Title: Hako no omoide.

Pairing: ogata + akira, akira + hikaru
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Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go doesn't belong to Yui, but the haiku does.

Ano toki wa
Natsukashii da yo
Kieru uta.

Hako no omoide. (Box of memories.)
by miyamoto yui

As with every morning since he was little, Touya Akira rose from his bed, did his daily morning rituals and headed down to play Go with his father while his mother prepared breakfast. And everyday, he would try his best to make his handicap go down while trying to make his father proud of him.

He loved Go to the point that there was nothing else in his head. He looked at kifu and he watched his father's study sessions with so much interest, sometimes he didn't notice that his head was poking through the round of students. His hair almost brushed the board, but his wide eyes would look at the board as if it was a living, breathing being.

It was his best friend, after all.

Morning until night and night until morning, whether he was in a dream or awake, he thought about nothing but Go. He breathed Go. It was what made him happy.
And so, the days always passed so quickly when he went through his homework and practiced it in his home.

His mother patted him on the head while wiping his mouth whenever he had an occasional crumb on his mouth, but she was worried that he was always so silent. He didn't have any other friends and his playmates were people multiple times his age. They all played the same game: Go.

But his eyes expressed so much excitement and emotion in whatever he did, no matter how quiet he was...

His eyes were always so beautiful and bright.
That was the only thing that eased her worries over him.

One day, on his seventh birthday, his father played the ritual Go game in the morning. Akira, who was so focused on making his moves, almost forgot that it was his birthday. That was, until his father gave him a notebook at the end of the game.

Strange as it may have seemed, Akira didn't really care for toys or anything of that sort. He bowed to his father, but then he hugged him. "Thank you!" he brightly said as he took it and looked at it. With wide eyes, he looked at his father and asked, "But what do I do with this?"
"Write whatever you want." His father then touched his chin. He patted Akira's head and said, "Maybe all the things that make you happy. Your mother said if you wanted to draw, maybe you could do that too."
Akira rushed over to his mom and thanked her too with a hug. He wasn't one to really touch anyone, but there were rare occasions that he did.

At the study session, at seven years old, he tried his best to look at the game before him. In fact, he made his own kifu. At first, he wanted to make this his Go record book. If he could learn to become better through drawing it all out for himself, even though he should have learned to memorize the whole game in his head already.

Someone was watching him long after people were drinking tea in another corner of the room. Akira's hair was touching the board again and it made him smirk.
"You're too close to the board," someone whispered next to him.
Completely lost in thought, Akira was a little startled.
"Oh. I did it again," Akira replied with an embarrassed look on his face.
He glanced at Ogata-sensei sitting next to him and laughing a little. "Your hair has grown long, hasn't it?"
Akira nodded his head.
"What's that, Akira-kun?" he asked while pointing at the drawing.

Ogata looked down at Akira and at those bright eyes of his. He never understood what drew him to this child, but maybe it was because Akira loved Go more than anything else. That was a great thing, but at his age? Maybe he should have relaxed once in a while, but the kid never seemed to run out of energy while looking eagerly and learning as quickly as he could.

"It's father's and mother's present to me," Akira said with a smile on his face. He was beaming so much it seemed a little unreal.
Ogata just nodded his head. "Ah."

It was indeed a special day if Akira was smiling happily like that. He was always unfeeling to everything around him except when it came to Go and his parents. That kind of disturbed him.

It reminded him of himself.

"What are you going to do with it?" Ogata whispered to him as he glanced at Akira's childish sketches. He could hold a Go chip between his fingers, but his drawing skills had yet to develop.
"Father said that I should write stuff in it. Happy stuff is what Mother said." For a moment, the flicker of light in his eyes became a bit dim. Akira, who was quite mature for his age, was growing up too quickly. His mind couldn't handle what his heart wanted to understand.
"And what makes you happy?"
"Go. Mother and Father," Akira answered readily as he wrote it down in his notebook.

He wrote: Go. Mother. Father.
He wondered why there was nothing else and no other names, but it was no matter...

There was nothing else that Akira could think of. He glanced up at Ogata.

Though he didn't say anything, Ogata kind of knew the answer he was seeking, but he didn't have to ask.
He was already in the process of doing it.
After all, he was the one who suggested the notebook to his parents when they were talking about it...

