AN: I have written Hikago fanfic! Shock! Plus I am still alive. Yay.
The worst thing about travel, Akira thought, was layovers. Unless one had a book or a go board, they were tedious, time consuming, and utterly unproductive. Having Shindou Hikaru with him made things more interesting and it would have been perfect—if they hadn't forgotten to pack their magnetic go board. Because there are only so much blind-go games you can play before the mental board starts to blur.
Hikaru dragged his suitcase behind him as they wandered between rows of food stands and gift shops. They had three hours until they had to go through security to board their international flight, they already ate lunch, so they were killing time. "You'd think," Hikaru grumbled, "You'd have packed the board you left on your pillow."
"I thought you packed it." Akira wasn't stupid. He'd checked before they left, and the board wasn't on the pillow where he left it. Looking back, it probably fell behind the bed when Hikaru jumped on it while he was packing, but it was a simple mistake.
"You'd think there would be a game shop." They passed windows full of bright colored t-shirts with big USA labels stamped across the front. Considering this was their second circuit of the commercial section of the airport, it was unlikely they would uncover anything new. "The books store has backgammon, but not go. Wheat kind of bookstore are they?"
"Go isn't as popular in America, Shindou." Akira sighed. They had played for a while using lines drawn on notebook paper, but it wasn't the same. And wobbly lines with uneven squares made differentiating the points difficult.
"Yeah, yeah…" Hikaru's heels kicked the suitcase as he walked. And he was thirsty again. He glanced at the store up ahead. "Hey, I'm getting a soda, be back in a minute."
Ditching Akira with his suitcase in the middle of the hallway, Hikaru jogged off toward a store with pictures of popsicles and soft drinks pasted in the windows. Akira dragged their luggage out of traffic flow and sighed. Should they just get to their gate? It couldn't be any more boring than walking up and down the same stretch of hall for the next three hours. If only he stuck with English longer, he could try reading something from one of the many bookstores.
It took maybe five minutes for Hikaru to return, two bottles of soda under one arm and his hands full of rolls of candy. "Touya! Look what I found!"
Akira caught a bottle of soda before it hit the ground before examining the brightly colored candy wrappers. "Mints?"
"Wait a minute." Hikaru tossed the soda onto his suitcase and opened one of the rolls. On his hand was a rounded white mint about the size of a go stone. "I saw these when I was checking out. I know it's not quite the right shape, but I figure it's close enough to play a nine by nine game… So. What do you think? Let's set up a grid and choose for mint or strawberry."
"Strawberry?" Akira glanced at the remaining rolls. Sure enough several were lime green with bright reddish-pink berries printed across them. "Why strawberry?"
"Well, there was mint, strawberry or mixed berry and I figured if I got strawberry they'd at least be the same color. Cool, huh?"
Cool wasn't the word Akira would use. Still… They weren't too far off from go stones in appearance. At the very least it would be better than playing another round of blind go. "Fine, but we're waiting at our gate while we play."
"Yes!" Hikaru tossed the mints into a zip pocket of his suitcase. "And we can eat whatever stones we capture!"
"Wouldn't that diminish what stones we could use to play?"
"We'll shrink the board until we can't play anymore. I bet the plane will be here by then." Hikaru took back his soda. "Admit it, sometimes I have great ideas."
"You're brilliant," Akira said deadpan. He smiled at Hikaru's pouting response. "Well, let's go. At the very least we'll have a story to tell later."