"Shindo, can you believe this!?"

Freezing halfway through the door of Waya's apartment and blinking in silence as he stared back at Isumi who was holding a copy of Weekly Go in hand, Hikaru finally said, "Umm, do I believe what?"

Motioning Hikaru into the room toward where Honda, Nakayama and himself were sitting, Isumi answered, "This! They updated the information on the new promotion system to say that any and all instant promotions will be retroactive!"

Blinking once more as he finished getting his shoes off and began to head toward the trio, Hikaru replied, "Oh, well then yeah, I really can't believe it! How dare they update the rules to say they're retroactive and everything."

A short pause passed, then Hikaru added, "Umm, Isumi?"

"Yes Shindo?"

"What does that mean, that the promotions are retroactive?"

Contempt flashing across Isumi's face, the young 2 – Dan replied, "It means that anyone who's ever been in a league previously and hasn't made 7 – Dan yet automatically gets promoted, even if they aren't in a league right now. Come on Shindo, I explained to you what this was before remember?"

Blinking once more, Hikaru responded, "Oh, so then even if Akira hadn't beaten Zama Oza on coming Thursday I would have still been promoted to 7 – Dan in the spring? Cool."

Rolling his eyes, Isumi went on, "But doesn't it bother you at all that they didn't announce this little fact until after you'd already clinched a spot in the next Kisei League, making this retroactive promotion moot?"

Shrugging as he settled down on the floor next to a Go board, Hikaru replied, "Not really. It's not like my rank meant all that much after I beat Ogata anyway. Everyone knows I'm strong now. It'll be nice to be 7 – Dan and all, but I'd much rather just play Go."

Honda and Isumi just looked at one another for a moment then shrugged. Yep, it was certainly just like Hikaru to not care about something as big as jumping five Dan ranks in an instant. Then Nakayama chimed in saying, "So, do you think he'll act this calm and unaffected when he wins a title too?"

This brought a bit of laughter from the room while Hikaru just frowned. "WILL YOU GUYS STOP IT WITH ME WINNING THE KISEI TITLE ALREADY!? Damn, you're going to give me bad luck if you talk like that."

The trio going silent at Hikaru's outburst, Nakayama glanced over at the other two on his right and then replied, "Umm, I was just talking about winning a title in general… you know, sometime in the future?"

Chuckling nervously as his mix up became apparent to him in his mind, Hikaru responded, "Oh… sorry about that."

"Just forget about games and ranks for some hours, okay?" Waya laughed. " Fuku, Honda and others are coming any minute now. IT'S PARTY TIME, people!"

###

Akira tucked in the corner at the furthest end of Waya's couch and while Hikaru felt the familiar squiggle of guilt inside of himself at having talked Akira into coming to a party he's obviously not enjoying, it's not until he noticed Akira idly spinning his empty bottle about in his hands with a decidedly un-Akiralike carelessness that he thinks to pull away from Waya's rambling story about some shopping trip or other with Shigeko-chan.

"Yeah," Hikaru said vaguely, clapping a hand on Waya's shoulder in solidarity. "That sucks. I mean, that's great, sorry, whatever; you know what I mean. Sorry; excuse me," he said, weaving past first Isumi then next around the tight tangle of Saeki and Honda so that he could sit down in the empty space on the couch next to Akira.

"Huh," Hikaru said, partly at Akira, partly at himself. Hikaru slowed the pace of his drinking considerably in the past hour, and to find the room still spinning is a surprise. "You're totally bored out of your mind, aren't you?" he asked. In fact, he and Akira never sat that close.

Akira held the bottle carefully in both hands, his attention focused upon Hikaru as his eyes make several slow, deliberate blinks. "I am having a very pleasant evening, Shindou. Thank you for inviting me," he replied, looking somehow at once both very serious and yet quietly childish. Hikaru couldn't have chuckling

"Come on," Hikaru said, getting back up. "Let's go join Waya and Isumi. Waya's kind of drunk and telling totally embarrassing stories about him and Morishita-sensei's daughter; it's horrible; you'll love it!" he assured him.

Akira leant over to set his bottle down on the side-table next to three others. It took Hikaru's alcohol-soaked brain some time to put one and one together; it's not until Akira, despite accepting the offer of Hikaru's outstretched hand, managed not only to stumble over his own feet in his attempt to get upright but to pull Hikaru tumbling back down to the couch with him that Hikaru realised that Akira was where over half of the nashi chuhai had gone.

