Title: In Vino Veritas V: Night Drinks
Series: Hikaru no Go
Disclaimer: Characters are the creation of Hotta and Obata
Pairing: side mention of Hikaru/Akira. Omake of In Vino Veritas series.
Summary: Kuwabara and Touya Akira talk.
Touya stared across the table at the occupant sitting opposite him in the bar. Terrible music--scratchy and something J-pop--was playing from the radio at the counter, and the proprietor was pretending to wipe a glass, all the while shooting suspicious glances at them. Touya glanced down at his sake cup, which was still full, and looked up again.
"It won't turn into water however you stare at it," Kuwabara said. "Are you going to drink or not?"
"This isn't helping," Touya said.
"No shit," Kuwabara scowled at him from across the table. "You are the most boring drinking partner I've ever had, with the exception of your father. Are you sure you're Japanese?"
Insults were Kuwabara's stock-in-trade, so Touya ignored him, only adding, "This isn't a good idea."
"I don't know what Shindou sees in you, anyway, except maybe enforced sobriety," Kuwabara said.
Touya felt his heart skip, but managed to control to himself. He didn't want to give the old man an opportunity to heckle him about him and Shindou.
As he hoped, Kuwabara didn't seem to have noticed Touya's silence; he only poured himself more sake and knocked it back. Then he poured another and drank that too, before he sat back to study Touya. "All right, since I'm doing this on the brat's account-"
"You don't have to-"
"-even if he did trick me into meeting you, here's it: how was the game with Ogata-kun?"
Touya didn't flinch, but dismay filled him as he remembered what happened the day before, when he had challenged Ogata for the Juudan title in the first of the five final games. The bitterness at his crushing defeat seemed to burn him, even now. Eight moku. He had not lost by such a great margin for years!
Judging from the smirk on Kuwabara's face, Touya knew that he had not managed to hide his feelings about the game.
"Ogata-kun has always been a bit vicious," Kuwabara said, pronouncing the last word with relish. "He may hide it under that cool image he's created for himself, but his speciality is to go in for the kill."
It was clear that Kuwabara actually liked Ogata for that.
"You grew up with him, so maybe you don't see that," Kuwabara said. "Of course, you learnt Go from that old woman, Touya Kouyo himself, so you've been corrupted by his idealistic bullshit."
"Kuwabara-sensei!"
A loud cackle of laughter made him realise that he had been goaded. Kuwabara was looking amused now. "I thought this would be a boring evening, but you're just as easy to rile as Shindou, aren't you?"
Touya didn't feel like dignifying his barbs with a response.
Kuwabara went on, "I used to think that you were as dull as your father, but I changed my mind when I learnt that you were the one who brought Shindou into this world. I thought to myself, someone who knows the worth of Shindou in this world isn't going to be a dull duck."
"-dull-" Shindou wasn't kidding when he said that Kuwabara spared no tact for anyone.
Kuwabara laughed at Touya's reaction and waggled his eyebrows for emphasis. "You have no idea how lively Shindou has made this world for me. After so many years, when I thought I had seen everything, too!"
It took a moment for Touya to realise that he meant the Go world. From the way Kuwabara spoke, it was as though the Go world was in a different dimension altogether. But he thought about how Kuwabara had been playing Go for more fifty years--more than half a century--and how he seemed to represent professional Japanese players at a time when those far younger than him, such as Touya's father, had retired.
Go could be a lonely path.
"You must have seen a lot, sensei," Touya said. It was a wonder that he was still around, full of fighting spirit even at his age. He studied Kuwabara himself, noting of the deep wrinkles that covered his face, trying to see the young man that Kuwabara once must have been.
"Che! You're making me feel old," Kuwabara grumbled. "Now, Shindou. That's a boy who respects age, but doesn't expect me to put up with a load of bowing and scraping." He nodded to himself, pleased. "You'd think that his own teacher was even older," he said, then laughed.
Instead of responding to that, Touya picked up his cup and drained the sake, before putting the cup back on the table, so quietly that it made no sound at all.
Immediately the cup was filled. "But sen-"
"You need to drink more," Kuwabara said, pouring for himself at the same time. "It'll make you less uptight, not like that father of yours."
He wasn't Shindou, always disrespectful of his elders, but Touya managed to give the old man a pointed look.
Kuwabara chuckled. "I see it's too late." He picked up his own cup, sipping it slowly.
"I thought I could defeat him," Touya confessed in a small voice, saying for the first time the fear that had formed inside him since the defeat. Kuwabara would sneer and laugh at whatever he said anyway; there was no need to hold back with him.
"Oh?" Kuwabara said, putting down his cup.
Remembering his manners, Touya took the sake flask and filled it, ignoring the small 'ha' of response. He drank his own sake and refilled the cup, feeling the warmth of the alcohol spread through him. He didn't often drink sake, but it felt inviting right now.
"I thought I had reached his level," Touya said, speaking to the cup rather than to Kuwabara. "Because I had finally managed to become his challenger. But the game only proves what the difference between us is."
"Really."
"It's true."
"Is it?" Kuwabara's tone was so skeptical that Touya couldn't help but look up. "I imagine Shindou said something different."
"He said-" Touya shook his head. "It doesn't count, he only said that because-"
"You're rivals?"
Touya looked down again, staring blankly at the wooden grain of the table. "I don't think I can be a rival for Shindou. Now that I've lost to Ogata-"
"Bullshit."
"What?"
Kuwabara was still shaking his head when Touya finally looked at him. "Is your world so small? Do you really think that Ogata-kun, good as he is, represents all that the Go world has to offer?"
The words stung Touya. "No," he said, but it was on reflex.
"Ogata-kun is flying high. One day, he might actually become as good as he thinks he is," Kuwabara smirked, but then the smirk disappeared as he looked at Touya. He looked sober despite the flush of alcohol in the tip of his nose. "Hasn't meeting Shindou showed you that there is more to the Go world than the pros above you?"
"I-"
"This world that we live in, the Go community, is not just a place of registered pros and title games. That is only the most surface level--the most ostentatious one. It's a world where Go scores and dan-ranking can determine a player's worth, where you defend a title for the sake of the prestige and where someone like Touya Kouyo can attract controversy merely because he wanted to play amateur Go."
The mention of his father made Touya frown. "But my father-"
"Yes, yes," Kuwabara waved off the rest of what Touya was about to say. "A terrible show-off, I've always said. Does a man really need five titles? Doesn't it sound like he's overcompensating for something?"
Outrage burst inside Touya at Kuwabara's snide tone. "Kuwaba-"
"However," Kuwabara interrupted his protest mid-stream, holding up a hand. "He wised up a few years ago."
"Oh." Touya felt deflated somehow.
"The Go world that you judge yourself by is just a scoreboard. You can't analyse games by counting moku. Even eight moku."
For some reason, the dig at his defeat at Ogata's hands didn't sting as much. "Did Shindou say that?"
Kuwabara scowled at him. "Brat. Don't assume that he has a monopoly on all the smart lines."
They didn't speak further and only continued to drink.
(END)
