a/n: A lot of stories seem to have Shindou and Touya sleeping together... So I guess it's a cliche.
Part 20. Perchance to Dream
"No." Shindou's tone was so commanding that Touya actually hesitated in releasing the stone he'd been about to place. Then he realized his rival was in fact directing the order over his shoulder.
"But Ka-san said I could" Kinume's voice was pleading, but her father overrode her.
"She didn't see you wearing that. Go change, before I change my mind about letting you go at all." Curious, Touya turned to see just what it was the younger Shindou was wearing, and was surprised to discover a short black dress with spaghetti straps. It was perhaps a little more revealing than her usual uniform of chess-themed t-shirts and jeans, but it was tasteful and attractive.
"But I want to look nice tonight. Tonight is really important." She was still in pleading mode, but if Touya was any judge of Shindou psychology, the yelling would probably start soon. She noticed him watching and dragged him in. "You think I look nice, don't you Touya-san?" She smiled demurely and essayed a little turn, even as her eyes betrayed her full knowledge of his reluctance to get involved.
"Your father is undoubtedly a better judge of female fashions," he evaded. Parenting, he thought, was more of a two player game.
"And your father says to change, before he goes back and picks something for you." The elder Shindou had clearly settled on being unreasonable. Touya sighed. This was going to end badly. He decided not to finish placing the stones of this game until after the verbal sparring had finished.
"I'm not a CHILD!" That was certainly part of the problem.
"You are still my daughter." Shindou stood and began to stalk toward her.
"If we were living in the Edo period, I'd be an adult already!" Touya reflected that the quarter acre lot upon which Akari's home stood was probably just enough to keep the neighbors from complaining.
"And I'd have married you off to someone of my choosing and you'd be doing laundry and serving tea and not disrespecting your FATHER!" If Kinume had been taller, they'd have been nose to nose. As it was, she had to look up to harden her eyes and reply.
"Then maybe I should just get married and save you the trouble," she hissed. The moment the sentence hit the air, all three of them knew she'd gone too far. Hikaru took a breath for some reply he would undoubtedly regret, but Touya beat him to it with a word:
"Shindou." Only Touya Akira could manage to fit that amount of warning, disapproval, and genteel disappointment into a single name, and both father and daughter felt the rebuke. Kinume turned and stormed back to her room. Hikaru stared in her direction for one more minute before returning to the goban on the dining room table. He sat with a huff, which Touya ignored, and watched as his rival continued laying out the interesting game he'd witnessed in Korea. "I think you'll agree this is worthy of noting in the book," Touya commented, pointing to an unusual shape in the lower center. "It's certainly the turning point of this game, despite being a very awkward location for such a pitched battle. I had thought to include it in the chapter on exceptions, unless you think it would be more applicable in the one on" he noticed his long time opponent's face was still glaring at the hallway leading back to the bedrooms, "tea ceremonies."
"Yeah, that would work," replied the elder Shindou, completely missing the deliberate incongruity. Touya considered being exasperated with the man, but realized he should have expected this. Shindou was not the most literarily inclined of people to begin with – extensive knowledge of the subject notwithstanding – and with Kinume about to leave for a formal event at the Russian embassy, with only her rival to keep an eye on her, Hikaru's attention could not have been any further removed.
"If you're that worried about her going to this, you shouldn't have given her permission in the first place." Touya began clearing the stones from the board, and the sound dragged his rival's attention back to him.
"Hey, I'm not done looking at that!" Shindou tried to sound annoyed, but at Touya's raised eyebrow, he abandoned the pretense and leaned back in his chair. "Akari said she could, so there wasn't much I could do. Anyway, they're just going to play an exhibition match and a few multi-player games, so I guess it should be okay..." He didn't really sound convinced.
Touya set a pair of black stones on the grid in silent offer of the only sort of stress relief he knew how to give. Shindou accepted, leaning across to grab a handful from the white go ke at Touya's elbow. Stones were counted, then exchanged and they began a round of speed go. The rapid click of forays and responses had its usual effect. Shindou clearly stopped listening for sounds of his daughter getting ready, and both players began to fall into the excitement of the game. Then the doorbell chimed.
