Notes: Writing Hikaru's perspective is a lot of fun! This chapter ended up having a lot more teenage awkwardness than I expected it to have. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it!
Oct 19: fixed honorifics and culture refs
⁂
Chapter 4: 布石 Fuseki Part 1
Hikaru could not sleep. This was not unusual, given that it was impossible for him to be tired now. Waiting for Touya to wake up was boring, so he tried to play some games with Sai. As neither of them could move stones, they had to play it almost like blind go, but pointing at the empty points of the board as a memory aid, especially for Hikaru. This was even more difficult than regular go against Sai and Hikaru found himself losing the games even more quickly.
He also felt kind of weird hanging around in Touya's room, but reminded himself that this was what Sai did every night, without sleeping. Which didn't make him feel any better about it because that was also kind of weird.
Finally Touya awoke, and stared at him with bleary eyes for a moment. "Shindo—" said Touya with confusion at first, and then remembered what was going on. "Oh, yeah."
"Touya, you're finally awake! Can we play our game now?"
"It's too early, I need to get dressed and wake up first. Maybe later today?" Touya said.
"But I waited for hours for you to sleep! You should be all rested now, what gives?"
"Hikaru, you should remember how much rest a living person needs, even waking rest," said Sai patiently, "It can be easy to forget."
"I do know!" Hikaru insisted. How could he forget? He was never a morning person himself, after all.
"Ok, it's time to get dressed," said Touya.
"Oh! Ok then." Hikaru turned to face away from Touya, blushing. Touya undressing in his presence was going to be a daily occurrence from now on, wasn't it? He felt the warmth of embarrassment wash through his mind at the thought.
Hikaru chased away any further thoughts about Touya undressing by forcing himself to examine his own clothes. He wore jeans, sneakers, and a shirt emblazoned with the number 5, as he usually had in life, though he didn't really feel the fabric on his skin. He couldn't feel his body or any part of it at all, in fact, only a light airiness, and when he moved he felt no weight, as if he were in a dream. It was so weird. Was this how Sai felt like every day, for hundreds of years?
"Ok, I'm done," said Touya, and Hikaru turned around. He'd donned a tie, waistcoat and slacks, and of course chosen the worst colors possible, as he usually did. Only Touya would honestly believe that a pink shirt went well with a robin's egg blue waistcoat and a bright yellow striped tie. Or maybe he was just colorblind. Hikaru was never sure.
"You heading somewhere?" asked Hikaru, deciding that any constructive critique of Touya's fashion sense would not end well.
"I have a match today in a couple of hours," said Akira as he put away his futon, packed some books in a bag and headed to the bathroom to wash up. "If I go to the institute later when it's time, my father or mother would probably try to stop me, so I think I'll just go now when no one expects me to be awake."
After shoving some leftovers from dinner in his mouth and brushing his teeth, Touya donned his shoes and headed out the door. Sai and Hikaru trailed closely behind.
The commute to the institute was a new level of surreal, as they got on the bus and passed by places Hikaru had seen plenty of times before. Since Hikaru had never been in Touya's house before now, the feeling hadn't hit him until now, that feeling of a glass wall between him and the rest of the world.
When they reached the Go Institute, the walled-off feeling made itself fully apparent. There were the clerks behind the desk at the institute, the same clerks he'd always seen working away as if nothing had changed. For most of the Go world nothing in fact had changed, a sad thought.
"Ah, good morning, Touya-sensei," greeted the clerk at the desk, and Hikaru raised a hand to wave and say "Hi", before realizing that was useless. Of course she never heard or saw him.
Touya found a quiet study room deep within the institute, sat at a table with a goban, pulled a book of advanced tsumego from his bag and began to study.
"Touya," said Hikaru, "While we're waiting for your match, we could play a game…"
Touya shook his head slightly and directed his gaze towards the man at the other side of the room, quietly reading a book.
