"I just don't know what he'll want," I pouted. Mitani and Akari stared at me blankly.
"You want us to help you get a birthday present for your gay lover?" Mitani asked, scoffing.
I frowned. "I'm not good with presents! And usually I go out with him to buy stuff!"
Akari laughed a little. "Okay, we'll help you. C'mon, Yuki." She tugged at his hand. He just frowned.
"Do we have to?"
"Yuki, stop being such a downer."
He sighed. "Fine." And we were off.
I soon found out Akira was extremely difficult to shop for. He has a weird fashion sense, only plays go, already has a cat, and for my birthday he got me a ring, so jewelry out of the question too. Not that I really think he'd want some anyway. I only remembered the ring because I always start fiddling with it when I'm nervous, which would be now. What the hell am I supposed to get him?!
Me, Yuki and Akari walked around the shop-filled part of town while I tried to figure this out.
"How bout something go related, then," Akari offered. "A board, or something...?"
"Boards are wayy too damn expensive, Akari. Besides, Akira already has like 6 set up in his house alone." I let out a sigh.
"What about a fan, like the one you have," Mitani said. I blinked at him.
"Not too bad an idea, but, how do you know I have a fan?"
Mitani gulped. "Lucky guess?"
I beamed. "Do you watch my matches?!"
"No!" He sputtered, looking towards the ground. Akari giggled. "I just see you sometimes in a magazine with it. No big deal." I was still grinning, nevertheless.
Akari went up near me and whispered in my ear, "What about something relationship-related? Some lingerie, or maybe a dil-"
"AKARI!" I stopped her, face red. "First of all, that's way too embarrassing! Second of all, I-" I stopped myself. What, did Akari think I topped? Why else would she want me to get a dildo for Akira?! Argh!
"Second of all, what, Hikaru?" She asked. She seemed completely unfazed by her suggestion.
I sighed and tried to wait until my face would lower back down to his regular color, but that seemed not to be happening anytime soon, so I just scratched my head and said low enough for Mitani not to hear, "Akira's kinda... The guy." Was the best way I could come to describe it. And I know for a fact if he knew Akira would get on my case for implying there had to be a 'guy' and a 'girl' in a relationship. But I haven't talked to Akari in damn over a year! What was I supposed to say, Naw, you got it backwards, Akira's the one who sticks his dick in me. I mean, it did kinda sound like she thought we already progressed to bedroom activities. But that doesn't mean I can tell her the details and stuff. Well, at least not in public or with her boyfriend around. Oh my god, did that make me her gay friend who talks about their sex lives and whatever? That was one thing I did not want to be.
"The hell you guys talking about?" Mitani asked, but Akari was already staring wide eyed at me. Then she burst out laughing.
"Y-You..." she laughed, grabbing her sides. She stumbled over to Mitani, and gripped his arm, saying loud enough Mitani could understand her, and Hikaru could overhear it. "Y-Yuki, H-Hikaru gets butt fucked!" Saying this out loud seemed to make her laugh harder. Mitani stiffened a chuckle and looked up at me with a level of sanity Akari was missing at the moment. I knew he'd back me up.
"It's not funny, Akari." I frowned and crossed my arms.
Mitani grabbed both of Akari's arms and tried to calm her down. He gave her a little peck on the forehead and that seemed to bring her back to reality.
"I-I'm sorry Hikaru, but it's hilarious," she giggled.
If Akira was here he'd probably give her some intimidating go stare and some speech about how it wasn't or whatever. I tried to mimic what I thought he would do.
I probably failed at step one, the intense stare. Only Akira could do that stare. But I was probably sorta close by the look Akari gave me. "No, it's not, Akari. Men have prostate glands, and-" I tried not to laugh myself, honestly, I was so immature when it came to these things. "So, um, they can get aroused by that sorta thing. Like, if you went and tried it on Mitani I'm sure he'd like it." Then I lost it. I started laughing too.
"The fuck, Shindo!" Mitani growled and narrowed his eyes at me.
Akari kept laughing and patted his cheek, which caught him off guard. "Maybe I will, Hikaru, good call. I'll," -she laughed some more, pausing in her sentence-"I'll have to look into that, thanks for the heads up!" I just laughed some more as Mitani hit her on the arm playfully, and she kicked his shin, and he just clamped his hands down on her shoulders until she took a deep breath and finally managed to calmed down. We searched on.
Maybe something we could both have? Like matching bracelets. Like little girls give each other. Okay, that one's out.
