Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own Hikaru no Go.
=Delicious inspiration. I loved this show.=
My Obsession
Warm breaths trickle down my neck. A hand rests on my hip without restriction, the long fingers barely touching my skin, and a knee is pressed against the back of my own. One finger moves slightly; fingers soft and pale, yet rough and worn from a lifetime of caressing Go stones.
At the mere thought of a caress, my body warms.
When I was twelve years old, I had never once touched a Go stone. As Sai spoke to me, I would stop and survey the board to find exactly where the coordinates he gave me corresponded to. There I would--in hindsight, like a small child--place a stone. Not until some time later would I have any idea how much of an effect a single stone placed on a board could have; I was merely a puppet.
Chasing the impossible dream was never my forte until I met him. I learned Go, I began to try to understand. Chasing after him became my impossible dream, became my obsession.
Just as I became his.
We were merely rivals through our Go: we absorbed ourselves in it, and fought and fought until at last we had a real match, me, alone, against him.
Me, alone. It made my heart ache.
After that match, our first real game, my obsession blossomed. My heart pounded towards the thought of meeting him every week at his father's Go salon, and at times, I would even fidget and squirm in mere anticipation of one of our great battles at the goban. Though every match ended in an uproarious fight of wills that extended far beyond our Go, every week I came back and every week he was there waiting for me.
A year later, Touya was in the running for the Honinbou league. Old man Kuwabara was finally beginning to crumble and the whole world of Go knew that it would be his last year as Kuwabara Honinbou. Still, and on into eternity, Touya Akira was one step ahead of me.
We met at the Go salon on Sunday. There was a tension in the air, and I could sense Touya was mentally preparing himself for the final battles of the challenge. His sharp jaw was set firmly and his green-blue eyes were focused with burn-like intensity on the board, with some of his trimmed, dark olive hair trickling over his ears and eyebrows. I had arrived in silence, and we did nigiri in silence, beginning what appeared to be a somewhat timid game.
I moved; Touya dodged and cornered; Touya moved; I attacked. And so it went--a game of cat and mouse--until I could bear it no longer and slammed one hand down on the table, causing every patron at the Go salon to jump out of their seats. I let my fist rest there, shivering slightly, and Touya kept his head down and eyes focused on the goban.
"I won't play you," I ground out. "I won't play you like this. Good bye." I stood and yanked my bag off the chair, slung it over my shoulder, and moved to stalk away. If he was not up to playing me, he should never have come.
I was halted by a hand gripping my sleeve. At first, I willed myself, 'Don't turn around. Keep walking.' But the hand refused to release me. Touya's voice was strained and had a painfully grainy tone: "Sit down, Shindou." My body refused to obey me and followed his orders instead. I sat back in my seat.
Touya Akira is a person of incredible power, both on and off the goban. He is in control, he is the master of himself and his Go. But until that day, he had always been a stranger, someone who I would never know as any more than my rival in Go and a high-and-mighty, over-indulged prodigy. He raised his sharp eyes and with one look, I was paralyzed.
Gaze still focused on me with a burning intensity, Touya cleared the board and, ignoring nigiri, gave me the go ke of white stones. Without a pause he opened his own ke and, with practiced agility, set a black stone on the upper right hoshi. It was at that moment that I first wondered why I met my rival once a week, every week, to discuss Go, reveal my weaknesses, fight, and instantly forgive this unsocial, beautiful, prodigal boy.
At that time, I was almost sixteen.
Any moment we weren't placing a stone, our gazes were locked in undeclared, heated battle. Not knowing when, how, or why, something had changed; whether it was gradual or sudden, I will never know. He was my friend, my goal, my rival and my obsession. My attacks were forward yet conniving, while his were goading yet aggressive. We meshed and melded and circled like lions or wolves, and I knew then what he was trying to tell me.
We had avoided our real selves, backing away and dodging, for almost four years. He was on the verge of his first title, and there was no more time for fun and games. He was attacking.
When the breathing on my neck becomes more full, less shallow, I know he is awake. The fingers tighten on my hip and draw themselves up along my bare chest, stopping briefly to flick my nipple, and at last caress my collar. He lets out a sigh into my neck and I can no longer resist.
I grasp his hand tightly in my own and roll over only to find myself gazing into sharp eyes. Before I can blink his mouth finds my own and the ravage begins, tongues entwining and lips bruising. As spontaneously as it began it escalates; his hands seek, find, tantalize, and I cannot restrain my moan.
Go is my passion.
But Touya Akira is my obsession.
Our first kiss was sloppy and inexperienced.
Shindou had decided that it was time I did something that real teenagers do. We met at seven one evening at karaoke, dressed as casually as possible and trying to keep everything Go-related from our minds. I think we had decided, by then, that we were friends.
It had always irritated me how he never seemed capable of being serious about anything, sometimes not even about his Go. He would become distracted during a game and make a silly move, then act as if it were nothing important and proceed to get angry at me when I tried to make him realize it wasn't as trivial as he thought. But that night, watching him belt out lyrics without a single correct note, I couldn't help but laugh and smile.
It was something I rarely did.
My life had been an existence of gobans and stones for as long as I could remember. Nothing else was important, nothing else mattered, in a house where Go was everything. I was the prodigy that would succeed my father and was destined for the pro world, for titles, maybe even for the Hand of God. But I was uninspired; I had lived the way I had for so long, that advancement was at most, meaningless. I was better than any amateur, I was content while bored with my lot.
And then I met Shindou Hikaru. To this day, I will never understand what he is; the greatest Go player ever, or a boy with a talent for amazing flukes? I know there is something inside of him, some other part of him that only twice I have seen. It is the side that reminds me so much of Sai.
So it was that after two hours of humiliating ourselves on a stage with only the other watching that we left, laughing the whole way to my lonely house like drunks. My father had left with my mother for China in an independent competition, and I would be by myself in the large, old-fashioned place for at least three days.
Our kiss was merely our first mutual agreement; it was an acknowledgment of feelings that had turned from rivals, to friends, to something much more. We had sat down in my room, facing each other across the goban, and played. As we entered the middle of the game, his green eyes changed, his dyed hair flaring out and seeming to come alive; and I jumped.
He had surrounded me on the top right, absorbing the territory there with a single move. I stopped, my stone dropping into my go ke, and cleared my throat as I observed the thought so reminiscent of the game against my illusive internet opponent. I raised my eyes to meet his, and he only smiled.
My mouth went dry. Every so often, I would stop and wonder: why have we chased one another for so long? It was more than rivalry and more than friendship; it was something that had drawn us together since we met all those years ago at my father's Go salon. It was more than the stones I held in my hands and even more than my goal of reaching the Hand of God.
We would reach it together.
My hand knocked the stones off the board when I took his fingers in my own. Somehow, it had all boiled down to that one moment, and there was no going back for either of us. I had denied myself for far too long, become too engrossed in my Go to notice that my growing attachment to Shindou Hikaru wasn't about Go at all.
He was my obsession. And his lips were the most wonderful things I had ever felt.
Hikaru moans as I tease all of him, seeking out the places that make him squirm and assaulting his wonderful, warm, soft mouth. I grip his hip with one hand and trace his throat with the other, drawing my kisses down from his lips to his neck and collar. Now, he is more than my obsession.
We are nineteen. I hold two titles, he holds one. We have taken the Go world by storm. The new generation has flooded in and now, Touya Meijin, Shindou Ouza, Ogata Jyudan and Kurata Gosei eat lunch together once every two weeks.
But Shindou Hikaru is my obsession.