A/N: Thanks very much to BlackWingedGabriel forbetaing this chapter for me! (I added the one or the other sentence just before posting, so if there mistakes they are all my fault alone!)
Thanks to all my reviewers as well!
to Rinny: (since I can't review-reply you) I can't say very much to your review, but I want to let you know I appreciate your views and thoughts very much! And I hope that you'll like how it goes on with Waya and Akira.
Enjoy reading!
Chapter 1. Part II
It was already three days into the Go seminary and Waya felt terrible as he had seldom felt before. It was not that playing Go with the European players was boring; some of them were actually quite good and displayed interesting styles. He talked to them whenever he got the opportunity and as much as his poor English allowed.
No, what was really disappointing was his lack of real, Japanese social contacts. Most of the pros were about the age of fifty, not that he minded, but they proved to be not very captivating conversationalists and they didn't seem to particularly care for his presence either. In fact, there were only two people about his age - and he liked one less than the other. The first was of course Touya, with whom he had to share his room.
The hotel was beautiful and so was their room. It was painted in warm apricot colours, with rather modern, though tasteful, paintings. In one corner there stood a soft couch with cosy, embroidered pillows and a small table was at the window, overlooking a tall, snow-laden tree and a huge garden that bordered at a wood. He could only guess how beautiful it would be in the summer, when everything was green and the flowers were blooming. But even the smooth snow-blanked view, imprinted with traces of birds and rabbits, and shoes, had its own beauty.
It would have been a warm, comforting atmosphere – if there hadn't been the wall of ice that separated his half of the room from Touya's.
They barely spoke a word to each other, save what was really necessary, but he was okay with that. He didn't want to talk to Touya. Every time a fleeting glance met the arrogant young man, he was disgusted. It wasn't that Touya was being openly unpleasant, but just the look on his face, the way he eyes passed over Waya as if he wasn't there… and he had no way to vent off his anger anywhere.
And Touya was boring. In the evenings after their duties of teaching Go they usually came back to their room and Touya almost immediately started to read some kind of book with a pencil in his hand, with which he would every now and then scribble down some notes.
If Shindou would have been here… almost every free minute his thoughts strayed to his loud-mouthed friend and to how much fun they could have had with each other on this trip.
If he had had the choice he would have spent his time outside their room, out of Touya's oppressing company, at a nice place in the hotel, it even had a bar and large, comfortable leisure areas, but the reason that he couldn't had to do with the second person his age on the trip, which he despised even more than Touya: Mashiba.
How the blonde, nasty person had acquired a place on the trip – maybe he had threatened someone or bought his way in – Waya didn't even want to know.
But the problem was that Mashiba seemed to have taken an intense liking to torturing him by following him around the corridors wherever he went, and he never ceased to murmur snide comments of how he had recently beat Ochi in the prelims of the Meijin tournament, of how Waya would be next to fall before his power, and some especially nasty remarks about Isumi and others of his friends. For Waya it became increasingly difficult not to punch his fist immediately into Mashiba's ugly face.
Right now, he fortunately had some time to breathe as he walked down a wide corridor to the breakfast room. On the wall of the corridor there hang beautiful photographs and pictures and the other side of the wall, opposite them, consisted almost entirely of glass doors, reaching from top to bottom. They allowed a formidable view over softly rolling hills, covered in trees and snow, and small villages between or partly on them. For some seconds he stood and enjoyed the gaze into the distance, something that was possible in Tokyo only if you stood on a very high building.
Morning mist still held in the small valleys between the hills but as the sun was already rising well over the hilltops it was soon going to disband, like his calm morning mood.
With a sigh he tore his gaze from the view and proceeded to the breakfast room where a very silent, uncomfortable meal awaited him. Roommates were sat at the same table.
He felt more isolated and disappointed every passing minute.