I kept coming back to the fan idea, though. Eventually, I managed to lure Mitani and Akari to a go merchandise store, taking a look at what they had. After grabbing a fan, I had an idea and walked over to the stones.
They had a lot of standard gokes, along with black and white stones with them- Some were set up to go home, the stone already inside, and others had the gokes empty with the stones sealed in bags nearby. They also had colored stones, textured stones, big stones, little stones, magnet, travel sized go stones, There was one guy who stood behind a counter, looking bored, probably from lack of business, with several gokes open in front of him. I read the sign next to him: Calligraphy. After brief consideration, I walked over to him and told him what I wanted.
He looked surprised at my strong wording. After thinking it through, I told him I wanted four go stones, two the standard white, two the standard black. One them I would have him write 愛してる -Ai, shi,te,ru- 'I love you.' After we waited for him to carefully write the words on to each stone with a fancy g-pen I've only seen used on TV, I paid for them, tucked them away is a red gift tissue, and headed to pay for the fan. I didn't add any words to the fan- I briefly thought of forging Kurata's signature- And left. But there was one more thing I wanted to give Akira, and after a bit of complains from Mitani and Akari telling him to shush, we went to my grandpa's house.
"Oh, Hikaru.." He eyed my friends. "What brings you here?"
I shrugged. "Grandpa, you never got rid of that old goban in the attic, did you?"
"That haunted one?" He raised his eyebrows. "Hah, I wish! No one will buy the damn thing. You're the only one-"
"Who cares about it, I know. You said I could have it before, right? Can I still, grandpa?"
He let out a sigh and walked to the side, letting us in. I quickly slipped off my shoes and headed towards the attic.
I never really touched it to begin with. I had my own board, and even though Akira had some of his own I want him to have this one. It was special to me, and I knew I could show him the sentiment, even without going into detail such as "I found this and a ghost shoved itself down my throat and then I fainted but then we became friends and I learned how to play go." Besides, I mean, I could always tell him it was the board Hon'inbo Shusaku died at. So I don't think there's any better present for me to give him.
Heading up to the attic, my grandfather must've rarely went up there, because it was dusty as all hell. I pulled out the board, ran my hand against it, and couldn't help myself but remissness about the past. Akira deserved this board, right? Sai would forgive me for giving it away. Especially if it was to my proclaimed eternal rival—also boyfriend. But Sai didn't stick around long enough for that to happen yet. Now, once I couldn't see the stains on the board, it looked like a normal go board—If now just a little dirty. But I could clean it. I hefted it up and carried it out, back toward Yuki and Akari at the door way, who were chatting politely with my grandpa. I pushed towards them. "Kay, let's go."
"You just came here to grab the board and leave? Nothing else? We could play a game," Grandpa offered.
"Maybe another time, Grandpa. Today's my boyfriend's birthday." And then I left as quickly as I could, a confused Yuki and Akari at my tail.
Akira came to, blinking his eyes opening hesitantly, the winter sun casting its way down the floor and walls as the beams hung leisurely in the air.
Akira hadn't meant to fall asleep. It just sort of happened. They had a late morning- He and Hikaru, that is- And he could feel Hikaru scamper up the moment the boy's eyes had flickered to consciousness, scurrying out of his room and most likely down the hall. Akira had not cared at the moment, he was still sleepy. So he let his body relax until what seemed like moments later, Hikaru busted back inside, kicking him until he got up. Which he did, and they preceded downstairs.
Hikaru had decided to make Akira some breakfast. Probably for his birthday, he ventured, but his tired mind had yet to make the connection that it was his birthday, the day he turned 17, and his parents weren't due back from China for another few days or so.
It felt a little bland without them—They usually pampered Akira nicely on his birthday, well, his mother, at least. His father had yet to give him anything more than a small, "Happy Birthday, son," and a flinch inducing clamp on his shoulder ever since he was little. It didn't bother him, though, and he was sure having his boyfriend around for his birthday would be pretty exciting, especially being the first of a hopeful many.
For Hikaru's birthday, a few months ago at this point, he had treated him to lunch at a fairly high caliber diner and then they headed out on the town. Even if they had been sleeping together at that point as well, Hikaru was still a little sensitive to Akira's touches, like trying to hold his hand or running his fingers over his cheek. Only in public, though. Akira himself had tried fairly well to get rid of his own hypersensitive-ness when it came to physical contact, which previously he never saw a reason to get a whole lot of, early on in their relationship. It wasn't until months together that his chest didn't tighten at a spontaneous clamp on his shoulder or hesitant holding of hands, though. He still had issues with it, now definitely- He flinched a lot and really would only offer stray brushes of hands on the go board with his rival, and lover. But he had tried desperately to keep his hands from touching while he played even Obata—And especially his father.