With his father's and mother's permission, Ogata took Akira to the local park.
When they got there, Ogata sat on a bench. Akira climbed up and sat down next to him. Folding his hands in his lap, he looked at the playground before him.
It was near sunset and he was bundled, but he stared at the empty playground. Not trying to be rude, he turned his head to Ogata and asked, "What are we going to do here?"
"Go and play."
Thinking it was a bit too childish for his taste, he shook his head. "I don't want to."
Ogata kept his eyes at him and said, "Fine. If you don't, then I will."
He then got up and headed for the swings.
"You're not going to play there. You're not a kid anymore," Akira said, surprised that his sensei was heading over the swings anyway.

Right in front of him, Ogata calmly got on the swing and began to swing.
He hoped for a moment that anyone who knew him wouldn't come or else he wouldn't be able to live it down. But it was for Akira.
That was enough, wasn't it?

"Come and swing next to me, Akira-kun!" he shouted as he swung higher and higher.
Akira hesitated.
"Try for yourself! It's really fun!"
With that, quietly and slowly he got up and walked over to the swing. Then, he began to swing back and forth by himself.
"This feels weird. I haven't done this for a long time."

He felt strange, but it was still a different type of weirdness. It was the kind that made you feel all ticklish inside when you got up higher and higher.
Somehow, it reminded him about how he felt when he played Go.

"I can touch the sky," he thought as the sun set before him.
"I told you it was fun," Ogata said as he began to slow down to a halt.

He continued to watch Akira as Akira's silence confirmed that he was thinking really hard, but by the smile on his face, he was enjoying it.

They played on everything that day and that day, Akira had something to write.
"Today, Mother and Father gave you to me. I made a picture of a game I liked, but I had more fun playing with Ogata-sensei at the park..."

Every year after that, Ogata would have something planned on his birthday. It was the only day of the year he had a good excuse to spend time with Akira: The one with the wide, beautiful eyes.
Those eyes were so full of life and they were so sure of what they wanted to do. He wondered if it was confidence or anything of that sort, but Akira wasn't that type of person. He was so humble, you would have never thought he equaled pro Go players by the time he was nine.

He was just getting stronger and stronger as the days went by...
Yet, he was also going farther and farther away from him.

At first, it was an attempt to get him out of the house, but gradually, this too became a tradition. Through it, Akira talked a little bit more. Sure, he would go out to the Go Salon and meet the group there along with Ichikawa-san, but as always, he never really talked to anyone his age.
Even Ogata knew that he couldn't replace that, as best as he tried to overcome it.

And when Shindou Hikaru came into the picture, he knew he had lost Akira. At first he thought Akira was just shocked about finding a rival, but it began to dawn on him that it was because he now had a playmate. They were in a world that no one else could touch.
Akira's eyes became more focused than ever and that bright innocence began to wane. It was slowly melting like a flame and its candle. Akira became confident, but it was without him.

Akira's mouth would open and he would say many things to Ogata though. They were like siblings, after all, and they knew each other's mannerisms. He would tell of a story that he had learned in class or about the picture he was doing. Then, it turned into English pronunciation problems as well as another story he liked. But as the years passed, Akira's expressions were becoming more and more serious.
Ogata wondered where Akira was going to inside of himself, even though Akira himself didn't realize it.
Where did the bright, innocent Akira go in the midst of growing up? Had he already grown up?

Ah, but he had expected this from the beginning. The only thing he could do was guide him and watch.
He knew that from the very beginning.

At fifteen, Ogata brought him to a café and they talked over coffee specialty drinks.
"There was this story about a boy who was an idol, but he played the violin too. It was strange because he practiced the violin everyday and he loved it. But then, he found himself rising and rising, but he was gradually becoming more and more alone."
He looked down at his lap. He was a complete loss as to what to say next.
"Where did you read this?" Ogata asked as he looked out the window as the cars passed by.
"It was a manga that Shindou was flipping through at the bookstore, but he put it down. I'm the one who picked it up."

Ah yes, Shindou...
Ever since Akira had met him, he was going from one extreme to another. While saying he didn't care about him rising, he was always looking back to see where he was.