The whole day the idea hadn't left his mind and now he was standing in front of the dinner buffet, thinking. He couldn't believe he was that desperate. The knot of anger in his chest told him he was. Which made him feel even angrier, more desperate. Waya simply hated to be alone, to have no one to talk to, but he had his pride too. With his plate generously filled with European specialities, whose names he had never cared to learn, he undecidedly stood at the end of the buffet table and morosely stared into the air.
Would I rather spend the remaining days like the first three than to swallow my pride?
With lips pressed in self-reproach, he shook his head and made his decision.
"Hey Touya…" he said, after having eaten some bites of something meaty tasting.
Surprised, Akira looked up from his book of English Grammar he read while eating, being thus addressed by no one other than Waya. His room-mate didn't sound very friendly, but at least he didn't bear that aggressive tension around his mouth.
"Yes?" Cautiously Akira nodded, closing his book and laying it aside. Being with Waya made Akira uneasy, because somehow he couldn't keep himself from expecting Waya insulting him again, suddenly, and without reason. Needless to say, he hated being uneasy.
Waya had finally decided to talk to Touya but suddenly he didn't know really what to say. He started with something easy.
"So… tell me…" he said, his voice sounding a bit strained, "Is Shindou really your rival?"
"What?" Akira was momentarily flabbergasted at Waya choice of conversation.
"If Shindou's your rival, I asked!" Waya impatiently repeated, his nerves with Touya already running thin. "Or are you too good to answer me, eh?"
Akira felt his lips tightening in anger and deliberately broke their eye contact to take another forkful of food. "I don't see how this concerns you," he answered coldly.
"Argh!" Akira looked up at Waya's guttural sound of frustration. He hit his fork violently in some innocent potato. "Stop being such an arrogant ass," he chided Touya, "Answer my question! I'm trying to be nice here!"
"You aren't doing well, then," Akira tartly commented. He finished his meal, stood up and left.
The next morning
Akira waited until Waya shortly looked up from the cereals he was stuffing in his mouth and caught his gaze.
"Er…Waya?" He asked, and hated himself for how weak his voice sounded. He wasn't doing well at keeping calm exposed to Waya's presence.
"Eh?" Waya halted in his eating, looking at Akira narrow-eyed. To him, Touya seemed to be as composed as always, looking disgutstingly well-groomed and awake despite the early hour. His morning-grumpiness instead was clearly visible on his face.
Akira hesitated, but then decided to go on and not let himself be intimidated by Waya's evident crossness. The red-haired's first step to establish a sort of communication between them had been a clumsy one, but he had tried. Akira could do that as well.
"Do you have any rival… er… rivals?"
Akira wouldn't know how to approach Waya, but copying his strategy seemed to be safe.
Waya tilted his head, looking at the uncomfortable Akira, to whom he seemed to be considering if he should answer at all… for much too long.
Akira fought to keep sitting still and calm.
"Well, yes…" Waya finally said, and Akira relaxed a bit, "I guess there's Isumi-san… but he's actually too much of a friend to be a real rival…" Akira nodded in relief that Waya did seem to accept his step towards communication, "And then there's Ochi."
Akira thought for a moment.
"Yes, Ochi would be about your level."
"I still have to get him back for the game he won at the Hokuto-Cup prelim!" Waya poked his spoon in his cereals, "And for that stupid move of playing against Yashiro!"
"Ochi excelled his own skill in that game, but Yashiro plays in another league." Akira explained.
Akira really hadn't intended to be insulting in any way and hadn't even sounded so, but Waya couldn't help hearing the words oozing with arrogance.
He gripped his spoon harder and said nothing more.
Akira inwardly sighed at his reaction and stared at him for a moment. Why should he have expected more of Waya? Because he had thought he wouldn't be so bad, being Shindou's friend?
He went back to studying his book.
It was about midnight when Waya roamed the hotel halls with irate strides. It had nothing to do with Touya this time, but the thought of having to face him when he went back to their room didn't do much to lighten his mood either.
