Just Visiting

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When he was twenty-three, Touya moved out to an apartment of his own. Hikaru was informed of this, the relevance being that they'd been using Touya's house for their "tournament training camps", as Hikaru called them.

The location was well-chosen; it was, of course, near to the Go Institute. Hikaru in particular found this very convenient, as their dan matches were held every Thursday at the Institute, and he had a shidougo session in the afternoon of the same day, within the same area.

After those years of occasional stay-overs at Touya's, all in the name of Go, Hikaru had little worries about imposing on his friend's hospitality. On the days when they both had a match he would drag Touya for lunch so he could follow him home aftwerwards; when Touya wasn't having a match he would come anyway.

They would play Go, but after some time Hikaru no longer felt guilty to just catch a quick nap on the couch, and Touya let him.

The ritual went undisturbed for a few months, until Touya too was assigned a teaching session on Thursday afternoon, one hour earlier than Hikaru's. The train ride to the place took almost half an hour, so he had to set off right after lunch.

As such, Hikaru's visits would have to stop. He whiled away his time at the Institute instead, studying kifus, joining the post-match discussions, or being targeted by Amano-san. This last point was mainly the reason he missed having Touya's place to crash at.

One day, after a particularly draining match, Hikaru forgot. He went straight to Touya's apartment, already looking forward to a good nap. After waiting at the door for five minutes, he finally remembered Touya wasn't in.

In any case, he was already there, half-awake, with his legs refusing to be employed further; so Hikaru shrugged, and slouched down right there by the door.

It was just his luck that a neighbour saw him, panicked as she thought he'd been victim to a robbery - he didn't think he looked that awful, but oh well - and called the security. He managed to extricate himself from the misunderstanding in time for his shidougo session, but the news naturally reached Touya when he came home that night.

Their next meeting was at the Go salon that Saturday. After the game, Touya handed him a duplicate key to his apartment.

Hikaru was surprised. Granted, they'd known each other closely for almost ten years, but coming from someone with the sense of privacy and propriety as Touya's, that was still a whole lot of trust.

He refused at first out of politeness, but Touya gave him a withering look and told him he'd rather risk Hikaru messing up his apartment than giving his neighbours recurring panic attacks and himself a reputation with the security staff.

Hikaru rolled his eyes. Touya didn't really expect him to repeat that feat, now did he?

But the convenience was tempting, and knowing Touya, he wouldn't have made the offer if he hadn't been serious about it on the first place; so in the end, Hikaru accepted the key.

Still feeling obliged, though, he offered to split the rental fee, to which Touya replied, rather incredulously, "Why should you do that when you're not staying there?"

Good point, he thought. Two weeks later, he moved in with Touya.

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Author Notes:

Oh well, there you got the cliche of 'Hikaru and Touya sharing an apartment' X( Just an idea that popped up, so I thought I'd have a little fun with it. I might continue if I get the idea for it (unless it's too crappy to, in which case do tell me honestly) but for now it's a one-shot.