"Yeah, so there's a guy here, no big deal. You can just think at me without speaking out loud, you know. That's how I always talk with Sai when there's people around."
A sigh escaped Touya's lips, and finally he directed a thought at Hikaru. "The person I'm going up against today is 5-dan and I'm unfamiliar with their play style, so I want to be sure that I am thoroughly prepared for this match. I might get a chance to play you later today, so don't worry."
Hikaru rolled his eyes. Just like a model student. It was a game, not high school entrance exams! "I never have to do that level of studying just for a match! A little tsumego, sure, but not like a cram school's worth of it!"
"Hikaru," Sai pointed out, "You prepared for your matches by playing against me regularly, and you usually went through your tsumego with me. Akira doesn't have that. Even his father has other things to do besides play him."
Touya nodded to Sai's explanation idly as he turned a page in the book and set up the next tsumego.
Hikaru paced around in front of Touya, really antsy, crossing his arms and frowning. Finally he had his chance to play Touya, even if the circumstances were incredible, but the guy won't let him! How much had he caught up to Touya now? He needed to know!
"Hikaru," said Sai, "It's really important for you now to learn patience. Time is all you have now for the time being."
"That's easy for you to say, Thousand-Years-Dead-san!" Hikaru returned, "Besides, weren't you always going all 'Hikaru! Hikaru! I want to play a game! Can we play a game today?' constantly even when I had other plans? So aren't you being a bit hypocritical?"
Touya snapped his book shut and glared at them. "Honestly, I really am trying to concentrate here and that's impossible with you two shouting at each other in my head. There's another board right there, could you maybe play a game of memory go or something and stay quiet?"
"Akira is right," said Sai, as he directed his attention to the unoccupied board. "You take black, Hikaru."
Hikaru grumbled and crossed his arms. He was tired of memory go with Sai and just wanted to play Touya already. "Fine. 3-4 point towards the top edge in the upper right corner." he said.
"4-4 point in your lower right corner!" said Sai in response, and the game unfolded. Hikaru played a few games against Sai like this while Touya diligently reviewed tsumego and some kifu he had clipped out of Go Weekly. As it wasn't truly blind go, Sai was very helpful in answering questions about any stones Hikaru had forgot, though he wished he could just place stones himself and save the both of them the trouble.
"Bathroom," Touya thought as he got up from his seat for the first time in over an hour, and Hikaru found himself following. Wait, no way! Hikaru thought to himself, blushing, he didn't want to follow Touya into the bathroom! But he was anyway and couldn't seem to stop. He felt 'tied' to Touya and could not leave.
He remembered Sai had always been at his side at every moment, even when he bathed or used the bathroom. This wasn't really something Sai and Hikaru ever discussed, and the latter just assumed at the back of his mind that Sai could not leave his side for a moment even if he wanted to. It felt quite weird at first and Sai looked away modestly during these times, though over the years both Sai and Hikaru stopped caring about this sort of thing.
Was he going to eventually become so nonchalant about modesty with Touya too? An image of Touya casually prancing around naked before Hikaru flashed in his mind and he tensed up with extreme embarrassment and a little shame at the thought, making some kind of a snorting noise. He clasped his hands to his face to stop it, not that it did anything.
"Shindou, are you alright?" asked Touya out loud, then remembering to speak in his mind, continued, "You can just look away, it's really not a big deal. I understand if you can't leave."
Hikaru sighed with relief. Thank god Touya had figured that he was just tethered to him and that he didn't actually want to peep on him or anything. Of course not! The image of naked Touya resurfaced and he promptly banished it by trying to meditate on his awful wardrobe.
"Can you turn the water on?" asked Hikaru as they passed by the sinks. Touya promptly did so, and Hikaru faced the opposite wall away from him. Did Sai have to deal with this level of embarrassment? He definitely did look away for modesty's sake, but never seemed very tense about it, and in retrospect it really seemed more for Hikaru's sake than his own. Maybe Sai had already gotten over it with Torajirou many years ago.
