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Boku no Go

Summary:

Even though Akira has been steadily moving further in the Honinbo league, he's frustrated by a sense of unfulfillment. When an article in the Weekly Go reminds him of the mysteries surrounding Hikaru Shindou, Akira decides to track down his rival and ask him why he hasn't been to the Go salon in months.

(Explicit rating is for content in later chapters)

Chapter 1: Shuusaku

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Outside the windows of the crowded train, the cherry blossoms were almost at their peak. Akira Touya watched the pink branches blur into a haze as the train picked up speed. The others in the car had their faces turned down towards the floor or were reading books or staring at the advertisements on the walls. It was Thursday morning, and Akira was on his way to a match at the Go Institute.

As the doors opened at Suidobashi station, a man stepped in and stood exactly in front of the window where Akira had been looking out. His straight hair was brushed away from his face and he wore a well-tailored black suit that emphasized the line of his torso as it tapered down to his waist. His eyes, deep brown with fine long lashes, were cast down as though in contemplation.

Akira had been taught not to stare at people. Usually when he commuted to a match or to teach a private lesson, he reviewed previous games in his mind until he arrived at his destination, and when he was thus occupied it was unusual for him to even notice the people around him, much less stare at them. But today in the mid-morning light, the appearance of this handsomely suited man against the backdrop of the cherry blossoms had caught Akira by surprise. The man’s skin, which was pale around his neck and forehead, was rosy around the cheeks. His posture was formal, and almost stiff. But his eyes were faraway. “He’s beautiful” was the thought that crossed Akira’s mind.

The man, who had been looking down, glanced up to meet Akira’s gaze. His eyes questioned: do we know each other? Embarrassed, Akira shook his head. He turned away from the man and the window and the passing flashes of light pink. There was no reason for him to be so distracted the day of a match. He felt as though somehow the man’s dreamy state had infected him. Until the doors opened for his stop, he reviewed joseki in his mind, allowing the white and black shapes to fill his field of vision.

The Japanese Go Institute was quiet except for the humming of the vending machines in the lobby and the distant clicking of Go stones. Two insei students loitered in a corner, poring over the latest edition of the Weekly Go magazine. As Akira approached, the man at the front desk looked up from his paperwork.

“Touya-san, good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“Today’s match is... let’s see… Natsubori-san, 7-dan. He’s not here yet, but go ahead into the room.”

“Thank you.”

Akira entered the room and sat down on the tatami in front of the Go board. There were only a few other players in the room; two matches besides his own. As he waited for his opponent to arrive, Akira took a moment to glance at the faces of the men around him. To his right was Satou 6-dan. Akira had faced off against him less than a month ago. He could recall Satou-san’s cautious playing style; all of Akira’s attacks had been met with a tiresome caginess, and the match had ended in Satou-san’s resignation. Across from Satou-san was Mitamura 6-dan. Akira had played against him comparatively earlier in his career, and in contrast to Satou-san, Mitamura-san’s playing style had been frenetic. When Akira had begun to build his territory in the center of the board, Mitamura-san’s response had been so disorganized that he had hardly made a dent in the shapes. Again, the match had ended in resignation.

In the opposite corner of the room, Noguchi 6-dan was sitting across from an older man whom Akira didn’t recognize. Noguchi-san was somewhat infamous in the Go world for his creative playing style, and Akira had been intrigued when he first heard tell of the unpredictability of his matches, but when he had looked at the kifu for himself he had been disappointed. It was true that Noguchi-san’s style was eccentric, but there was no particular strength to back up the decisions he made. As Akira looked back down at the empty Go board, he tried to recall. When was the last time that he had played against someone whose Go was truly exciting? It seemed as though it had been months.

It was a whole five minutes after the other four players had begun their matches that a heavyset and bespectacled Natsubori-san finally arrived and sat down across from Akira.

“I apologize for my lateness,” he mumbled thickly, smoothing out the rumples in his suit.

Akira did not want to waste time on conversation.

“Onegaishimasu.” He bowed his head.

“Onegaishimasu,” Natsubori-san replied in a disgruntled tone.

Of course it had been foolish to expect an exciting game from this kind of opponent, especially one who arrived so late. As the match developed, Akira tried to keep the disappointment from showing on his face, but it was difficult.

He should be resigning soon, thought Akira. Was it possible that he actually couldn’t read ahead? Was he only playing on out of stubbornness, or was it stupidity? Akira looked round again at the other players, who were now finishing up their matches. Who would have thought that Natsubori-san would be the least skilled among all of them?

This was the world of professional Go, where Akira had been living for over four years. It would be arrogant for him to say that he found his matches boring. It would also be untrue; the majority of the matches he played were challenging to him, and he felt by no means that he could rest easy, especially now that he was in the B league of the Honinbo race. It wasn’t a sense of challenge that he lacked, but if so... what was missing? He was steadily moving closer to his first title, and yet never before in his life had playing Go felt so hollow to him.

“I lost,” said Natsubori-san finally.

“Thank you very much.” Akira bowed, and began removing the stones from the board. According to the clock it was nearly 11:30; he could buy lunch on his way to the Go salon. He would play a few matches there, and then he would go home and have dinner with his parents. As he dropped the last stones into the lid of his Go-ke, the sensation that he was being glared at caused Akira to look up.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Natsubori-san. He gave a stiff smile, though his eyes retained their coldness. “Thank you for the match.”

After such a thoroughly unsatisfying game, Akira was eager to leave the Institute and find the onigiri stand where he usually bought his lunch, but he was apprehended in the lobby by Morisawa-san.

“Touya-san! Didja finish yer match?”

“Yes, just now.”

“And ya won?”

“I won.”

Morisawa-san laughed heartily, appearing as pleased with Akira’s win as though it had been his own. Ever since he had transferred to Tokyo from his post at the Kansai Go Association last year, he had made a habit of engaging Akira in conversation after nearly every match.

“As expected of Akira Touya!” Morisawa-san grinned. “Gettin’ closer an’ closer to the Honinbo title ain’tcha? I heard about your father by the way.”

“Do you mean his recent win in Korea?

“I was amazed! What a match! He hasn’t slowed down at all, has he? Been retired a few years now though.”

Akira nodded.

“Well, you’ll be catching up to him in no time I reckon!” Morisawa-san laughed again. “Keep it up the way yer goin’ and you’ll have three or four titles in half the time it took him. Haha! Real shame he retired, all the same.... You must have some kinda idea why he went an’ did that?”

“I don’t know,” Akira replied. He did not wish to speak to Morisawa-san just now, and the subject of his father’s retirement was not one of his favorites. The fact was that his father had never said a word to Akira as to why he had retired. On top of that, his face invariably grew stony when the subject came up. Akira could not help feeling a little wounded that the former Meijin refused to disclose the reasoning behind such a large decision even to his own son.

“Even you don’t know, huh?” said Morisawa-san ruefully. “I guess it’ll jus’ be one of the mysteries of the Go world.” He rummaged in his pockets and, pulling out a pack of tissues, began to blow his nose. “I’m sorry. The hay fever this year...”

“Oh!” Seeing the tissues, Akira suddenly remembered. “I left my book in the other room.”

He bowed his head slightly to the surprised Morisawa-san. “Please excuse me.”

Akira walked back quickly, passing the vending machines and a different pair of insei students who stepped out of his way with an air of quiet reverence. He was about to re-enter the large room when the sound of his own name made him stop outside the door.

“That’s right, Akira Touya!”

The speaker was Natsubori-san.

“Touya, huh?” said another voice. “Bad luck for you. I had him last month. Let me tell you, it was brutal.”

“Brutal doesn’t cut it! That guy’s without mercy! You should’ve seen the look on his face when I walked into the room. He was looking at me like I was some kind of puny little insect or something.”

“Haha, I can imagine it.”

Akira realized now that the other voice was Satou-san.

“I hate that guy,” Natsubori-san continued. “Always acting like he’s better than everyone... Must be nice having talent just passed down through your genes like that. I wouldn’t mind having a Meijin for a dad.”

“That’s for sure.”

“And what’s up with that hair? Is he some kind of pretty boy or what? It’s pretty fucking creepy, that’s what it is. He looks like a girl.”

“Haha, is he your type?” teased Satou-san.

“Give me a break! Fucking gross. I bet Touya’s like that though. He’s got it written all over his face.”

“Yeah, I could see it.”

Akira’s heart was beating quickly. For some reason, the handsome man’s face from earlier in the morning had suddenly flashed into his mind.

I bet Touya’s like that.

Was he?

But before he could make sense of the thoughts that had just entered his mind, Akira realized that the voices were now approaching the door. He ducked into the bathroom as Natsubori-san and Satou-san passed by.

“You going for lunch?”

“Yeah. I was gonna get donburi.”

“Nice.”

The footsteps receded.

Akira went into the larger room, found his book, and packed it into his briefcase. He nodded goodbye to the man at the front desk, and arrived at the subway station just in time to get on the train.

. . .

Ichikawa-san’s face brightened the moment that Akira entered the Go salon.

“Aki—Touya-sensei!”

“Good afternoon, Ichikawa-san.”

Pestered relentlessly by Kitajima-san, Ichikawa-san had recently begun calling Akira by his last name again, though it was clear that she still wasn’t used to it.

“You must be proud of your father’s win on Monday!” she said, leaning over the counter. “Everyone here has been talking about it nonstop. Is he back from Korea yet?”

“He’s still there with my mother,” Akira replied. “They said that they’d be back on Saturday or Sunday.”

“It’s a good thing that you’re still living with them! They’d have no one to take care of that house if you weren’t there!”

“Ah, I’m still thinking of moving out though. I’ve been speaking to my parents about it.”

Kitajima-san, who apparently had been lingering in the vicinity, jumped into the conversation.

“That’s right! Our young sensei’s already eighteen. There’s no point in him hanging out at his parents’ house anymore. He needs to go off, assert his independence. It’s what I’ve been saying for years now.”

“Kitajima-san!” Ichikawa-san reprimanded. “I’m sure that Aki— I mean Touya-sensei has his reasons for living with his parents. Eighteen is still plenty young! There’s no need to rush things.”

“Now when I was eighteen...”

Kitajima-san looked as though he was going to launch into another of his self-righteous anecdotes, but Ichikawa-san stopped him with a brief but potent glare.

“Touya-sensei, you know that whatever you decide, we’ll support you completely,” she said firmly. “We’re your biggest fans after all.”

“Thank you.” Akira smiled. The salon was as busy as usual today. There were the regular customers scattered around tables, absorbed in reviewing their games. Akira could see Sasaki-san in one corner of the room staring intently at his opponent. Tsurumaru-san and her husband, a new couple who had begun coming to the salon nearly every day recently, were just beginning a new match. The familiar sounds and faces somewhat relieved the tension that Akira hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. Everything that he had overheard Natsubori-san saying in the Go Institute was still echoing in the back of his mind, and he was glad that he was here now. After all, there was nothing that could calm him better than a teaching game with one of the regular guests. But perhaps some shadow of his lingering unease showed on his face, because Ichikawa-san leaned further over the counter and put her hand on his arm.

“Is something the matter?” she asked.

“It’s nothing,” Akira smiled again. “I suppose I’m just a little tired.”

“Really?” Ichikawa-san still looked concerned. “Somehow these past few weeks you’ve seemed a bit sad. I know that you’ve got the Honinbo league matches to keep up with now, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t take a break now and then!”

“Coming here is a good break for me,” Akira said. “Ichikawa-san, you always worry about me, but I’m really fine.”

“You’re not worrying too much about your matches?”

“I’m not worried. Actually, I’ve been preparing myself by doing some studying,” Akira said. “I borrowed this book from my father...” He pulled the book out from his briefcase and handed it to Ichikawa-san. Kitajima-san also leaned over to read the title.

Go in the Edo Period — Greatest Games in History” he read aloud. “Your… your father had this?”

“It was a gift from a friend,” Akira said, laughing. “I know that it doesn’t seem like the kind of book that he would read. It is for a general audience, but the historical commentary is fascinating. And there are many games that I had never heard of before.”

“Hmmm.” Kitajima-san flipped through the pages.

“Oh, that’s a match with Shuusaku!” exclaimed Ichikawa-san.

“This isn’t just any Shuusaku match, this is the famous ear-reddening game!” Kitajima-san pronounced, jabbing the page with his finger. “They couldn’t leave that out of the book! But you already know this game inside and out, don’t you, Young Sensei?”

“Yes.” Akira nodded.

“That reminds me,” said Ichikawa-san. “Shindou-kun did an interview recently in which he talked about Shuusaku.”

Akira looked up sharply. “Shindou?”

“Haven’t you read it, Young Sensei?” asked Kitajima-san.

“I haven’t.”

“It was in the Weekly Go. Kind of a funny thing. I never knew that Shindou-kun was so interested in Shuusaku, did you Icchan?”

“Now that you mention it, he did come off as very enthusiastic,” mused Ichikawa-san.

“I want to see the interview,” Akira said.

“Sasaki-san might have that issue. Hey Sasaki-san!” Kitajima-san shouted across the room.

Sasaki-san did have the issue with him. He spread it out in front of them on the counter.

“Hikaru Shindou — Greater Heights” the title read.

Akira moved the magazine closer to him so he could better read. His eyes moved up and down rapidly as he scanned the interview.

“Come to think of it, Shindou-kun hasn’t been to the salon for a while,” said Sasaki-san. “I wonder why that is.”

“You’re right,” said Ichikawa-san. “He used to come at least once a week, but he hasn’t been by for… goodness, it’s been months now, hasn’t it? I suppose he’s gotten busier. Didn’t he also enter a title race?”

“Yes,” Akira replied, his eyes still fixed on the article. “He’s in the running for the Meijin race. Last week he won his preliminary B match.”

“Oh? Have you met with him recently?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Oh.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Kitajima-san said. “The way Shindou goes all poetic over Shuusaku. Really, with the immature attitude he has, compared to our young sensei, you wouldn’t think the kid would get poetic about anything!”

Akira didn’t say anything in reply. His brows were furrowed over the article. He was rereading a line near the end of the interview:

Interviewer: And tell me, what is it about Shuusaku that means so much to you?

Shindou: For me, Shuusaku is the greatest Go player in the history of Japan. I think all Go players should learn from his games, but I particularly learned a lot from him. I try to play Go that he would be proud of.

At a first glance, these words didn’t seem to hold much meaning, but Akira hadn’t missed several subtle points. First, Shindou had said “Shuusaku is the greatest Go player in history” — not that he was. Second, he hadn’t said “I learned a lot from Shuusaku’s games,” he had said “I learned a lot from him.” And finally, the thing most significant to Akira was the fact that Shindou had said that he wanted to play Go that Shuusaku would be proud of, as though Shuusaku was someone he knew personally.

“Aki— Touya-sensei, would you like some tea?” Ichikawa-san asked.

“Oh, er… thank you.”

Akira looked up. He realized that he had nearly forgotten the reason why he had come to the salon. Last week he had promised Tsurumaru-san a teaching game, and he hadn’t even said hello to her since he had come in. Carefully closing the magazine, he gave it back to Sasaki-san and sat down at his usual table. He spent the rest of the afternoon teaching first Tsurumaru-san, and then her husband.

As he placed the stones on the board, he remembered another smaller hand clumsily pinching the stones between his thumb and forefinger almost seven years ago. He remembered the first game that they had played, the immense power he had felt then. Compared to the sorts of matches he was playing nowadays, what a difference it was! He remembered the excitement he had felt playing against Shindou, the kind of excitement that so rarely visited him now. His first match against Shindou had been in this very salon.

Notes:

I was going to post the first chapter on Hikaru's birthday, but I've been in a bit of a writing slump so I'm going to post it now to motivate myself to keep writing! I apologize in advance for the professional Go world inaccuracies. Some of them are there for plot convenience.

I love these boys!! Akira is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. I hope you will enjoy my attempt at delving into their psyches!

Also, there's going to be some bad-communication-related noncon eventually, for those who like to know these things in advance.

Chapter 2: Number

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Akira sat at the breakfast table across from his mother and father. They had come back from the airport on Sunday evening and, exhausted from the trip, had both gone immediately to bed. Akira, however, had slept only five hours. He had been in a state of excitement since Thursday when he had read Shindou’s interview, and though normally he rarely stayed up past ten, for the past four days he hadn’t been able to fall asleep at all before midnight. Whether he was making dinner or reading a book or laying out a game on his Go board or brushing his teeth, one name continually echoed in his mind: sai.

He knew that sai was Shindou; anyone would have said that it was impossible, but he nevertheless knew it was true in the deepest part of himself. Moreover, Shindou’s obsession with Shuusaku had something to do with sai. That was also certain. And yet, even though years had past, Akira had not been able to solve the puzzle of how Shindou’s Go could contain two distinct styles at once. After the first Hokuto Cup he had promised himself not to think about it anymore. Shindou had promised he would tell Akira someday, and Akira felt that if he were impatient it would only decrease the likelihood that Shindou would tell him at all. But seeing Shindou‘s interview had reawakened the desire to know. The night before, as his parents were sleeping, Akira had even taken out the old kifu he had kept from the first few games he had played against Shindou. He had laid out the stones on the board, following his own angry pencil marks from years before. How had Shindou played first so brilliantly and then so very poorly? There was no way to explain it.

“Akira-san, aren’t you going to have any of the rice porridge?” his mother asked, jarring him out of his reverie. “I tried making it in the Korean style.”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll have some.”

His mother, as she dished out a ladle-full of the creamy porridge, seemed quite well rested and excited to talk about her trip.

“The breakfasts at the hotel were so delicious, weren’t they dear?”

“Mm,” Akira’s father grunted.

“You know, I was able to speak a little more Korean this time around,” she continued. “Yeyageul hago sipeoyo... I think that means I want to make a reservation.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Akira said. He had quit taking Korean lessons last year, but he still knew much more than his mother.

“We ought to go as a family next time, don’t you think?” His mother looked over at her husband. “Maybe if Akira-san can find a break in his schedule…”

“I don’t mind, but who will stay at home to take care of the house if Akira comes too?” his father chuckled.

“We can just hire someone to take care of it!” Akira’s mother turned to him. “Right?”

“Actually,” Akira said, putting down his chopsticks, “I wanted to talk to you about getting my own apartment. I’m prepared to pay the rent by myself of course. And in the end it would be easier for you and Father not having to look after me.”

“But we like having you here!” his mother insisted. “You can still stay with us another year or so. There’s no need to rush away.”

Akira sighed and looked down at his rice porridge. He had tried bringing up this subject so many times already, and every time it came to the same conclusion: his mother protested, and Akira gave in.

“It’s almost April,” he said. “I was thinking of looking for apartments in the next few weeks…”

“You’re busy now. Moving out would be such a hassle just as you’re in the middle of the Honinbo race,” said his mother. “There’s always next year.”

Akira said nothing. Finishing his breakfast, he excused himself from the table and went to the kitchen to wash his dishes. Today he didn’t have any matches, but there was a meeting with a publisher to talk about a book proposal. In the evening he would teach a private lesson, but his schedule left him the afternoon to himself. Perhaps he could use that time to go to the Go Institute and find a way to contact Shindou. Yes, that was the best thing to do, he decided. It was true that he hadn’t seen Shindou for months, but it wasn’t as though either of them had decided that on purpose. Shindou had been forced to quit Serizawa-sensei’s study group because of a conflict with his schedule, and Akira’s matches had kept him quite busy himself. There was nothing strange about giving Shindou a call after such a long time. He still considered Shindou his rival; he didn’t like that it had been so long since they had played any matches. Once they met, he could bring up Shuusaku casually in conversation. He wanted to know the truth. No, he deserved to know.

Having decided what to do, Akira went to his room to get ready to meet with the publisher. He packed the necessary papers in his briefcase and was about to step out when the white-blue light from his computer caught his eye. Last night, just before he had finally gone to sleep, he had checked his inbox and found an email from a fan. It being late, he hadn’t opened it but had left the window there as a reminder to himself. After checking his watch, he double clicked the subject heading and read the following:

 

Touya-sensei,

The cherry blossoms have begun to bloom. I hope you have been well.

Please let me present myself. My name is Kou Sunahara. I’ve been following your games ever since you became a professional, and I wanted to thank you for your seriousness and commitment to Go. I always enjoy watching your exciting matches. I think that your Go is the most fascinating of all the professional Go players in the field today, and I’m looking forward to seeing you win your first title.

Please forgive me for cutting straight to the point, but I have a question that I’ve always wanted to ask you. In an interview from several years ago, I noticed that you became very quiet when the interviewer asked you the reason why you played Go. I wondered why you didn’t answer the question. For someone as enthusiastic as yourself, you must have a reason why you play this game. If you don’t mind, could you tell me what your reason is for playing Go? I am only an amateur myself, and I am consistently impressed by the determination and spirit of professional players, not least of all yourself, Touya-sensei. What motivates you to keep playing no matter what?

Sincerely,

Kou Sunahara

 

Akira stared at the computer screen. The reason why he played Go? He couldn’t recall the interview that Sunahara-san had mentioned. He must have been very tired when the interviewer asked him the question, because he couldn’t remember being asked such a question by anyone. In fact, the more he thought about it, the only instance that came to his mind of such a question being asked was at the first Hokuto Cup when Suyong Hong had asked Shindou. Akira remembered Shindou’s words perfectly: “The reason I play Go is to connect the distant past with the distant future.” That answer was as mysterious to Akira now as it had been then, no less because Shindou had been crying when he had said it. Akira was sure there was some deep importance behind that answer. If only he knew what he had meant.

In any case, there wasn’t any time to answer Sunahara-san’s email now. Akira turned off the computer’s display, put on a light coat, and said goodbye to his parents as he left the house. The train was once again too crowded to sit down, and he stood by the window watching the cherry blossoms go by, interspersed with high-rise apartment buildings, the dirty concrete of the train stations, and derelict roofs of older buildings, temples, and shrines. As the train neared the station, Akira felt a sudden impulse to continue on a couple more stops down the line and get off at the Go Institute. If he hurried, he might be able to find a way to contact Shindou before his meeting with the publisher… but he put that idea out of his mind. He could wait until the afternoon; there was no sense in making himself late to his appointment. Ever since Ichikawa-san had mentioned Shindou’s interview, it seemed as though Akira’s curiosity was only growing stronger and stronger. Questions and more questions creeped into his mind the second he wasn’t thinking of anything else.

. . .

SG Tokyo Publishing Co. Ltd. was located in a grey and businesslike part of Shibuya city. Akira was met in the lobby by Asanuma-san, a tall fellow in his early sixties with large friendly eyes and a white goatee.

“Touya-sensei, we so much appreciate your coming here,” he said.

“Not at all.”

“If you don’t mind, let’s go to my office and we can get settled down. I’m very excited to talk with you about the book.”

“Thank you.”

He was led to a small office with a variety of science fiction and mystery novels lining the shelves. Asanuma-san sat down after Akira had done so. A petite secretary set down tea in front of each of them, and smiled warmly at Akira before she left.

“So. Once again thank you for being here. I heard from the Go Institute that this is your first book. I must say I was surprised given your playing record. No one’s ever approached you before?”

“Well, no,” Akira admitted. “I’m still early in my career for one thing.”

“Still early in your career? That’s true, but what a career it’s been so far! May I ask, how are you feeling about the Honinbo race?”

“I feel confident,” Akira replied. “I’ve been preparing myself for this race for a long time now, and I’m glad to have made it this far. I’m prepared to face the obstacles ahead of me.”

“Good. Good. I’m glad to hear that,” said Asanuma-san. “All of us here at SG Tokyo will be supporting you from the sidelines. Now… as for the details of the book, I’m looking at something that combines some personal elements along with helpful examples of games you’ve played. This is for a beginner’s audience, you understand. I’m sure that you’re aware, we’re not mainly a publishing company that deals with Go.” He gestured behind him at the mystery and science fiction books on the shelves. “I was thinking, we want some of that personal touch along with the kifu. How does that sound?”

Akira nodded, though he wasn’t quite sure what Asanuma-san was getting at.

“If it’s possible, I’d like you to touch on some of the familial elements of your Go,” Asanuma said.

Akira stared at him. Now he knew what this meant, and felt his heart sinking. His father. They wanted his father, not him.

“You know, it’s very special that you were taught by your father,” Asanuma-san continued, “And I think that a lot of our readership would be interested in knowing some of the warm details of that relationship and how it has affected your playing today. If you had any records of the games that you’ve played against your father perhaps…” He looked up expectantly at Akira.

“Well… I’m not sure about that,” Akira said.

“That’s fine, that’s fine! We can cross that bridge when we get there. Just so long as you have some games that you can add in eventually. To tell the truth, we tried reaching out to your father earlier, but since he’s retired I believe he simply rejected the idea of another book…”

So you came to me as a Plan B, Akira thought.

“Actually…” Asanuma-san reached into a desk drawer and produced a stack of papers that he handed to Akira. “We have here a preliminary outline for the sections of the book. If you could give it a look…”

Akira flipped through the papers. The first section was titled “Familial Anecdotes.” The second section was titled “Games against the Former Meijin.”