So Akira never felt a need to touch Hikaru a lot in public anyway, but as he was happy for his birthday, he tried extra hard to be appealing, twitching his hand towards the others which he took only when others weren't there to see, even as strangers. As it came to less romantic things—Tugging on clothing, dragging by the arm across the street, Hikaru was generous as always in giving those things to Akira, even if he didn't particularly want them. After lunch, they went wherever Hikaru wanted, Akira's treat. They went ice skating, and even though Akira had never been and Hikaru didn't seem too keen on the experience himself, they had a lot of fun.
Afterward Hikaru bought an entire season of anime and made Akira come home with him to watch it. It had reminded Akira of one of the events that leading to the conception of their relationship. There had been a fair bit of touching that night, to be vague. Akira had gotten some wine, after stealing it from an unsuspecting Ashiwara, who never noticed, the sucker. He turned off all the lights and carefully lit candles around the table, having a nice candle-lite dinner with the wine for the two of them. Akira himself was too tired out for the bedroom that night but the alcohol seemed to liven Hikaru up as if it were caffeine, so Akira had tiredly let Hikaru do whatever he wanted. It was his birthday, after all.
But Akira felt his was different. He felt awkward for making Hikaru go to any trouble of buying dinner or presents and lead him through a nice day. Caffeine, Akira thought. He could use some of that right now. After Hikaru's surprisingly... not completely terrible breakfast Akira and he talked on the couch, before Hikaru told him he had an errand to run, and left. Akira didn't really know what to do with himself—Well, he was still tired- And thought he could just review some kufus in waiting for his return. It had not worked at all, and his mind wandered, eye lids half open before he heard the phone ring. With a leisured search he found it, answering on what had to be one of the last rings.
"Hey brat," Ogata greeted—That was a nice greeting for him. If he knew anything he'd probably refrain from the word 'bastard,' but used that word generously, as a lot of other fairly colorful words. "Happy Birthday. You're so old, kid. I remember when you were born, gah." The Juudan reminisced.
"That just means you're old, Ogata." Akira replied simply.
"Ah, shut your mouth, kid. I could mention how ugly a baby you were."
"Lies," Akira retorted. "I was like the cutest baby ever, haven't you seen the pictures?"
"Don't need to, I saw you in person. And let's just say, you were definitely uglier out of camera."
It was Akira's turn to tell the man to shut up.
"So anyway," Ogata let out a breath, the sound of static going through the phone. Akira had talked to him on the phone enough to recognize that as his taking-out-a-smoke static. "I just wanted to call. Your folks back yet?"
"They won't be for a more days, I believe."
"Oh, that's a shame. Missing their son's... How old are you again, kid?"
"Four squared plus one," he replied softly, the Juudan pausing to do the math.
"Aw, whatever, kid. Don't get too wasted tonight."
"Of course. That's for New Years."
That made Ogata laugh. "Of course," he echoed, then hung up.
Within minutes Akira had fallen prey to the demon known as Naps.
And that leads us to where Akira found himself now.
His phone was still in his lap, he curled up by the arm of the couch in an attempt to warm himself without a blanket, which he didn't have at his outright disposal. Though, his habit of wearing sweaters probably helped, so his coldness never became a problem while he slept. He checked the time of his phone as he stood up and got himself a nice hot cup of coffee that he so much deserved.
2:47. Why was Hikaru not back yet?
He knew this 'errand' he had to run must've had something to do with his birthday, but Akira didn't know what could take almost 4 hours to complete. Maybe Hikaru was trying on lingerie for him. That'd be a sight, huh. Akira himself was pretty lax in the bedroom, not really nervous or embarrassed as he might've been the first few times. Still, he always tried to give in to Hikaru's wishes, so if Hikaru even asked Akira to do anything to him, the chances were he'd do it. One thing he would never do, though, was physically harm Hikaru. Even if it was part of an act or something, or Hikaru told him to hurt him, Akira would never try such an evil task.
He sipped his freshly brewed coffee in thought. Maybe Hikaru had actually forgotten it was his birthday... No, he had made him the breakfast, so he remembered the nonchalant piece of information from the previous day.
