Summary: Namikawa finds an antique goban, netting himself a ghostly houseguest. Namikawa and Midou centric, minor crossover with HnG but mostly in Death Note-verse.
Characters/Pairings: Reiji Namikawa, Shingo Midou, Fujiwara no Sai, one-sided Midou/Namikawa
Spoilers: Yotsuba arc, post-canon Hikaru no Go (entire series).
Notes, Disclaimers and warnings: Death Note is the paper baby of Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, Hikaru no Go of Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata (same dad, different moms) and all current rights holders. Any media, product or slogan referenced is also the property of its creators and current rights holders. I'm just letting them play in my brain for awhile. I promise to send them back unhurt and not soaked in cerebrospinal fluid! This story has or may have: long-haired men, the undead, the filthy rich, sex, voyeurism, character death, character afterlife, go, shogi, fencing, alternate universe, semi-crossover, canon diddling, bad swears, sex over thirty, angst, hurt/comfort, silliness, lamery, sappiness, earworms and stuff.
Feedback?: Questions? Comments? Like or dislike? Concrit? Flames? Glad I dug up this dinosaur and started fileting it or wish I'd let it stay buried? Feedback, I'll take it all, I'm greedy. I'm not fond of the title but I really disliked my earlier titles (Axayacatl, Pareidolia). I'm up for title suggestions.

Part I: Stain

In the shadow of a booming tower speaker, Namikawa Reiji knelt in front of a quartet of boxes and sneezed. His long black hair was tied into a messy ponytail with a drawstring formerly belonging to his dingy gray sweatpants. A safety pin struggled to hold up his pants and failed, the downward creepage revealing boxer brief waistband. His faded Harley T-shirt came from a place called Oops A Nail No, according to the crumbling screenprint on its back.

"You told me you'd be ready at six-thirty. It's seven."

Namikawa pushed a stray lock of hair out of one eye, leaving a gray dust-smear on his forehead. "I'll be done in a second."

'In a second' would be more like an hour, time mostly wasted on obsessive hair styling. With a resigned sigh, Midou Shingo fussily brushed nonexistent debris from his khakis and knelt near the boxes. Namikawa held a dog-eared sheet of paper reverently by its edges. "Hey! A flyer for the Runaways' Tokyo tour! Wonder how much I can get for it. I can't believe somebody gave this away. People don't--"

"-- always know what they have," Midou finished, springing to his feet. "Neither do you because your 'finds' are ninety-five percent crap that you end up keeping, like this thing!" He pointed to a framed poster hanging next to the stage right stereo speaker cluster. A slim-hipped woman with a bushel of teased and peroxided two-tone hair contorted her spandex-latex-leather-and-kneepads-clad body in a posture guaranteed to bring on a hard-core backache. By the light of a platoon of Lucite ice chunks or radioactive stalagmites, she was frozen pulling herself semi-upright with a mike stand as if she planned to perform sex acts on it. Midou spied the autograph -- To Reiji, Lita Ford xx.

Namikawa raised an eyebrow. As if on cue, the CD changer whirred and the speakers boomed:

"I went to a party last Saturday night
I didn't get laid
I got in a fight
Uh huh, it ain't no big thing..."

"Don't fuck with Lita or that creepy stuffed Frankenbird of yours gets it." Namikawa inspected some never-opened '80s Hello Kitty items.

"It's a Mississippi kite and it's revolting, thanks for giving it to me. Will you move a little faster if I help?" Midou plunged a hand in the box and pulled out a small blister-packed lipgloss bedizened with white chibi Kitty faces from the pile. "People actually buy twenty-year-old makeup?" Waxy whitish flakes floated in once-clear liquid gone piss-yellow with age. He aimed it like a dart for the wastebasket.

"Give me that." Namikawa grabbed Midou's wrist.

"Ouch!" Midou tore his hand away and let the tube drop to the floor. Prick. One times one is one, two times two is four-- that's not working--

"Sorry. This is nothing, people buy and sell face powder from the '20s all the time." Whoa, he's jumpy-- even for him. This one goes in the eBay box.

Higuchi naked. Anyone having sex with Higuchi.

"You okay, Shingo? You're look kind of green there. Maybe sushi's not such a good idea."

"--come on pretty baby kiss me deaaadlyyyy!"