“This is all open to change of course,” said Asanuma-san hurriedly. “It being your first book, we tried to give you a fair amount of structure to work from. But basically these are the kind of contents that we’re looking for. The first section should be fairly easy to write. You can just talk about memories that you have, and your editor will always be available if you have any questions about style or anything like that.”

Akira did not agree that the first section would be the easiest. Go was what he knew. He had thought this was going to be a book about Go, not a memoir.

“Asanuma-san,” Akira began, “I’m not accustomed to writing about my family. If possible, I—“

“We’re here to provide you whatever help you need,” Asanuma-san interrupted. “I know this isn’t what you’re used to per se, but we’ve discussed it in the department, and we’re sure that this kind of book will reach a much wider audience and help introduce more people to Go who never would have been interested before. And it won’t be bad for your popularity either. So just for now, why don’t you take the outline home with you and take a look, maybe start taking down some notes. We’ll have another meeting soon to discuss some more of the details.”

Asanuma-san got up from his chair. “We’re very glad for the opportunity to work with you, Touya-sensei.”

Akira also got up from his chair. He knew he was supposed to smile here and thank Asanuma-san for the deal, but he did not feel at all capable of smiling. In response to Asanuma-san’s self-satisfied face Akira only nodded. The secretary saw Akira to the door and bowed as he left. Akira bowed back, but he had barely made it out of her line of sight before his steps picked up in speed and he was nearly dashing towards the train station.

He didn’t want to think about the book deal. He didn’t want to think about his father. The only thing in his mind was Shindou.

. . .

The more he considered the situation, the more it annoyed him. There really was no good reason for Shindou to fall so completely out of contact. In the beginning, Akira had tolerated it because he had assumed it was just normal busyness, but the fact that it had actually been months since either of them had spoken was infuriating. Shindou had become a pro in order to play against Akira. And Akira had worked as hard as he had because he had sensed Shindou’s presence behind him all the while. Even when he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he had felt that Shindou was drawing closer and closer at a remarkable speed. No one else had studied Shindou’s games as Akira had. No one else knew that sai was Shindou. Akira was certain, absolutely certain, that he and Shindou were going to be rivals for the rest of their lives. But if so, why was Shindou running away?

As Akira got off the train and strutted towards the Go Institute, he reached into his pocket and curled his fingers around his cell phone. He was going to call Shindou and ask him about Shuusaku. But he was also going to ask Shindou to come back to the Go salon. As Shindou advanced in the Meijin race he would need to train harder than ever, and Akira could help him. Playing matches against each other would only benefit them both.

Akira entered the lobby of the Go Institute, but paused as he realized that the person at the desk was not the usual receptionist, but Morisawa-san instead.

“Hey Touya-sensei!” Morisawa-san greeted him jovially. “Ya don’t have a match today do ya? You’re not on our roster for the day…” But as he said this, he seemed to be seized by a doubt, and began flipping through the disorganized papers behind the desk to check.

“I don’t have a match,” Akira reassured him. “I want to find a way to contact Shindou.”

“Shindou?” Morisawa-san blinked. “Shindou 5-dan?”

“I wanted to request an informal match,” explained Akira.

“Oh, that’s right. I remember somethin’ about that,” said Morisawa-san. “You two are… what’s it… rivals right? Yeah, Ogata-sensei was tellin’ me about that. And yer lookin’ for his contact info?”

Akira was disconcerted that Ogata-sensei was spreading such talk around the Go Institute. Of course, he did consider Shindou his rival, but he didn’t like that other people might be talking about their rivalry without understanding it. There was no way they could understand it.

“Do you have his phone number?” Akira asked.

“Sure, it oughtta be here somewhere,” said Morisawa-san, rummaging through the papers on the desk. “Numbers… numbers…”

“Morisawa-san!” Another employee came up to the desk. “The insei exam forms that I gave to you earlier…”

“Ah! Those! I have ‘em here somewhere. Now… what was I doing? Oh, Shindou…” Morisawa-san appeared to be simultaneously looking for Shindou’s number and the insei exam forms. “Here he is! Hold on a second, Touya-sensei.” He took the cap of a permanent marker off with his teeth, scribbled some numbers down on a sticky note, then handed it to Akira.

“Thank you,” Akira said, but Morisawa-san had already buried his head in a binder of forms and didn’t seem to hear him.

Akira clutched the pink sticky note in one hand and his cell phone in the other, and walked out of the Institute as quickly as he could without actually running.   

There was a small park nearby the train tracks, and Akira found a bench where he could sit down. From above his head, the wind scattered cherry blossom petals onto the mud and tufts of grass. There were children playing on the equipment, shouting and running. Akira dialed the number with one hand, shielding his eyes from the bright sunshine with the other.

“The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service” said the pre-recorded message. “If you feel you have reached this message in error, please check the number and try your call again.”

Akira squinted at the number that Morisawa-san had given him. All of the digits seemed to be correct. More carefully this time, he entered the numbers again. He received the same message.

Akira was about to try the number once more when he heard a sharp shout of pain, and then the sound of a child crying. Akira looked up and saw that one of the children who had been running around playing tag had fallen and hurt himself. The boy was clutching his scraped knee and sniffling as he looked around him. The other children were on the other side of the park and hadn’t noticed his injury. Akira got up and walked towards the child.

“Are you all right?”

The child raised his tearful eyes up to Akira and nodded.

“You should clean that scrape up. Is your mother or father here?”

Again the child nodded, and turned his head to a shaded area where Akira saw several women sitting together. One of them had gotten up, and was walking towards them.

“Kakeru! What happened?”

“I fell.”

The child’s mother smiled apologetically at Akira.

“Thank you for coming to look after him.”

“Oh, no…” Akira shook his head. “I didn’t really…”

Kakeru, apparently embarrassed by his tears, was already wiping his face and making to rejoin his friends in the game. Before he could escape, his mother grabbed him by the jacket and zipped it up briskly. She tousled the impatient boy’s hair.

“Mom, stop it!”

“All right then, go on,” she said, and gave her son a push. He ran away towards his friends. She turned to Akira. “If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you?” she asked.

“I’m eighteen,” Akira said.

“You’re going to be a wonderful father someday, I can tell.” She smiled again. “It’s not every day you see an eighteen-year-old pay that kind of attention to a child.”

“Is he all right?” Akira asked.

“Oh, he’ll be fine. He’s a crybaby is all. He’ll have forgotten about it in fifteen minutes.” She looked back towards where her friends were sitting in the shade. “Take care now. Thank you again.”

Akira inclined his head and watched the woman walk away.

A wonderful father.

Something in the bright spring air was making Akira’s chest feel tight. He looked again at the pink sticky note in his hand, and crumpled it tight in his fist. Then he inhaled, and exhaled, and sat back down on the bench. How long ago was it that he had been another one of these children playing in a park? Years and years and years. He could hardly remember it. Living in the world of Go he sometimes forgot that there were families and children like this who lived lives completely removed from everything that was important to Akira. There were families who never touched or so much as looked at a Go board. And just as much as his world must seem foreign to them, their world was foreign to Akira. Even though he was already a working member of society, he could hardly imagine himself as a father, having a wife and children.

It must happen someday, Akira thought. It seems strange to me now, but I’m sure it will happen somehow.

Shindou on the other hand — Shindou would definitely become a father. He had always been closer to that life than Akira had. He had started Go so late, and then had immersed himself completely, but he was fundamentally different from Akira in a certain way. Shindou had friends from his middle school. He could talk to anyone and grow close to them — these were things that Akira had never been good at.

Yes, Shindou will definitely become a father, Akira thought. Unclenching his fist, he looked at the crumpled sticky note. It was just like Shindou to change his phone number without notifying the Go Institute. This was just the kind of irresponsible thing…

Akira sighed. The wind blew his hair into his eyes. From the other side of the park he heard Kakeru laughing.

Notes:

I promise we're gonna get some Hikaru in here soon.

One of my favorite things is the traditional Japanese seasonal greetings at the opening of letters and emails, so I made sure to include them in the fic! You may notice that there are a lot of original ojisan characters. This is because I love ojisans :)

Chapter 3: Ohanami

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When Akira left his house that morning, he had no destination in mind. He let his steps guide him as he traversed the neighborhood where he had grown up. These days he had begun taking walks more frequently than he had before. When both of his parents were home, he found his attention drawn to small details: the tone of her voice when his mother called them to dinner, or the look in his father’s eyes as he studied kifu in his room. All these details together sometimes made the atmosphere in the house suffocating, though Akira couldn’t say why that was. Walking through the neighborhood gave him a sense of freedom. When he walked he always seemed to encounter places and scenes that reminded him of his childhood, and he let himself fall back into those memories — both the joyful and the bitter ones. He remembered holding tight to his mother’s hand as she took him to the local library. He remembered solving life and death problems as he walked to his elementary school — walking alone while the other children traveled in packs of three or more, always laughing noisily. He knew that all the moments he had lived up until now must somehow add up to equal his current self, but each individual moment taken alone seemed incredibly far away. Who was he now? What connected him to that child who had clung to his mother’s gentle hand?

Looking up from his feet, Akira found himself unexpectedly at the train station. His legs must have brought him there out of habit. Even though it was a weekend and he, for a change, didn’t have any work, he realized that he would much rather take the ride to the Go Institute than return home. It was the same train ride that he took nearly every weekday, the same trees out the window. On the train he noticed that among the passengers there were some tipsy older men with petals stuck to their clothes; it was cherry blossom viewing season just now, and Akira saw that out of the people around him, many were clearly taking advantage of the weekend to hold ohanami parties. They had parasols, picnic baskets and tote bags. The tipsy older gentlemen were laughing and leaning on their canes, looking gleefully around them as if the whole world were theirs. Akira remembered an ohanami party years ago during which Ogata-san had gotten quite drunk, and had challenged his father to an unofficial match that the former Meijin had won by a wide margin. It was a happy memory for Akira, being able to see his father’s unrivaled strength while drinking the barley tea that his mother had prepared and eating sakuramochi.

As the train approached the Go Institute, Akira considered what to do. He didn’t especially have any business at the Institute, but he still had no way to contact Shindou. Even if the number that the Go Institute possessed was no good, they still must have some way to contact Shindou. If he needed to, Akira was prepared to ask for Shindou’s address and knock on his door himself.

“Why haven’t you contacted me?” he would ask. “Why has it been months since we’ve had a match? Why are you running away after so many years of chasing after me?”

Akira got off at Ichigaya and made his way through the bustling crowds. The majority of the cherry blossom viewers seemed to be moving towards Yasukuni Shrine, and it was with difficulty that Akira extracted himself from the throng and arrived at the Institute.

He was going to get Shindou’s address, and then he was going to go directly to Shindou’s house, he decided. He had time today, so there was no point in waiting. “Shindou,” he would say. “Come back to the Go salon. You should be playing games against me. We’re both in the midst of title races now. This is no time to be careless.”

Lost in these thoughts, Akira opened the entrance doors and nearly ran headfirst into someone who was exiting.

“Sorry!” said the person, and Akira, recognizing the voice, looked up in astonishment.

It was Shindou. He was holding the strap of his backpack in one hand and a heavy-looking canvas bag in the other. Seeing Akira, Shindou’s face showed first surprise, then recognition, then changed to an expression of pure, unadulterated joy.

“Touya!” said Shindou. “No way! Touya! It is you! Wow, it’s been forever!” He grinned at Akira. “How’ve you been? What are you doing here?”

“Shindou,” Akira said, suddenly losing all of the words he had been preparing only a moment ago. He stared at Shindou’s face, trying to place what was different about him. It had only been a few months, but there was definitely something changed in the way that he looked.

“Oh, I guess we’re in the way,” Shindou said, catching a sidelong glance from another professional leaving the Institute. “Were you going in?”

“Shindou, I want to talk with you,” Akira said.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Sure.” Shindou seemed to be trying to keep his face under control, but the grin kept breaking through. He laughed. “Sorry. It’s just been freaking forever since I’ve seen you!”

“That’s true,” Akira said. “Let’s go over there to talk.”

“Over where?”

“The park.”

“There’s a park around here?”

“How do you work here and still not know that?”

“Shut up! How am I supposed to know! I just come here to play Go!” But even in the midst of his indignation, Shindou’s voice couldn’t stay angry for long. The smile came back, and he looked up at Touya tentatively. “Hey listen, uh, if you have the time do you wanna play a match? I have a Go board in here.” He lifted the canvas bag to show Akira.

“I would like to play against you,” Akira said. “I’ve actually been thinking that I wanted to play a match against you for some time.” They began walking towards the park. Akira, as he had both hands free, took Shindou’s canvas bag from him. “Shindou, why didn’t you come to the Go salon for so long?”

“Oh, thanks,” Shindou said, letting go of the bag. “I don’t really know. I guess I’ve just been busy. Y’know, first I had to quit Serizawa-sensei’s study group, and then I just couldn’t find the time. I’m sorry. I wanted to go, but…” He scratched his head.

“You’re in the preliminaries of the Meijin race right now. I saw your match against Inoue-san.”

“You saw that?” Shindou looked over at Akira excitedly. “Inoue-san is really amazing, isn’t he? I was seriously worried that I wasn’t going to win.”

“You were able to read far enough ahead that you could prevent his attacks and protect your territory. Even though your initial formation wasn’t the best…”

“Yeah, to be honest I was pretty nervous,” Shindou said, laughing. “I was trying to concentrate but it took me a while to calm down and get into the game.”

“That’s why I think you should come to the Go salon again. In order to prepare for the title race…”

“What, are you saying that playing against you is the best way for me to prepare myself?”

“That’s not what I meant!” Akira snapped. “Though technically I am one dan ahead of you. But I mean for both of us.”

“Both of us? Oh, that’s right. You’re in the Honinbo race, right? When’s the final match?”

“July.”

“That’s so soon!”

They had arrived at the park, which was much more crowded than when Akira had visited earlier in the week. Children and their parents sat under the trees on blankets and tarps. One father was strumming a guitar while his children practiced handstands on the grass.

“Have you had an ohanami party yet?” Shindou asked.

“I don’t think there will be one this year,” Akira replied pensively. “I used to go to more ohanami parties when I was a child, but recently with my parents both leaving the country so frequently… besides, I’m already an adult.”

“No time for parties… It’s tough being in a Go family, huh?” Shindou said. He set his backpack down in the grass under a tree and looked around. “Let’s just do our own ohanami then. Wait a second.”

“Shindou?” Akira, perplexed, watched as Shindou began to walk away.

“You can get out the Go board. I’ll be right back!” Shindou called over his shoulder.

So Akira sat down and reached into the bag. The Go board in question was a very inexpensive portable one; the stones were thin white and black magnets. Also in the bag were several flyers and pamphlets from the Institute and a cell phone — so Shindou did own a cell phone after all.

“Here.” Akira looked up to see a can of coffee several centimeters from his face.

“What?”

“It’s not really an ohanami sort of drink, but you like this kind of thing, right? Coffee.”

Taking the coffee, Akira watched Shindou set his own can of soda in the grass, sit down cross-legged, and begin to take out some of the magnetic “stones” from the white container.

“You be black, okay? It’s hard to do nigiri with the magnets.”

“Shindou.”

“What?”

“If you have a cell phone, why don’t you register your number with the Go Institute? It would be a problem if they tried to contact you and they still had the wrong number.”

“What are you talking about? My phone number? Where did that topic even come from? Besides, I already registered this number with the Go Institute.”

“No, the number that they have there is wrong. I tried it and it didn’t go through.”

“You tried to call me?”

“Yes.”

A strange smile appeared on Shindou’s face.

“Ugh, you’re so weird.”

“What do you mean, ‘weird,’ Shindou! You were the one who stopped coming to the salon and didn’t leave any viable means of communication!”

“I’m telling you, I gave the Go Institute my cell phone number! They always use it to call me!”

“If that’s true, then why wasn’t I able to reach you!?”

“You probably messed up a digit or something!”

Akira was about to protest when he remembered Morisawa-san’s state of distraction as he had scribbled out Shindou’s number. Unfortunately, he had to admit that it would be very much in character for Morisawa-san to have botched one of the digits.

“But if you want my number I can just give it to you, you know?” Shindou continued. “You have a cell phone too, right?”

“Yes, I bought one a few months ago,” Akira said, fishing it out of his pocket.

“What! This is the model that I wanted!” Without asking, Shindou took it from Akira’s hands and examined it from all sides. “Whoa… and you got the dark blue one. So cool… Why do you have this?”

“What do you mean by that?” Akira asked crisply.

“Whatever. Never mind. Where’s your contacts?”

“At the bottom of the—“

“Got it. Found ‘em.” Shindou bit his lip as he entered in the numbers. “... and four two seven five. There you go.” He handed the cell phone back to Akira.

Akira took a look at the number, and called it. From inside the bag, Shindou’s cell phone began to ring.

“What are you doing? Why are you calling me now!?”

“I wanted to check if it worked.”

“It works, okay? So hang up already!”

Akira ended the call and the ringing stopped.

“Jeez...” Shindou grumbled. A few trees away, the father was still strumming a pleasant melody on the guitar while his children ran around in circles. Akira met Shindou’s eyes.

“D’you wanna play?” Shindou asked.

“Yes,” Akira said.

. . .

“This move when you came in from above and invaded my territory...”

“Oh, that was too early huh. I should’ve...”

“No, I think that the timing was right.”

“But look, if I had protected at that point and then went in... you would’ve had to play here... and it would’ve turned out like this.”

“No, I could have played there, but I could have also played here, and then the result would have been the same.”

“Oh...”

“Don’t just say ‘oh’! That much should be obvious!”

“Fine! Whatever! I want a rematch!”

“That’s fine with me.”

Shindou began plucking the magnets away from the surface of the Go board and putting them back into their respective containers. Akira watched his hands.

“Shindou.”

“Mm.”

“You’ve gotten stronger.”

Shindou looked up and smiled.

“Of course I have. It’s been a few months. It’s not like I’ve been just sitting around doing nothing all this time!”

“But the amount that you’ve progressed is much more than I had expected. I want to play against you again.”

“We’re literally about to play a game right now.”

“I know that! I mean again this week.”

“Oh, uh, sure. Yeah, I’ll probably have time...”

“Don’t run away.”

“Wh— hold on! Why would I run away!?”

“You did before. When you stopped playing Go.”

“I already told you I’m never going to do that again!”

Akira watched Shindou’s scowling face. He still couldn’t place what it was about him that was different. Since Akira had met him, Shindou’s Go had grown stronger and stronger, and Shindou himself had changed as well. Something had happened around when Shindou had briefly stopped coming to his official matches. Akira had been worried then. When he thought that Shindou might quit Go entirely, it had made him so angry that it had been all he could do not to hit the walls of his own bedroom when he came home from work — his mother had even noticed his irritated brooding and had asked him what was wrong. But then one day Shindou had come back and announced to Akira that he would never stop playing Go. That was the point where Shindou had changed. After that he began to seem more mature, less of a child somehow… What had happened in those weeks? It was yet another of Shindou’s mysteries.

As they played their second match, Akira felt an exhilaration swelling in his chest. It was the feeling he had been missing these past few months while Shindou had been absent from the Go salon. Yes, this was the kind of Go that Akira wanted to play. When he played against Shindou he could feel his mind stretching in ways it did not need to against other players. Shindou’s creativity, and the freshness of each move... it filled Akira with an impatient energy. He wanted more. Even while he was playing, he wanted to play more games against Shindou. The thought that the afternoon was going to draw to a close and he would have to return home vexed him. Shindou was sitting right there across from him, and yet it was not enough.

“...I lost,” Shindou said.

“Thank you very much.”

“Thank you very m— hey. Isn’t it really quiet?”

Akira paused and listened. The strumming was gone and the sounds of children yelling had also disappeared. The sun had passed its peak in the sky and was just beginning to descend.

“You’re right. It is quiet. It’s strange that so many people have left the park even though it’s still early afternoon.”

“That was a good ohanami...”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to leave already without reviewing the match.”

“No, we can do the review. But don’t you have anything else to do today? I mean, I know your schedule’s pretty full.”

“I don’t have anything. What about you? You’re the one who doesn’t even have time to come to the Go salon.”

Shindou looked down and laughed embarrassedly.

“Yeah... about that... I said I couldn’t come because I was too busy, but actually... it wasn’t just busyness. I mean, I was busy, but that wasn’t all. There was also another, well uh... two more reasons.”

Akira couldn’t understand why Shindou appeared so self-conscious. His face seemed to be red.

“Whenever we played at your Go salon,” Shindou said hurriedly, “You know, you’d always win. I mean, just like today, the games were close, but you pretty much always win. I was tired of just staring at your back. So I thought I wanted to face you again when we’re both equal dans.”

Akira looked at Shindou with disapproval.

“And that’s why you stopped coming to the salon? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If you want to be equal to me, you should fight me. I can’t believe you stopped coming to the salon for a reason like that.”

“Hey! I really was busy though! It wasn’t like I just left because I wanted to.”

“And?” Akira asked. “What was the other reason? You said there were three.”

“Uh, the other one’s a secret.”

“What!? Why!?”

“Just because!”

“Just because!? That’s not a reason, Shindou!“

“Shut up! Why do I have to tell you everything?”

“What are you talking about? You never tell me anything!”

“I do tell you stuff!”

“You do not!”

“Yes, I do!”

“No you don’t!”

“I do too!”

It’s just like before, Akira thought.

They had used to fight like this almost every time Shindou came to the Go salon. He would say something stupid and Akira would tell him so, and before they knew it the two would be yelling at each other. But as exasperated as Akira often felt around Shindou, the arguing and yelling was a pattern he had grown used to. Coming back to it was a relief. He hadn’t realized until now how much he had missed it.

“Hey,” Shindou said, picking at the grass with one hand.

“What?”

“I was wondering. I’ve been in title races before. Why were you talking about me being in a title race like this one’s going to be any different? I could lose next round, you know? What makes you think I’m going to progress past the preliminaries this time?”

“I know your skill level. And I’ve just confirmed your strength by playing against you. You can win the title this time. Why are you talking as though you might lose, Shindou? You should have confidence in your Go.”

“Oh I don’t have any plans to lose.” Shindou grinned. “I’m going to go at it with my full force. And besides, I got to meet with you again, so there’s that.”

“I don’t understand. What does that have to do with it?”

“Hmmm… That’s a secret too.”

“Shindou!”

. . .

By the time they said goodbye, they had reviewed the match and finished two more games. The sun was turning the clouds orange and yellow, and a new wave of party-goers had descended onto the park. On the train home, Akira saw one of the older men from his morning train ride leaning against his cane and humming a melody to himself. Akira tilted his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. The shapes of their last game flickered in his mind’s eye along with flashes of Shindou’s hands as they had held the magnets. He saw Shindou’s smile as he lazily sipped from his soda can, and the branches of the trees overhead as they scattered light pink petals. It had been a good ohanami.

Notes:

It's Hikaru finally! Now we can have some good old-fashioned bickering :D

Chapter 4: Cafe

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Akira had agreed to meet Shindou at a cafe in the afternoon. Back from his morning match and waiting for the time he would leave the house, he sat in his room and laid out a game on the Go board. It was a game that his father had played against one of the young amateurs in a commercial Go tournament in China, and Akira had immediately been intrigued by the unconventional and interesting shapes he had seen in the kifu. Of course, the younger player’s style accounted for some of this allure, but many of the most creative moves belonged to Akira’s father. Since his father had retired, his playing style had become more liberated. In fact, every few months it seemed to evolve slightly. But Akira didn’t have any chances to experience this evolved playing style for himself. Laying out the games from kifu was the only way he could learn it because it had in fact been years since his father had played a game against him.

In the beginning, Akira hadn’t thought much of it when the games between him and his father started to become less frequent. Akira had become a professional, so his schedule was packed with matches and tournaments, and eventually tutoring sessions as well. At that point his father had also recently retired, and was making the most of his newfound freedom with frequent trips abroad to Korea and China. But slowly Akira began to sense a distance between them. His father had used to invite him to play matches on weekend mornings. Before breakfast the two of them would go to the room and sit down across from each other, and his father would nod at Akira to ask him to play the first move. They would spend an hour or so on the game and on reviewing it, and Akira would always leave the room with a sense of warmth and awe at his father’s skill. But now, not a single invitation came. He couldn’t remember the last time they had played a match. And unfortunately, it wasn’t only that. His father, who was by nature a reserved person, these days seemed to hardly speak to Akira at all. It was as though Akira were just a colleague, or even less than that, a guest in his own house.

Was this behavior a sign that his father was aging, retreating further into himself? Or had Akira done something wrong? Had he displeased his father somehow? The latter seemed hardly plausible, but it was a thought that Akira couldn’t seem to shake from his mind.

He considered his father’s triple hane on the left-hand side of the board. Riskier moves and innovative patterns. The Go that his father played now was barely recognizable compared to what he had played for most of his life. How would Akira respond to such a playing style? He longed to find out, to feel the heat of this new kind of battle for himself, but somehow it didn’t feel appropriate to ask his father for a game. As they sat at the dinner table, all of Akira’s desire to play against his father burned behind his eyes; none of it moved past his lips.