"Why do you like it, Akira-kun?" Ogata looked at him, while leaning his chin on his folded hands. His arms firmly stuck to the table between them.
"I...I don't know." He looked at Ogata and gave a sheepish laugh. "I guess it reminds me of myself, but...yet not so."
"Why is that?"

He already knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Akira's own lips. He wanted him to hear it for himself. Even if it did hurt.
It was a finality.

"Shindou Hikaru. He won't ever leave me alone."

And with that, Akira's contemplative look changed into a smiling one. He drank more of his cappuccino.
"There it is..." Ogata thought to himself with a bit of surprise surfacing on his calm face. "That's where you've been all these years."
But at the same time, it hurt him even more. Even though he was the one that brought him where he needed to go, he didn't want to give him away.

He didn't want to give Akira to anyone else.

But Akira's heart was always distant like that. You never knew what was in it.
It was like his notebook. No one could ever read it, and he wondered what was in it.

Was he there at all?

When Akira turned eighteen, Ogata invited him to come back to the park. They sat on the same bench they had many years ago, but this time, there were stars above them instead of a setting sun.
It was colder than ever, but he had to bring Akira back here.
"Remember when I brought you here?" Ogata gave a bittersweet smile as he took out his box of cigarettes.
"Yeah, you went on the swings." This made Akira chuckle.
Ogata thought it was adorable, but he cleared his throat. He lit his cigarette. "Oh, is that all you remember?"
"I had lots of fun on that day," Akira said, trying to hold the embarrassment it gave him.

Was he being too obvious that he had a crush on him? On that day, he thought he found a big brother, but over the years, he began to like Ogata more and more. He was just really bad at showing his feelings that they didn't come through at all. Plus, there were so many complications with their ages and that they were both male that he kept quiet even more...

"Here's your birthday present," Ogata said nonchalantly as he gave him the box that he had brought with him.
"Thank you," Akira said with a questioned expression on his face while taking the box from him.

It was a little heavy.
When Akira put it on his lap and opened it. It was a box of many things, to say the least. But as Ogata looked at his profile, Akira began to recognize what the objects were...

At that moment, Ogata looked away as he began to light another cigarette.
Was he saying too much? He knew it was too late, but he wanted Akira to know at least this much.

"These were all the things I had given you..." Akira took them out one by one as he kept on glancing with confusion at Ogata. He took out a picture that he had done during elementary school, a mug for his birthday, and many, many other things.
"Yes, they are."

Ogata's heart began to cringe even though he didn't show it in the slightest bit. This feeling became more and more intense the more Akira rummaged through this box of time.

"But..." Akira looked at Ogata with a more confused expression. "...why?"
"Tell me what are all these things."
"I gave them to you over the years."
Silence.
Ogata got up as he dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his shoe. Looking straight at Akira, he told him, "I kept them all. I didn't write a notebook or anything, Akira-kun. I didn't need to."

He couldn't beat Hikaru Shindou no matter how hard he tried...

Shindou reached a part of Akira that he never could.
Why did life have to be this way?

"Ogata-sensei..."
Embarrassed a little, Ogata turned his eyes away. "I always wondered what you wrote in that notebook of yours, if ever at all. But it is no matter because it isn't my business. I just wanted you to experience life, Akira. You kept on looking, but never doing anything with yourself."

As he said this to him, he thought to himself:
"Those eyes...

I loved those eyes when you played Go...

But they were only meant for Shindou-kun.
I would never be able to admit that."

"I want you to enjoy life," he said to him. "Before you forget what everything else meant.
"You learned so young to love something so passionately, but with that love, it was consuming every aspect of your life. It wasn't going to be enough to support you if you didn't know what else was out there."

"Thank you..." Akira said as he began to cry on the box of things in front of him. His hair was blocking his face. "But you know what, Ogata-sensei?"
"Yes?"
"I always wondered why you went to all that trouble to do anything for me. I never found the answer."

Yes, his heart would be the same.
It was always that innocent since the first time he had fallen on the ground and Ogata picked him up while dusting off his shirt.
Ogata just smiled and kissed his forehead. Akira closed his eyes as he felt those warm lips touch his head.

Then Ogata turned away, not wanting to say what was obvious from the start.
But Akira didn't let him go so easily. He tugged on his sleeve. While pulling on his collar, he kissed him on the lips.
"A...Akira?" he thought to himself as his eyes became wide with shock while looking at the closed ones of Akira, whose eyes flickered with that light he fell so in love with.

