Evanescence
by K. Huntsman
first released 5th February 2003
Four of the brightest rising stars of Japan's Go world lived together in one apartment. Two had girlfriends. Two did not. That was all anyone knew.
Shortly before his nineteenth birthday, Touya Akira had chosen to move out of his parents' home and into a new apartment shared with his friends. Due to his parents' frequent absences during their long sojourns to China, he'd been mostly living on his own anyway. His parents approved of the move, feeling that their insular son would benefit from the close contact with others his age.
It only made Akira feel more guilty.
"They're so trusting," he said quietly one night to his roommate, with whom he shared a futon. "They don't suspect... anything!"
Shindou Hikaru shrugged and shifted a little closer to Akira's back. The warmth of his body was welcome and Akira leaned into him without thinking. "Your parents aren't like mine. They adore you."
"I'll disappoint them." Akira knew that for truth, felt it to his core.
"Akira," Hikaru murmured, half-asleep, or at least trying to get there, "I don't think you could disappoint them. Go to sleep."
Shindou Hikaru was, by anyone's standards, an anomaly. He'd become a Go professional at the age of fourteen. He was fluent in classical Japanese and Chinese, conversant with the literary works of pre-Meiji Japan despite having never gone beyond middle school. He'd been haunted by a ghost from the age of twelve until he was fifteen, though his lover was the only other person who knew this. Despite this, Hikaru maintained a high level of normality in his day-to-day interactions. He practiced aikidou with a fair amount of skill, delighted in going to festivals, was passionate about the art he'd devoted his life to, loyal to a fault, fun to be with, and easy to look at. He was also good at cooking ramen.
He did not, however, understand the concept of separating colors in the wash, read junk comic books like they were going out of style, was infuriatingly ignorant about almost everything that didn't directly affect his life, and exhibited occasional goal-driven tunnel vision that might put carrier pigeons to shame.
All in all, Akira decided, he couldn't have found a better mate. With Hikaru warm and drowsing against him, Akira closed his eyes, resolved to let his mind rest.
Hikaru opened his eyes and realized he was in a dream. Sometimes it happened to him this way, and it was never a bad thing. He settled to the "ground" of the infinite golden space around him, legs tucked beneath himself in seiza style. It wasn't long until a Go board materialized before him. He felt a momentary wistfulness, as always-he knew he would never see Sai again. The spirit who had been his friend had passed on, crossed over, reincarnated, whatever it was spirits did, four years before. A dream like this had been their last meeting place, where Sai had passed to Hikaru his fan, a token Hikaru carried to this very day and would never let go. But when he dreamed like this, sometimes, just sometimes, there was a game with whatever was left of Sai's genius. Whether it was a tattered fragment of Hikaru's own mind, a recorded and amalgated version of the countless matches he'd played against Sai, or some lasting echo, a gift of the universe, he treasured each game. They were brilliant, exhilarating, yet at the same time comforting and warming, familiar. As always, Hikaru played black. He set his first stone down and waited for Sai's answer.
Akira woke in the night to a vacancy at his left side and the soft sounds of stones being laid on a Go board. "Hikaru?" he asked, sitting up.
His boyfriend paused and looked his way. "Sorry," he whispered. "I was trying not to wake you."
Akira crawled out of the covers and across the mats to where Shindou sat, pots of both black and white stones before him, their contents in the process of being laid out across the board. "What's this?"
Hikaru picked up another black stone and softly set it down. "A dream I had."
"Dream?" Akira studied the board, the play of black against white. There was just enough light coming through the blinds to make it easy. "Sai," he breathed.
Hikaru nodded. "I'll write down the kifu in the morning," he promised. Akira had once bought him a hardcover volume of all of Honinbou Shuusaku's kifu, and in the back Hikaru stored the copies of all of Sai's games he could remember for transcription. With Hikaru's eidetic memory concerning Go, there were a lot of loose kifu.
Akira sat back on his heels and watched Shindou lay out the rest of the game. "Sometimes I'm very jealous of you."
"Because of Sai?" The soft sound of stones being laid did not stop.
Akira nodded. "I was groomed for this my entire life, but you..."
"I inherited a ghost and got a really big jump-start." Hikaru smiled at Akira. "You had your father teaching you your entire life. You never had all the doubts I did about having gotten in way over my head."
"You never had to live in your father's shadow," Akira replied.
Shindou looked back down at the board. "No. I had to live in Sai's." He laid one more stone down. "There."
Akira evaluated the completed pattern. "You lost again."
Hikaru shrugged. "Of course. I'm not even sure I really want to win."
"You don't want to win?" Akira couldn't believe it.
"I just have this feeling..." Shindou looked at the board, his fingers hovering over the pieces. "If I ever win outright, even these dreams will stop. He won't have anything left to teach me."
Akira looked as Shindou's pensive face, then crawled around behind him and held his lover tightly in his arms. "I won't leave. You still have me."
"Can't catch me like that. I've read all that Buddhist doctrine, remember? 'The moving river does not cease its flow, nor are its waters the same as those before. The bubbles that float in the pool now vanish, now reappear, without an instance of ceasing for a while. The dwellings and people of this world are just like this'." But despite his harsh words, Hikaru relaxed just a little. Akira could understand why Hikaru might not want to win a game against whatever remnant of Sai's spirit remained in his mind and in so doing lose his last connection to his mentor. He'd lost so much-Sai to his enlightenment, Hikaru's own parents to their prejudices... even though Touya knew he couldn't promise a forever he did not control, he wanted to. But Shindou was right; evanescence was the only surety the world could offer.
"Even so, you and he and I are linked by a red thread," Akira whispered into Hikaru's hair, "a bond that will not break across lifetimes." He held Hikaru for a moment longer before making a tug towards their abandoned futon. "Come back to bed."
Author's Schism
This piece follows up on my other HikaGo fiction, "His Name," happening a few years later in the same timeline. Credit for the release of this piece must go to my Evil Friend Jeanne, who prodded at me for a sequel, which got me to edit this piece into a finished form. It was originally supposed to be part of a larger "Akira tells his parents" arc, but was resisting going there, so it stands as it is, something of a (non-hentai!) PWP. Call it a slice of life, if you like.
The idea that Hikaru sometimes knows he's dreaming nagged at me from the manga, so I absconded with it, played with it, and had fun. I also borrowed (with her permission) the hardbound book of Shuusaku's kifu from Misha's fanfic "Ghost," archived on It's an excellent story; go read it!
The quote Hikaru gives at the end of the story is from "Yuku Kawa no Nagare" ("The Flow of the Moving River"), an excerpted section from Houjouki, written by the Buddhist priest Kamo no Choumei around the year 1212. It was one of the texts my class on Classical Japanese studied last term. The translation is my own.