After his teaching games today he had finally lost his nerves with Mashiba and had confronted the blonde pro about stalking him. Instead of answering, Mashiba had accused him with a spiteful grin of associating with snobs like Touya, who clearly presented a more lucrative chance for bootlicking than poor Isumi and his other worthless friends.
The urge to give Mashiba a facial rearrangement had almost been overwhelming. Just when he had been about to lash back at him, verbally of course, Mashiba had challenged him to a game. Waya, not having been able to think clear anymore, had immediately accepted.
Distracted by his ire, he'd had to abandon that game.
He tried to see if the hotel was opened at night, through a small door beside the main entrance he was able to pass outside.
A gush of clear cold air froze him in his steps, but only for a moment. Unflinching he went on, despite wearing nothing but his suit against the wintry temperatures that reigned outside, he relied on his considerable anger to keep him warm and fuel his steps.
For a moment he bent his neck and looked up at the sky. It seemed so much darker and wider here than at home. An almost full moon bathed scattered clouds and the snowy landscape in a milky light. From a pool of hot water from the spring outside the hotel, cloudy steam slowly rose. He stood for a moment, admiring the glittering stars, so numerous as he'd never seen before, before he turned his back at the hotel to walk off his anger.
At two o'clock he returned, his burning anger frozen down that only a slight frustration remained because the coldness numbed every molecule of his body. Every time he moved, his frozen suit rubbed painfully against his skin, the air stung in his face and with every breath he seemed to lose a bit of more warmth. His mind was unable to process any information other than cold - and the hot shower that awaited him in his room.
When he entered and saw that light was still on he suspected Touya having slept in reading or learning, or whatever it was he did. Quietly he stepped in, his thoughts reaching only as far as to taking off his icy suit and getting his hot shower.
"Where have you been?" a Touya Akira, wide awake, greeted him.
"Eh?" Waya's frozen brain found it hard to process information at this time of night, "You're still awake!"
"It's two o'clock," Touya pointed out, seemingly angry, "Where have you been?" He closed the book he had had lying on his lap and put it to the side, while fixing Waya with an accusing stare.
"That's none of your concern!" Waya bit back.
"It is!" Touya got out of his bed and faced him, a bit intimidating even in his pyjamas. "We've to get up at six for tomorrows special session!"
"What do you care what I do and when I'm punctual or not!" Waya barely could hinder himself shouting. But out of concern for his neighbours, both of their voices were only fervent whispers.
"I heard about that game with Mashiba!" Touya spat.
Waya blanched. He had hoped the news hadn't spread that fast!
"How could you lose to him!" The fact that Touya sounded as if that was a personal insult and that it seemed to be the real reason for his anger, took Waya completely flabbergasted and he stood his mouth open.
"Oh, shut up!" Waya hissed venomously when he had caught his senses. "As if you'd care," his voice was as sharp as a knife and Akira flinched, "Leave me alone with your presumtuous arrogance!"
On that he threw the jacked of his suit on a stool and stomped into the bathroom.
Akira tried to conceal the hurt showing in his eyes by an intense gaze until Waya disappeared.
Twenty minutes later Waya stepped out of the bathroom, rubbing down his hair with a towel, relaxed as he hadn't been in a very long time.
For a moment, his relaxation had reached a meditative summit that he didn't even mind having Touya in his room. Worldly feelings like anger or ill-humour simply lost importance when faced against such essential things as a long, hot shower after having nearly frozen to death.
He noticed that Touya was already sleeping deeply. And he had forgotten to switch off his nightstand lamp. Waya wouldn't want to let it burn the whole night, so he went over and was about to turn it off himself, when out of simple, sleepy curiosity he picked up the book Touya had read. He flapped through it, concluding from the signs it was Korean, he couldn't read one word. There were notes on almost every page in what would be Touya's handwriting. It looked like the scrawl of any other student.