It was good that he had been able to find Shindou again, Akira thought. He knew very well that the frustration he felt these days had been building for some time, and that left alone it might grow out of control. Natsubori-san had seen it, the anger in Akira’s heart. In truth, it mattered little to Akira what other professional Go players thought of him personally, but it was not his intention to frighten those around him. He was used to people making offhand comments about the intensity of his attitude when he was at the Go board, but he couldn’t help it. For him, Go was serious. Shindou met his intensity with enthusiasm, when almost everyone else Akira had played responded with fear or spite.

Today Akira would play against Shindou. One match, two matches, however many they had time for before they had to return home for dinner. And this time, Akira promised himself, he would ask Shindou the question he had not been able to ask yesterday. What did Shuusaku mean to him? Why was it he wanted to make Shuusaku proud?

. . .

When Akira arrived at the cafe, a fine rain had begun to fall. Shindou was standing by the outdoor seating with an umbrella in hand.

“You’re early,” Akira said.

“I mean, so are you,” Shindou replied. “What’s in the bag?”

“A Go board.”

“Oh. I brought mine too.”

“I see. Let’s go inside.”

Akira did not often go to cafes. When he was in elementary school, Ichikawa-san had taken him a couple of times to her favorite cafe and treated him to tea and pastries, but now that he was eighteen he was obviously too old for that kind of outing. He didn’t have any friends to go with either. Being here with Shindou felt a little strange, but Akira was also pleased to go somewhere new for a change. Shindou seemed very pleased indeed.

“Welcome! Please go ahead and sit down wherever you like,” the woman behind the counter greeted them. Shindou was humming a tune to himself as he jaunted around the cafe from table to table.

“We should get a big table. Do you want this one?” he asked Akira.

“That will be fine.”

Shindou continued humming as he took out his Go board and the stones.

“Did something good happen?” Akira asked.

“Huh?” Shindou looked up.

“You’re smiling an awful lot.”

“Oh, am I?” He looked down again, the cheerful expression on his face unchanged.

“I wondered if something good happened to you.”

“Not really.”

“That kind of face doesn’t really set the mood for a serious match of Go.”

“Why does it always have to be serious with you? What’s wrong with a friendly match between friends?”

“Are we friends?”

“Well, yeah! What, you didn’t think we were friends?”

“I don’t know,” Akira said truthfully. He had never thought of Shindou in that way before. He was actually fairly surprised that Shindou thought of him as a friend. He didn’t know what to say, and the silence extended for a moment.

“I think of you as a friend,” Shindou said firmly. He looked up at Akira, and when Akira didn’t say anything in reply, Shindou set the black stones in front of him. “Come on, let’s play.”

“All right.”

Akira was glad to begin the match, but he still felt somewhat unsettled by what Shindou had said. He had come to this cafe with the intention of asking Shindou about Shuusaku, but from the moment they had entered, everything had been going according to Shindou’s pace. This often happened when he was around Shindou, and Akira didn’t like it at all. He needed to find a way to turn the conversation around to the subject he desired. Now that they were playing Go, he had the upper hand. This was his chance to take control.

Shindou started by building a territory in the lower corner of the board; instead of waiting, Akira decided to attack it early. For an instant, Shindou’s face showed a look of surprise, but the next moment the corners of his mouth turned up. So you’re playing there, he seemed to be thinking. If that’s what you want to do, then bring it on!

It was too early to tell if Akira’s stones in the lower corner would survive. Shindou’s defensive moves were all sound, and he was slowly extending out into the center of the board as well. But Akira had a swath of territory on the opposite side that Shindou’s attacks were doing little against. It was an unusually imbalanced game with most of the stones clustered in two areas. Each of them had his own stronghold, and it was unclear what would become of the center.

“Aaaah…” said Shindou as Akira blocked an attack. Then a few minutes later, as Akira was finally making progress invading the corner, Shindou let out another groan. “Aaah! Are you for reals right now?”

Akira ignored him and continued playing. When he was finally able to connect to the center, he knew that the match was his. And he knew that Shindou knew it as well.

“Do you resign?” Akira asked.

“Hrmmm…” Shindou screwed up his face, refusing to say yes or no. Akira waited for a solid two minutes.

Finally: “Ugh! Okay! I resign!”

“Thank you very much,” Akira said. “Shall we review?”

“Please excuse me for interrupting, but may I take your orders?”

Akira and Shindou both looked up in surprise. Neither of them had noticed the waitress next to them.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. We haven’t looked at the menu at all yet…”

“Uh, where even is the menu?” Shindou lifted up the sugar bowl as though expecting to find something hidden underneath.

“I believe it’s beneath your Go board,” said the waitress pleasantly. “It’s unusual to see young people playing Go, isn’t it?”

“Oh, we’re professional Go players actually,” Shindou explained. Akira thought this was hardly necessary information for the waitress to know.

“Really? That’s amazing!”

“Haha, not really!” Shindou grinned up at her.

Akira extracted the menu from beneath the Go board and began to read it.

“I’ll come back in a few minutes,” the waitress said.

There was a wide selection of teas, and Akira wasn’t familiar with the majority of them. Some of the names were in Chinese and some of them were in English, French, or even German. He spent a few minutes trying to decipher the jargon.

“What could Ostfriesentee mean?” Akira wondered out loud. “It says Assam… but I don’t know what that is either.”

“Huh…”

“The English Breakfast looks good too,“ he said, flipping the page over. “I’ve had that one before.”

“Yeah.”

“Or the hojicha, but I usually drink hojicha at home anyway…”

“Mm.”

Shindou’s replies were so very sloppy that Akira glanced up and unexpectedly found himself looking directly into Shindou’s eyes. Having been caught staring, Shindou averted his gaze.

“What were you looking at?” Akira asked.

“Oh, um…” Shindou laughed. “Sorry.”

“You’re behaving strangely today.”

“I am, huh?”

“Yes. Before you were smiling without any visible reason, and now you’re... distracted.” Akira did not say “staring at me.” It occurred to him in that moment that perhaps Shindou knew that Akira was going to ask him about Shuusaku. Could it be that he wanted to be asked, that he was waiting?

“Damn,” Shindou chuckled. He looked embarrassed. “I guess you figured me out.”

“Figured you out?” Akira was not smiling. “Do you mean you have something to hide?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m exactly trying to hide it, but…”

“Does it have something to do with Shuusaku?” Akira interrupted.

“Wait, what?”

Both of them looked at each other for a moment.

“Shuusaku?” Shindou was staring at Akira, bewildered.

“I saw your interview in the Go Weekly,” Akira said. “You mentioned that you wanted to play Go that Shuusaku would be proud of. But Shuusaku is a historical figure. I can understand that you’re inspired by his Go, but it’s strange to say that you want him to be proud of you. Back during the first Hokuto Cup, you also became first board just so that you could play against Ko Yongha after he insulted Shuusaku.”

“Ah, that was... there wasn’t any special reason for that. I was just being dumb.” Shindou looked extremely uncomfortable. “But more importantly, why the hell did you ask me that all of a sudden? You always come up with this stuff out of nowhere.”

“It’s not out of nowhere, Shindou! I’ve been wanting to ask you for years!”

“For years!? Why didn’t you just ask then?”

“Because you said ‘someday!’” Akira said, raising his voice. Without realizing it, he had let his temper get the best of him.

He waited for a reply, but nothing happened. Shindou, instead of flaring up in response like he usually would, just looked back at Akira.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Akira said quietly, through the anger inside him had not died down at all. Something in Shindou’s eyes stopped him from saying anything further. Shindou’s face looked pained. In fact, Akira thought the emotion he saw there looked a lot like sorrow, and he could not understand why.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Shindou mumbled, getting up from his seat. “You can order whatever for me. I don’t care.”

Akira watched him walk away. Was he never going to get an answer from Shindou? He felt as though no matter how many games they played there would be a part of Shindou that he could never touch. Why? Why couldn’t Shindou tell him? If it was true that Shindou really did consider Akira his friend, wouldn’t it make sense to confide in him about Shuusaku, when Shuusaku’s Go was clearly so important to him?

Akira took a deep breath to calm himself down. He ordered a cafe au lait for Shindou and a hojicha for himself, and he let his eyes wander across the board in front of him. The fact that Shindou was able to play this kind of Go ought to be enough. But it wasn’t. Seeing Shindou again after so long ought to have lessened the frustration that Akira felt, but instead he felt maddened by the sensation that Shindou was evading him.

When Shindou came back to the table, he gave Akira a smile that did little to hide the sadness in his eyes.

“Do you wanna do the review?” he asked. His voice was subdued. Instead of sitting down, he stood over the board looking down at their game, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly.

“Shindou, I…” Akira began, trying to make eye contact, but then stopped in the middle of his sentence. Looking up at Shindou, it had suddenly occurred to him what was different about him.

“You’re taller,” he said.

Shindou looked up from the game, finally meeting Akira’s eyes. “What?”

“That’s what’s different about you. You’ve grown taller in the past few months.”

“I mean, people usually get taller when they’re our age…” Shindou said, confused.

“I was trying to understand what it was that had changed about you.”

This time a real smile came to Shindou’s eyes. His expression grew playful.

“Hey, it’s not like you haven’t changed either,” he said.

“What about me has changed?”

“Your hair. It’s longer.”

“Ah…” Akira touched the ends of his hair. “Yes, I thought I’d grow it out a bit.”

“… It looks good on you,” Shindou said. “You look cool.”

Akira looked up at him. He was unsure what to say in response. The frustration he had felt until just a moment ago was slipping away; in its place was something else that he could not identify.

“Do you wanna compare who’s taller?” Shindou asked suddenly.

“Why would we do that?”

“To see who’s taller.”

“Don’t give such nonsensical replies!”

“Are you afraid of losing?”

“There’s no winning or losing in height, for one thing, and—“

“I bet I’m taller.”

I am definitely taller than you are!” Akira said, standing up. He approached Shindou and looked at him steadily.

“H-hey! What are you doing getting so close! Usually if you wanna compare heights you stand back to back!” Shindou said, flustered.

“I’m taller than you,” Akira said, placing his hand on Shindou’s head. “By at least three centimeters.”

“Th-that’s not that much…”

“I told you it’s not a question of winning and losing. I don’t see why you’re acting like it matters.”

“It’s just…” Shindou began. “You know what? Never mind.” He took a step away from Akira. “One day I’m definitely gonna be taller than you!”

“Go ahead and try if it means so much to you.”

“The way you say things is really annoying you know?”

“If you say so.”

Shindou sat down in his seat again and took out his cell phone. He appeared to be texting someone. Noticing Akira’s questioning look, he apologized.

“Ah, sorry. This is just my ex-roommate. He forgot some stuff at my apartment, so he—“

“Roommate?”

“Ex-roommate. The jerk left in the middle of the month because he found a nicer place, so now I have to pay the rent all by myself.”

“Shindou, you’re living alone?”

“Yeah, it’s been a year.”

“Why did you decide to move out of your parents’ house?”

“I don’t know. It gets cramped, you know, living with your parents? And we’ve been members of society for years now but my mom acts like I’m still a little kid, so she’s always nagging me and worrying anytime I go anywhere. I just kinda wanted some space.”

“I understand that very well,” Akira said. “Sometimes living with my father and mother feels like it’s more trouble than it’s worth to me.”

“Wait, yeah, weren’t you saying something about moving out? Like years ago.”

“I’ve been trying to talk my mother into it, but it hasn’t gone anywhere…”

“Why don’t you just move out?”

“I can’t just move out, Shindou!”

“Why not?”

Akira looked at him. It wasn’t just that Shindou had grown taller. His face had changed as well. The rounded cheeks of his childhood days were gone, and then line of his jaw was more pronounced. He could not help feeling somehow uneasy when Shindou looked at him the way he was looking at him right now.

“The situation with my father is a little complicated,” Akira said.

“Complicated?”

“Yes.”

Shindou leaned his chin on his fist, considering Akira’s face.

“Huh. Well, I guess it’s not something that I can understand easily, right? If you wanna talk about it though, you can always talk to me, you know. I’m here.”

Akira nodded.

“Review?” Shindou asked.

“Yes.”

“One hojicha and one cafe au lait!” the waitress said cheerfully, placing their drinks in front of them.

“Thank you.”

Outside the window, the rain fell in a fine mist into the grey streets.

Notes:

I have very strong feelings about the portrayal of the physical appearances of Akira and Hikaru, especially in relation to each other. It particularly bothers me when Akihika fanworks feminize Hikaru, while in Hikaaki fanworks he is often portrayed as taller and more masculine than Akira. I don't particularly care who is a top and who is a bottom! I'm more interested in the question of how their personalities would evolve realistically to accommodate romantic attraction to each other, based on what we know from the original.

Of course, people are entitled to their opinions and whatnot. But in my Hikaaki, I like a Hikaru who is at least a little shorter, like in canon :)

Chapter 5: Ogata-san

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Akira stared at his computer screen. One finger tapped lightly on a key on the keyboard. He typed out a sentence, then paused and moved his pinky to the backspace bar and pressed down until all the words had disappeared. It had been nearly two weeks, and he still had not responded to Sunahara-san’s email.

If you don’t mind, could you tell me what your reason is for playing Go?

Akira began again.

Dear Sunahara-san,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful email. I am grateful for your support and appreciate that you have been following my matches for so long. As for your question, the reason why I play Go is

Akira’s fingers stopped moving. He did not know why he was having such trouble writing this email. Of course he had a reason why he played Go. Go was his entire life — but perhaps that was the issue. It was so integral to him that there had never been a “why” for him. He had known nothing else. 

What motivates you to keep playing no matter what?

He thought back to all the games he had played against his father. He could remember each separate occasion of his father decreasing the number of handicap stones he placed for Akira. Every time the number had decreased, Akira had been overjoyed, though he never showed his elation to his father. Becoming an opponent worthy of his father — that was what had motivated him throughout elementary school. These days it was different. It wasn’t that he had abandoned that goal, but now that his father was retired and Akira was a professional, he felt he should be aiming for the titles instead. Besides, he didn’t know when he would ever get the opportunity to play against his father again.

So — winning a title. Was that what motivated him? When he imagined winning the Honinbo title, he could anticipate the sense of pride he would feel. He could imagine the look in his father’s eyes when his son won his first title, the small nod with great meaning that he would give Akira. And soon after Akira had won the Honinbo title, Shindou too would win the Meijin title, and the two of them would continue to battle, each aiming for the hand of God…

As for your question, the reason why I play Go is to win titles.

Akira looked at what he had written. That was not right. He deleted the sentence. He had already been sitting at the computer for nearly twenty minutes; there was no excuse for it to have taken him this long. He readjusted his posture, put his hands back to the keyboard, and typed the following:

Dear Sunahara-san,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful email. I am grateful for your support and appreciate that you have been following my matches for so long. In the world of professional Go, each of us has his own reason for why he plays. We all try to win titles, we compare our skills, and we search for new moves that will bring us closer to the hand of God. I intend to continue playing until I reach the furthest limits of my own ability, and I hope for your continued support.

Best regards,

Akira Touya 6-dan

He reread it once, and then hit the “send” button.

“Akira-san!” called his mother from the dining room. “Breakfast is ready!”

He shut down his computer, and walked down the hall to the dining room. His father was already seated at the table. Akira knelt down onto his cushion and looked down at the table. As his mother came in from the kitchen and set a bowl of steaming miso soup in front of him, his father spoke.

“Akira.”

“Yes, father.”

“You’ve moved further in the preliminaries of the Honinbo race. Today you will have your match against Ogata-kun. Are you prepared?”

His father asked the question without looking at Akira. His eyes stared out straight ahead of him, as though he were seeing something very far away.

“Yes,” Akira replied. “I know that the last time I had a match with him I lost, but I’ve made much progress since then. I believe in my ability.”

“That is good,” his father said. Akira tried to maintain his calm outer appearance, but in truth his heart was beating quickly at the suddenness of his father’s words after what must have been weeks of near silence.

Akira’s mother set down the grilled mackerel in front of each of them, and then sat down on the other side of the table. “Now! Shall we eat?”

Itadakimasu,” Akira said.

Itadakimasu,” his parents murmured.

There was the sound of spoons clicking against the wooden bowls as each of them began to eat. From outside the window, Akira could hear a robin singing in the cherry tree in their garden.

The cherry blossoms were easily carried away by the wind now. It had been a week and a half since the impromptu ohanami party with Shindou, and they hadn’t decided yet when their next match would be. He had seen Shindou’s schedule at the Go Institute, and it seemed that Shindou would be busy with matches for the next three days. After Akira’s match against Ogata-san, he would send Shindou a text message.

“This is a time when you shouldn’t let your guard down,” Akira’s father said abruptly.

Akira looked up quickly from his bowl of rice, startled.

“Father?”

“You have the strength to take this title, so I expect you to go forward without faltering. You’re still only a 6-dan, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

He still was not looking at Akira as he said this, but his words were steady and firm. Akira barely dared to move.

“When you win this title, I will be there. I will come to see the match in person, wherever it is,” his father said. “I will be watching you, and afterwards we will discuss the contents of your Go. I expect much from you.”

“Yes.” Akira nodded, watching his father’s profile, feeling a swelling in his chest. “I intend to win.”

. . .

Akira had put on a somber suit for his match against Ogata-san. He caught a glimpse of his reflection as he passed a window in the Go Institute on his way to the room where they would face off. He looked slim. Against the colors of the suit, his face seemed pale. It was not that he was trying to look more adult-like in particular, but somehow his hands had chosen darker colors for this match. For the majority of the games he had played against Ogata-san Akira had been a child, but both he and Ogata-san were well aware that this was no longer the case. Today they would play as equals.

He remembered Ogata-san’s words to the Weekly Go reporter after the last official match they had played a couple years ago: “Akira-kun was not overwhelmed by me nor did he become overly excited. He played as calmly as he usually does, with all of his strength…” Fixing Akira with fierce eyes he had added “I’m sure you played against me with the intention to win, but with this match you understand clearly now, don’t you? You are below me.”

Akira had been surprised then by the hatred in Ogata-san’s gaze. Ogata-san, who had been a disciple of his father, who had come to their house so frequently that he was almost treated like a relative — now Ogata-san was another of Akira’s opponents, whom he would have to defeat in order to reach the Honinbo.

Akira entered the room where Ogata-san was already sitting in front of their Go board.

“Good afternoon,” Akira greeted him.

Ogata-san nodded.

Akira had the impression that in the few years since their last official match, Ogata-san’s face had aged. Today he was wearing an expensive white suit, as he usually did, but the skin around his eyes looked tired. The corners of his mouth were wrinkled more than Akira would have expected for a man of his age. He had heard from his mother in passing that Ogata-san had been drinking more heavily recently. In spite of holding both the Judan and the Gosei, his lifestyle sometimes seemed to Akira to border on the irresponsible.

In silence, they began their game.

Akira’s pincer several moves in prompted a counter pincer from Ogata-san. He placed the stone on the board with a show of calm, but as the fight heated up, Akira could see Ogata-san’s lip curling. He clearly wanted to concentrate his attacks on the ladder shape in the bottom area of the board, but Akira was not going to let him. Akira, for his part, wanted to begin moving towards the center of the board, but he knew that patience was key. He cut off Ogata-san’s stones and waited for the opportunity to move further up. He had the sente and he was not about to give it up.

But Ogata-san, after a long period of thought, began to attack just where Akira had been planning on invading. In the process, he left one of his main shapes unguarded. Akira was surprised. He’s sacrificing so many stones to gain this center territory, he thought. It was not the kind of Go that he expected from Ogata-san, and when he looked up to see his opponent’s face, two searing eyes met his. Akira took the stones that Ogata-san had given up. In order to change the flow of the game, Ogata-san had played a very risky move, but would it pan out in his favor?

As Akira responded to Ogata-san’s moves in the center of the board, he remembered his father’s words from earlier in the morning: You have the strength to take this title. Yes, Akira could feel that he had the strength now. Even against Ogata-san, he would not falter. He had made it to this level in previous title races only to fail as he neared the final match. This time would be different.

As they entered into the endgame, the result was clear to each of them. Ogata-san had taken his gamble and had indeed turned it to his advantage, but it still was not enough. Akira won by three moku.

“I lost,” said Ogata-san through gritted teeth.

“Thank you very much,” Akira said. He looked up to see Ogata-san’s face, and was startled by the depth of the anger that he saw there. He swallowed.

“Ogata-san…”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ogata-san said acidly, “Even though he holds two titles, he plays this kind of Go? You were laughing to yourself while you played against me, weren’t you? Behind those cold eyes.” He took off his glasses, and Akira held his gaze, unable to look away. “Well, let me tell you,” Ogata-san continued. “You may think that everything is going according to plan for you, but soon you’ll encounter an opponent you won’t know how to face. You’re not invincible. You’ve been able to make it this far without any hiccups, but once you hit a real obstacle you’ll have to truly taste defeat for the first time.” He spat the words out with relish. “I’m looking forward to seeing that.”

Akira was shocked by this sudden outburst of bitterness. He couldn’t find anything to throw back; not even a single word came to him. He felt as though he were frozen in place.

“Ha,” Ogata-san laughed, seeing the look of bewilderment on Akira’s face. “You’re still living with your parents, aren’t you? In the end, you don’t even have the strength to live your own life. Just like when you were a child. No friends other than the pros that your father welcomed to his study group. No friends other than Go. Well…” He stood up, brushed off his pant legs, and began moving towards the door. “Enjoy that life while you can. You won’t be able to hide under your father’s wing forever. Someday you’ll be forced out into the real world.” He turned to look back at Akira, the corner of his mouth turning up sardonically. “Or then again, maybe not.”

Akira sat without moving. The harshness of the words stung at him all the more because of his inability to respond. He couldn’t understand. Had Ogata-san always hated him? Was he only angry at having lost? More than anything Akira was angry with himself for having sat there in silence. Ogata-san had left the room, and Akira was alone with the Go board.

As he got up from his seat, he nearly felt dizzy, the remarks ricocheting in his head.

You’re not invincible...

You’ll have to truly taste defeat...

No friends other than Go...

Hiding under your father’s wing...

He walked to the table to mark his win.

You’re wrong, he thought. It’s not true.

No one could tell him that he had never truly tasted defeat. He remembered the taste of defeat vividly; he remembered those matches better than any of the games he had played before or since — his first matches against Shindou, and the match online against sai. And hadn’t he chased after Shindou and sai? Hadn’t he done everything in his power to see that strength again, even one more time? Shindou’s skill had never reached the level it had once been, and sai had disappeared from the internet. Akira would gladly taste defeat again if it meant experiencing the god-like skill of that opponent, but he knew it was gone forever.

Ogata-san was wrong. Akira did not fear defeat. He would never fear defeat.

… And he was not friendless. He had Shindou.

As he walked out into the hall, he remembered that he had been going to text Shindou after his match. He reached into his bag to find his cell phone, still feeling disoriented by the weight of Ogata-san’s insults — they had completely subsumed the pleasure of having won the match. As soon as the phone had powered on again, two text notifications from Shindou buzzed onto the screen.

Did you win?

Hey, do have time to meet up today?

So Shindou had texted him first… Akira typed out a reply:

Where do you want to meet?

It was his first time texting Shindou. It was his first time texting anyone, in fact, even though he had owned this phone for several months.

How about your Go salon? Shindou replied. Do you have time now?

Yes, wrote Akira. I can be there in fifteen minutes.

He left the Institute, fighting off the wind and rain with his umbrella, and caught a train, trying in vain during the ride to keep from rehashing Ogata-san’s bitter speech again and again in his mind. He was used to the fact that playing Go against people would make him more enemies than friends; it was a lesson that he had learned as a child. But even Ogata-san? He knew he shouldn’t feel as disappointed as he did. He should be used to it by now, he thought. But he couldn’t shake the sensation of having been betrayed. He could understand that Ogata-san’s pride as a Go player had been wounded, and of course Akira himself knew the intense the frustration of having lost an important match, but he would never resort to insulting an opponent after a match. Ogata-san had been immature. It was not his Go that Akira was disappointed in, it was his behavior.

But if Ogata-san had behaved immaturely and if what he had said was wrong, why did the words continue to bite at Akira? When the train reached his stop, Akira stepped out with the sensation of barely seeing the world around him. He was still in this state as he reached the Go salon, but a sudden cry from Ichikawa-san as he neared the door jarred him out of his daze.

“Shindou-kun, you’re completely soaked!”

“Oh, Akira-kun,” she said as he entered the room. “I mean, Touya-sensei. At least you’re dry.”

“Of course I am,” Akira said, placing his umbrella in the umbrella stand. He turned to Shindou, who was indeed dripping onto the carpet and looking slightly pathetic. “Do you ever look at the weather report?”

“You won, right?” Shindou asked by way of reply.

“I did.”

