Disclaimer: All characters and specifics of "Hikaru no Go" are copyrighted Hotta Yumi, Obata Takeshi, Shueisha and Studio Pierrot. All rights reserved. This fanfiction is property of Shikami Yamino and is not intended for any monetary purpose nor an infringement of copyright laws. No one is to post/host/use any aspect of this fanfic without explicit permission from the author.
Notes: *sighs* It's that time of year again when end of semester exams begin to take over my life. As a result, this fic has to be shoved onto the back burner for about a week and a half while I knuckle down to studying *cringe* Apologies and thanks beforehand to all the readers and especially the reviewers whom have supported this fic.
Special thanks go out to Ju for pointing out my grammar mistakes! Part 5 has been reloaded with your corrections ^_^
Hikaru no Go: "Blind Descent"
by Shikami Yamino
Part 6 - Missing
Thursday morning found Shindou Hikaru poking through his closet, tossing to the floor all the articles of clothing that were in need of a run through the washer and drier before they could once again be fit for human attire. Laundry was a chore that the young go pro took no pleasure in. However, it was a chore made necessary by the regularity with which he discovered a lack of clean shirts to wear. Hence with a tutoring session coming up tomorrow morning and no clean shirt in sight, Hikaru was left with no choice but to do the dreaded laundry today.
After bundling the pile of dirty clothing into a laundry hamper, a quick check of the clock reminded him that he would be late if he didn't leave soon. Having arranged to meet Isumi-san and Waya at eleven to visit a few of the old go salons from their insei days, laundry would, to his *profound* regret, have to wait until he got back. Grinning, Hikaru snagged his backpack and keys on his way out, pulling the door shut after himself and casting the habitual look at the doorway across the hall.
The note he had stuck to Touya's doorknob last night was gone, indicating that the other boy had obviously seen it when he'd gotten home from his 'date'. And since there was no note stuck to his own doorknob to point to the contrary, Touya had therefore accepted the invitation to go with all of them to the go salons today.
Almost bouncing in anticipation, Hikaru knocked impatiently on Akira's door. When the door failed to open after three successive attempts, Hikaru shrugged off the slight frown on his face and proceeded to the elevator. Touya must've just gone on ahead or something.
~~
"They're late," Waya stated with a mildly annoyed expression. It had already been twenty minutes and he was tired of waiting for Shindou and Touya. Especially when there was no dry spot on which to park his behind; the puddles from last night's downpour had yet to evaporate from the sidewalks and benches.
Isumi simply smiled and reached out to straighten Waya's scarf around the brown-haired pro's neck. "They'll be here. Or at least Shindou will. But he seemed pretty certain yesterday that Touya would come too." At last satisfied with the way the scarf was arranged to keep the warmth around Waya's neck, Isumi took the opportunity to gently ruffle his lover's hair.
He grinned when the action earned him a veiled glare from Waya, only to burst into quiet laughter as he watched the younger pro try to put the rebellious strands of his hair into some semblance of order.
"Isumi-san!!" Waya was just preparing to retaliate when a shout from behind him caught his attention.
"Waya!! Isumi-san!!" With that, Shindou came running up. "Sorry I'm late, I missed the train."
"That's okay Shindou," Isumi replied easily. "Waya and I were just amusing ourselves." Deftly, he sidestepped a discreet swipe of Waya's hand, the angelic smile never leaving his face.
In answer, Hikaru merely nodded, hiding a bright grin at his friends' antics. Looking around for the last member of the quartet to share the joke, a puzzled look flitted across his face. "Touya's not here?"
Waya turned to fix his bleached-blonde friend with a look. "I thought he was coming with you. Didn't you see him this morning?"
"I knocked on his door but there was no one home so I thought he must have left already."
"You did remember to tell him, didn't you Shindou?" Isumi asked gently.
"Of course," Hikaru answered absently as he scanned the crowd for a moment, trying to catch a glimpse of longish, midnight-dark hair. "I stuck a note on his doorknob when I got home last night like I always do. When I left this morning the note was gone so if he wasn't coming, he would've stuck a note on my door to say so."
At this, Isumi and Waya exchanged perplexed looks.
"Shindou, you could have just knocked on the door to tell him," Waya finally pointed out. "Why did you have to stick a note on his doorknob?"
"Huh?" Hikaru wrenched his attention from the crowd and slowly processed the question. Then realisation dawned in green eyes. "Oh! I didn't tell you guys yesterday. Touya went to dinner with some girl last night so he wasn't home when I got back. We always leave each other notes on the door if it's something important and the other person's not home or something."
By this time, Waya's eyebrows had already lifted well into his bangs. "Touya went on a date?" he asked incredulously. "With a girl?"
"Who?" Isumi was equally surprised.
Hikaru blinked, taken aback at the barrage of questions. "Umm, yeah. Some girl he tutored last weekend. She apparently wanted to thank him or something stupid like that." He rolled his eyes.
"And Touya agreed?!" Waya had never thought he'd live to see the day when Touya Akira willingly agreed to do something completely unrelated to go, and with a female no less.
Hikaru shrugged. "I told him Tuesday night he didn't have to go if he didn't want to but he said it was too late to get things changed."
"Maybe you should call him to see where he is," Isumi suggested, since it was clear that Waya was too shocked to be able to function coherently.
"Yeah..." Still glancing around to make sure Touya wasn't about to suddenly appear and give him a heart attack again, Hikaru fished his cellphone out from his bag.
