic relationship. The next few words from the telephone effectively destroy any flippant thought as Chiyoko simultaneously informs him that Touya has had an accident and breaks down into tears.
It takes Shindou precious moments when he nearly bellows at Chiyoko to get the name of the hospital, but he's screeching out into the night under six minutes later, shirt inside-out and feeling as if his entire body is being squeezed in the jaws of some monstrous evil.
Shindou's sure Chiyoko will survive whatever happens. Despite her fragile beauty, she's strong in the way that the sea is strong, her calm swallowing blows without a sound until only ripples remain. She'd cried when she lost the baby, but it was a hundred times better than Touya's pinched, white face and jerky hands. Shindou knows she looks much better than he does, even with the tears coursing down her cheeks. He caught a glimpse in the rearview mirror driving like a fiend to the hospital and the frightening set of his face would have looked more at home on an oni than a living man.
She watches him, and it is not the wordless plea for reassurance he would have expected. There is something quiet there, beneath the fear, but Shindou's never been good at reading the subtler waters of the feminine sex. It irritates him that there is something he doesn't know that she knows, and he is shaken by that level understanding. He goes back to clenching his hands and—
—and then it's all over, everything that ever mattered and will matter, because the doctor is standing in front of them with his red-gloved hands and splattered coat and oh gods his hands are covered and he doesn't even need to speak before Shindou hears something screamed and strangled at the same time erupting from deep deep down inside him and Chiyoko is weeping and he's being held back and there's an animal keening in the room, nothing human in its howls, like a dog that's been kicked to pieces on the inside and would somebody shut the goddamn thing up—
—and he can barely see because Touyafucking Touy--Akira--and his own hands are suddenly bloody now and—
—there's a sharp pinch in his left arm and just let me go you fuckers let me go—
—and something hits him against the side of the head and Shindou barely recognizes it as the wall and he's sliding—sliding and he can't remember anything except that he has lost a game he never could have won never had a chance of winning the most important game of all and oh gods, Akira—
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V.
"You broke my heart, and I did the same, and both of us were idiots, all right?"
There's an old man sitting at a bench, bent over slightly as if trying to make a point to his invisible opponent. A half-played game of black and white stones is spread out on the table in front of him, and he puts down pieces slowly as he continues talking.
"Ashiwara-san once told me that Go, Western chess--not shougi--mind, and backgammon were three games created to illustrate the three great battles of man.
"Backgammon, because there's so much chance involved, is man against fate.
"Chess, with those two armies trying to kill each other, is man against man.
"And Go, Go has always been about man against self. Even when we're facing our opponents across the go-ban, it's about our own discipline and internal understanding. We were never simply opponents, Akira, we were perfect equals. We never had eyes for anybody else once we collided."
He coughs a little in the chilly air, grins.
"Don't pretend I didn't catch you watching me. Even the times when you dropped your eyes faster than I could lift my head, I felt you. I always knew when you were looking at me.
"Yeah, yeah, I stared too, okay? Mainly because of those awful sweaters you wore, honestly, yellow and lavender checks? Heinous. Eh, hope you're not still mad about what I did to that orange striped one.
"Anyways. we were lucky though, if you really look at it. How many people can claim to have met the other half of their soul—Hey! what was that about sounding like Dake-sensei, that old sap?! I'll show you 'sentimental old fart'!!—"
A storm of loud pa-chinks interrupt the still air.
"—well, it's true. We weren't ever two opponents seizing territory. We were two halves connecting, pushing the sum of ourselves to be better.
"'hikaru,' 'akira,' two ways of saying the exact same thing. We created our own fucking light.
"I thought about quitting Go after, you know, since I had a mini-breakdown every time I even looked at a go-ban. But I couldn't. It would have been the same thing as cutting you out of my past, present, and future. As admitting that you were completely gone. I'd have gone through life without half of myself, really gone without, and I couldn't, couldn't ever do that.
"Waya looked like he was having a stroke the first time I played your father after, because my Go was so different. I think everyone was shocked, including me, because you were there in every piece I played. And even though it was chaos on the board because I was still so angry after, you know, and your father kicked my—our—butt, it was like the world suddenly had meaning again.
"I told you I was sorry about that incident. I didn't—well, I did mean it, every damn pill, but it was just a few weeks after, you know, after you were gone, and it still hurts now and it's been, crap, forty-two years? Like I said, you broke my heart.
"It probably worked out best, though, since we both know I'm the strong one and you're the pretty one. I'd have figured out a way to haunt you, and we both know you never believed in ghosts.
"I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to tell you about Sai when you were still here." The old man sighs a little. "You were only, fuck, Akira, you were only twenty-four." He slams down a black go-ishi particularly hard. "I always thought I'd have more time to tell you.
"I always thought we'd have at least a lifetime, no matter how pissed I was at you."
He sighs again. "Doesn't matter anymore though, does it? Sometime I dream that I wake up and you're there beside me, and we'll have breakfast together and go to the salon together and play until they kick us out or we get hungry. You, you're not twenty-four anymore, you're just as wrinkly as me—but you're beautiful and we'd go to bed together and you'd bitch like you always do about my moving around and I'd complain about your stupid habit of needing too many blankets—
"—eh, I know we never slept together. Humor me. And then I'd wake up and expect to see you on the other side of the bed, and it takes me longer and longer each time to realize that I was dreaming, rather than being in a dream where you died at twenty-four and I plugged along through the years without you.
"It sucks, but I really don't regret much about anything at all. Maybe I should have pushed harder, run off to China and dragged you with me, at least properly kissed you once. Doesn't matter anymore. I'm pretty happy as it is, heart troubles and all. Doctor says I still have a good decade in front of me if I take care of myself."
He lays down a final stone. "Heh, remember the first game that we played? I creamed you, Meijin's boy—what? What's that? Who's writing revisionist history?!"
Shindou Hikaru tips back his head and laughs hard enough to startle the few remaining birds on the trees. The sun hits his gray head, his bright green eyes, and somewhere, a new game of Go is being played.
END
A/N: This is my first fic after a hiatus of about four year, and my first Hikago fic. It came to me at ten in the morning, with the blinds completely drawn, in one of my more melancholy moods. The title was inspired by the Indigo Girls.