But he remembered that Torajirou was maybe six years old when Sai first encountered him, and he couldn't possibly imagine him or any reasonable person getting that flustered about a small child.
Come to think of it, he never felt this way in the locker room at school either! Sure, it was a little awkward constantly undressing in the same room with every other boy in his class, but he never really paid much attention to that either… so why specifically Touya?
"Shindou, I'm done," said Touya suddenly, and Hikaru jolted. In all his frantic thinking, he hadn't noticed that Touya had already finished washing his hands.
"Haha, right! Back to tsumego!" said Hikaru, scratching the back of his head as he followed him out of the bathroom. He definitely wasn't overwhelmed with insecurities about seeing Touya in any state of undress. Nope!
As Touya quietly reviewed some more go, none the wiser to Hikaru's filthy imagination, Hikaru challenged Sai to another game in an attempt to distract himself from this embarrassing train of thought, glaring at Touya's striped yellow tie and how clownish it looked against that pale blue vest and pink shirt. And tan slacks! He wondered if it wouldn't be impossible to convince him to go clothes shopping later. Hikaru wasn't very fashion conscious himself, but at least he tried to pick colors that went together in a way that wasn't morally offensive to every fashion designer on the planet.
"It's nearly time for the match," said Touya as he checked his watch. He cleared the board and put away his books, leaving the table as it was before, and headed for the playing hall.
As they entered that familiar playing hall that Hikaru had seen many times before, full of people waiting to begin their matches, the walled-off feeling returned. Some folks looked up, but he knew they only saw Touya. And was that—that was Waya! Waya sat a few boards away, apparently waiting for his opponent to arrive. "Hey, Waya!" Hikaru impulsively called out, waving. Waya of course could not see him and did not react; he only stared at Touya with a wary, somewhat hostile look.
"There's that friend of yours," said Touya, "He yelled at me the other day. I don't understand his problem with me at all."
Hikaru sighed. Waya was still Waya. "He's under the impression that you're full of yourself. I wish I could convince him that you're really not so bad, but, well…"
Touya took a seat at his designated board. His opponent had not arrived yet. Hikaru searched about the room for any other familiar faces, but there was only Waya.
The last of the players entered the hall and took their places, but even when the matches began the seat in front of Touya remained empty. Was he running late or what?
"Geez, what's keeping him so long!?" Hikaru wondered aloud.
One of the staff took notice of Touya, got his attention and called him over. Touya sighed, got up and followed the staff member out of the room.
"Chichi really did cancel the match, didn't he?" said Touya once they were out of the door.
"Yes, your father called saying you were sick, so he cancelled your matches for a week, and your opponents were informed in advance."
"Wow, your oyaji really meant it!" Hikaru said. The man was stubborn even about making his kid rest!
"Don't call him oyaji!" said Touya out loud.
"I'm sorry, Touya-sensei, I didn't call anyone that," said the institute staff, raising an eyebrow. "Anyway, your family must be really concerned for your health, so you should probably get back home now."
"I will, thank you for letting me know," said Touya, as he gave a little bow and headed off. But before he could get far—
"Akira-kun! There you are!" A running man came calling from down the hall. He was probably a high rank-pro that Hikaru had seen before, but he couldn't quite place him.
"Ah, Ashiwara-san!" said Touya.
"Your parents are really worried! They called me an hour ago to look for you here and take you back. What were you thinking?"
"I'm sorry, Ashiwara-san—"
"Aren't you sick? You should be in bed!"
"I'm not si—"
Ashiwara grabbed Touya by his hand and led him straight to the building's exit. "Of course you are! Come on, let's take you home so you can rest."
As Ashiwara took Touya into his car, Sai and Hikaru piled into the back seat. "Wow, sending pros to go fetch you!" Hikaru said, honestly amused by the whole ordeal, "No one makes that kind of a fuss when I'm sick."
"For the last time, I'm not sick!"