Hmm… he looked at the top of the page on which Touya's bookmark was. The date says November. He skimmed around, finding more dates. He is more than two weeks behind… probably has missed some lessons due to pro games. He found the same evidence in Touya's Chinese book even if there, he was not as far behind. Maybe Touya's not really that arrogant, Waya thought, maybe he's just stressed. I definitely would be, with a work load like that… He let his gaze wander about the books; Korean, Chinese, English and of course the obligatory kifu collections in preparation for his games.
Before he could feel any compassion towards Touya he went to bed. Touya was still as conceited an ass as nobody else could be.
The next day, Waya woke up shortly as Touya left the room. He blinked against the light that Touya had switched on, for at six o'clock it was still dark outside. Without a second thought he then turned around and slept on.
Much later he awoke, feeling happy. Sunlight glared at him through the window and he squinted against it. He turned and looked at the clock. About midday.
With a jump, he awoke completely, his heartbeat accelerating from a comfortable sleepy bumping to a hysteric flutter.
Today was the special session- at six.Today had been the special session .
Panically he jumped into his clothes, rushed through his washing-routine, worrying deeply about how the organisator would take his 'lateness' which was beyond any unpunctuality. Were there any severe punishments for Go pros on seminaries in the foreign? Could he probably be sent home?
He tried not to look too worried when he strode down the corridor to the seminary rooms. Or were they already going to lunch?
He heartily wished there was a hiding place somewhere near. Maybe in the swimming pool? He could drown and so spare himself the shame of missing one of the most important events on the trip. Or he could simply hide in his room. No, they would surely seek him out there. Actually, he wondered why nobody had sought him out there yet.
He neared the seminary rooms. An imposing figure came striding towards him. The considerable belly unmistakably belonged to Mizokushi-sensei.
Could he still sneak into a nearby corridor undetected?
"Waya-kun!" Mizokushi-sensei called out to him.
Waya jerked and tensed up.
"Sensei," he said weakly. "I…" he started to apologize, while thinking what apologies could probably make up the mess he had surely made.
"Is your stomach any better?" the older Pro boomed out, not even letting Waya start to begin stuttering.
"Eh?" Waya couldn't conceal his surprise, but Mizokushi-sensei didn't seem to notice.
"Touya-kun told me this morning that you were unable to attend because you had your stomach poisoned with some of this European food. That's quite normal," he laughed unpleasantly loud, but benevolently "you never know what these foreigners feed you. I had some bad digestion yesterday too. Just take care what you eat at lunch!" Then the organisator left him standing there.
"I will, sensei…" Waya was able to stammer out, trying to gather his senses together.
Touya had covered him? Touya had covered him! How? Why?
Of course, it would cast a bad light on the black-haired pro as well, if his roommate had been late, or didn't appear to the special-session.
But he could simply have woken him up.
Completely puzzled by the behaviour of his roommate he still felt the intense relief of escaping a punishment, making his heart beat faster.
He continued the corridor down to the dining room.
Why had Touya defended him?
He shook his head.
When he heard a raspy, mean voice that sounded out of a side corridor the hunger in his stomach turned to sickness. Mashiba. And from the tone of his voice he was bullying someone. How could he?
He quickened his stride.
"…evidently don't see… how to treat people…!" Mashiba was about to say as Waya neared to corner. Waya unfortunately, (or fortunately, because he liked to keep his contact with the unpleasant pro to a minimum), didn't catch it wholly.
"I… What do you mean?" A clear, soft voice answered. If it hadn't had that quivering touch, Waya could have sworn it was Touya's. He turned the corner.
"You can't always keep running to Daddy… you think you can get everything just because your Dad was famous. But you're nothing. People just always flatter you, because they are too afraid of him…"
"What do you want from me?" It was Touya. Waya recognised his slender form pressed against a wall and that awful, childish hair style of his immediately. And Mashiba towering in front of him.
Since when was Touya that small? Waya thought, he didn't seem so usually.
"I don't think you play as well as everyone says. Remember, I almost beat you in the pro exam!" Waya recognised Mashiba usual and very effective bullying voice that rendered even him slightly uncertain.