“I knew it!” Shindou laughed, and Akira felt a small sense of relief. He wanted nothing better than to sit down and forget the events of the morning...

“Hey, show me the game,” Shindou said.

“Not today,” Akira replied curtly.

“Come on, I wanna see it. You and Ogata-san’s...”

“I said not today!”

He had not meant to raise his voice. He knew he was giving away the fact that he was on edge. With other people he was more skilled at hiding his emotions, but somehow around Shindou everything seemed to come to the surface. He walked back to the table where they usually played, but he could feel Shindou’s perplexed eyes following him.

He set his bag down and drew the stones towards him. Shindou sat down across from him, settling into the chair and letting out a sigh. Water from his hair dripped onto the table. Akira considered him.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Cold? Uh, yeah, kinda I guess. It’s okay though. Let’s play.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You’ll catch a cold. Wear this.” Akira took a sweater out of his bag and handed it to Shindou.

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” Shindou said, his face reddening. “I’m really not that cold, and I—“

“Stop acting childish. Why didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

“Because you only gave me fifteen minutes to get here!”

You were the one who asked me if I had time now!” Akira retorted. “Take it.” He forced the sweater into Shindou’s hands.

Ichikawa-san walked over with two cups of hot tea.

“Here you go,” she said. “Both of you should warm up! I wouldn’t like it if either of you caught a cold.”

“Thank you,” Shindou said to Ichikawa-san, his voice muffled as he pulled Akira’s sweater over his head self-consciously.

“That’s better isn’t it?” Akira asked him.

“Um, yeah. Thanks. Sorry, I’m gonna get your sweater all wet.”

“I’ll wash it,” Akira said.

“It’s been such a long time since the two of you have been here together!” Ichikawa-san said, resting the tray against her hip. “Shindou-kun, what made you decide to come back after so long?”

Shindou looked at Akira. “Well, this guy was apparently frantically looking for me so I decided maybe it was okay to go after him for reals this time.”

“Go after him, huh?” Ichikawa-san said.

“You better prepare yourself because I’m not gonna hold back this time!” Shindou said, grinning at Akira. There was something different from the usual petulance in his eyes this time. Something warm and teasing — and somehow shy. Seeing Shindou looking at him in that way, wearing his own sweater, made Akira feel strange. He reached into the go-ke and took out a handful of stones.

“I was not frantic,” he said firmly. “Aren’t you going to play?”

“Yeah.” Shindou pushed up the sleeves of the sweater, which was slightly too large for him, and set two stones on the board. Akira released the five stones from his hand, and exchanged go-ke with Shindou.

“You know,” said Shindou as he responded to Akira’s first move, “I was kind of thinking of asking you something.”

“Asking me?”

“Yeah. I mean, when I said I wanted to meet up it was actually because I wanted to ask you.”

“Well, what is it?”

“It’s about my apartment…”

“Yes?”

“Do you think you’d want to live together?”

Akira was so surprised by the question that he entirely forgot for a moment the move he had been planning to play. He lowered his hand back down to the table and stared at Shindou.

“Live together?”

“As roommates I mean! Not like uh... anything else.”

“What do you mean, ‘anything else?’”

“Uh, never mind.”

Akira gave this some thought.

“You mean that you want me to come live with you in the apartment that you have now.”

“Yeah. I’m in a real bind. I didn’t really want a roommate in the beginning, but I saw an ad online and it was for really cheap, so I decided what the heck, why not. But then the guy turned out to be kinda sketchy, and he moved out on me, so now I have to pay double the rent.” Shindou scratched his head and sighed.

“I guess that would put you in a bind,” Akira said.

“Oh, I mean, it’s not like I’m asking you just because of money or anything!” Shindou said quickly. “Even if I don’t find a roommate it’s not a big deal; I can just move out once the lease is up. But I was thinking, you know, ‘cause you were talking about moving out of your parents’ house too, and I’d rather live with a guy I know than some random stranger. And...” Shindou smiled in that new, tentative way that Akira found confusing. “...it’s been really cool playing Go with you again. If we lived together, we could play whenever we wanted, or you know, whenever we had time.”

Akira placed his stone on the board.

“Have you been considering this for a long time?”

“Not really. I thought of it the other day. It’s not a bad idea though, right?”

“Hmm.”

“Right? You were saying that you wanted us to play against each other more anyway to prepare for the title races. This way we can play every night if we want to! We won’t even have to come here anymore!”

Shindou always seemed to get these ideas in his head, and Akira had a hard time keeping up. It was true that he had been looking for an excuse to move out, and it was true that he was enticed by the idea of being able to play against Shindou every day...

“It’s not a bad place. The kitchen isn’t that big, but it’s got a nice living room kind of area and it’s close to the Institute. And the rent is definitely cheaper than what you’d pay for living alone.”

Shindou, apparently not paying attention to the game, placed his stone on the board in one of the worst positions he possibly could have chosen.

“I feel like it’s one thing to play against someone every once in a while, but when you get to play against him every night when you come home, it’s completely—“

“Shindou,” Akira said. “What is this move? What are you thinking!?”

“What? Oh...” Shindou looked down at the board. “Crap. Is that where I put it?”

“You’re not paying attention at all are you?”

“That’s because this is more important!”

Akira furrowed his eyebrows.

“This is just one game!” Shindou said, pointing at the board. “I’m talking about dozens of games! I’m talking about our future as rivals!”

“I thought you said that it didn’t matter, that you could just wait until the end of the lease.”

“I can, I mean, I don’t want to force you or anything but I...” Shindou looked up into Akira’s eyes, suddenly hesitant and childlike. “You don’t want to?”

Akira looked at the insistence sparkling in Shindou’s light brown eyes. His hair was still damp, and Akira could see the collar of his soaked T-shirt peeking out from underneath the borrowed sweater. Realizing that he was holding his breath, Akira exhaled.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Really?”

“But we’re playing this game to its end, even though that’s the stupidest move I’ve ever seen you make.”

“I’ll turn it around!” said Shindou, blatantly overconfident.

“There’s no way that you can turn this around!”

“It’s still early in the game!”

“You must be joking!”

The usual scowl returned to Shindou’s face, and his voice steadily creeped up in volume. “Listen, you! Why do you always...!”

On the other side of the Go salon, Ichikawa-san sighed. “Ah, it had been so nice and quiet for the last few months...”

“That’s for damn sure,” Kitajima-san agreed.

. . .

“I’m home.”

When Akira returned to his parents’ house,  his mother was standing in the kitchen with her back to him, apron tied around her waist. The smell of clams and sea bream filled the room.

“Akira-san!” She smiled, turning around when she noticed his presence. “Welcome home. Dinner will be another five minutes. Your father is in his study. He was just on the phone with Mr. Yan from Shanghai. We’ll be going back to China for another few weeks starting the end of this month, so we’ll leave the house up to you again and… Oh, darling, there you are!”

Akira’s father had entered the kitchen.

“I made a soup since it’s chilly today. I was just telling Akira-san about our next trip to China.”

“Mm.” Akira’s father, his arms crossed in his kimono, peered into the pot where the soup was simmering.

“Oh that’s right!” Akira’s mother said, turning to him, “You had your match against Ogata-sensei today, didn’t you? How was it?”

Akira’s throat tightened as the barrage of cruel words again flooded his head. He did not want to speak of it, did not want to think of it. His eyes flitted momentarily to the shape of his father’s silent back.

“It was fine,” he said. “I won.”

“Oh did you? That’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

You’re still living with your parents, aren’t you? In the end, you don’t even have the strength to live your own life.

“Well, we might as well sit down now since we’re all here,” his mother said, moving toward the dining room. “Darling, I—“

“Actually...” Akira said, interrupting her. He found himself speaking without realizing what he was doing. A sudden energy had welled up in him.

His mother turned around to look at him expectantly, and his father’s head moved a quarter turn.

“Actually...” He cleared his throat. “I found an apartment.”

There was a beat of silence.

“An apartment?” his mother repeated.

“Yes.”

“You mean a place to live by yourself?”

No, it would be with Shindou. But somehow Akira couldn’t make himself say this.

“Yes, by myself.”

“Oh.” Akira’s mother turned to her husband. “My, well this is very sudden isn’t it? Is it a nice place? Nearby?”

“It’s near the Go Institute,” Akira said. “The kitchen isn’t very large, but it’s nice, and it’s affordable.”

“Well, goodness, I wish you had told us sooner,” Akira’s mother said. “We could have helped you inspect the rooms or talk to the landlord.”

“It’s all right,” Akira said, watching his father’s back. “Everything’s settled now. I can handle the rest by myself.”

Notes:

This is one of the longer chapters that I've written. Had to fit a lot in!

I headcanon Ogata-san as an assssssssshole.

Also, I take the "watch a lot of random professional Go match commentary YouTube videos and then steal random phrases that you heard" approach to writing Go games. I hope there are no professional Go players lurking on the Hikago section of Ao3...

Chapter 6: “You’re different”

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“C’mon, but that’s so lame!”

Shindou was on the phone.

Akira was doing dishes in the kitchen. As he set the inner pot for the rice cooker on the drying rack, another bout of laughter erupted from the living room.

“With Mitani? No, no way in hell. He’d lose in two minutes flat. I mean, that guy’s all talk. He acts like he can play but...”

Another pause.

“Oh, huh. Yeah. Pretty strict then, huh?”

Akira had been living with Shindou for about a week. When Akira had first announced to Shindou that he had considered the offer and would like to move in, Shindou had been so overjoyed that he had taken Akira’s hand and shaken it up and down like an American businessman.

“All right!” he had said. “This is it! It all starts here! No backing out, okay?”

The move had gone smoothly, though it had been difficult to arrange it so that Akira’s parents and Shindou did not meet each other. To prevent this issue, Akira ended up hiring a moving service, which had done the job quite neatly and professionally, and for less money than he had planned — Akira’s total number of possessions was small in any case, and they had given him a discount. When his mother had asked him if she could come by and see the place that he had chosen, Akira told her that there really wasn’t anything to see and that she had better prepare for her own trip to China instead. He had bought a new futon for himself, and had arranged his other things in the new bedroom to match the way they had looked in his old bedroom. And now, when he woke up in the morning or when he came home from a private tutoring lesson at night, Shindou was there. It was an unusual feeling.

“Naw, they’ll be okay,” Shindou was saying. “You’re too good of a senpai, Akari. You totally spoiled them. It’s cause you do that kind of thing that they were all bawling their eyes out at graduation. Me? No, same old same old...”

Akari-san was one of Shindou’s friends from middle school. Shindou had mentioned her name once or twice before, but usually in a dismissive tone of voice. She had been in Shindou’s Go club, and Akira, from the way that Shindou had talked about her, had come to the conclusion that Shindou didn’t like her all that much. But now, as Akira listened to Shindou’s voice from the living room, it seemed that he had been mistaken. 

“Yeah, okay. I’ll talk to you later. See ya.” Shindou’s voice was fond and soft as he ended the call. Akira waited a moment, then walked into the living room.

“Shindou, I found residue in the bottom of the inner pot for the rice cooker. You washed it and put it back this way, didn’t you?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, maybe.” 

“You should clean it out thoroughly every time or else the residue on the inside will start to mold. I think that if we’re both going to use the same rice cooker we should each clean it after every use. Otherwise I can buy my own rice cooker…”

Shindou was sitting lazily in the chair, the cell phone still in his hand. He looked up at Akira mildly.

“A new one? Naw, don’t worry about it. I’ll do a better job cleaning it out next time,” he said. 

Akira was somewhat taken aback by this response. The usual Shindou would yell or come up with an angry retort. There was something changing about Shindou, that was for certain.

“Were you waiting for me to finish my call so that you could ask me that?” Shindou asked.

“Well, I didn’t want to interrupt…” 

Akira made a move to return toward the kitchen, but paused as he realized that Shindou was still looking at him steadily. It was an expression that Akira very rarely saw on Shindou’s face, a kind of melancholy half-smile. Akira felt self-conscious, and slightly annoyed. Why was it that Shindou’s behavior recently was so different from before? He turned around slowly to face him.

“Wh… what is it, Shindou?” he asked.

“No, nothing,” Shindou said. “Just thinking I’m glad that you moved in here.”  He got up from the chair and walked past Akira into the kitchen. Akira followed behind him, brow furrowed.

“…Why?”

Shindou laughed. “Why? I don’t know. It gets lonely I guess. The last guy didn’t understand anything about Go, so even if I wanted to I couldn’t talk about what happened to me during the day. I mean, we were basically strangers anyway. But you get it. You get, like, all of it. The schedule, the details of the matches, the titles, everything.”

“Well, we’re both professional Go players, so that goes without saying,” Akira said. “On the other hand, we’ve barely played any matches together since I moved in. Even though that was the main reason you said I should move here in the first place.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault that your schedule is crazy,” Shindou said. “This is the first day that both of us have had any free time.”

Akira looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “It’s strange to me to that you, who started Go so late, are only one dan behind me now.”

“Ahhhh, don’t remind me! I’m going to catch up to you soon enough, I’ve just gotta—“

“That wasn’t a reprimand. It was a compliment.”

“Oh,” Shindou said. He turned his face away. “Uh… thanks then.”

The atmosphere between them had changed since Akira had moved in. In moments like this, he was aware of an awkwardness of movement, unsure of the physical distance that was appropriate. Had they always stood so far apart? Or was it the other way around, and the distance had grown closer? Even though only a week had passed since he had moved in, Akira couldn’t remember at all what things had used to be. And now the space between them preoccupied his thoughts in a way that he did not like. As though reading his thoughts and deliberately trying to unnerve him, Shindou pushed himself away from the counter and moved a step closer to Akira. They were already too close, and Akira didn’t know whether to move back or not, unsure of Shindou’s intentions. Shindou took another step, and Akira felt his whole body tense up.

“Shi—”

“I’m just trying to get to the cabinet,” Shindou said. 

Feeling ridiculous, Akira moved to the side to let Shindou get through, then moved again to let him access the sink. The kitchen was much too small for two people to be standing there together, but somehow the conversation did not feel finished, and Akira searched to find the right words for what he wanted to ask. 

“Shindou.”

“Yeah.”

Shindou filled his glass with water at the tap, and thirstily brought it to his lips. Akira watched rivulets of water run down from Shindou’s mouth along his neck and underneath the collar of his T-shirt. Even though he was not the one drinking the cold water, Akira shivered. He turned his eyes away as he spoke.

“Shindou… you said that you were lonely before I moved in, but it’s not as though you were really alone. You could have just visited your friends.” 

He was aware that something childish was motivating his words. He was looking for something from Shindou, and he felt stupid to be looking for it, but nevertheless needed to hear it before he could be satisfied. 

Shindou finished the glass of water, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “My friends aren’t you,” he said. “You’re different.”

Akira’s heart was beating faster than usual. He asked again, wanting to hear more in spite of himself. “How am I different from your friends?”

“I feel like... you’re going to be there ten years, twenty years later. You know?” Shindou looked at Akira, then looked away again, setting the glass on the counter.

“Yes. I do know.” Akira said. “I feel the same way.”

Though he didn’t know why or how they had entered into this conversation that was so different from their usual dynamic, Akira felt that something inside him was pulled taut, apprehensive, waiting. He couldn’t take his eyes off Shindou, who was still turned away and rubbing at a stain on the counter with one finger. 

“Um,” Shindou said. “I don’t think I’ve ever really said it before but... you’re a really special person to me.” Looking up and seeing the serious expression on Akira’s face, Shindou suddenly became flustered and began speaking quickly. “I mean, shit, that sounds really lame when I say it like that! Crap, I, uh…”

“You are too, Shindou. To me.”

Shindou didn’t say anything, just looked at him.

“Ah, this could be bad...” he murmured.

“What could be?”

Shindou swallowed, and shook his head. “Nothing. Do you wanna play a match?”

“All right.”

He fetched the Go board from his bedroom and set it out on the living room table, laying out the go-ke carefully on either side of the board.

“You be black?” Shindou asked.

“Yes,” Akira agreed. He bowed silently, and Shindou bowed back.

It was a leisurely game. As the shapes began to form, Akira felt a sense of peaceful happiness, as though the warm light in the room was not coming from the window but instead emanating out from his chest. Why was it, he wondered, that playing against Shindou was sometimes so… pleasant? It was as though everything else faded away, and only the game before them connected them to each other. He glanced up at Shindou, and smiled.

Shindou, who had been looking down at the board, appeared to do a double take upon seeing Akira’s face. Hesitantly, as though not sure if it were safe to do so, he returned the smile. Then suddenly he ran both hands vigorously through his hair, causing it to stick up at odd angles, his face reddening. 

“You know,” he began. “Sometimes you’re really…”  But he didn’t finish his sentence, and Akira did not ask. 

Mid-game. Shindou’s move. He put down his stone, and Akira immediately recognized what he was doing — it was a splitting attack that Akira had been expecting to come out in a game any day now. He knew that Shindou had been studying Suyong Hong’s games recently and was itching to try the move that had reversed Hong-san’s losing match against Yongha Ko. Shindou hadn’t executed it quite as well as Hong-san had during the tournament, but Akira was forced to admit that it was powerful. Fortunately, Akira himself had been thinking up a counter attack from the moment he had noticed Shindou studying the game. He deployed his defense, and took pleasure in seeing the look of consternation that it provoked.

“You did not just improvise that move,” Shindou said huffily.

“No, I did not,” Akira conceded.

“Were you looking at the kifu over my shoulder or what?”

“I just happened to notice whose game you were studying. I’m not surprised that you wanted to copy this move, considering that it helped Hong-san defeat your rival.”

“My rival?” Shindou looked confused. “Oh, you mean Yongha Ko. He’s not really...” But he seemed to realize halfway through his sentence that Akira was teasing him. The flush returned to his face. 

“I still don’t understand why you wanted to beat him so badly… just because he insulted Shuusaku,” Akira said. He raised an eyebrow at Shindou, challenging him. “Are you planning to wait ten, twenty years before you get around to telling me about Shuusaku and sai?”

“Maybe it’ll be ten years,” Shindou said, copying Akira’s nonchalant tone. “Maybe not. It depends. We’ll see.”

Akira placed his next stone with a triumphant click. There! He’d like to see Shindou get himself out of that.

“I can tell that you’re enjoying keeping me in the dark.”

“I might tell you earlier,” Shindou said, grinning. “Maybe if you’re good.”

“Good? When have I ever not been good to you, Shindou?”

“I could think of a time or two,” Shindou said. He then, with a single move, captured four of Akira’s stones, effectively taking the lower right corner that Akira had until that moment controlled and thereby turning the game in his favor.

Notes:

cohabitation!!! <3 <3 <3

Chapter 7: Out to lunch

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Everything was going well. The on and off drizzling that had continued for weeks seemed to finally be nearing an end, and Akira was on a winning streak that had continued all the way from the beginning of April. He felt — in fact he knew — that just as his father had told him, he had the strength to win the title. Every time that he played an official match, he could feel that he was sharper than ever. His mind was as quick and vigorous as a tightly wound spring; no matter what difficult move his opponent played, Akira felt the answer come to him almost instantly. He could see the moves he would make, could sense intuitively the rhythm and pattern of the game as it would play out. And his games against Shindou were even better than that. 

For the past few weeks since they had moved in together, he and Shindou had been playing every night. Often Shindou announced his presence with the words “Let’s play,” without even saying “I’m home.” They made time for their personal matches whenever it was possible. When they were both exhausted from their activity of the day, they played leisurely games, each with a cup of tea in his hand. On days when they had more energy, they played speed Go, Akira’s favorite, or sometimes one color Go for an extra challenge. Shindou was in excellent shape as well. He was winning against Akira more frequently, and his official matches showed off the brilliance that Akira had longed for all of these years. Akira could still hardly believe that that brilliance was now here with him; it was often seen eating chips with its legs draped over the arm of the couch. 

One day, having finished his morning match, Akira returned home to have lunch, hoping to find Shindou there and perhaps play a game with him before Shindou left for his own official match at 3:30. But when Akira took off his shoes in the entrance, there was no sign of Shindou, only a scrap of paper on the table. 

went to the institute early. see you tonight

Akira sighed at the barely legible handwriting, and went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of soup. He was surprised at how quickly he had grown used to having a roommate, though there were still many aspects of Shindou’s lifestyle that baffled him. Akira didn’t know why it was that Shindou wasn’t able to put away his shoes in an orderly manner. He left puddles of water all over the floor of the hall after he took a bath, and Akira sometimes found plastic wrappers for snacks stuffed into the bags of burnable trash. When Akira brought these points to Shindou’s attention however, he was met with an uncharacteristic cheerfulness and a promise to be careful next time. Their shouting matches, which had been a regular weekly occurrence at the Go salon, had grown fewer and fewer. In their place were those moments of awkwardness; a sense of the physical distance between them becoming suddenly ambiguous. Akira could not say that he liked those moments any better than the fighting, but he was willing to put up with them in exchange for the profound pleasure of their matches. 

As Akira poured his soup out from the thermos, his eye caught something lying on the floor next to the refrigerator. It was a fan — Shindou’s fan. Yesterday evening, Shindou had been complaining that he couldn’t find it. He had looked more distressed than Akira thought was warranted by the situation, but he had asked carefully anyway.

“This is the fan that you bought when you were a shodan?” 

“Yeah,” Shindou had said, his brows knit. “It’s not like the match tomorrow is that big of a deal or anything, but I…”

“You like having it with you.”

“Yeah.”

Akira had watched Shindou search around the apartment, but in the end he had returned to his room looking disappointed. And now here it was, on the kitchen floor for some reason.

Akira picked it up and turned it over in his hands. If Shindou lost this match, it wouldn’t have any effect on his position in the Meijin race. Shindou could certainly survive without his fan for one match, but... Akira remembered the unhappy look in Shindou’s eyes when he had gone to his bedroom last night. He wondered if Shindou’s face had the same expression now.

Carefully wrapping the fan in a piece of silk cloth, Akira left his thermos on the counter, put his coat back on, and stepped out of the apartment again.

. . . 
 
When he arrived at the Go Institute, he found Shindou much more quickly than he had anticipated. As soon as Akira entered the lobby, there was Shindou standing by the vending machine — chatting with another young Go professional that he was friends with. The friend had distinctive spiked brown hair and was wearing a green jacket. Akira was sure he had seen him before, but could not remember his name. 

Shindou’s face lit up the moment he saw Akira. 

“Touya! What are you doing here?” 

He was glad to see that Shindou’s expression was bright and cheerful rather than gloomy as he had worried it might be. 

“Didn’t you already finish your match for today?” Shindou asked.

Shindou’s friend — what was his name? — was looking at Akira with a mixture of distaste and ambivalence. Akira nodded at him curtly, and turned to Shindou.

“You left this at—“ He was about to say “the apartment” before he caught himself, aware of Shindou’s friend’s distrustful gaze. “You left this,” he finished, holding out the fan. 

“Oh,” Shindou said, taking it in his hand. “You didn’t have to… I— Thanks.” 

“You’re welcome,” Akira replied. He continued to stand there, knowing that there was nothing in particular to say, but not yet ready to leave. Shindou too seemed to be hesitating; he had not broken eye contact with Akira and ran his tongue over his lips as though searching for something to say.

“Uh,” Shindou said. “We were just about to go out to lunch. Do you wanna come too?” He gestured awkwardly at his friend and then vaguely towards the door. The friend was shooting Shindou a wary sideways glance. 

“I don’t think that I should,” Akira said, and took a step backwards. 

“No, come on!” Shindou cajoled. He reached out an arm towards Akira.

“I—”

“We don’t have to get ramen. We can get something else!”

“That’s not—”

“Okay, let’s go,” interrupted Shindou’s friend in a defeated tone. “I know a place with good tempura.”

“Nice, Waya, you always know the best places!” Shindou grinned. He turned around towards Akira again. “Let’s go.”

Akira nodded silently and followed them out the doors of the Go Institute. They walked five minutes, Shindou and his friend in the lead with Akira following behind, and arrived at a chain restaurant. It seemed to be very busy, even considering the time of day.

“This is your ‘good spot?’” Shindou laughed. “It’s a chain!” 

“No, it really is good though,” Waya retorted. “The ebi-ten-don is amazing.”

They made their way through the line, and both Shindou and Waya ordered the ebi-ten-don at the counter. Akira was relieved to see that there was udon as well, and ordered a bowl for himself. 

Having sat down at the table with their meals, there was a moment of silence. Akira had a feeling now that he must have played a game against Waya before, though he couldn’t remember it. The way that Waya was looking at him suggested that he remembered. 

“Isumi-san’s back in China again apparently,” Shindou said, breaking the silence. 

“I know, he sent me a text message the other day,” Waya replied. “He was telling me he saw that kid again. The one who looks like me or whatever. Le Ping?”

“Hahaha,” Shindou laughed. “Have you even seen a picture of him?”

“I don’t really want to. I mean, it’s weird, right? Just thinking you might have a doppelganger somewhere in China or Korea or something…”

Akira did not know who Le Ping was. He had heard of Isumi-san; if he remembered correctly he was a 5-dan, like Shindou. 

