a/n: Warning: major angst. I'm sorry about this, but the situation is too serious to resolve itself prettily. I promise the next episode won't be this rough. In any case, this is the most realistic take I could think of for a cliche I've seen many times in this fandom.
Part 8. Games and Games
"You can't retire." Her voice was quiet, but firm, and she ran a gentle hand through his hair.
"But, you--"
"Shh..." and she pressed her lips to his in a familiar kiss of silence. Drawing away, she spoke again. "I know what go is to you."
---
"You can't retire." This time, Touya seemed to be trying for a rational approach. His voice was considerably calmer than the last six times they'd had the discussion between Portland and Narita. Perhaps it was his surroundings. This was a popular go salon, after all, and it wouldn't do to have the savy customers spreading a rumor that might lend inevitability to Shindou's decision.
"Will you shut up and nigiri already?" Shindou all but snarled. He was staring at the board with an intensity Touya had not seen since the Kisei match. It would have been frightening to any lesser player. Touya felt his breath catch with excitement. Hands and stones flickered across the board. Go ke's were handed over in silence and battle was joined in an icy click of slate on wood.
---
"I love you." They'd said it so many times. The phrase had almost lost its meaning, but the hitch of tears just behind her eyes sent him running behind the protective spell of the words. Green eyes sought brown in the dimly lit room. "I love you." His arms squeezed tightly around her, pulling her whole body against him on the bed. Her suit jacket rumpled in his embrace, but neither of them noticed.
----
Today Shindou's play was desperate and vicious. The moves did not come quickly, but the pauses were filled with an almost palpable aura of calculation. A thousand gambits flashed behind his eyes in the minutes between each choice. Touya could almost see his rival's urgency as the cautious and the suicidal were thrown aside, until only the dangerous and the flawless remained. This was not a match of practice or fun. There was nothing of friendship or old vows on the board. In the purest sense, it was life or death.
Touya had thought that they would talk. He'd hoped for another chance to argue, and perhaps persuade, but the game flowed like a hurricane and he knew that this was, in the end, too important a conversation to shield with words. Today, he faced his rival. Today, the passion and the power of twenty years coalesced like the judgement of God, and they fought as men possessed.
Sweat sharpened the spikes of Shindou's hair. The nails of Touya's left hand drew bloody marks in his palm. Around them, the patrons of the go salon grew quiet, and began to watch, murmuring in whispers of excitement and concern. None of it mattered. The game was everything, and the game held them like a lover – like the last temptation of hell. There was no escaping. There was no distracting. There was only black and white: triumph and devastation.
---
"But go is your life." He felt the fast-cooling streaks of her tears as they dripped down his neck. "I know you, Hikaru-chan."
"I could find another life. For you, I cou--"
"And come to resent me? When nothing else, no other job could feed your soul the way the game does?" She shook her head against his shoulder. "I love you too much to let that happen."
---
It was becoming a war of attrition; every square contested, every point engaged. The challenge was in its third hour, but neither player had so much as sipped his tea. The rush of adrenaline had long since left them both, yet still they fought. Around them, the salon was closing. Only the die-hard spectators remained, and Ishikawa-san was sure to politely escort them out soon. Old men, who had witnessed hundreds of matches, shook their heads at the dogged stamina of youngsters. Young enthusiasts who'd only seen a handful of their idol's battles lingered in hopes of a conclusion before the close.
Behind her desk, Ishikawa herself worried for the two young men who had come to mean so much to her through the years. She had seen their first meeting. She had watched them become rivals, then friends. In the decades she'd tended the go salon, the amateurs had become professionals, and the boys had become men in a daunting series of games and arguments. In all that time, she had never seen anything like this.
Sitting across from one another, they had never looked so similar. Their postures were equally weary, their expressions equally pained. Even so, even now, the grim determination of their eyes never wavered.
---
"I don't have to be a professional to play," his words were hot and desperate in her hair. "I've always liked net go, and I know Waya and Isumi and Nase would all still play me."
"And Touya," she whispered. He laughed slightly, in the choking way of a drowned man watching children play in a fountain.
"He's my rival. We'll play until we die." For a moment, the thought of something so utterly constant comforted him. The relaxation of his shoulders was infinitesimal, but Akari felt it. She clutched him more tightly in the terrifying certainty that she had made the right choice.
"I know," and suddenly, so did he. He crushed her to him, as if to deny her breath to continue. But inevitably, she did. "You'll have each other and you'll have your game and maybe one day, you'll even have the hand of God... but you can't have me." Sobbing overwhelmed her words, belying their strength and finality.
---
"I'm sorry, but I have to close... Thank you please come again... Of course I'll ask Touya-sensei if he would give you a kifu of the match... Good night." Ishikawa escorted the last of the customers from the salon. She had cleaned up the bulk of the tables while waiting, but a few things were left to be tidied. A quick canvassing saw to the last of the ash trays, and she gathered the trash bags together behind the desk. She heard the occasional click of yet another play as she tallied the register and placed the money in the safe.
When at last there was no more left to do, she turned to the owner and his rival. They were surely in the endgame by now, and yet something stayed her from interrupting. Touya knew to lock up, and something in these final hands seemed to demand privacy. Quietly, the woman settled her coat on her shoulders, and exchanged her work shoes for her outdoor ones. "Good night, Touya-sensei, Shindou-san." She said the words to herself, then bowed and left them to their fate.
---
"But why?" He didn't really have to ask. He knew all of the reasons. The question was a reflex, instinctive; a plea for the chance to argue, or maybe for just a little bit more time. "Don't you..." She pulled away, then. Her eyes were swimming, her skin blotchy. The cool, small hands that had folded his shirts, picked up his empty soda cans, held his children, now reached up to hold his face between them.
"Because I can't have you," she said, in words featherlight that hammered with the force of a hundred freight trains. "I can't compete."
---
"Thank you for the game." Shindou said at last.
"Thank you for the game." His rival answered. Then he watched as his friend's head drooped over the goban, and listened to the tiny, choking sobs. Touya's eyes widened in shock, and yet, some part of him felt a certain inevitability to the man's behaviour. There had never been such a loss, or such a game, and the gut-wrenching feeling of termination clutched them both. Even so, Shindou's pain transcended the agonizingly beautiful carnage of the board.
Touya wanted to ask about the retirement. He wanted to beg for an answer, knowing that only the truth could penetrate this moment. His heart pounded with a need to know whether anyone, even so unpredictable a man as his rival, could walk away from a game like that, but in the end, a greater need intruded. "Are you okay, Hikaru-san?" was all he asked.
---
"You'll be late for your meeting with Touya." She sat up, smoothing the grey wool of her skirt. Deft fingers straightened her hair, then she rose and walked to the bedroom mirror to dab at her eyes and compose her face.
"I don't care about him, dammit! He can wait!" Hikaru sat on the edge of the bed, watching her as he had watched her on so many mornings. Akari turned around, her make-up artfully restored and a false, but pleasant smile shone on her face.
"I want you to go, Hikaru-chan." She was telling the truth. Her eyes were sad, but held no malice – only love and despairing resignation. He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to be angry. Instead he stood, took her in his arms and kissed her with all the yearning he could put into the gesture. When at last he pulled away, she was breathless, but her expression had not changed.
"Will you be here when I get back?" he asked, bleakly.
"I don't know."
---
In the darkness of the empty go salon, Akira moved his chair beside his rival's. He sat, then gently placed a hand on Hikaru's shoulder. He gave it the slightest of squeezes before letting go. Together, they stared at the empty battlefield.
"I couldn't see the next move," Hikaru whispered. "I don't know what to do."
"Whatever move you make, I will always answer," his rival replied.