Maybe it was wrong to fall in love with someone that was much older than you or was the same gender, but why did that have to matter in this world?
He kissed him with all the memories and love he had accumulated over the years...
With all the hopes that no one ever saw except Ogata...

The cold wind blew as Ogata kissed him back.
"I used to feel the same way..." Akira whispered to Ogata's ear when he finished. "...but I thought it was impossible too."
Akira took a step away from him. "You were rising without me, Ogata-sensei. And I thought you weren't waiting at all because of the distance between us."
With a sad smile, he said, "Because I thought you would never like me the way I liked you, I thought you weren't waiting for me at all so I made a decision to just move forward without you."

"We're the same that way, aren't we?" Ogata said as he looked at Akira. "Thinking too much."
With that Akira handed him back the small box and smiled back confidently. "Thank you very much."

Letting go, Ogata knew that this would be the last time he could be that close to Akira again. He held the box in his hand.
Akira bowed down. "Thank you for everything."

Then, they both parted, not looking back at one another.

Akira went back home to his apartment. Hikaru was there before him.
"Akira!" he said as he scolded him, "You were late!"
"I had to talk to Ogata-sensei."
Hikaru calmed down. "Oh."

Then, Hikaru shrugged his shoulders and turned around while pulling on his sleeve saying, "I have to give you your present!"
But Akira was still a little lost about what to do with himself.

"Yes...experience more..." he thought to himself.
His thoughts became deeper as he looked at Hikaru before him.

"I fell for this person because he never made me feel like it was impossible.
Rising and rising to the top,
I was never alone.

Never left behind.

There was something I found that I wanted to protect more than Go...
More than myself..."

Suddenly Akira smiled as he took a hold of Hikaru's wrist, and with his other hand, he gently caught Hikaru's cheek to turn towards him. Pulling him closer to him so quickly, he kissed him.

Their kisses were different, but Hikaru did more than try to catch up to him. He was pushing him onward with everything he did.
Life was more interesting ever since he came.

But even a simple kiss. That's all he needed from Hikaru.
It was always a present to him. A sign of his reassurance.
Something given with all of his heart.

It never had to be written in that notebook of his because he remembered them all too well...

For Hikaru brought out something in him that he tried to repress for so long. He was able to relax and become the child that he always wanted to be.
Even if he was already eighteen.

Hikaru challenged everything he ever thought he was and made him better each day.
That's why he couldn't accept or love anyone else.

These kisses had to be only from Hikaru...

Hikaru looked at him and blushed. "What was that for?"
"I took my birthday present early."
Smirking, he shook his head as he pulled on Akira's sleeve with an embarrassed, crimson face. "You're always so weird, Akira. It's not like I don't always kiss you, you know."
"I know..." Akira trailed off, letting Hikaru lead him.

Before getting to the kitchen, Akira gave him a peck on the neck.
Hikaru just shook his head and smirked as he gave him a box.

"I don't know if you'll really like it, but I got it for you anyway." Hikaru gave him a skeptical look.
When he opened it, it was a blue shirt that said on the back, it said with white letters, "The world isn't impossible to conquer. Just give me time."
Smiling, he pounced on him. "You always think of me, you idiot..."

Ogata gave him a past,
But Hikaru was giving him a future to look forward to.

Pinned on the floor, Hikaru just stared up at him. Akira kept on smiling as he looked at those determined eyes before him and thought to himself,

"That's why I love you so much.
You never gave up on me.

I will return that to you a million fold, Hikaru.

Only you would fight the impossible to get to me.
Only for you would I do anything for."

Owari.

Author's notes: I thought for two whole days about what I was going to do. And as well planned out as I had it in my head, * smile * I didn't do it at all. I was going to save it for 'Inside and Out' instead. And figuring there'd be Hikaru and Aki, I suddenly got this idea * sweatdrop * about writing about Ogata + Akira. ^^v I don't know why and I don't know how. This is what resulted from messed up thoughts.
But in the end, it turned back to Hikaru and Aki. ^_^ It was even more intense than the scene before it.

Happy Birthday Akira-sama!

Translation of haiku:

Those days,
I miss them so much.
The fading melody.

12/14/2003