Isumi calmly stood and gauged Shindou's expression as the bleached-blonde boy put the phone to his ear, never ceasing to scan his surroundings for an approaching long-haired, blue-eyed go pro. For someone used to facing Shindou's non-expressions from across the goban while they were engrossed in a game, the deepening furrow in the younger pro's brow was almost screaming worry at Isumi. Shindou was clearly unsettled by Touya's seeming disappearance; the fact that Touya wasn't picking up his phone obviously wasn't being of any help in alleviating the problem.
"He's not picking up his cellphone and I got the machine when I called his apartment." Hikaru reported as he dropped his phone back into his backpack, his expression caught somewhere between concern and anxiety.
Waya, who had by now regained his abilities for coherent speech, scowled. "He's probably just late. Hell, he could have just had a really good time last night and overslept. Who knows? I say we go ahead without him."
Watching Shindou cast Waya a mildly dirty look, Isumi hid his laughing eyes briefly behind his bangs. Whether it was for the suggestion that Touya had had a good time last night or the suggestion that they leave without Touya, Isumi didn't know. But then it really didn't matter either way, the implications were still there. "That may be the case if it was Shindou, but this is Touya we're talking about. He's not the sort of person to be late and not even call."
"Yeah," Hikaru agreed, glancing at his watch. "It's eleven thirty already. Maybe I should go by his apartment again..." he trailed off into a mumble as he took a last look around. Once again not seeing any sign of his rival, Hikaru made up his mind. "Sorry Isumi-san, Waya. I'm gonna go look for him." Taking off at a run, he yelled back, "You two go and have fun!"
"O - Oi!! Shindou!!"
"Let him go Waya." Isumi gently put a hand on Waya's arm to prevent the other from following the departing Shindou. "Unless he finds Touya, he'll be too worried to do anything productive today."
Looking up into Isumi's amused blue eyes and back at the direction that Shindou had taken, Waya subsided. A thoughtful expression flitted briefly over his face as he nudged the taller pro in the side. "Maybe we won't be needing that chibi-Shindou after all."
"Maybe not," Isumi agreed, his lips betraying only a hint of the humor displayed in his eyes.
~~
Too impatient to wait for the elevator, Hikaru took the stairs up to their fifth floor apartments two at a time. Quick calls to Ichikawa-san at the Touya Go Salon and the Go Institute while he'd been on the train had revealed that neither had seen Touya 6-dan today. Pushing open the door to the stairwell at the fifth floor, Hikaru glanced first at his own door to see if perhaps a note had been placed there belatedly, informing him of a sudden insertion into his rival's supposedly clear schedule today.
Finding none, he quickened his steps until he was standing in front of Touya's door, pounding on it impatiently with a raised fist. "OI! Touya!! You in there?? Touya!!"
He attempted to listen for any sound from inside the apartment by putting his ear to the door, but failed miserably on account of the well sound-proofed walls and doors of their apartment building; the only thing that had kept the neighbors from being disturbed by their regular shouting matches.
"Touya!!"
Five minutes later, when the door showed no signs of opening, Hikaru was ready to give up and leave when he remembered that he had a key to Touya's apartment.
Fishing his keyring out of his pocket and finding the right one, he deliberated the decision for a few seconds. If Touya was home and had simply slept through both sessions of knocking on his apartment door and the phone ringing despite having arranged to be somewhere at eleven, then Hikaru figured he was well within his rights to give his rival a rude wake-up call. And if Touya wasn't home, then Hikaru was sure that all would be forgiven after he gave Touya a piece of his mind about not telling Hikaru where he was.
Mind made up, he slipped the key in and pulled the door open, poking his head into the opening. "Touya...?"
The first thing that struck him was that the apartment was dark, meaning that the blinds hadn't yet been pulled apart. Unlike Hikaru, Touya's morning routine adamantly dictated the opening of the blinds, the absence of which indicated quite evidently that the routine had yet to be performed. Which meant that Touya was clearly still in bed.
Scowling, Hikaru let himself into the apartment, leaving his shoes and backpack at the door. The living room and attached kitchette revealed no Touya, only the note that Hikaru had placed on Akira's door which had been left on the counter. Through the open bathroom door, Hikaru could only see what must have been a jacket and pair of dirty pants as they'd been left on the side of the bathtub.
Coming to Akira's closed bedroom door, Hikaru scowled harder as he rapped his knuckles on the hard surface smartly. "Touya! I can't believe you're still in bed!" Hearing only a faint mumble from the other side, Hikaru's scowl was replaced by a puzzled look.
Touya was generally a light sleeper, so it was surprising enough that he'd be able to sleep through the ringing of his phone and the pounding at his door. There was no way he could sleep through someone knocking at his bedroom door.
Turning the knob and easing the door open slightly, Hikaru peered in. "Touya...?"
In the darkened bedroom, all he could make out was the vague shape of a human body curled into a ball under the blankets of Touya's bed. The shape was only recognisable as Touya by the crown of dark hair peering out from the top of the tight cocoon of blankets.
Ire rising again, Hikaru was just getting ready to yell when he was stopped in his tracks by the slight movement on the bed.
Despite being curled into a tight ball, Touya was shivering.
"Touya!"
End Part 6... to be continued.
Author's Notes: *cringe* I really didn't mean to do a mild cliffhanger ending right before my exam period... Given that this is a fluff fic, there wasn't even meant to be a cliffhanger ending *sweatdrop* On the upside though, AkiHika/HikaAki fluffiness (is there such word? ^^;;) will dominate the next three parts or so... Hopefully I'll be able to churn at least one out between exams...