But it too achieved to raise his temper within seconds. Like now. Heat boiled in the pits of his stomach, and he had to clench his fist to not hit the other immediately in his nasty face. But what really worried him most was that Touya seemed helpless. Wide-eyed he looked at Mashiba and didn't even notice Waya hasting towards them.
"Ah… I…" he stuttered uncertainly. Before he could say more, Waya angrily called out: "Heh, Touya, what are you doing? We've to get lunch!"
Touya jerked and looked a Waya like a child caught by his parents.
And suddenly he seemed to remember where, and more importantly, who, he was. He straightened up and resumed his usual coolness.
"Mashiba-san," his voice was icy, marking his polite words a farce, "it was very pleasant talking to you, but you'll excuse me, I have to go. We surely shall speak again."
With a contemptuous glance, hiding his insecurities as well as any actor, he turned and joined Waya on his quick stride out of the corridor to the dining room.
Two against one, Mashiba didn't follow them.
"What the hell did you think you were doing, getting all beaten up by Mashiba, of all people?" Waya almost shouted, angrily, halting before opening the doors to the dining room, so not everybody would hear them.
Touya who had been about to thank Waya, tensed and his gaze hardened. "I was surprised, that's all," he explained haughtily. "I was perfectly able to take care of that situation myself!"
"Of course." Waya answered sarcastically, satisfied at earning an irate stare of Touya. "What were you talking to him for anyway?"
"He bullied some of the weaker European players!" Akira said, his mouth twisting in dislike.
"I confronted him about it!"
"And got yourself bullied instead! Great success!" Waya's voice dripped with sarcasm.
Touya's eyes were blazing.
"I would have, if you hadn't interrupted!" the black-haired young man insisted coldly.
"I was only paying the back the favour from this morning!" his roommate bit back.
"Did you think I would have needed you meddling in my affairs! Ha!" He added a sharp, humourless, laugh.
They hatefully stared at each other for several seconds, both hurt by each other's word but too proud to admit it.
Contemptuously Touya swivelled towards the dining room door and Waya folled staring the other down from behind.
When Waya picked up a plate, he forced himself to calm down in order to keep himself from smashing it at the floor. He helped himself to several different dishes from the buffet.
Touya had taken a bowl and filled a sickly-looking, thick, greenish soup into it. Suitable choice, Waya thought.
At the table – with Touya again - Waya picked up some food without any appetite and chewed at it without tasting anything.
He noticed that Touya hadn't even taken any soup yet, he kept stirring it absent-mindedly, his gaze lowered, maybe looking at the soup, maybe at nothing, it wasn't easy to see with his hair hanging forward and shadowing his face.
So they sat, several minutes.
"I…" Akira suddenly started.
Waya instantly looked up at him, as if, Akira thought, he had only waited for him to start speaking.
When he didn't continue, Waya cocked his head.
"You…?" His voice was cold.
Touya's gaze that met his was defiant, but there was a lot of pride in his terse countenance.
That's at least something we have in common, Waya thought drily, some kind of insurmountable pride.
"I…," Akira started again, his polite education overcoming his difficulties, "I probably have …overreacted."
"Yeah… you have…" Waya, not nearly as politely, agreed.
Instantly he sensed Touya bristling.
"But…" he grimly admitted, "Me too."
They both immediately looked away, suddenly deeply interested in their food.
Waya didn't talk to Touya for the rest of day, but the feeling that remained from their almost-apologies at lunch was that they – or at least it him it seemed so – had reached a stage of an uncertain ceasefire.
In the evening, he was glad to receive a message from Nase.
He could vividly imagining her in Tokyo, as she went from her Goban to the small table near the exit where the white sheet, imprinted with names, lay.
The winner notes the result.
'Adachi lost against Komiya. I still have a chance.'
He couldn't prevent a relieved smile.
A/N: If you liked it, please review!