“But Isumi-san sure is amazing, huh? Seems like he’s always challenging himself by going abroad. It’s not like he needs to! There’re tons of strong Go players in Japan already…” Shindou made eye contact with Akira and grinned. Akira stared back at him, and found he was beginning to smile in spite of himself. He wouldn’t have chosen to come here along with Shindou’s friend, but he was still glad to share another meal with Shindou. 

Waya cleared his throat. “You’re doing pretty good in the Meijin race looks like.”

“Yeah, I’m doing normal I guess.”

“Normal? You’ve been cleaning up! When you compare that to me... I can’t seem to move up in dan at all. I’m jealous! Come on, what’s your secret?”

“Ehehe... nothing in particular...” 

You’ve grown stronger since you’ve begun playing against me every day, Akira thought. But you know that already.

The conversation continued between Shindou and Waya as they discussed mutual acquaintances, some of whom Akira knew, some of whom he didn’t. Akira didn’t feel the need to say anything, but he noticed that Shindou’s eyes frequently met his, flitting over to him as though he couldn’t help himself. After the fourth time this happened, Akira chuckled softly. 

“But there’s no way that’s gonna happen,” Waya was saying. “For one thing, the number of players—”

“Hey!” Shindou said, speaking over him and leaning towards Akira. “What are you laughing for?”

“Nothing,” Akira said. 

“You definitely laughed!” Shindou accused.

“It’s nothing.” Akira repeated, trying unsuccessfully to keep his face serious.

“Hey, come on!” Shindou was now also grinning widely. “You can’t tell me you didn’t laugh just now!” 

“Am I in your guys’s way?” 

Waya was resting his head on his fist, raising his eyebrows. He looked first to Shindou, then to Akira. 

“‘Cause I can leave if you guys want.”

“What are you talking about?” Shindou looked puzzled. Waya stared him dead in the eye. 

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

“No…?”

Waya shook his head at the confused expression on Shindou’s face, and got up from his chair. 

“I’m gonna go get another drink,” he said. 

As he left, Shindou looked at Akira again, and brought a fist to his mouth to stifle his laughter. 

“I swear, that guy…”

“I don’t think you should have invited me,” Akira said. 

“Huh? Why not?”

“I don’t think he— I don’t think that Waya likes me very much.”

“Oh…” Shindou leaned back in his chair. “No, I mean… that’s just… y’know. That’s just Waya. You don’t have to take it seriously or anything.”

“It’s not comforting to hear that from you, who never takes anything seriously enough.”

“Never!? Come on now! Never!?”

“I am interested in what he said about his study group though. Have you been using the round robin system for a long time?”

“Oh, yeah, we had that going for a while and then things kinda petered off. But then Waya said that we should start it up again so we did that last month.”

“It’s an interesting idea.” Akira had known that Shindou had a study group with Waya because Shindou had mentioned it before. But he had never thought about what that group looked like. Now that he imagined Shindou and Waya and his other friends playing together, he realized it must be a far cry from Serizawa-sensei’s study group that he and Shindou had attended together. It was probably something lively and fun… 

“You could join too,” Shindou said. His tone was casual, but Akira could see that he was very carefully avoiding making eye contact. Akira leveled a serious gaze at him. 

“That’s not a good idea.”

“How come?”

Akira paused, choosing his words. “The way that you and I play isn’t the way that I play Go with other people.”

“Haha, what are you talking about? Go is Go, right?”

“It’s not, and you know it. The way that we play Go is…” He found that he couldn’t finish his sentence. The weight behind the Go that he and Shindou played didn’t translate easily into words. This lunch with Waya had confirmed something that Akira had thought for a long time: the relationship that he had with Shindou was not something that others could understand. It was not the sort of thing that he wanted to share in public. 

“Basically what you’re saying is you don’t want to go to Waya’s study group though,” Shindou drawled, folding his hands behind his head. “What the hell! You’re such an anti-social guy when it comes down to it!”

“Shindou, that’s not…!” 

“But whatever, if you don’t want to do it, then it’s no big deal. I li… I like that part of you too.” 

Akira looked at Shindou’s face. He was blushing again, and his eyes were turned away. Akira’s heart had tightened painfully, and his hands slipped down the sides of his bowl. 

“Shindou, you…”

“You guys better hurry up and finish your meals if you want to make it on time,” Waya said. He had returned with a melon soda and had thrown himself down in the chair next to Shindou again. “Your match is at 3:30, right?”

“Uh, y-yeah.”

“What’s up with you, dude? You look weird.” When Shindou did not respond, Waya glowered at Akira, who met his gaze calmly. Internally however, his heart was still beating too quickly.

“Ugh, I don’t get it at all!” Waya complained, shaking his head. “Next time you guys wanna get lunch just get it on your own, okay? I can’t keep up with whatever the hell is going on between you two, and to be honest I don’t think I really want to know.”

They parted ways just outside the restaurant, Shindou and Waya returning to the Go Institute, and Akira going back to the apartment. 

Notes:

more of Akira being awkward.

...

I recently went through my personal Akihika/Hikaaki folder and found that I have now collected over 300 comics from pixiv, not counting the additional hundreds of non-comic fanart images [sweating emoji]. If anyone wants some personally translated and badly typeset comics... hit me up I guess???

Chapter 8: Baumkuchen

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Your move here was a little bit... rushed. ”

“Ah…”

“Coming in from the side isn’t as effective as if you were to build up beneath. And then… these stones can still fight. You gave up on them too early.”

The client scratched his bald head and smiled self-consciously.

“Touya-sensei, maybe it’s rude of me to ask you this, but how old are you?”

“I’m eighteen.”

“Incredible. I’ve been playing Go longer than you’ve been alive, but it’s no good. No— you don’t have to disagree with me just to be polite. I know I’m a lost cause.”

He turned his head around to look at the doilies and knick-knacks around his house with a mild curiosity as though he were the guest, not Akira. The afternoon sunlight shone in faintly through the windows, illuminating the dust floating in the air.

“I call in a Go professional every year to play a game against me,” he said, smiling downward at his knees. “It’s a kind of birthday present to myself. Every year. But I don’t get any better. Maybe I should stop.”

“Yogo-san, do you like Go?”

“Like it? Like it….” he paused, genuinely considering the question. “Rather than like it, I’d say that I love it.”

“Then I don’t think that you should stop playing.”

“You think so? You’re not just saying that to get more money out of me?” Both of them laughed. “Well, if Touya-sensei says so, then I guess I’ll keep at it. You know, an old bachelor like me doesn’t have a lot of things to bring him joy in his life. For me, it’s race cars and Go. That’s about it.” 

He reached for a cigarette from the pack on the table. “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

He pulled out a lighter and lit the cigarette, inhaling deeply and then releasing the smoke gently through his lips. 

“Do you have someone, Touya-sensei?”

“I’m sorry?”

Yogo-san raised his pinkie finger. “A girlfriend.”

“Oh… no.”

“Someone you’ve got your eye on?”

“Not… not in particular.”

“Let me tell you.” Yogo-san leaned forward. “When you know it’s her, don’t let her go, okay? You gotta go after her no matter what. Don’t let her get away.” He chuckled. “That’s my advice. It’s from an old man who can’t play Go worth a damn, but I’ve been around longer than you and I know a thing or two…” He slapped both hands onto the arms of his chair, and pushed himself up. “Well! About the payment then…”

“The Go Institute already—”

“I know, I know. But you’ll let me give you a little something.”

“Oh, no, I—”

“Come on, it’s my pleasure.” He handed Akira a white paper bag.

“I really can’t—“

“Share it with her,” he said with a wink. “It’s better to eat sweets with someone you love.”

. . .

On the train ride home, Akira peered into the paper bag on his lap. Inside was a whole baumkuchen cake in a square box. It had been a very long time since he had eaten one. He wondered if Shindou liked baumkuchen. Smiling softly to himself, he wrapped his fingers around the handles of the bag and readjusted it on his knees. He imagined how Shindou’s face would look when he saw the cake. Maybe Shindou would have time to play a match in the evening. Maybe they would have enough time for two matches.

“I’m home,” Akira called as he entered the apartment.

“Welcome back!” Shindou yelled from the other room. 

“A client gave me baumkuchen,” Akira said, taking off his shoes. “I thought we could—” 

Shindou said something in reply, but Akira couldn’t make out what he was saying.

“I can’t hear you, Shindou.”

He approached Shindou’s bedroom, where the door was slightly ajar. Shindou was still speaking, and Akira realized that he was on the phone. He hesitated outside the door.

“Don’t worry about it,” Shindou was saying. “No, it doesn’t bother me. You can call whenever you need to, Akari. You got a lot going on now, right? Yeah.”

Akira’s grip on the paper bag’s handles slackened. Shindou’s voice sounded soft and gentle — yes, even tender. It was the way that a person would talk to his girlfriend.

“I know. Haha… you too? I thought so. Yeah, I can come round sometime. Just let me know when; I can check my schedule.”

Akira turned on his heel and walked back to the kitchen. He set the paper bag on the counter and let out his breath through his nose. He felt angry for some reason. Giving the bag another unnecessary shove, he went to his room and took off his suit jacket. It was too hot. 

He looked around him at the minimal furnishings of his bedroom. It seemed that he had been misunderstanding something. Of course it was natural that Shindou should call Akari-san. The two had known each other for years; it wouldn’t be strange at all for them to begin dating each other. Akira walked to his desk and began searching through his folders to find the draft of the book that he had begun for SG Tokyo. 

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. 

Having located the folder, he slapped it onto his desk and pulled out the scant half page of notes that he had already written.

Damn it!” 

He took a deep breath, and tapped his pen at each of the bullet points he had made.

* father’s biographical information
* first records of games with Father
* his Meijin title
* my becoming a professional
* study groups with Ogata-san, Ashiwara-san, etc. 
* discussion of Father’s support
* something else… 

No matter how much he looked at it, none of the ideas spoke to him. He did not want to write about a single one. Nevertheless, he forced himself to sit down and begin. 

My earliest recollection of playing against my father was when I was so small that the stones were difficult for me to hold properly in my fingers. In the lessons those days I remember him teaching me the most basic of rules — he must have been patient with me as I played in a childish way, without truly understanding the game. As I began to grasp more of the rules, there was a period during which I was fascinated with ladders. It must have been within my first few months of having started to learn the game. I remember him showing me how a ladder could develop all the way across the board. As the stones reached the edge of the board, I

“Ahaha! Are you serious!?”

Akira jolted at Shindou’s sudden laughter. He must still be on the phone with Akari-san. Akira took a deep breath and readjusted his posture at his desk. Even though it had not been particularly hot when he had been walking outside, Akira’s bedroom was stuffy and uncomfortable. He pulled at his tie, undoing it and setting it down folded next to his binder. 

As the stones reached the edge of the board, I was confronted with the issue of how to break the ladder. This instance stands out in my memory as one of the first times I was able to solve a problem on my own, albeit a very simple one. When my father praised me, I was happy.

Akira crossed out the last sentence that he had written. It felt stupid to write about these things. What did they expect him to write about? What was he supposed to say about the way that he had learned Go? He could not imagine that any of this would be interesting to anyone. He was no longer the child that he had been at that time; he could hardly remember what he had thought and felt in those early years. Besides, talking about his childhood memories wouldn’t teach anyone about Go, nor would it bring any newcomers into the Go world. It was useless. The whole exercise was useless. 

“Okay! No, okay but she studied her ass off, so like, I get it. Are you still gonna keep in touch with her? Well yeah, I mean, class reunions are different.”

Shindou’s voice was too loud. Akira wished that Shindou would consider that he wasn’t the only one living in the apartment anymore. Akira didn’t mind if he called his friends from middle school, but to do so with the door open was rude. Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Akira got up to turn on the air conditioning. A gust of air, not yet cooled, blew over him. 

He didn’t have enough material to write this book. His memories were too vague. He supposed that he could call his mother; she would surely remember details of his childhood games that he himself did not recall… but he quickly dismissed this idea. Somehow the thought of calling home did not appeal to him at all. It did not help that his parents still thought that he was living alone. 

“What!? No way! Baumkuchen!?”

Akira could hear that Shindou’s voice was now coming from the kitchen. He must have finished his call with Akari-san while Akira had been turning on the air conditioner. 

“Whoa! This looks so good!!”

Akira sat down at his desk again. 

“Touya!” 

There was a knock at his door. 

“Hey, Touya!”

Akira got up and opened the door, and started as he saw Shindou in front of him, not wearing any shirt. His skin was very pale around his midriff, fading into the tan on his arms. Akira drew his eyes up from Shindou’s torso with difficulty, forcing himself to look at his face. 

“You got cake?” Shindou asked. 

Akira could not look into Shindou’s eyes. He did not feel comfortable looking anywhere. He could feel, to his horror, that he had an erection.

“I received it from a client,” Akira said as evenly as he was able to. “You can have some if you like.”

“For reals?”

Shindou moved aside to let Akira through the door, and followed him into the kitchen. Standing very close to the counter, Akira undid the inner wrapping around the cake, and cut a single slice. He set it on a plate, and reached into the drawer to pull out a fork. He handed the plate and fork to Shindou.

“Here you go.”

“What, aren’t you gonna have any?”

“I’m not hungry,” Akira said shortly. 

“It looks really good though.” Shindou laughed. “What, are you on a diet or something?”

“I don’t want any right now.”

“Huh.”

Akira could feel Shindou watching him as he walked out of the kitchen. He was almost to the door of his room when he felt a hand close around his wrist. 

“Hey. Let’s play a match?”

Akira turned around to face him. Shindou’s eyes were sparkling playfully. His bare shoulders seemed broader naked than they did when he was wearing a shirt. And his collarbones were… he didn’t want to use the word ‘beautiful,’ but he couldn’t think of any other word to describe them. Why wasn’t Shindou wearing a shirt? Akira was sure that his erection must be visible. He tried to wrench his hand away. 

“I can’t now.”

“Wait, what? Did I hear you right? You don’t want to play Go? Oi, Touya, are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine!” Akira snapped, at last freeing his arm. “I have work to do.”

“Work can wait! Let’s play Go.”

“I’m telling you NO!” Akira yelled. His eyes met Shindou’s, and he looked away again, swallowing. 

“Are you— is something up?” Shindou asked. Akira didn’t like the tone of concern in his voice. 

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Akira countered.

“It’s crazy hot in here! Haven’t you noticed? I don’t even know how you’re wearing long sleeves.”

“I have the air conditioning on,” he said, turning around. “I have some work to do. You can put the baumkuchen in the refrigerator if you’re not going to have another slice.”

“Oh, uh… okay.” 

Akira shut the door to his bedroom behind him, sat down in his chair, and laid his head on his desk. 

This was not what he wanted. This was very bad. He couldn’t work like this; he was still hard. The image of Shindou’s torso seemed burned into his vision, and he knew that even if he tried to work on the notes for his book he wouldn’t be able to concentrate. 

He had felt this way about other men’s bodies before, but only men that he didn’t know. He didn’t want to feel this way about Shindou. 

Outside of his door, Akira heard the sound of the water running and Shindou whistling. He must have already eaten the slice of cake and be washing the plate and fork. 

Slowly, Akira lifted his forehead from the desk. He took his pen in his hand, and began to write again. 

Notes:

The shit is approaching the fan...

Chapter 9: Candlelight Go

Notes:

This is a chapter in which potentially upsetting things are going to happen.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

“Asanuma-san!” the secretary was whispering through the office door. Akira was standing in the lobby of the SG Tokyo office building, waiting to talk about the book draft. Although he had been there for five minutes already, there was still no sign of Asanuma-san, who it appeared had forgotten about the appointment. The secretary, having received no immediate response to her first attempt, sneaked a couple steps through the door and whispered a bit louder. “Asanuma-san! Touya-sensei is here!”

“Eh? Touya-sensei...?” Akira heard the confused reply come muffled through the partially closed door. Then there was a shuffling of papers and the sound of footsteps, and Asanuma-san emerged from his office. 

“Touya-sensei, I am so sorry! I made you wait. Please, please come in! Sit down!”

Akira did as he was told. 

“So! You’ve had the chance to work on the draft a little. How has it been going?” The smartly-dressed Asanuma-san looked up at him expectantly, one of his feet bouncing under the desk.

To be honest, it had been going very badly. Akira had written several pages of his memories, but it was all drivel. Akira had hated every minute of it. He had dreaded coming to this meeting, and had avoided thinking about it until the very last moment. 

“I’m not sure if any of what I’ve been writing is any good,” Akira said. 

“What are you saying?” Asanuma-san laughed. “I’ve seen your writing before. You have a talent with words. I’m sure there’s nothing to be worried about. Do you mind if I take a look?”

Akira passed the folder over to him reluctantly, and waited as Asanuma-san read it. 

“Hmm…” Asanuma-san said. “It’s… good.” Having said that as a placeholder, he appeared to search for the kindest way to give his criticism. 

“I think that your descriptions of your games with your father have the solid backbones of something that we could certainly expand on. I think it would be interesting to explore the details…”

“I don’t have the details,” Akira said bluntly. He was having a hard time remaining polite, his frustrations having built up over the past few weeks. He was aware more than anything that he did not want to be there in the office.

“You don’t…” Asanuma-san began, looking confused. Grimacing slightly, he took a different tack. “Listen, I know it’s not easy to write about your childhood. You told me that you weren’t accustomed to it, and I certainly understand that. Perhaps I should ask you instead — what is it specifically about these chapters that you find difficult to write?”

“I…” Akira had not been expecting the question, and had no idea how to answer it. He stared back at Asanuma-san, who was stroking his goatee thoughtfully. 

“Is it humility?” Asanuma-san asked. “There’s no need to diminish your skill in Go. Writing about your talent is not boastful at all, in fact, I think it would rather be encouraging to beginners.”

“It’s not that,” Akira said annoyedly. He had come to terms a long time ago with his skill level, and he found being lectured about it by a middle-aged science fiction editor very unpleasant.

“Then perhaps you feel self-conscious about your connection to your father?” Asanuma-san ventured.

“I… no. I don’t feel any embarrassment concerning my father.” This was not a lie, and yet Akira felt that he was not fully telling the truth either. He was proud of his father’s Go, and he was glad to have benefited from his father’s teaching. Somehow, though… 

“I see,” Asanuma-san said. “Well, it’s clear that your father has had an enormous impact on the way that you play Go today. That’s why we were interested in making this book in the first place. We wanted to explore that relationship. After all, the former Meijin has had more of an influence on your Go than anyone else, wouldn’t you say?”

To this question, Akira could not possibly answer ‘yes.’ 

No, not my father. It’s Shindou. It’s sai. Shindou and sai are the ones who brought me where I am today. It’s true that my father gave me the foundations to start from, but moment I truly realized what it meant to search for the hand of God was the moment I first lost against Shindou… that is, against sai. 

Akira did his best to face Asanuma-san without showing his frustration. “There are many people who have influenced my Go. My father is only one of them.”

“Well…” said Asanuma-san thoughtfully. “I suppose that you could write about some of the others in the book as well, provided that you receive their permission first…” 

That was completely out of the question. There was no way that he could write about sai and Shindou. Even though they were the ones whose Go mattered most to him, Akira could never speak to anyone else about sai. And Shindou didn’t seem in any hurry to speak to him about the mystery either, which left Akira alone with his questions and theories. Not having anyone to talk to about it, at moments like these, felt incredibly lonely. 

“Touya-sensei, I’ll be frank with you.” Asanuma-san pushed the binder out of the way so that there was nothing between him and Akira, and leaned forward. “If you’re not interested in writing this book, it would be far from my place to force you into it. However, I’ve been working in this industry for many years and I know that with the amount of popularity that you have, this type of book would only be a boon to your career. And it could certainly open the gateway to other books. You enjoy writing about Go, yes? Before going straight for the more technical books, this kind of title will give more people a familiarity with your name. It’s a good deal all around. It’s good for you, it’s good for your brand, it’s good for us.”

Akira nearly flinched at the word “brand,” but he returned Asanuma-san’s gaze. The promise of more books was indeed a convincing argument, and now that Akira found himself face to face with Asanuma-san, he realized that it was perhaps childish of him to give up on writing after only a few half-hearted attempts. He did want to write about Go. There were a dozen topics that he wanted to explore. Perhaps the first book that he wrote was destined to be challenging regardless of the topic. He had only to get through this one, and then he could write about strategy, and the history of strategy, and about internet Go, and so many other topics…

 “I’ll try again,” he said. 

“I’m so glad!” Asanuma-san smiled widely. “We’re here to support you through it all. Any questions you have, any hesitations…”

The rest of the meeting was spent discussing the details of the deal. Akira did not let his unfamiliarity with the business side of matters deter him; he listened carefully to the terms of the contract, signed some papers, and left the building with a sense of renewed resolve. The book would go well if he just found the correct way to go about writing it. It could be a challenge just like the other challenges he had already faced and conquered so far on his path. 

He was halfway to the station, and just beginning to think about what he would make for dinner after his afternoon lesson, when his cell phone began to ring. He took it out of his pocket. It was his mother. 

“Hello?”

“Akira-san? I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.” His mother’s voice was, as usual, pleasant and bright. 

“No, not at all. I was just getting back from a… from a book meeting.”

“A book meeting! My goodness, you never told me that you had book meetings! You’re going to write a book?”

“Yes… it’s actually about those games that I used to play with father.”

“Really! And you’re going write an entire book about it?”

“Er… yes. Well, I’m giving it a try in any case. I’m not at all used to writing, so it’s been giving me a bit of trouble.”

“You know you can ask your father if you need help,” Akira’s mother said cheerfully. “He’s been rather restless since we got back from China. I think he’d like to see you home again, though he doesn’t say it. It’s been so empty in the house since you moved out. I’m sure he’d be interested in hearing about this book you’re writing.”

“I don’t know if there will be very much to say until I’ve written more of it.”

“Well, why don’t you come down for dinner tonight in any case? I’m worried about you having to cook for yourself every night, all alone in that apartment. I’m going to make Hamburg steak!”

Akira swallowed. He had promised to play a game against Shindou after he came home, and he intended to ask him about the results of his official Meijin race match today.

“I can’t tonight, I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think of an excuse to tell her. He didn’t want to lie any more than he already was lying to her. Fortunately, his mother gave him an easy out. 

“You must be tired after the meeting. I know your schedule keeps you so busy.”

“Yes.” Akira breathed a silent sigh of relief. “It does. I’m sorry I haven’t been able to visit since I moved.”

“Will you come by in the next week or so? I do think your father wants to see you.”

“I will,” Akira said. “I’ll call you.”

They said their goodbyes, and hung up. 

Akira felt strange about having refused his mother’s offer. There was no reason why he shouldn’t simply tell Shindou that he was going to go home for dinner. He knew that Shindou would understand; it wasn’t even necessary to tell him to his face. A text would suffice. But Akira wanted to hear the results of Shindou’s match as soon as possible, and he was reluctant to miss even one game against Shindou. Their matches, which occurred almost every day of the week now, were consistently the most enjoyable time of Akira’s daily routine. He didn’t like to admit it, but he usually looked forward to them much more than his official matches. Playing against Shindou was his joy and his solace — all the more so because the frequency of their arguments had miraculously dwindled to almost zero. There was something changing in their relationship. It had been set in motion when they had moved in together, and had not stopped evolving since then, though Akira could not identify what it was exactly. It was not only Akira, and it was not only Shindou. Both of their attitudes had changed, subtly but definitively.

Following the baumkuchen incident, Akira had been cautious in his interactions with Shindou for several days, keeping his distance and making sure to avoid going out of his room anywhere near the time when Shindou might take a bath. Shindou, however, had seemed to notice this difference in behavior, and had begun to make up for it in his own way, sitting down next to Akira when he sat on the sofa, touching his hand from time to time, brushing shoulders in the kitchen. It had never been so out of the ordinary as to warrant comment. Akira was not even sure that Shindou was doing it intentionally. But the moments after they touched, Akira recognized in himself a feeling of regret, a desire for the sensation to last just a little longer. These desires, Akira thought, were hardly characteristic of a rivalry. 

Shindou’s Go was day by day becoming more nuanced and more elegant. To Akira, who had watched Shindou’s Go from its inception, the most recent developments in this area were almost painfully beautiful. There were moments during their matches when Akira found that he was holding his breath, caught up in the aesthetic appreciation of the gracefulness of one of Shindou’s moves. He wondered if no one else had noticed the speed with which Shindou’s Go was transforming. Surely if they had, there would be more talk of Shindou winning the Meijin race. As things were, Akira had very few doubts that the title was already Shindou’s to win. 

. . .

When Akira entered the apartment that evening, returning from his tutoring lesson, none of the lights were on. He was about to reach for the light switch when he noticed that Shindou was sitting at the table in the living room with three of Akira’s emergency candles lit around a Go board. 

“What are you doing?”

Shindou turned around and smiled at Akira, probably, though it was difficult to tell in the dimness.

“Hey.”

“Are you able to see?” Akira asked.

“Yeah, more or less.”