Akira sighed, brain out of ideas. Even though he was barley 17, he felt much older. He didn't go to high school and already had a job since 13. Your average 17 year old would not act this way, spending hours every day taping stones on a piece of wood, or talking to adults more than kids their own age. He chuckled to himself. There was one thing that made him like a normal teenage boy, though- And it was his sex drive. Granted, his relationships weren't exactly considered 'normal,' either. But, as always, that never bothered Akira.
Akira had decided Hikaru had finally began his way back to Akira's home when his phone rang once more. The ride was probably long, so he might've been calling for when he would get back. Well, maybe Akira was getting paranoid. And lonely. He wanted his boyfriend. So he staggered back towards the living room, grabbing his phone and answering it without a second thought, pipping in a quick "Hikaru?" Instead of an initial 'hello.'
"Akira?" The voice asked. And it wasn't Hikaru. He thought it his mother, or father, maybe calling for his birthday, like Ogata- But it was a women, and not his mother. Ichikawa-san? No, younger, more vibrant. Less familiar with his name, like it didn't come naturally off her tongue.
"Who is this?" He swallowed hard, almost thinking he should've just hung up instead of affirming the question.
"Oh, well, I ju-" The girl had began, but paused, just as the keys had just unlocked the door. Shit.
"Uh..." Akira paused, trying to think of an excuse. "I'm not really free to talk right now. I'll call you back later, okay?" He didn't wait for an answer before he hung up, just as Hikaru opened the door.
Hikaru was holding a big, old wooden goban, with a red (surprisingly not yellow) gift box laid on top. He had this cute goofy grin on his face as he plopped down onto the wooden floor and clunked the board down in front of him. "Sorry I was late." He was still smiling. Akira just shook his head and sat down in front of him.
"It's no problem, I got a lot of sleep," he replied.
Hikaru smiled. "That's good. You're gonna need it." He laughed, tapping his finger anxiously on the board. Akira smiled a bit.
"So, what's all this?" He asked.
"Your present!" Hikaru pushed the box towards Akira, who took it gently, not yet opening it, to which Hikaru urged him.
After the opening was done and the wrapping was flung around, Akira found in the box was a fan and a few go stones, which didn't really make sense until Hikaru had arranged them in the correct order. Akira looked up at Hikaru and just stared at him for a moment, not sure what to say, and trying not to cry. At last he just took a deep breath and took Hikaru's hand, looking down at his present again and smiling a little.
"I love you too. I like this." He rolled the stones through his fingers. Hikaru just grinned.
Akira looked up at him. "So, there's the fan, the stones. Is the board just to complete the set, or...?"
Hikaru's grin widened. "Oh, this isn't any board," he tapped the wood and pushed it towards Akira slightly, who just gave him a quizzing look. He continued on. "This was the goban that got me interested in go, you could say."
Akira brushed his hand over it, gazing at it. He couldn't help but notice some sort of bruise in the wood in the corner, but every time he tried to look directly at it he saw nothing. So he elected to ignore it. "Really?" He asked.
Hikaru smiled and nodded. "Yup, without this board we wouldn't have met, and we never would've became rivals. Or lovers, for that matter." He laughed a bit at the last bit. Akira just kept his eyes on the board.
"And you're giving it to me?" He asked softly.
Hikaru's grin boiled into a warm smile. "Of course. I think you deserve it. I don't use it anyway, all it's done is collect dust. I don't know if you'll use it, but I want you to have it, you know?" He bit his lip, like he was getting nervous.
Akira pulled his gaze up and looked at his boyfriend, nodding slowly. "I... I really like this, Hikaru. Thanks. It really..." He made on a small smile and took his boyfriend's hand. "It means a lot."
Hikaru pulled him into a kiss.
After the gift giving Akira and Hikaru did a lot for his birthday, but nothing really stuck like that goban. The next day Akira had taken it and replaced his usual goban in his room with this one.
Later he stared at his phone, wrinkling his nose while he thought about calling the girl again. Instead he put it off, asking Hikaru again and again for another game of go. Eventually he got to it, when Hikaru had gone home and he had nothing else to do. So hesitantly, he decided to go and call back the number, when right then he got another call. For a moment, he thought it was the girl, but instead, his mother.
"Hey hun! We're coming back from China early! You'll probably be busy then, but we'll be back by tomorrow afternoon!"
At which time Akira would have to tell them their only son was moving out.