Shindou didn't seem to hear it, but when Touya witheld his next move, he looked up. At Touya's nod to the entryway, Shindou paused. The doorbell chimed again, a muffled "Will somebody get that!" sounded from the younger Shindou's room, and her father stood with renewed tension, walking to the foyer like a Christian to the tigers of Rome.
His guest did not appear to be in any better shape. The young man's tuxedo hung elegantly on his rather thin frame. His black hair was neatly combed and the point of handkerchief in his breast pocket was straight, but his hands fisted nervously at his sides.
"Marko-san, Touya Akira-san," Shindou introduced him, apparently unaware of the number of times they had already met. "Touya, Piotr Markovich, K-chan's rival." The foreigner offered a hand in the custom of Europeans, only to reconsider and begin to withdraw it. Touya took pity on him and shook the hand, surprising his rival, before gesturing to another seat at the table.
"It's a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Markovich." He commented as they sat, noting that his easy politeness seemed to irritate Shindou. There was something satisfying in that. He ignored the goban in front of him, and continued studying the young man whose very existence had led Kinume to postpone taking the pro exams for two years running. "Kinume-san has been telling me of tonight's match for the past month." At this, the young man shot a pointedly curious look toward the hallway.
"She's not ready yet," her father answered. The foreigner nodded, then returned his attention to Touya.
"Shindou-san refused to play me at all for the past month. Apparently she thinks anticipation might add interest to this evening's event." A tiny smile threatened the young man's lips, only to be carefully hidden at the first sign of Shindou's frown. "I am afraid none of tonight's other guests will provide much of a," he paused, searching for the word, "thrill for her." Touya nodded and silence descended. The three men stared at the only distraction in the room, and Touya wondered whether resuming the game would be rude or a mercy.
"Do you play go, Marko-san?" Only his closest friends would have recognized the slight hope in Touya's question. Shindou gave him an odd look before turning to listen to the young man's answer.
"Ah, Shindou-san has attempted to teach me, but I am very poor at it." Silence threatened to reappear, but Shindou finally decided to be civil.
"She tells me you'll be competing in the final of the national championships next month. Congratulations." His tone wasn't as openly friendly as it could have been, but his guest didn't seem to notice. Shindou caught Touya's attention and glanced at the board. Touya obliged with a move and they continued the game as they waited.
"It's a pity your daughter is not Russian. I will miss her games in that tournament," Piotr smiled and glanced at the hallway as he said it, and Touya was suddenly glad that his own rival lived within a short train ride. "But I have been informed that I will be duly murdered tonight, so it may never come to that." His smile was wider and his eyes shone with it. Beside him, the elder Shindou had gone unspeakably pale. Touya turned just as Kinume spoke up.
"Your king is mine, Piotr. Your queen won't even come out tonight." Her smile was wickedly radiant, in an odd contrast to the formal gown she was wearing. The dark rose silk was of an almost parochial cut – long sleeved, and reaching the floor. Her throat was bare, but a white gossamer shawl covered her shoulders, and her long hair framed her face. "Well, Tou-san, is this better? I realize it's Ka-san's but I didn't have any other formals, so it will have to do." There was challenge in her eyes, but no real anger. Shindou didn't answer, choosing instead to stare. Piotr stood, in western fashion, and walked over to take her hand. He said something in Russian and Kinume blushed. Shindou found his voice.
"You look very nice," he conceded, interrupting the rivals' tete-a-tete. "Remember to leave your cell phone on, and call me if you need anything." He stood to walk the pair to the door, and Touya heard him issuing further instructions ("behave," "no drinking," and "you will be home by midnight,") then there was a faint squeak of hinges, a click of the latch, and the youngsters were gone.
Shindou returned by way of the kitchen, bringing a fresh bottle of juice for himself and tea for his rival. Sitting back in front of the goban, he stared for several moments before playing. They finished the game quickly, neither one speaking, then Shindou leaned back in his chair.