"You're totally drunk," Hikaru said wonderingly. Touya sat up, straightening his posture with all of the respectable dignity he still possesses. "I am not,"

"So," Waya said from above them. "He's more interesting than I am, huh?"

Hikaru turned to face Waya with his most even expression. "I'm rescuing Touya," he said seriously.

Waya looked down between them and Hikaru noticed that he's still sort of holding Akira's hand for some reason and when he looked back up, Waya is giving him his very puzzled look. Hikaru simply ignored. Akira was staring at their hands with intense concentration, as if they could tell him something. Hikaru now recognised it and let go of Akira's hand, saying timidly "Oops, sorry Touya, didn't mean to, you know…"

Secretly pitying the letting go of hands, Akira looked up, eyes ocean-dark and dilated from the dimness of the lighting in the room. "Do you remember the second time we met, back when we were twelve?" he asked Hikaru.

"Yeah," Hikaru said, of course he does. He's always going to remember the sight of Akira's eyes narrowed with such ferocity, the sound of Akira's broken sobs of anguish as he choked out his resignation. It took him days before he stopped seeing the sheen of the tear-tracks on Akira's face every time he closed his eyes.

"Ooh, are we sharing now? Because I'm pretty sure everyone is dying to hear the story of how you two met. We all thought Shindou was having a big mouth when he showed up to insei class claiming to be Touya Akira's rival. But he's never told us how your paths even crossed in the first place," Waya said.

"He came to my father's salon and played the most beautiful go I'd ever seen," Akira said, and it's supposed to be a compliment to Hikaru maybe but all it does is wrap envy around Hikaru's heart so tightly he could choke on it. Maybe it was naïve to think that years of Hikaru's go could erase the sheer transcendental beauty of Sai's, to think that Akira of all people could ever forget a game.

Akira's fingertips slided slightly against Hikaru, as he asked again, voice like a thoughtful mumur "Do you remember? I remember what your hand felt like then," he continued, and Hikaru's blood was rising in his cheeks. Waya was right there and Akira could't possibly be doing this – it must have been the alcohol's acting. The last time Akira touched him like this almost five years ago.

"Um," was all Hikaru could squeak, and when Akira glided his fingers once more along his, between his, all he could do was breathe in sharply.

"You used to hold the stones between your fingertips," Akira said. "But now you have calluses, and a flat in your fingernail," touching those things as he names them, and something shuddered inside Hikaru's heart .

"Yeah, well, I learnt," he said abruptly, tearing his hand from Akira's, and sense-memory echoed within him.

"Shindou, let's play a game right now!"

"It's late," Hikaru said getting to his feet. "And you're totally not in any shape to play a game." He stepped backwards and bumped into Waya, who steadied him with firm hands on his shoulders.

Akira's eyes flashed. "I'm always ready to face you," he insisted, getting up and standing tall and straight and glowering down at Hikaru. "Stop running away."

"Why? Touya, I'm not running anywhere. We're in the middly of a party, that's all." Hikaru glared.

"Aww, guys," Waya said, giving Hikaru's shoulder a squeeze before he stepped back and adopted what was supposed to be a sagely pose, arms crossed and thoughtful. "Come on; it's my birthday, okay? No rivalry, no fight, please!"

"We're not fighting," Hikaru snapped at the same time as Akira said "This isn't a fight."

"I was trying to say something important," Akira continued. "But of course Shindou can't be serious for more than five seconds at a time unless you put a goban in front of him." Then, realizing what he'd said, Touya grabbed his wrist. "Shindou-play me. Right now. Play me," he repeated.

Hikaru jerked away. "Right now? Are you kidding? No way! We'll be playing sometime at the salon, anyway."

"When? I asked you to come to the Go salon again and again. And you're always overbooked. You've gott stuffs to do, am I right? So stop acting as if we could play anytime anyday!"

"But of course we could! Seriously, what's the problem Touya?" Hikaru protested.

"Yeah, you, you don't see any problem at all, am I right?!" Akira countered. "It's gonna be like then again. You wouldn't come back to the salon so I had to join the school club just to get you to play me in the tournament. And after that it was two years and four months before we played again-"

And it's such a ridiculous injustice that Touya was somehow able to say it like it's Hikaru's fault. "You were so freaking disappointed that you never even wanted to see me again! I trained my ass off, to prepare for a rematch with you. How could I face you then when I ranked so much below you?" And he's yelling now, they both were, and everyone was probably looking at them but fine, this was Akira's idea, so why should he care?