The next item unearthed derailed Midou's distraction mantras. "That's a nice tray or shogiban or whatever it is."

"It's a goban." Namikawa wiped away powdery dust with the hem of his shirt. "It's a little water-spotted. What the hell? Look at this shit! Somebody spilled, I don't know, red wine? Hair dye? Furniture stain?"

Midou pushed his glasses higher up the bridge of his nose and leaned in for a closer look. "Looks all right to me. The grain's a little off like somebody cut the wood from the wrong part of the tree--"

"Christ, Shingo, you're blind! They're here, here, all over the place!" Namikawa jabbed at each spot with a long index finger. Midou rolled his eyes and muttered about hypoglycemia-induced hallucinations.

you hear my voice?.:

Namikawa rocked back on his heels and cut his eyes to his right. "Did you hear that?"

"I can't hear a damn thing over the stereo! Are you going to turn it off and be ready sometime soon?" Midou hugged himself and shivered. "It's drafty in here. You keep the air conditioner on too high and leave it on too--"

:.I have returned?.:

"Who are you? Ki--RAAARRGGGGH!" The lights flickered and the stereo fell silent. Namikawa crumpled to the floor onto his side, the heavy silver signet ring on his left middle finger clacking against the baseboard. Blood streamed thinly from the corner of his mouth and his tongue ring click-click-clicked in time with a muscle twitching near his jaw.

In the dark room of his awareness, Sai clenched his fists inside his long sleeves and whimpered, :. Again, I did it again, I probably killed this one, stupid, stupid...: A cacophany of voices gabbled in his ears, random images, sounds, smells, sensations. Children's faces, upturned, giggling at something he said. Who shall we kill? A goban's grid, a tangle of wide highways choked with slow-moving cars, men in suits gathered around in a circle. A throaty groan, a shimmering flash of pleasure. Shogi tiles. Is it because I wasn't there that you are the way you are? A gentle hand on his shoulder. An excruciating sudden pain stabbing his tongue. This is what I want. Sai tasted blood and metal, shivered, felt like he would vomit for an instant, until he found himself sipping something sweet and fizzy. , whose?.:

"No! Kira, you bastard!" Midou dug frantically into his pants pockets for his cell phone, pulling out his car keys, several coins, a dry-cleaning ticket and a lint-fuzzed roll of mint candy before realizing he had left it on the coffee table. Namikawa jackknifed into a fetal position, chin and elbows against his chest, and shuddered. Midou set down the phone and sighed. How long has it been since you've had one of these? He watched his friend twitch, stretch out and twitch again.

In the space of a few minutes, the static and darkness swirled away from Sai's vision. Namikawa, tall and broad-shouldered, lay half on his side and half on his belly, limp and still, left arm stretched out as if he was reaching for, or trying to push away, something before losing consciousness. Long, gleaming black hair fell in a messy tangle, obscuring his face. Midou peered through his dyed-cinnamon bangs, gave Namikawa a nudge and said, "Earth to Reiji." He was slim yet sturdy, his skin fair and pinkish. His elliptical-lensed rimless glasses, along with his current state of anxiety, gave him an owlish, fussy air.

Namikawa groaned and slowly turned his head, eyelids fluttering slightly open. "Ummffh. Shin...go? Wha hap...?" He tasted blood and tried to swallow it away but his seizure-slackened pharynx refused to cooperate.

"You've had a seizure," Midou informed, helping him to sit up. "Did you bite your tongue?"

"Unh," Namikawa drooled blood-streaked bubbly spit down his chin. "Bit the inside o'my mouf. Damn, that hurss. Whyinna hellm'I havin' seezh..."

"How should I know? Can you stand up?"

Namikawa grabbed a chair for support and pulled himself upward, muttering something about brushing his teeth and needing a shower.

"That can wait until you're more awake." Midou told him sternly, steering him toward a burgundy velvet couch with snake heads carved into the wooden arm ends. Namikawa flumphed limply onto the couch, listing to starboard. "Stay there." Midou soaked a washcloth in cold water, wrung it out and handed it to Namikawa, who looked at it as if it was an unidentifiable and uninteresting foreign object. "Your face. Wipe it."