Akira set his bag down on a chair, and stepped carefully over to where Shindou was sitting. There was a game half laid out on the board. White was Shindou.

“This was your match today,” Akira said.

“Yeah.”

“You won.”

“Yeah. Do you wanna see?” Shindou looked up at Akira, who was still standing.

“Ah… all right.”

Akira, somewhat awkwardly, knelt down beside Shindou and helped him clear the board. The flickering of the candles cast their fingers in orange light and seemed somehow to amplify the sounds of the stones. When the board was cleared, Shindou paused for a moment. 

“All right,” he said. “This was how Nakatani-san started.” He placed the first few stones on the board. “I came after him here.”

Akira watched in silence.

“He was trying to overwhelm me with this move. I knew that it could develop badly but I…”

Akira furrowed his eyebrows. “You played there?”

Shindou nodded, and laid out the next moves on the board. 

“And he kept coming and he kept coming… until we got to this point.”

Akira took in the situation. “You had to choose between the atari in the upper right hand or killing his stones in the lower left hand.”

“Yeah. I went for the atari. Which is when he went for the diagonal…”

“…Giving you the opportunity to strike,” finished Akira. Both of them stared at the board. It was an incredibly interesting game already. Akira had not seen many of Nakatani-san’s games before, but he was impressed with his kiai

“How did he respond?”

“Like this.”

Shindou continued laying out the stones, commenting on the moves that were noteworthy. But Akira felt unsettled, somehow. He was sitting so close to Shindou that he could feel his warmth through his clothes, and the soft sound of Shindou’s voice as he explained the match was so familiar, so comfortable to Akira. He could not tell if he was happy or unhappy, only that his chest hurt for some reason, and his throat was tight. 

Shindou’s fingers paused over the board. They were nearing the end game. Akira looked at him.

“What is it?”

“This is a move I thought you would like.”

Akira watched him place the white stone. It was a corner of the board where Nakatani-san was struggling to retain dominance, but with this one move from Shindou the entire corner was disrupted. It was a brilliant move, no doubt about it. But Akira knew this style. He took in his breath. 

“That move…”

“Yeah.” Shindou turned his head toward Akira and smiled.

“That move is just like sai.”

“I know,” he said. 

In Shindou’s expression there was a warmth, a playfulness that was making Akira’s heart beat faster. His face was so close, and yet Akira did not have the courage to pull away. What is this? Akira wondered. He could see every one of Shindou’s eyelashes. He’s beautiful. His eyes are so beautiful... As though responding to the bewilderment in Akira’s expression, the playfulness in Shindou’s eyes was changing into something more serious. Shindou’s lips were parted. His eyes were closed. He was leaning in closer.

He’s going to kiss me, Akira realized, his heart skipping a beat. 

He didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t thought of this. He had not foreseen any of this, and did not know what to make of the droves of emotions and sensations that were tearing through him, so he simply closed his eyes, unable to keep his body from flinching as Shindou’s lips met his softly and the world stopped.

Akira’s shoulders were tensed; he did not know if he was breathing. The softness of Shindou’s lips had made his mind go blank. He hadn’t expected it to feel this good. Shindou’s movements were surprisingly gentle, and there was a quiet rustling as he adjusted his position on the floor.

The room was completely still and the only movements were their lips against each other, but never before had Akira’s heart reveled and rioted as it was now. Everything that had once been calm had erupted into utter chaos. The desire to move closer, to touch more of Shindou’s skin was deafening within him, and faced with the terrifying demands that were being shouted in his mind, Akira was completely helpless.

Entirely unsure of himself, his eyes still closed, he tried extending a hand and placing it on Shindou’s side. Without breaking the kiss, Shindou moved in closer and touched Akira’s face tenderly.

“Touya,” he whispered before moving his lips back to Akira’s. 

This is not… This is definitely not… 

Akira’s brain couldn’t finish the sentence that it kept starting. He was too distracted by everything that was happening in his body, the sensations of Shindou’s hands as they moved from Akira’s jaw down his neck, the shivering feeling that was rushing through him, the pounding of his heart, the hardness between his legs. 

We should not be doing this. 

Drawing away from Shindou was what he ought to be doing, but instead he was moving back into the kiss again and again, intoxicated on how much Shindou seemed to want this too. Shindou’s hands were moving slowly, tenderly, painfully slowly, violently reawakening in Akira the aching longing that had been haunting him for weeks, as they caressed his body, gliding from his torso down to his hips, and this was getting to be… Shindou touching him there… would be… 

He tried to bring himself away.

“Shindou.”

Shindou looked at him, his hands hovering over Akira’s belt buckle. Those boyish eyes were so large and clear. They seemed to be questioning Akira: Is it okay?

No, of course it wasn’t okay. There was no way that they could be doing this right now.

Shindou’s hands began to open the belt buckle. Akira drew in his breath. As Shindou’s lips met his again, Akira didn’t know how to pull away. He could feel Shindou’s fingers now moving into his briefs. He clenched his eyes shut as Shindou began touching him. 

Why…?

It felt good. It felt very good, but he wasn’t ready. He didn’t want this. He could hear the sounds of his own shallow breathing and of Shindou whispering his name. Even the whispered words sounded too loud in the silence of the apartment.  

“Touya…”

Akira couldn’t answer him. They shouldn’t be doing this. Pleasure and panic had overrun his senses, and he was frozen. As Shindou’s movements grew faster, Akira clenched at the fabric of his own trousers with one hand. Shindou’s lips were wet against his neck, and as Shindou’s thumb began stroking Akira’s chest, Akira felt a jolt go through his entire body, and he came in Shindou’s hand. 

The sound of his own breathing was embarrassing. He kept his eyes closed, feeling strange in his body. 

He heard the sound of Shindou getting up and walking to the kitchen, then there was the sound of running water. He must be washing his hands. A moment later he was back. Akira felt lips brushing his cheek.

“Shindou,” he said, opening his eyes.

Shindou smiled. He looked somehow proud of himself, but sheepish at the same time. Akira studied his face. Shindou had kissed him. Shindou had… 

What was he supposed to make of this? What was he supposed to say?

“What?” Shindou asked, laughing. “You’re making a super scary face right now, you know?” 

Akira frowned. His heart was still beating too quickly. 

“It’s strange,” he said, unable to put into words any other of the thousand thoughts going through his head.

“What’s so strange about it?” Shindou took a lock of Akira’s hair and gently ran it between his two fingers. “I’ve always really really...” He again brought his lips to Akira’s cheek. “... really liked you.”

Always? Since when? Why? Akira wanted to ask, but he didn’t. He didn’t feel like himself. He felt as though both he and Shindou were strangers he had never met, and he was watching a movie of everything that was happening. None of it was real. Maybe in a moment he was going to wake up and find himself in his bed. But he didn’t really believe that either.

“I can’t understand you,” Akira said. 

Shindou looked indignant, and his face reddened. “Th-that’s my line!” he stuttered.

“Why do you always do such unpredictable things?”

“I… I don’t know! It wasn’t… it wasn’t that unpredictable, right? I mean you were…” 

He trailed off, and Akira didn’t reply, looking at the floor instead. He could feel Shindou looking at him. 

What does this mean? What am I supposed to say to you?

“Hey, Touya...” Shindou said. He moved closer to Akira and put his hand on his shoulder.

“No,” Akira said, removing the hand. “I have to go to bed.”

“Wh-what? Come on!”

Akira got up, buttoned his trousers, and straightened his shirt. His movements felt unnatural. He felt again as though there was something he needed to say, but he wasn’t sure what it was. Reflexively, he looked down at Shindou, whose eyes were glinting dimly in the candlelight. His face half in shadow, he looked somehow otherworldly. The lines of his jaw and cheekbone were pronounced, and made him look even more like a man, not the child Akira had once known. For the dozenth time that night, Akira’s heart gave a violent thump. 

“Are you okay?” Shindou asked.

Akira did not answer. He did not know the answer to that question.

“Well...” Shindou said quietly, looking up at him. “Goodnight I guess.” 

“Goodnight,” Akira replied, and turned toward his bedroom.

But as he reached the door he heard Shindou’s voice behind him once more. “I love you.”

Akira swallowed, turned the handle, and shut the door behind him. 

Notes:

I should mention that I am very much asexual and a virgin, and I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to writing sexual content. Some of that is probably apparent from the way I write these characters. However, I think that this sort of misunderstanding and pain is also important to write about, and I'm trying my best to convey a complex experience.

Chapter 10: Engawa

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Have you adjusted to living alone?”

Akira’s mother had placed a cup of barley tea in front of him and was looking concernedly at her son’s face. Insects were humming in the grasses of their garden. Sunlight shone down onto the low tea table, turning the dark wood a deep, warm brown.

“Things have been fine,” Akira said. “The new futon that I bought is nicer than my old one, so I’ve been sleeping better than I had expected to.”

“It doesn’t get too lonely in the evenings?”

“I don’t really have time to be lonely.” Akira laughed. “I have plenty of private lessons these days, and I’ve been working on the book of course.”

He didn’t like lying. It wasn’t in his nature to lie. He wondered if his mother could detect something false in his smile, but she seemed not to have noticed anything.

“Oh, the book! That’s right! You’ll have to tell us all about it when your father comes home from his walk.”

“Of course,” Akira replied.

The evening breeze coming in from the engawa of his parents’ house was humid. Akira was in short sleeves, but his arms sparkled with sweat. He had come to his parents’ house early in the afternoon with the intention of cleaning up some of the bits and ends he had left in his old room, but in fact he had barely organized a thing, and had instead spent the majority of the afternoon staring into space, shuffling and reshuffling through the same folder of kifu that he had pulled from where it had fallen during the moving process.

The heat and the humidity weren’t the only things to blame for Akira’s lack of progress. Whenever he thought back to the events of the previous night, his heart began beating more quickly, and he invariably lost track of whatever else he had been doing. Even now none of it seemed real to him, despite the fact that he and Shindou had discussed it that morning. 

“Hey listen,” Shindou had said, standing awkwardly in the door frame as Akira ladled rice into his bowl. “Last night I uh… I’m sorry if you didn’t like that.”

Akira had looked him in the eyes seriously. 

“It’s already done. And you don’t have to apologize for it. You were just following your instincts in the moment, like I was.”

“Instincts?” Shindou had looked uncomfortable. “Yeah… uh yeah, I guess I was.” 

Akira, sitting down, set the rice on the table next to his miso soup, salmon, and boiled eggs.

“But I wasn’t lying about what I said before. I really do… I mean, I really like you, Touya.”

Akira had sighed. “Even if you say that to me, I…”

“You can’t tell me that you don’t feel the same way! ‘Cause you were… you were kissing me back! You can’t say that was just instincts!” Shindou’s voice had sounded brittle beneath the anger. 

“I don’t know,” Akira had said. 

“You don’t know!?”

“Your actions were so sudden I don’t think you can expect me to take them in unquestioningly.”

“What the hell! You’re making it sound like everything’s my fault!”

“It is your fault.”

What!?

Akira had been aware even in the moment that he was being unfair. But he felt that if he said anything else he might look at Shindou’s face and feel that terrifying throbbing in his chest… and he did not want to experience that again. So instead he had said, without taking his eyes off his breakfast, “You shouldn’t be late for your match against Kishi-san this morning. I’m going to go to my parents’ house this afternoon, and then I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning for Osaka. I’ll be back late tonight.”

“So you’re just gonna pretend like nothing happened?”

“I didn’t say that. I’d like to avoid doing anything that could jeopardize our rivalry. I think we should move slowly.”

“Slowly, huh...” 

“Can you do that?” Akira had asked.

“…Yeah.”

The conversation had ended there as Shindou had needed to get ready to leave. Akira had finished his breakfast. It was only because he had stayed up several hours thinking about the issue that he had been able to face Shindou with any composure at all. Honestly, even the thought of moving slowly was frightening to him. It was only recently that he had realized that Shindou thought of him as a friend, let alone more than that. His complete lack of experience in this realm was enough to make him uneasy, but because it concerned Shindou, there was an added element of volatility. 

Shindou had said that he liked Akira, but what did that mean? Had Shindou considered the fact that they were both men? Did he want a relationship like the kind a boyfriend and girlfriend might have? Did Shindou expect him, Akira, to play the role of the woman? Akira could hardly imagine doing things with Shindou like going on dates or holding hands. It was possible that what Shindou wanted to do was more in line with what they had been doing last night. For Akira... to say that he didn’t want to do those things with Shindou would be a lie. But there was a difference between desires and reality, and it seemed unlikely that they could possibly maintain such a relationship in addition to their rivalry. Surely Shindou knew this too. 

Akira took a sip of his barley tea and once again tried to bring his mind away from Shindou. He had only a few months left before the final match of the Honinbo race when he would face Kuwabara-sensei. Before his next match in the title race, he needed to go to Osaka to visit the Kansai Go Institute for a two-day teaching event. All the logistics had been taken care of, and regardless of what happened with Shindou, he felt that he would be able to move forward just as he had planned. But when he closed his eyes he saw Shindou’s hands over the Go board; he felt Shindou’s hands cupping his face and Shindou’s lips on his. Today, at the very least, it was going to be impossible for him to concentrate on anything at all. After all, it seemed his feelings for Shindou really were…  

He heard the sound of footsteps on gravel outside. His father was coming back up the path to their house, and Akira observed the slow steadiness of his father’s gait. He looked tired.

“Darling, you’re already back!” Akira’s mother’s voice rang out from the entrance. “How was your walk?”

Akira could not make out the reply. He mechanically began going through the kifu in the folder once again, but his mind barely registered any of the dates or the names of the players. The katydids were buzzing away in the grass. 

“Akira-san!” He looked up over his shoulder to see his mother standing in the doorway. “Your father wanted to speak to you.”

“Oh?” Perplexed, Akira put the kifu away again and got up from the table. “Did something happen?”

“He just told me that he had something he wanted to say to you, that’s all. He’s in his room.”

“His room” was the room where his father played Go; where he and Akira had played Go when Akira had been a child. As Akira walked towards it he felt suddenly small again, as though it were 1999 and his father was about to give him another private lesson. The sliding door was open only a crack; as he opened it and peered into the room, dozens of memories rushed at him with an almost visceral force. There was the old hanging scroll on the wall. There was the Go board, standing alone like a monolith. There was the empty expanse of tatami that had used to host so many study sessions bustling with professionals. They had all been tall and confident, and Akira quiet and humble beneath their gaze. He had felt honored just to study with them next to his father. 

“Father? You wanted to speak with me?”

His father was standing by the engawa with his back turned to Akira, looking out at the garden. He turned his head towards Akira, and nodded once.

“Sit down.” 

Akira was about to sit down on the other side of the Go board, but then thought better of it and knelt down a small distance away, facing his father. Slowly moving away from the garden, his father came down to kneel across from him. He put his hand down on the tatami to stabilize himself as he knelt, grimacing slightly. When he had settled into seiza, he began to speak in a low and firm voice.

“Akira, you are nearly an adult. It has been years since you first began moving independently in the world of professional Go, and it’s natural for you to want to live life how you see fit.”

He crossed his arms and looked at his son’s face. Akira waited for him to continue. 

“That is all fine. But I would like you to consider the weight of your name when you make decisions. You know that what you do reflects on me, as well as on your mother and the rest of the family.”

Akira did not understand what his father was talking about. He replied cautiously.

“Father, if you’re referring to my progress in the race, I assure you that I’m doing everything in my power to win the title this year. I’ve been studying whenever time allows for it, and I am confident in my power. I intend to play a match that will make you proud.”

His father’s expression was inscrutable, as usual. But Akira had the impression that he was dissatisfied.

“I would like you to stay with your mother and me for a few days longer,” his father said. “It shouldn’t make a difference whether or not you stay at your apartment. Is that not so?”

“I’m leaving for Osaka tomorrow. I’ll be staying there two days for a teaching event at the Kansai Go Institute.”

“I see. Then I’d like you to come here as soon as you’re back in Tokyo.” His father’s words were soft, but forceful. “Do you understand?” he asked.

Again, Akira was puzzled by the unusually authoritative tone to his father’s voice. But he replied evenly.

“Yes, Father.” 

“Good. I would like you to come directly home.”

“I will.”

“Please reflect on what I’ve said.”

Akira did not know what he was supposed to reflect on. Never before had his father said anything like this, and Akira could not think of what could have prompted this speech. He felt awkward kneeling before his father, unsure of how to carry himself. 

“Please excuse me,” he murmured as he got up. Again his father nodded, and Akira left him behind in the room, shutting the sliding door carefully behind him.  

He stood in the hall for a moment, outside of the door. The sunlight played on the walls softly. Why was it that ever since he had become a professional, the sureness with which he had been able to face the world had slowly and steadily slipped out of his grasp? He had used to think that his path as a Go player would stretch out straight ahead before him, but then he had met Shindou and that assurance had vanished. He had used to understand his relationship to his mother and father, and now they felt like strangers to him. He had thought he had understood his relationship to Shindou, but now that too was muddled and bewildering. 

He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t understand anything anymore. 

The scent of his mother’s cooking drifted down the hallway, and Akira walked back to the room where he had left his kifu still unorganized. 

Notes:

If you can't tell already, Akira's relationship with his father is a big focus in this fiction. I think there are lots of different ways that you can interpret canon, but it always struck me how hands-off Akira's dad is in the manga. Even if he praises his son to other people, he rarely gives Akira praise directly. I guess Akira's also similar in a lot of ways. Internally: SHINDOU SHINDOU SHINDOU, Externally: *intense glaring and blatant ignoring*

Chapter 11: Osaka

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Akira was packing underwear and socks into the last remaining corner of his suitcase. The air conditioning was on, but he still felt too hot in his suit, and he was uncomfortably aware of Shindou standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He had been standing there since Akira had begun the packing, and had not said anything the entire time. 

Akira did a last run-over of his packing list, and turned around to look at Shindou, who had his hands in his pockets and was biting his lip. 

“Shindou, is there something you want to say to me?”

“Oh, uh, yeah…” He seemed to be coming out of a daze. “Are you flying?”

“I’m taking the train.”

Akira was certain that Shindou did not actually care whether Akira was going by train or plane. He seldom showed any interest in logistical matters. If there was a reason why he was loitering in the doorframe, that was not it. But Akira also didn’t particularly care to press the matter further.

“I’ve left the non-burnable trash in the entrance, but you’ll need to take it out tomorrow morning. Also, the milk you have in the refrigerator expired yesterday.”

“Oh yeah. I need to throw that out.”

“For your match against Shibasaki 5-dan I thought it might be helpful for you to see the kifu of when I played against him last year. I left it on the kitchen table.”

“…Thanks.”

Akira closed his suitcase and got up. He would arrive at the station with an excess of time to spare if he left now, but he didn’t want to stay alone in the apartment with Shindou longer than he needed to. Never before had he been so aware of Shindou’s body as he was these days; he wished it were an awareness he could rid himself of. The jeans Shindou was wearing today rode low on his hips. When he put his arms back behind his head, as he was doing now, a thin strip of skin showed beneath his navel. It took much of Akira’s effort not to look at that area.

“I’ll be back on the 22nd,” Akira said. “I’m stopping at my parents’ house before I come back here.”

Shindou didn’t reply to this, and Akira took it as a sign that the conversation was over. But as he rolled the suitcase in front of him into the hallway, he jolted as he felt two arms reach around him from behind and hold him tight. Shindou’s forehead was pressed into the back of Akira’s neck.

“Shindou…!”

“Yeah.”

“You—” Akira struggled to keep the agitation out of his voice. “I’m in a hurry!”

“Yeah.”

“And I told you I wanted to take things slowly.”

“This is slow,” Shindou said, edging his lips towards Akira’s neck.

Akira stood awkwardly with his hands on the handle of his suitcase as Shindou kissed him once, twice, three times on the back of his neck.

“Come back soon, okay?” Shindou said. 

“I’m going to my parents’ house first.”

“Can’t you come back here first? They won’t know.”

“Shindou, let me go.”

Shindou’s arms loosened, and then slid away.

“You always do things without thinking,” Akira said, putting on his shoes. 

“I do think about things! You’re the one who’s too rigid!”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Whatever. Just be careful on your trip, okay?”

“You’re talking as though I hadn’t already been going on business trips like this for years. I’m more concerned about you not burning the apartment building down while I’m gone.”

“Pfff. Like I would do that.”

Akira turned around to face Shindou at last. Shindou was squinting in the sunlight, not quite smiling, looking at Akira with a curious expression he had begun to wear more frequently lately. At these times, when Akira looked into Shindou’s eyes, he felt as though he were somehow exposed, as though Shindou were seeing deep into him. He stared back into his gaze.

Ittekimasu.” 

Now Shindou’s smile broke out in full. “Itterasshai.”

. . . 

The train ride seemed to pass slowly. Once he had settled down into his seat, Akira pulled out the tray from the back of the seat in front of him and set down the folder where he kept the notes for his book. He set to work writing a section concerning his father’s playing style, but he was only able to complete a paragraph before he put down his pen in exhaustion. Something about the repetitive noises of the train and the endless white and grey houses and factory buildings outside seemed to be lulling him into a strangely ruminative state of mind. He was remembering a train trip he had taken with his mother and father when he was nine years old, when his father had had business in Osaka. His mother had bought him a small tub of strawberry ice cream, which Akira had eaten while reviewing the kifu of a match he had played against Ashiwara-san at one of his father’s study sessions. He remembered being filled with excitement at being on a shinkansen trip, and trying to contain his excitement so as not to appear childish. He remembered his mother laughing as he had spilled some of the strawberry ice cream onto his kifu. “Oh, Akira-san!” she had giggled. “Try to do one thing at a time!” 

Akira glanced up at the high rises out the window. The train was approaching Nagoya, and some of the passengers were getting out of their seats and gathering their luggage. He wondered what Shindou was doing now. Had he looked at the kifu that Akira had left for him? Was he eating instant ramen again for lunch? Was Shindou thinking of Akira now, too? Sighing, Akira rubbed his temples with both hands. Shindou, Shindou, Shindou. Always Shindou. Akira had said that he wanted to take things slow, but in the end he himself was worse than Shindou was. A part of him had wanted very badly to turn around and kiss Shindou on the lips this morning. If they didn’t move slowly, Akira didn’t know what he would do. If he gave in to all of his desires, if he started to lose control… just the thought of it made his heart rate quicken. He felt that to enter into a romantic relationship with Shindou would be a very bad idea. It was a strong, instinctive feeling, and it bothered him that he could not explain it to himself. 

When he tried to imagine what would happen if he did give in and do everything that he wanted to do with Shindou... his mind went absolutely blank. There was a precipice past which his thought process could not advance, and every time he tried to approach that precipice, his brain shut down. He did not know if it was because the situation frightened him, or if it was because he wanted it too much. In any case, he could not shake Shindou from his thoughts. How long had it been like this? One month? Two months? To a certain extent, hadn’t it always been this way with Shindou?

When the train arrived at Shin-Osaka station, Akira felt drained from the journey. He boarded another train as the last leg to the Kansai Go Institute, and found himself more aware than usual of the noise and the smells of the people around him. The high school girls across from him seemed to be practically yelling at each other, and the gaggle of old women the next car over were no better. Was this the cultural difference between Kansai and Kantou that he had heard tell of? He sat rigid in his seat as more and more people crowded into the train. He drew himself up even straighter when a musty business man heaved himself into the seat next to him and began laughing conspicuously at a manga he was reading. It was a tremendous relief when Akira was able to pull himself and his suitcase out of the train and finally take in some fresh air. 

Akira was now faced with the task of following the map that he had prepared for himself in advance. It was rare that he got himself lost in Tokyo, or even in cities that were unfamiliar to him. However, perhaps because of the fatigue that had already accumulated, Akira found himself looking down at his map and up at his surroundings dozens of times as he navigated towards the Go Institute. Such was his concentration that he barely noticed the sounds of the parade until it was right behind him, and a moment later, all around him. 

At first he thought it was only a group of noisy college students, but as he looked at the people on every side of him he noticed that some of them were in their forties or fifties. They were dressed in bright colors and had flags and signs. There were pinwheels on some of their hats, and music was coming from a boombox that one of them was holding. A young man in a tight-fitting rainbow-colored T-shirt was firmly clasping the hand of another man, who looked to be at least ten years older than him. The sign he held read “A Future with Rights!” 

Akira turned around to try to find a way to get out of the crowd that seemed to be pulling him along with them. How they had overtaken him in the first place was a mystery to him, and he felt very out of place in his somber suit and tie, surrounded by the outlandish costumes some of them were wearing. As he maneuvered his way towards the back of the throng, a woman — or rather, a man wearing women’s clothes — placed his hand on Akira’s shoulder, making him jump. 

“I love your hair!” exclaimed the transvestite in a high-pitched voice that sent shivers down Akira’s spine. The speaker himself was wearing a silvery skin-tight minidress and a blond wig that came down to his shoulders. The length of the hairstyle was about the same as Akira’s. 