Akira didn't shy away; instead he took a step of his own, leaning in so closely that Hikaru could see the ring of darker blue around Akira's brilliant bright irises, could taste the sweet scent of pears on Akira's breath. "It was stupid!" Akira insisted. "Do you think I care what rank you are, what tournaments you've qualified for? None of it matters; nothing else matters-"

"Of course it matters!" Hikaru protested. "I'm never going to stop improving-"

"Stop missing the point!" Akira exploded, words pouring out of him faster and faster. "We play when you want to play. When you don't want to play, we don't play. Of all people you picked that common girl to be your student, and played her games after games. You told me you just wanted to help her pass the Pro exam. Now she's passed, and you continue playing her games after games. Why? What about me? Did you forget that you went into the Go world to fight me, Shindou? Tell me? What about me? When are you about to play me?" Akira heard himself shrieking. He couldn't believe he'd be shouting in front of curious looking Pros like this, but what the hell, he didn't care.

"Wait-" Hikaru interrupted desperately, because this couldn't be what it sounds like, Akira couldn't seriously be saying this, and there had to be something Hikaru could say to stop it. "Touya, don't-I'm not-this isn't-Touya," he said faintly, clenching his hands into fists so he wouldn't feel them shake anymore."This isn't like what you think, Touya. Nase has nothing to do with me not going to your Go salon. I am not like you; I'm just not used to the busy schedule of a higher ranked pro, that's all. You seem to grow up with it, you handle it so well all the time - but I can't, I need time to organize, and to breath, that's all."

Paused a few second to breath, Hikra leaned forward to Akira and lovwered his voice, so only Akira could hear him. "No matter what I do, no matter what you do, we're always going to be rivals; we have forever, okay? We're going to play, at the salon and at your house and at my house and at the Institute and in ooteai and in league matches and in tournaments and exhibitions."

Akira's mouth is set in a flat line and his eyes blazed. "Shindou-" he says, but Hikaru isn't finished. "Our next match is our hundredth game, you know? This time next year we'll be playing our five hundredth. We're going to play hundreds of games, thousands of games; we'll be sixty years old playing our ten thousandth game and it's never going to be enough but it's okay, because we'll just keep playing, you and me, and we'll always play, okay? We're always going to play," he said, searching Akira's brilliant eyes desperately for some sign of softening or appeasement or acceptance but finding only that same glassy shine that made Hikaru feel twelve years old again. Memories flickered in the back of Hikaru's mind as he tried to place when was the last time he'd seen Akira like this, and he had to go all the way back to the middle school tournament when Akira had shrieked at him, panting so hard his shoulders were heaving, strands of his normally-perfect hair wild and caught between his lips. He suddenly found himself wanting to pull Akira closer and hold Akira in his arms, given how fragile and somber Akira looked…but he didn't dare. What if he pulls me away… ?

"I-" he started, and while Hikaru had never, ever seen this look on Akira's face before. "I'm sorry to yell at you like that. That would be enough. Playing you until forever – it would be enough."" Akira took a step back. He closed his eyes, smiled, his heart filled with happiness. Yes, forever is enough, Hikaru!

Akira then turned to Ways, friendly smiled. "Thank you Waya-san, for inviting me! And sorry for starting the quirrel. I guess I'm leaving now. Happy birthday!" He walked towards the door, the crowd of people parting before him and left.

Some people were decidedly not looking in his direction, but Waya was gawking, Isumi was holding a perfect poker-face, and Ochi was staring slack-jawed in open revulsion.

"Did you see what happened?"

"Yeah, but no clue what was that about?"

"Is it a kind of…confession or something?"

"Dunno….oh come on. Never mind!"

###

Hikaru silently sat back on the couch again, lost in thoughts. Of course he and Akira have been fighting and yelling and throwing things at the Go salon far more often than needed. But this fight was….different. It was not one of those childish, meaningless fights. Could it be…Akira was jealous with Nase? Akira sounded like he thought Hikaru left him for Nase or something. Now if Akira had done the same to him, would he feel hurt like Akira did? Of course he would, Hikaru thought, he and Akira were rivals, no one could replace one's position to the other. But was that all? Could rivalry make someone feel so sad, so desperate like when he looked at Akira despaired, almost teary eyes? Oh yes, those eyes. Damm you, Akira Touya, you and your eyes!

###

Credits to: Leitbur (The never-ending road) and Cheiromancer (on archiveofourown dot org)