Namikawa wiped away the sweat, drool, blood and dust, sighing at the comforting cold dampness until Midou took the cloth away and handed him a glass of water. "Whassat??" he demanded of the palm of Midou's hand.

"Wypax, one milligram each. I'll give you two for tonight, that's how much I remember them giving you shots..." Midou's voice trailed off. Gray eyes, fogged but concerned, met brown over the rim of the glass. Midou broke eye contact, letting his hair fall over his glasses like a shade. "I haven't taken any in ages so don't give me that look. I was having trouble sleeping last month. One of these got me to sleep but I could barely drag my ass out of bed and get to work."

"Flush 'em. I don' want 'em either."

"Suit yourself." Midou dropped the pills into the bottle. Namikawa started to push himself to his feet but Midou stopped him with a hand planted on the solar plexus. "No you don't. You're going to lie down and relax."

"Chrissake. Wha if I gotta pee?" Namikawa slurred drunkenly, his voice half-muffled by a small pile of throw pillows under his head.

"I'll bring a bucket." Midou didn't smile but his eyes twinkled, though he was still pale and his hands trembled.

"Oh for... go sit down, fix yerself a drink'n'order pizza." Namikawa stretched slowly out on his side, thinking of the soft, sad voice in his head yet not in his head and the light that had filled the room. Nothing he wanted to tell Midou about, it would only freak him out when he was finally starting to relax. "Thanks," he mumbled, chafing a little at Midou tucking a blanket around him. What am I, five years old? Stop fussing, go sit down, he thought, listening to Midou's voice grow further and further away. Post-ictal exhaustion slowly spun Namikawa into sleep.

Midou snapped the phone shut, annoyed that he'd dialed Hachi Sushi and had instead reached a maid cafe in Akihabara (twice!) before getting the number correct. Spying the frayed string still tangled in Namikawa's hair, he gently pulled it out and stuffed it in his pocket to dispose of later. Is he really that cheap and lazy that he can't be bothered to spend 300 yen on some ponytail holders? And this-- Midou shoved the tea table-- is going over here-- and parked it against a wall, out of falling range should Namikawa have another fit. Midou settled himself in a recliner in the corner, wrapped in a blanket, a glass of orange juice in one hand. Maybe he should've had Namikawa take that stupid stud out of his tongue in case it worked itself loose and he inhaled it. Maybe I'd better... No way in hell was he waking him up, reaching in there amid all the spit and twisting that hunk of steel out of there. Thoughts of tongues in another context and the many fun things they could do invaded his mind.

Raising his eyes heavenward and scowling in exasperation with himself, his fancies and his growing arousal, he turned on the TV. Scantily-clad young women cavorted on a beach, tossing a beach ball and laughing, a tame legs-tits-and-ass show that still aggravated his condition. Another channel showed a repeat clip of the Diet in session, the camera pausing on Midou Eigo's hawklike profile and sensible silver hair. The younger Midou's stomach clenched in shame and in dread of impending disapproval. I'm sorry I'm not the son you wanted. This was nothing he would tell Namikawa about, who would claim to understand but really would not get it at all. Midou switched channels. A young woman, frozen forever young, a man's arm and shoulder in the background, filled the frame. "-- case of Misora Naomi, who was reported missing in January. Misora-san and her fiance were visiting relatives..."

Midou punched a number on his cell phone. "Kawaga... yes, it's me, sorry, did I wake you?" He glanced at the news, something about remains found near the Kamo river not matching any recent missing persons cases. "...seizure. I think he should. I know, I know, but he can get someone to drive him, can't he? Eh..? I'm not sure but it wasn't the same. No, he didn't...just screamed and hit the floor-" Reiji, what did you see? What was so frightening?

"...from clothing, possibly as old as the Sengoku period. His height is estimated to have been as much as 185 centimeters--"

"He's sleeping...You don't have to come over, I'll stay with him. Yes... I'll have him call you as soon as he wakes up. Good night, Kawagami-san."

Marilyn Monroe: Killed by Kira? practically screamed from the ticker. Midou winced; the Aiphone buzzed. He crawled out of his blanket cocoon and checked the screen, then tapped on stations of keypads set in the walls as he made his way to the entrance on silent feet. Namikawa slept on.

"Namikawa-san, can you hear me?" Sai inquired.

(to be continued)