“Ah — ah…” Akira responded. He did not want to speak to this person. More than the clothes and the voice, Akira was horrified by the familiarity with which he had been addressed. It was just as though this man in women’s clothes thought that Akira was just like the rest of them — that he was part of their group. 

Akira finally succeeded in pulling himself away. As he watched the parade continue on ahead of him, he was surprised by how small it actually was — hardly more than thirty people. The singing and the billowing rainbow flag at the head of the group grew increasingly distant and then turned a corner and disappeared from sight, and the city street once again returned to regularity. Akira panicked for a moment, thinking that he had dropped his map in the confusion, but no, it was still in his hand. He adjusted his tie and squared his shoulders. His watch told him that he had only eight minutes before he was supposed to greet the organizers of the event, and he knew that it would take at least that long to arrive at the Go Institute. He needed to get ahold of himself. 

. . .

He arrived two minutes late to the Go Institute. 

“Touya-sensei! Thank you so much for coming!” exclaimed one of the young staff members when Akira walked through the doors. Another two young women rushed to take Akira’s suitcase from him and hand him the program for the event. 

“I’m so sorry that we weren’t able to make enough time for you to stop at the hotel before coming here. The director just wanted to speak to you quickly because he won’t be able to attend the beginning of the event tomorrow.”

“No, not at all. Rather, I’m very sorry that I’m late in arriving here. I…” 

“Are you all right?” The young staff member eyed him with a look of concern. “Your face looks a little pale.”

Akira swallowed. He had intended to arrive at the Go Institute with a fresh frame of mind, but he still felt off kilter after his run-in with the parade. It was worrying that his discomposure showed on his face. He smiled at the staff member, attempting to mask any sign of his internal state. 

“I’m fine, thank you. Just a little tired from the trip. I ran into, um, a parade on my way here and I admit it rather surprised me.”

Oh.” The young man gave him a knowing look. “It was that gay thing, wasn’t it?”

“I think so. There were some people wearing strange clothes, and I didn’t notice them until they were all around me. In any case, I apologize for my lateness.”

The staff member shook his head. “You don’t have to apologize, Touya-sensei. Those crazies have no right to block traffic like that. I’m sorry you got caught up in it.”

Akira stopped smiling. “It’s fine,” he said. “Please tell me where I should go to meet the director.”

Notes:

Not a whole lot of pride parades in Japan, as far as I can tell. I'm guessing there were even fewer earlier in the 2000s.

I would also like to say that Akira's use of the word "transvestite" was included to reflect his very limited understanding of trans and gender non-conforming people. Thanks to everyone who has commented on this so far. It's encouraging :)

Chapter 12: Text

Notes:

I stole the moves in this chapter from Baduk Doctor's review of a game between Shin Jinseo and Kang Seungmin. You can find the video on YouTube if you search: [Pro Match] Shin Jinseo is unstoppable! (Korean Baduk League Playoff)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

From nine in the morning until ten thirty at night, Akira had not had a moment to himself. First there had been the preparations for the teaching event, then the event itself, which had lasted four hours, then he had been called aside to speak with some Kansai Go professionals eager to meet him, and in the evening there had been a dinner with the director of the Go Institute and seven other professional Go players. He had tried to get out of going for drinks after dinner — he was not, after all, of drinking age — but his attempt had been unsuccessful and he had been dragged along to the izakaya with the others.

When he was finally able to return to his hotel room, he only took his shoes off and set his briefcase on the floor before collapsing onto the bed. He heaved a sigh. It had not been unpleasant talking with the other professionals. At the izakaya, Koizumi 9-dan and Miyase 7-dan had told him several amusing stories about the eccentric teacher who had taken both of them under his tutelage, and they had discussed the joys and the difficulties of teaching novice Go players. However, Akira felt very glad that he had only one or two more things to do at the Go Institute the next day before he would take the train home. He was ready to return to his normal routine. After he returned to Tokyo, he could devote himself entirely to preparing for his final matches in the Honinbo race. He needed to study more of next opponent’s games… and Kuwabara-sensei’s games after that.

As Akira vaguely pursued these thoughts while staring at the ceiling of the hotel room, he heard a buzz come from inside his coat pocket. Taking out his cell phone, he saw that Shindou had just texted him.

Otsukaresama, the text read.

Akira smiled.

Otsukaresama, he replied. How was your match?

The kifu helped out a lot, Shindou texted.Thanks!

You’re welcome.

So Shindou had won his match. Akira made a mental note to ask to see the game once he returned to the apartment.

How’s Osaka? Shindou asked.

I haven’t done anything particularly Osaka-related. I taught Go all morning

Did you get to talk to Yashiro?

According to the director, he’s actually on a business trip of his own right now. I would have liked to talk to him

Aw that’s a bummer

Yes…

Akira watched the screen of his cell phone. He could hear the humming of the mini refrigerator from the bed, even though it was on the other side of the room.

The cell phone buzzed again.

Got time for a match? Shindou texted.

Akira looked at the clock. It was 10:39. His body still felt tired, but his mind was alert. He probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep right away now even if he tried.

All right. A quick one he replied.

Cool. Let’s do speed Go. You be black?

Okay

Akira took out the Go board from his bag, moved it to the small table near the bed, and set both colors of stones within reach.

Onegaishimasu

Onegaishimasu.

He placed his first stone.

16-4, he texted.

4-4, Shindou texted back. Akira placed Shindou’s white stone on the board.

16-16

4-16

6-17

3-14. Any tough students today?, Shindou asked.

2-2. No. Everyone was very eager to learn.

3-4. That’s good.

4-3. Are things all right at the apartment?

4-5. Oh yeah. The guy next door was singing again. Sounded like something Korean

Akira smiled.

6-3. You don’t have to go out of your way to listen to him, you know

6-4. I wish you had been here. You could’ve told me what he was singing about

7-3. I doubt I would be able to understand sung Korean

5-3. Liar! I heard you talking to Suyong Hong at the last Hokuto Cup. You guys were chatting back and forth at like light speed

5-2. I’m sure Hong-san would appreciate it if you made any effort to speak something other than Japanese to him

6-2. Why bother? his Japanese is almost perfect anyway

Akira paused. Usually he did not enjoy conversing during a match, but tonight somehow, he felt the stress of the day lifting away from him as he chatted with Shindou. It was thoughtful of Shindou to have texted him. He wondered if he ever texted other Go players like this; if he ever played remote Go with them as well. Even though Shindou sometimes allowed himself to become needlessly anxious before important matches, he was often able to befriend his opponents with an ease that baffled Akira. Perhaps Akira wasn’t the only one. Perhaps Shindou had a few other friends with whom he played this way…

Oi, this is speed Go you know? Shindou texted. Wasn’t that supposed to be your specialty?

It’s barely been twenty seconds! countered Akira.

Well hurry up.

Akira placed his move: 4-2.

8-3

7-2

7-4

8-2

17-17

Akira frowned at this move.

I bet you’re frowning right now, Shindou texted.

I am not frowning

You definitely are

Deciding not to comment on Shindou’s last text, Akira sent his next move. They played for about ten minutes without any comments.

12-9. What did you eat for dinner? Akira asked Shindou at length.

17-7. Salad

18-10. I don’t believe you

13-7. You don’t trust me?

12-6. You never eat salad

17-5. Well I did tonight

18-4. You’re lying

15-10. Come on, when have I lied to you?

3-6. If you aren’t lying then you’ll be able to tell me what was in the salad.

9-8. Tomatoes and cucumbers

14-9. That proves me correct

14-11. What!? How?

13-11. You don’t like cucumbers

17-10. How do you know that?

9-10. It’s obvious. You avoid them every time they’re included in a dish

6-6. Well damn

7-5. What did you actually have for dinner?

8-9. I had instant ramen

8-11. I thought so

Akira looked up at the clock again. With his cell phone in one hand, he used his other hand to pull his nightclothes from his suitcase and begin undressing.

11-8. Hey when you come back let’s go somewhere nice, Shindou texted.

10-7. What do you mean?

4-7. Like a restaurant or something. I wanna go somewhere nice with you

Somewhere nice. Akira paused with his nightshirt halfway buttoned up. Going to a nice restaurant with Shindou. No matter how he looked at it, there was only one word for that kind of outing. He sighed. Perhaps this was Shindou attempting to take things slowly.

7-8. That’s fine with me, Akira replied.

11-7. Nice. I’ll find us a good place. And when you win the title I’ll treat you to whatever you want

Akira chuckled.

10-6. That’s not like you

8-13. What do you mean it’s not like me?

12-8. I don’t think you’ve ever offered to treat me to anything before

8-6. Well, it’s fine if it’s your first title, right? That much deserves at least a dinner

8-5. I don’t know if it *deserves* a dinner… but if you insist, I’ll let you treat me if I win

10-12. Cool. Just don’t pick some crazy expensive sushi place

3-12. You just said you’d treat me to whatever I wanted

2-12. Yeah, but within reason

7-12. I’m not going to go to a ramen restaurant with you

Who said anything about ramen!? Oh... and also I lost the match.

Thank you.

He looked over the game, feeling satisfied. He didn’t suppose they were going to review it, seeing how late it was. He decided to leave the stones where they were until tomorrow morning. He would look over the game once more before breakfast. His cell phone buzzed again.

Hey Touya.

Yeah?

There was a long pause. Akira stared at the faint light from his phone screen. Two minutes passed. Akira brushed his teeth and washed his face. What was it that Shindou was taking so long to say?

But when the cell phone buzzed again, it was only two words.

Good game

Thank you

Akira turned off the lamp on the nightstand and slipped under the covers of his bed. His eyes were beginning to feel heavy, but as he set his head down on the pillow, he typed out a last message: Good night, Shindou

The phone buzzed once more.

Good night, Touya.

Notes:

Wooooops forgot it was Tuesday yesterday. Anyway, just a short chapter this week.

Chapter 13: Return

Chapter Text

Akira arrived at his parents’ house just as the sun was setting. As he made his way towards the entrance, it was difficult to see the path, and the trees in the garden were jagged shadows against the dim purple sky. He had intended to take the earlier train back to Tokyo, but had realized that it would be more convenient to take care of some paperwork in preparation for his next event at the Kansai Go Institute while he was there. The ride back had been just as exhausting as the ride there, but Akira had felt somewhat relieved once back in his home city. The bustle of these Tokyo crowds was more familiar to him. In the station, he had nearly boarded the train that led to the apartment he shared with Shindou out of habit, but had caught himself in time. Now, standing in front of the front door to his parents’ house, he took a moment to collect himself. 

“Come directly home,” his father had said. 

Akira didn’t know why it was so important to his father that he come home today. As far as he knew, there was nothing special coming up on his father’s schedule, and as for Akira’s own professional life, his father very rarely had anything to say about it. Even as Akira reassured himself that there was nothing he need to feel worried about, there was a sense of restlessness in him that he could not quell. He gave the front door a perfunctory knock before letting himself into the house and removing his shoes. 

Tadaima,” he called to his mother, whom he could hear moving around in the kitchen. 

“Ah, okaerinasai!” her voice rang out in response. Her voice was as pleasant as usual, but she did not come out to greet him. 

Akira set his suitcase in the hall by the entrance and straightened his shoes. He walked into the kitchen, where his mother had her back turned to him. She was washing the dishes. 

“I came back directly from the station,” he said. 

She turned around from the sink and smiled.

“You must be tired.”

Akira smiled back, but instead of feeling reassured, his sense of anxiety was building. There was something strange in the atmosphere. The way that his mother was smiling was not natural, and there was a tension to her posture as she scrubbed the dishes briskly with the sponge. 

“I see you’ve already eaten dinner,” Akira said. 

“Yes, I’m sorry we didn’t wait for you. We didn’t know what time you’d be home. I put your portion in the refrigerator.”

“Thank you.” Akira was feeling rather hungry, and began to move towards the refrigerator.

“You should speak to your father,” his mother said. 

“Oh.” Akira stopped. “Is he waiting for me?”

“He’s in his room.”

“All right.”

He began to walk towards the hall, but then turned around again.

“I left my suitcase in the entrance.”

His mother nodded once. Her smile this time was clearly strained. 

“I’ll take care of it.”

Akira swallowed, and made his way to his father’s room. It was nothing, probably. His heart didn’t need to be beating this quickly. In all the years that Akira had lived in this house, there had never been any arguments or trouble, only the steady rhythm of study sessions and his father’s business trips. Now that Akira had moved out, this uneasiness he felt was surely a symptom of a minor period of adjustment, nothing more. Standing in front of the door, he took a deep breath and announced his presence.

“Father?”

“Come in,” came his father’s voice promptly, as though he had been waiting. 

The room was filled with orange light. The doors to the engawa were shut, and Akira’s father sat in front of the Go board, one of his hands reaching into the go-ke to lay out the next move of a game he was recreating. Akira came in, shutting the sliding door behind him, and knelt down on the tatami. 

“You had something to say to me, Father?”

The wrinkles on his father’s face seemed deeper than even the last time they had spoken. His hair seemed whiter. He placed another stone on the board and the voice in which he spoke to Akira was somber.

“Did you think about what I asked you to?”

What he had been asked to think about… Akira stared at his father’s impassive face. “About the weight of our name?”

“That’s right.”

Akira set his jaw, and answered as sincerely as he could. “I know that what I do reflects on our family and our reputation, and I have always behaved in a way that would uphold the honor of our name…”

“And now?” his father asked sharply. His back was as straight as a rod.

Surprised by the suddenness of the question, Akira did not know how to respond immediately.

“And now…?” he repeated.

“Do you intend to give up the weight and the responsibility of your name now of all times, as the Honinbo title match approaches?” his father asked, snapping a stone onto the board.

“I… I don’t follow you,” Akira said.

“You don’t understand?” 

“I… Well, no—”

“Stop fucking around!” his father yelled. Akira jolted as though he had received an electric shock. He stared open-mouthed at the man in front of him.

“You think I wouldn’t recognize that my own son was lying to me; lying to his mother!” He widened his eyes furiously. “It’s a disgrace!”

“Father, I don’t—”

“I know that you’re living with him!” his father roared.

As though he had been plunged into ice water, Akira felt a violent chill run through his body.

“What were you thinking, entering into a relationship like that? Did you think at all? I know your strength as a Go player. Do you want to throw all that away?” He glared at his son. “Well!?”

Akira’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t find any words. Never before had he seen his father raise his voice like this. His heart racing, he began to stammer, not even knowing what he was saying.

“It’s not— I didn’t mean— I…”

“Where is your pride?” shouted his father. “I thought that I could count on you to live responsibly, but when I turn around I see my son would rather lead a double life with some faggot!

“No, that’s not—” Akira could hear the tone of desperation in his own voice.

“Do you deny it? Can you tell me that it’s not true?”

Akira felt tears rising to his eyes. “You’re wrong…!” 

He searched for something to say, anything to explain himself, but his mind was blank. He felt he could barely breathe.

“Am I truly wrong?” his father asked quietly, his dark eyes glinting dangerously. “You are living with Hikaru Shindou. Aren’t you?”

Akira swallowed once, and then again, fighting with all his strength to keep from crying.

“You disgust me.”

The words fell like dead weight in the otherwise silent room. Akira couldn’t look up from where his fists were clenched over his knees.

“You don’t even deny it. Do you really think that such a relationship can last?”

Akira swallowed again. 

“Do you!?”

He said nothing.

“Get out.”

The words were so soft that Akira wasn’t sure he had heard them. He lifted his head.

“GET OUT!” his father shouted, and Akira stumbled to his feet, nearly falling backwards into the door as he fled from the room. The sound of his footsteps pounding down the hall mingled with the pounding in his ears. He was in the entrance hall grasping for his suitcase, then putting on his shoes, his hands shaking so much that he could hardly tie the laces. He heard his mother approaching him from behind, her soft voice.

“Akira-san…”

“Excuse me,” he said, not looking at her, the words coming out strange and garbled from his throat. Pulling the front door open, he staggered into the humid evening air. The sounds of the insects in the garden pressed in on him from all sides. In the darkness of the neighborhood he dragged his suitcase behind him. His footsteps were frantic and uneven, and the wheels of the suitcase caught on pebbles and cracks in the sidewalk that he couldn’t see. 

“Hah…!” His breath caught as he inhaled, making an unnatural gasping noise. He tried to breathe in again, and the gasping noise repeated. He was in the station now, his hands somehow finding his train pass, his feet somehow carrying him through the gates. He couldn’t look at the people around him as he boarded the train. He grasped the handle of his suitcase so hard that the blood drained from his knuckles and he tried to sit still and carry himself normally, stop himself from shaking. He just needed to make it back to the apartment. He just needed to hold out until then. When he got out of the station and emerged into the street, the gasping noise had returned to his breath. He wanted to stop and rest but wasn’t sure he would be able to get up again if he did. Part of the wheel of his suitcase had broken off, and it was making a grating sound as he pulled it across the concrete.

He was at the bottom floor of the apartment building. He was getting into the elevator. He was at the door of their apartment. He was turning the handle, entering.

“Hey!” Shindou’s voice came from his room. “Are you already back from your parents’? I thought you said... Hey!”

Akira was standing in the entrance, his whole body shaking.

“Touya!” Shindou was rushing over to him. “Touya, what happened? Are you okay? Hey, sit down! You look terrible! What happened?”

“Hah...!” The gasping noise escaped Akira’s mouth again. Shindou was pulling him towards the couch, pushing him into a sitting position.

“Look, I’m gonna get you some water, okay? Don’t move.”

Everything in Akira’s field of vision was too bright under the overhead lights. He could only feel his breathing and his heartbeat, and these two sensations seemed to take up all of his concentration. He stared at his knees and the table in front of him. 

Shindou was hastily pressing a glass of cold water into his hands; some of it spilled over the edge onto the table and floor. 

“Hey… hey… What happened? What is it?” 

Akira swallowed and tried to speak; failed. He felt Shindou’s hand on his shoulder as though it were a foreign object. 

“I went to my father…” he managed. His voice still did not sound right. Shindou was squatting next to the couch, his face turned up and his eyes wide with concern. 

“Did Sensei… is he okay?” Shindou asked. 

“He knows,” Akira said. “He knows that we’re living together.”

“Yeah…?” Shindou sounded confused. That was right. Akira hadn’t told Shindou that he had been keeping their living situation a secret from his parents. 

“I hadn’t told them,” Akira explained. “My father…” But he couldn’t finish his sentence. A strange, cold sensation was coming over him, and he suddenly felt that he couldn’t speak of any of this. He didn’t want to look at Shindou. There was a pain in his stomach. 

“Drink some water,” Shindou said. Akira didn’t want to, but he took a sip.

“Was he… was he angry?” Shindou asked. 

“He called you a faggot,” Akira choked out.

“Oh…” 

Neither of them said anything. 

Akira wondered if Shindou understood now. There was a reason why Akira hadn’t been able to imagine a continued romantic relationship with Shindou. There was a reason why he had had a bad premonition about it. This was the reason. If Shindou understood too, it was all over. 

“How did he know we were living together though?” Shindou asked softly.

“I don’t know. Someone must have told him. Maybe someone at the Go salon.”

“But…”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“Hey, it’s okay…”

“It’s NOT okay!” Akira yelled. “Can’t you see this is not okay!?”

“It’ll work out. We can make it work.”

“The only reason why you can say that so easily is because your parents don’t know that you’re gay!” 

He glared at Shindou, and saw reflected back in Shindou’s large brown eyes the wound he had just inflicted. 

“I’m sorry,” Akira said, looking away. He wrapped his hands tighter around the glass of water. 

“It’s okay,” Shindou said quietly. He looked over tentatively at Akira. “I… uh… can I hold you?”

“No. I don’t want you to hold me.”

“Oh. Okay.” Shindou said. He sounded incredibly sad. “I just… it doesn’t… it doesn’t really seem like your dad, you know?”

“He’s been changing recently,” Akira said. “It’s as though he’s been retreating further into himself, ever since he retired.”

“Since he retired…” Shindou repeated. “Ugh… I’m really sorry.” 

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Uh, nothing. I just mean it’s too bad that he retired like that.”

“Shindou, you…” Akira began, but stopped. He knew that this had something to do with sai, but he did not have the energy to ask about it. He felt tired. So very tired and empty, as though everything had been drained out of him and only the shell of his body was left.  

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“I’m gonna make some tea. D’you want some?” Shindou asked.

“Thank you,” Akira said. Shindou left the couch to go to the kitchen, and Akira tilted his head back and closed his eyes. 

When he opened them again, the lights were off, he had a crick in his neck, and there was a cold mug of tea in front of him on the table. He had fallen asleep. Shindou was gone from the living room, and the apartment was quiet. Akira stared vaguely at the shapes around him. For some reason, a memory from long ago floated to his mind. He recalled waking up in the middle of the night as a young child, seeing the darkness of his room all around him, and how it had seemed to shift at the edges of his vision as though it were silently waiting for him. Awed by the chaos of these everyday objects transformed into wraiths, he had shut his eyes and opened them again, comparing the darkness behind his lids to the shadows of the room. He had looked at every corner, trying to make out familiar silhouettes in order to reassure himself that everything was just as it always was in daylight. Throughout his childhood he had spent many sleepless hours that way. Of course he had never told his parents about the fear he felt those nights.

Tonight the darkness in the living room of the apartment was not complete. Akira could see where Shindou had left his backpack slung over the chair. If he were a child, surely he would imagine some kind of ghost or demon hiding in that shape. Now he could only see a backpack, even if he tried to see something else.

Akira pushed himself up from the couch, leaving the mug on the table untouched. He returned to his bedroom, and went back to sleep.

Chapter 14: Memories

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 Touya-sensei, 

 It is the end of the summer solstice, and the long days are pleasant.

 I would like to thank you for your kind response to my previous email. I very much enjoyed watching your most recent match against Wada 9-dan in the Honinbo competition. Your ability to read your opponent’s moves is phenomenal, and your strategy in the second half of the game in particular was inspiring to me. I will also work hard to improve my playing style.

 I would like you to please forgive my rudeness in asking you the same question twice, but I felt that you did not truly answer my question in your last email. When I asked you why you played Go, I was interested in why you specifically play Go, Touya-sensei. You gave me an answer that discussed why all Go players devote themselves to the game, but I would like to know your personal reason. I apologize for my stubbornness, but after seeing the way that you play, I must know the answer. I have only recently become a fan of yours in the past few years, but I am consistently astonished by your strength and unwavering confidence. I am looking forward to watching your final match against Kuwabara Honinbo. Until then, please take care of yourself.

 Sincerely,

 Kou Sunahara

. . .

In retrospect, Akira could see signs of it stretching back into his childhood. At age eight, he had been interested in another boy in his class. To say that he had fallen in love would be an exaggeration, but the place that the boy had occupied in Akira’s mind at that time had nevertheless been significant. His name was Kazuya. He had ridden his bike to school every day, rain or shine, and when he came into class, his hair was often tousled from the wind. He was taller than most of the students in Akira’s class, and the homeroom teacher had used to tease him. “Hey, how many centimeters did you grow last week?” When Akira went home after school, he had timed his departure so he could watch Kazuya-kun get on his bike and ride away.

“Akira, your fighting spirit and your capacity for deep reflection are two of your greatest treasures. You must not let one overpower the other. In your Go, as well as in your life, you must know when to attack and when to lie in wait. A proper balance between the two will allow you to win against any opponent.”

When Akira was ten, the soft-faced Kaneda-kun had shared his orange with him under a shady tree on the day of the sports festival. 

“The other boys say that you look like a girl, but I don’t think so,” he had said shyly. “I think you’re nice.”

After that day, Akira had tried several times to talk to Kaneda-kun, but he was always surrounded by other friends and seemed to be too busy to notice Akira. The shyness in his face was replaced with a rowdiness when he was with the other boys, and it did not suit him as well. After a while, Akira had stopped trying to attract Kaneda-kun’s attention during lunchtime, and had practiced tsumego instead.

“Akira, the move that you played here is good for now, but you should be able to read ahead further. You can see my intention through the other moves that I have played. Try for yourself. You must sense the direction I am going to take before I take it. Can you see the movement of the stones?”

One night when he was fourteen, Akira had a dream about a man who undressed before him. They were in Akira’s classroom in Kaiou, and the sun was shining in a deep orange through the drawn curtains. The naked man had taken Akira’s hand, and pressed it to his own chest. “You don’t need to be different,” he had said. “What do you mean?” Akira had asked, but the man had not answered, only smiling. Akira had awoken in the morning confused and worried by the vividness of the strange emotion left over from the dream. It seemed to drift in and out of his consciousness for the rest of that day, as though taunting him. 

“Akira, you should not waste time on things that are not beneficial to you. If you devote yourself to your studies, the fruit that your effort will bear will largely outweigh any sense of loss you might feel in the meantime.”

He had always thought that these moments were meaningless scenes in his life, no more significant than trees on the side of a road. But now they tangled together and obscured his path. He felt as though he were caught in a dark forest with no way out. 

. . . 