"You wanna go over the next chapter in the living room?" he asked, pointing to the stack of papers beside the board.
"Certainly," his rival agreed, and they took their drinks and papers and pens out to the living room where the two took up spaces at either end of the sofa and resumed the process of going over the go problems and examples that Touya had selected for his instruction manual.
At first, Shindou could not seem to concentrate. After the fourth time Touya caught him glancing at the door, he sighed in exasperation.
"Chess or go, Shindou?" The aspiring author engaged his friend in a game-quality glare. Caught off guard, Shindou grimaced somewhat sheepishly and ran a hand through his bangs.
"Go, of course." He grabbed a sheaf of manuscript. "As long as they concentrate on chess..." he muttered. Touya shook his head, and Shindou finally managed a faint smile at his own paternal paranoia. They settled in to work.
An hour passed, then two. The goban was dragged to a spot in front of the sofa, the better to discuss ideas and errors in the text diagrams. Red ink stained countless pages as Shindou moaned about the "boring-ness" of some passages and Touya discovered grammatical errors in need of correction. Small arguments broke out, escalated, and enforced breaks. Touya wondered whether the spirit of such discussions would interest or merely distract future students. In the end, he did copy down some of Shindou's better points to add to the text. The likelihood of Shindou himself ever writing a book was decidedly slim, but his rival had long since acknowledged the truth: his go could not exist without Hikaru's.
By eleven o'clock, they were both very tired of looking at printed pages and diagrams. Hikaru had slid down to sit beside the goban with his back resting against the foot of the sofa while Akira had reclined on the cushions. His head rested on a throw pillow just behind Hikaru's left shoulder, and he watched his friend clear away the most recent problem.
"It's late. I should go," he murmured, wondering wryly when he'd gotten too old to stay awake all night. Hikaru cringed slightly at the ticklish feeling of the words so close to his ear.
"You could at least stay until they get back," he argued. "Somebody should be here to protect that damn rival of hers if he's so much as one minute late." He laughed slightly as he said it, but Akira suspected the implied threat was not entirely idle. "We could play a game."
Akira glanced down at the board, following Hikaru's gesture. He yawned. "I'm too tired. I doubt I could stay upright."
"Then stay there, and I'll place your moves for you," the oddly mysterious man chuckled at some internal amusement. "Unless you're afraid of losing, just 'cause you're half asleep..." That was a glove to the face, and they both knew it. Akira admitted defeat and grunted his acceptance as his friend smiled and did a quick nigiri for them both. A glance at the board confirmed the younger man was black, and he yawned.
"Four, six," he began, wondering at his rival's odd look of contentment.
It was Touya who heard the soft click of the door almost three hours later. Kinume froze at the sight of him, but he gestured to her father's softly snoring head where it rested on the sofa cushion just right of his chin, and shook his head ever so slightly. She smiled.
"Did you have a good night?" She whispered softly, her sharp eyes taking a quick evaluation of the half-finished game on the living room floor, and the stacks of edited paper. Touya nodded carefully, so as not to disturb his sleeping friend and Kinume smirked silently. She walked gracefully down the hall toward her room, but returned a moment later bearing an armful of blankets.
One, she folded with tender care around her father. He murmured slightly, but did not wake, and she pressed a kiss to his forehead. Then she unfolded the second one.
"Would you mind staying?" she whispered, a gleam of amusement tempered with a distinctly Shindou sort of concern flickered in her eyes. "He'll be upset if he wakes up to a half-finished game and no opponent." For a long, strangely profound moment, they stared at one another, then Touya nodded one last time. Kinume smiled and draped his blanket carefully, avoiding her father's head. Touya noticed the little silver king on a chain around her neck, and the way her lipstick was smudged, but he decided he was too much asleep to remember such things in the morning.
"Good night, Touya-san." She bowed ever so slightly before turning out the lights and returning to her room.
Good night, Shindou...