One of the overhead lights in the Go Institute was broken; they had called in a couple of workers to fix it. When Akira strode through the lobby, the workers were standing there in their khaki work suits, one holding his toolkit, the other positioning a ladder underneath the faulty light. They apologized for the mess as Akira walked by them. 

Akira had just finished a lesson with an insei student; a twelve-year-old girl who played well, but who was painfully shy and never spoke to him in more than a whisper. He was dropping by the Institute to discuss his schedule with Morisawa-san before he went home for the day. A week and a half had passed since he had returned from Osaka, and nothing had changed, nothing at all. His movements were the same as they always were. His Go was unchanged. People spoke to him and seemed to notice nothing. Only Shindou and his parents knew what had transpired. 

In silent moments when he was not playing Go or working on any other task, Akira could feel the tingling pain of his father’s words. The aching crept in at the edges of his mind. He could push it away easily as soon as he focused on something else, but it came back persistently while he was eating food, or at night before he was able to fall asleep, prickling behind his eyes and pressing down on his chest. 

As Akira approached the desk to request to speak with Morisawa-san, he heard a low voice call out to him from the other side of the lobby.

“Akira-kun.”

He turned around, and saw Ogata-san walking towards him with his usual swagger. His game with Ogata-san seemed to have occurred years ago, in another life. Ogata-san was smirking, both hands thrust in the pockets of his signature white suit. 

“I haven’t seen you for a while. I suppose you’ve been busy preparing for the Honinbo match. Nearly the final match, isn’t it?”

He looked at Akira with a provocative and detached smile. The wrinkles around his mouth seemed even more pronounced than the last time they had played against each other, and Akira thought that Ogata-san’s eyes were somehow clouded over. 

“The cold shoulder, huh?” Ogata-san said when Akira did not respond to his first comment. He chuckled. “Akira, you’ve lost the bite that you used to have when you were a kid. I remember when you were all claws and teeth. You didn’t back down for anybody, you were fresh in the professional sphere and you were knocking down the upper dans in your formal matches one after another. No, I’m not saying that you’re starting to stagnate. You’re already nipping at old man Kuwabara’s heels after all. The skill’s there. But you used to have something more, a fire in your eyes… back when you were chasing Shindou-kun.”

His lips parted in a humorless grin. 

“Where did that go, Akira-kun? You’ve left Shindou behind with the 5-dans, and now you’re playing empty Go, aren’t you? You’re starting to see what I’ve seen. It’s a bitter medicine to take at your age. What are you, eighteen now? You’re starting to see there’s no end to this. Your Go gets better, sure, but you start to rot.” He looked back at the worker climbing the ladder to his right, his eyes philosophical. “You’ll start to see how rotten everyone else is all around you. There’s no end. You just keep on rotting as you play. You want to know what’s waiting for you? That’s all there is to all this. That’s all.”

Akira’s eyes passed over Ogata-san’s face, over his crisp ironed suit and the waxiness of his hands. He had used to care so much about what Ogata-san thought. He had used to actually look up to Ogata-san. Only three months ago, how Ogata-san’s bitter words had stung him! But now he was amazed by how little any of it mattered to him. 

“Ogata-san, the one who is rotting is you, isn’t it?” Akira said, looking at him coldly. “I believe that I won in the last match that we played. I would appreciate it if you didn’t put me in the same category as yourself.” 

Ogata-san looked surprised by Akira’s tone of voice. The cool detachment he had been flaunting slipped, if only slightly. He recovered quickly.

“What’s got you in such a mood? I don’t suppose you’ve lost a game.”

“I haven’t,” Akira said. “Please excuse me.” He began to walk away, but then turned around once more. “Oh. And please don’t ever talk about Shindou like that again. He may still be a 5-dan, but that has nothing to do with his actual skill level. I won’t be surprised if he wins the Meijin title this year.”

“As a 5-dan? I doubt it!” Ogata-san called after him, but Akira didn’t look back.

What did it matter what Ogata-san thought of the Go world? Whether or not the other players were rotten inside — whether or not Akira himself was rotten — none of it made any difference. The game of Go was beyond all that; if he truly immersed himself in his quest to find the hand of God, that was enough. And in any case, Akira felt that if he was rotten now, then there was little he could do to stop it. Maybe he would keep on losing parts of himself the more he played and the older he became. Perhaps that was inevitable. 

Morisawa-san was waiting for him at the front desk with a face that told Akira he had not paid any attention to the exchange that had just occurred. That was just as well.

“Touya-sensei, are ya here to talk with the new tutoring student we have for ya?” Morisawa-san asked. 

“No, I came here to speak about my schedule… I haven’t heard anything about a new student.”

“Oh, I thought we gave ya a call about it… Ah, this ain’t no good… they came here today an’ I thought we could have ya meet ‘em…”

“They’re here right now?”

“That’s right…”

“I’ll meet them,” Akira said. Just at the moment he preferred a conversation with new students, however unexpected it might be, to being left alone with his own thoughts. 

Morisawa-san led Akira to the room where visitors could play casual games. 

“The parents told me they jus’ wanna start with an informal kinda assessment of the kid’s skill level. He’s too young to be an insei, so they were sayin’ ya could do some tutorin’ at their house if ya think he’s got potential. So if ya don’t mind jus’ takin’ a look…”

“Certainly,” Akira said. 

At a table at the far end of the room, Akira spotted a young mother and father, and the back figure of a small child. The father was leaning over the board, looking at a stone the child had just placed.

“Is that them?” Akira asked.

“Yup. They’re the ones.”

As he and Morisawa-san approached the table, the child turned around, and Akira startled as he saw his own face staring back at him. 

No, it wasn’t his face exactly. The child’s face was leaner than Akira’s had been at that age, and his hair was short and brown, not black. But the resemblance was striking.

Akira collected himself, and smiled at the parents. “My name is Touya,” he said, “I heard that your child is interested in Go?”

“Sorry for asking you to see us even though you’re busy,” said the father. “Yes, this is Atsushi. He’s been playing Go for almost a year now. As his parent, I can’t really speak to his skill level, but he’s been playing with a lot of enthusiasm, and we wondered if you might be able to assess him.” 

The child looked up at Akira with a quiet, intelligent gaze.

“I would love to play a teaching game now if that’s all right.”

“Could you? That would be wonderful,” said the mother. 

The parents made a space for Akira across from Atsushi-kun, and stood slightly away from the table to watch the game.

“Do you like playing Go?” Akira asked the child.

Without hesitation, Atsushi-kun smiled back brightly. “Yes! I love it!”

Akira felt a sudden pang in his heart. “That’s very good,” he said. “That’s the most important. Would you like to be black for this game?”

“Okay!”

The child, whose serious eyes reminded Akira so much of himself, carefully placed his first stone on the board. Two tiny fingers held the black stone assuredly and in the proper manner. Akira responded, and the child immediately was ready with his next move. Akira had seen players who placed their stones with foolish haste, but this was not the case with this child. His moves were quite sound, given his age. He couldn’t be older than six. There was a joyous enthusiasm in his playing style that was transmitted through his every move. A deep and sincere love for the game. The more that Akira watched him, the more he felt as though he were seeing himself. 

Akira glanced up at Atsushi-kun’s parents’ faces. The two of them were standing close together, their hands clasped identically in front of them. Though no part of them was touching, there was something intimate about the way that they stood, the way that their faces shared the same expression of love and pride in their son. All of their hopes for their son’s future were shining clearly in their eyes; in the father’s tan, square face and in the mother’s soft, oval face. In a flash, Akira saw a vision of Atsushi-kun growing up, becoming an insei, becoming a professional. He would become handsome and skillful, perhaps go on to attend high school and college as well, all while moving ahead in the world of Go. Akira saw Atsushi-kun getting married and starting a family of his own. He would become a father and teach his own son Go, and that son would go on to build his own family. The image of this happy threesome would repeat on and on forever into the future like an infinite fractal. 

And then, unable to stop the image from coming into his mind, Akira saw the fractal of his own family: cracked, damaged, incomplete — the long line of his ancestors stopping abruptly with himself. 

“Was this move no good?” asked Atsushi-kun, pointing to the stone he had placed near one of Akira’s shapes.

“No, it’s fine. It’s very good,” Akira said, shaking himself away from his thoughts. “It’s a sound move. That was a good time to attack this group.”

“Really?” The child looked pleased with himself. 

“I think I understand his level now,” Akira said to Atsushi-kun’s parents. “If you’re interested, we can talk about setting up a time for a weekly or monthly tutoring session.”

“We would like that very much,” said the mother, her hand reaching out to touch Atsushi-kun’s head. 

“That would be fantastic,” said the father, placing his hand on his son’s shoulder.

Akira smiled back at them as best he could, and tried to quiet the aching in his heart.

Notes:

More Ogata-san! Weren't you missing him?

Chapter 15: The best thing

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Shindou was playing very poorly, and Akira had had enough of it. He slapped his stones onto the board with ill-contained ferocity, glancing up from time to time to see if there was any sign of self-awareness on Shindou’s face. Instead of the frustration that Akira had hoped to see, there was only an unfocused look and a kind of sleepiness to Shindou’s eyes. If anyone had the right to look tired, it was Akira, who in recent nights had only been able to fall asleep after one or two hours of agitated restlessness. Shindou, in contrast, seemed to move around the apartment with a pronounced indolence and vague gloominess, regardless of the time of day. The attitude with which Shindou approached his daily activities was his own business of course, but Akira found it intolerable that Shindou’s recent sluggishness should infect his Go as well. 

Akira defended against Shindou’s halfhearted attacks on the Go board, and tried to lure him into a battle in the center. Shindou ignored the invitation. 

Fine, thought Akira. If you have no intention of playing seriously, then I’ll overpower you and end the game quickly. There’s no reason why I should humor this kind of Go.

He did not have to push Shindou very hard. After only a few of Akira’s forcing moves, Shindou was responding submissively. This was the kind of Go that Akira hated. He snapped his stones down without trying to hide his anger now, and remarked with a bitter-tasting satisfaction that Shindou’s face had turned downwards and taken on a shameful cast. 

“I resign.”

“Thank you.”

Shindou looked up, suddenly confused, as Akira began clearing the stones away.

“Aren’t we gonna review the game?”

“That was the worst Go you’ve played in years. I would have thought you would be embarrassed to review it.”

“Wh-What the hell!? You didn’t have to clear the stones away! I know I’m not playing at my best, but…”

“I don’t understand it,” Akira spat out. “You know that I have my final match in the Honinbo race in less than two weeks, and you have your own matches in the Meijin league to prepare for, but you’re still playing this kind of worthless Go that’s nothing more than a waste of time for both of us!”

“What did you just say?” Shindou’s eyes widened in anger. “Do you wanna say that again?”

“I said that it’s not worth my time to play Go with you if you’re not going to put any effort into it!”

Shindou stood up, his fist clenched. 

“You’re such a pain in the ass! Nobody’s making you play Go with me. If you don’t want to, then go study kifu by yourself or something.” 

Slamming the lids onto the go-ke, Akira glared at Shindou’s back as he moved toward the kitchen. 

“Shindou, what are you doing?”

“I’m getting a snack. Is that okay with you? Do you have any complaints about that?”

“Haven’t you had enough to eat?”

“No! I’m hungry! And my stomach hurts.”

“If your stomach hurts, then you shouldn’t be eating junk food like that.”

“Would you shut up?” Shindou tore open a packet of crackers and tossed the wrapper into the nearest trash bag. “I can’t stand it when you’re like this. What do you think you are, my mom? You don’t have to nitpick every little thing that I do, okay? It gets really old after a while.” He stuffed the crackers into his mouth and began to open another snack package. “Besides, don’t you have a tutoring lesson today? I thought you would have left by now.”

“I told you yesterday that the client canceled,” Akira snapped. He got up from the Go board and joined Shindou in the kitchen. “If you expected me to be gone already, it’s your own fault for not listening to the things I tell you. And this—“ Akira reached into the trash bag and snatched out the package that Shindou had just discarded, “—is not burnable trash, Shindou!”

“Are you kidding me?” Shindou looked in disbelief at Akira, who returned his indignant look with an icy gaze. He slapped the wrapper onto the counter.

“I’m getting out of here,” Shindou said. 

“Where are you going?”

“Why do you care?” Shindou shouted back, grabbing his wallet and keys and putting on his shoes.

Akira said nothing in reply. He walked away to his bedroom and clenched his teeth as the front door slammed shut.

So. They were back to the fighting. He supposed that it had been a miracle that they had ever stopped in the first place. Why did he feel disappointed? What had he been expecting? He knew Shindou’s character and he knew his own. There was no way they could ever live together without driving each other insane. Go was not a solid enough foundation for this kind of a living arrangement. 

Akira went to his desk and opened up the folder where he kept his notes for the book. He had written twenty pages now; not enough. And he had written practically nothing since he had last seen his father. If the writing process had been exasperating before, it was excruciating now. When he tried to write about his games with his father, his breath caught in his chest and his vision was taken over by the same image again and again: the fury in his father’s face as he had yelled “Get out!”

How could Akira pretend to be a grateful son when he was anything but that? How could he act like everything was fine when his entire world had ceased to make sense? None of his daily activities seemed to have any meaning anymore. Even his Go… 

If I win the title, Akira thought, what then? I know that my father will be watching me. Maybe if he sees that my Go is as strong as ever, he’ll speak to me again. Winning a title should be enough. I need to show him that I’m independent from Shindou. 

Breaking things off with Shindou was really the only answer. Akira had been an idiot for moving in with Shindou in the first place. He had been an idiot for kissing him. An idiot for not considering his own future. An idiot for ruining his relationship with his father. Even if he showed his father that his Go was sufficient to win titles, he wasn’t sure if that would be enough to mend their relationship. And his relationship with Shindou — that too would never be what it once was. How could they be rivals with all that had gone on between them? How could they look each other in the eyes after this? Akira hated how stupid he had been to move in with Shindou without considering the consequences. And he hated how much he still wanted Shindou, even now — so much that he ached.

Akira rubbed at his temple and stared down at the paper in front of him, at the words he had already written. 

My father was a patient teacher who made the most of my mistakes to guide me toward better moves. I looked forward more than anything to our morning matches. I knew that every game gave me new strategies to use against my opponents, and every game brought me closer to one less handicap stone against my father.

Who had written these words? Was it really him? It seemed impossible that the naive child in his memories was the same person sitting at his desk now. Somewhere along the way the child in him had died, never to be recovered again. Maybe it had happened during middle school, when bullying had left no room for tenderness in his heart. Maybe it had been when he had met Shindou, and all of the hours of study he had spent up until that point had suddenly seemed minuscule in comparison with Shindou’s power in those first two games…

Biririririririp!

Akira looked up from his desk and around him in confusion. The sound was of a phone ringing, but he couldn’t identify the source. He looked in his coat, and then in his bag, but the ringing wasn’t coming from his own room. It was coming from Shindou’s. 

It was just like Shindou to leave the house without taking his cell phone with him. And now Akira was left with it in the apartment instead, where it did neither of them any good. He waited until the ringing stopped, and sat back down in his chair with a sigh. But about five seconds later, the ringing began again. 

It’s probably Akari-san, Akira thought. Nearly every time that Shindou’s cell phone rang, it was Akari-san. Akira did not know what they spoke about on their phone calls exactly, but he could tell how close the two of them were by the way that they talked. It seemed plausible, even likely that Shindou had kissed her as well. Perhaps Shindou was going to visit her right now. At this thought, Akira’s stomach began to ache. 

I have to break things off with him. It will be the best thing for him, as well as for me and my family. 

He knew that his father was right. If word got around that Akira Touya was in a romantic relationship with a man, it would spoil not only Akira’s own career, but cast a shadow over his father’s name forever. His father would never be able to enter another competition without the whispers: “Isn’t he the one whose son is gay?” Akira remembered the words he had overheard Natsubori-san pronounce back in March. “Fucking gross.” Natsubori-san wasn’t the only one who thought that way. That was “normal.” That was what everyone would think when they saw him. They would see that instead of his Go.

Fucking gross.

... But it wasn’t too late. He wasn’t even actually sure that he was gay. Perhaps it was a phase or a misunderstanding. After all, he didn’t look like those men he had seen in the parade; he wasn’t like the outrageous celebrities who appeared on television. He still had time; if he told Shindou that it was impossible, he could move out at the next feasible opportunity and continue his life as before. And Shindou would come to realize that Akira had made the right decision, and thank him. They wouldn’t play so many matches against each other anymore, slowly drifting apart. And Shindou would find a girlfriend one day, and eventually he would marry her, have children...

A sudden pain ripped through him, and Akira doubled over, his shoulders shaking, the shaking turning into sobs. He tried to breathe regularly but he couldn’t; his breath came in gasps as the tears fell down, darkening the fabric of his trousers.

It hurts so much.

I don’t want a future without you. A future without you would be empty. The Go I’d play would be empty. An endless series of meaningless matches, formalities, forced smiles, hidden glares. I can’t do it. It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.

…He forced himself to straighten up. He could do it. He had to do it. It wasn’t fair for him to keep thinking only of himself. His family had given him so much — what right did he have to take everything away from them? He pressed his hands to his eyes, shuddering as he exhaled. The phone in Shindou’s room had begun to ring again. If it was indeed Akari-san, then that meant that Shindou was not with her. 

The tears still running down his cheeks, Akira walked to Shindou’s room and followed the sound of the ringing to the yellow backpack which was lying half-unzipped on the floor. Pulling out the cell phone, Akira read the name lit up on the screen.

MOM

He sat down on the floor, slowing his breath as best he could. Shindou’s room smelled like Shindou.

Shindou, I love you. Even when you’re petulant. Even when you’re childish. When you’re here. When you’re gone. When we’re playing Go. When each of us is in his own room. When you’re eating snacks, pulling a face, wearing a suit, grinning at me as you walk in through the door. 

I love you.

After the final match of the Honinbo race, Akira would tell Shindou that he intended to move out.

Notes:

Well, here we are. The pinnacle of angst.

I wanted to apologize in advance for the largest, most glaring Go inaccuracy in this story. I *know* that there is more than one match against the final opponent in the Honinbo race. I know that. But… it just wasn’t fitting well in the plot, so I selfishly changed it for my own purposes. Hey! What are you complaining about! It’s not like this is a story literally about professional Go or anything!

Chapter 16: Walk

Chapter Text

There were times when it was hard for Akira to be kind towards Shindou, and there were times when it was hard for him to be unkind. The morning of the day before Akira’s match against Kuwabara Honinbo fell into the latter category. 

Akira was not sure if it was because he knew that he would be moving out soon or if it was something else, but in recent days he had begun to notice more often than ever how dear Shindou was to him. When Shindou came home from a long day of work and gave Akira a subdued smile, Akira had to turn away from him in order to maintain control over his expression. They had not played as many games since Akira had so harshly criticized Shindou’s Go, and though Akira himself made no move to invite Shindou to play a match, a part of him hoped that Shindou would bring it up. When Akira stole glances at Shindou as they passed each other in the apartment, he felt his heart rate quicken uselessly. At times, he found himself subconsciously running his tongue over his lips, a part of him remembering the kiss they had shared. It was ridiculous. He was frustratingly, hopelessly falling deeper in love with Shindou day by day, and he knew it, and he hated it. 

Shindou was in the living room, and Akira was also in the living room, preparing to leave for the Go Institute to fill out some final paperwork for the match and do an interview. As he pulled on his shoes and began to open the door, Shindou called out from behind him.

“Aren’t you even gonna say goodbye to me anymore?”

Akira turned around and looked at him. 

“Does it matter to you if I say goodbye or not?”

“What do you think?” Shindou was leaning back in his chair, looking steadily at Akira. His expression was hardened in such a way that it almost succeeded in concealing the pain that was buried in his eyes.  

“I don’t have time for this kind of conversation,” Akira said, turning around again. He knew that if he looked much longer at Shindou he would start hating himself.

“Let me guess. You won’t have time for this conversation tonight either. Or tomorrow.”

“I have a title match tomorrow, Shindou. Or had you forgotten that?”

“Never mind then,” Shindou said, angrily getting up. “My fault for being stupid. Sorry for holding you up.”

“Goodbye,” Akira said quietly, but Shindou had already left the room. Akira shut the door behind him. 

Outside, he let out his breath. It was only a little bit more of this before he could move out. 

. . .

Click.

He did not smile for the camera. 

“That’s excellent,” said the camerawoman. “We’re going to take one more. That’s fine. Three… two… one… Perfect, thank you.”

“How are you feeling before your match?” asked the reporter. 

“I’m excited for the match. I’m ready to play to the full extent of my power.”

“In your last match against Achiwa 8-dan, the commentators remarked on how quickly you moved into your attacks. Do you intend to follow a similar strategy against Kuwabara Honinbo?”

“I don’t follow the same strategy for all of my opponents. I don’t know what kind of Go Kuwabara-sensei is going to play, so I can’t say what kind of strategy I’ll take yet.”

The reporter laughed. “It’s true that Kuwabara-sensei’s Go can be unpredictable. He has a reputation for taking various ingenious approaches tailored to his opponents. In a recent interview he said that he especially welcomes the younger Go players who want challenge him for the title. It seems that he’s quite confident about his ability to win.”

“I’m fairly confident in my own ability as well.”

“That confidence is one of the hallmarks of your style, isn’t it, Touya-sensei? If you win this title, it will make you the youngest Go player ever to become Honinbo.”

“That’s right.”

“Quite an achievement, even for someone with your impressive track record. Some people have wondered why you decided to go for the Honinbo title instead of the Meijin title that your father, Kouyou Touya, held.”

Akira looked back into the reporter’s eyes, challenging her. 

“There isn’t really a reason why. I’m going to focus on winning this title first before I think of any of the others.”

She broke eye contact, laughing nervously. “Well it’s certainly no small task that you have set out for you already… Before we close the interview, I have one more question here from one of your younger fans. Do you have any advice for how to stay calm during a high-stakes competition?”

Finally a real question.

“I think that concentration is quite important during a match. If you go into the game with the unwavering intention to win, it strips the game bare of everything except your skill and your opponent’s skill. No matter how many games you play, or how frustrated you feel when you lose, your skill can only improve as you continue to play. That’s my advice to younger players. Remember that everything can help you grow.”

“Thank you so much for your time today, Touya-sensei.”

“Thank you.”

. . . 

The sun shone down onto the concrete, reflected off of the windows of buildings, and seeped into the dark stone wall around the Go Institute where Akira was leaning. He had filled out all the necessary paperwork, he had done the interview, and had slipped outside to rest for a moment. Of course he was ready for the match tomorrow, but it surprised him that the day had come so soon. Ever since the day he had met Shindou again and they had played Go under the cherry blossoms, his life had started to whir past him twice as fast as it usually did. It had become twice as interesting as it usually was, and twice as unpredictable. When he thought about all of that coming to an end, his heart tightened.

Maybe I’ll stop loving him if we’re apart from each other for long enough.

This kind of hope was only a minor consolation. Even if Akira stopped loving Shindou, he still wouldn’t be able to become his friend again. Maybe they could be rivals, but not in the intense, exhilarating way that they had used to be. And if he and Shindou grew distant from each other, Akira might never get another chance to learn the mystery behind sai. 

Why had Shindou kissed him? Why did he have to go and ruin what they had?

Akira was about to get up from the wall and move back inside when he heard his cell phone ringing. He reached into his bag and took it out, expecting to see Shindou’s name, but instead it was his mother. He stared at the phone as it rang in his hand. Before he would have answered without hesitation, but now it even crossed his mind that he could simply turn his phone off to avoid the call. After all that had happened, what could she have to say to him?

He opened the cell phone.

“Hello?”

“Akira-san…” His mother’s voice was soft, and so much more tender than it usually was. “I’ve been worried sick about you...”

He swallowed. “Mother, I... I’m at the Go Institute. I can’t talk for very long.”

“It’s all right. Your father told me everything,” she said gently. “About you living with Shindou-kun. I just want you to know...” She paused. “I don’t know what Shindou-kun told you, but you don’t have to stay with him. I know you’re not really one of those people. It’s been long enough, don’t you think? You can come home now.”

His hand tightened around the phone. His voice was restricted as he replied.

“And what if I was one of those people?”

“But you aren’t, dear. You know as well as I do that it’s not like you to do this. I don’t know why you lied to us, but it’s all right now. Your father will take you back. He won’t say anything if you just come home.”

“I can’t.”

The words came out of his mouth naturally, as though it had already been decided in his heart long ago.

“I can’t come home.”

“Akira-san, we only want—”

“I’m sorry. I can’t.”

In the seconds of silence that followed, Akira felt the weight of everything that had changed between him and his parents suddenly falling onto his shoulders, pressing him down. 

“I’m sorry, Mother,” he said quietly. “Goodbye.”

The sounds of traffic and passersby drifted faintly through the summer air. He had closed another door in his life. 

Somehow it didn’t matter anymore whether he was gay or not, because regardless of who he was now, he was not who he had been. He couldn’t go back to his parents’ house to be their child anymore; it was no longer a role that he could play.

I need to win this match, Akira thought, and I need to move away from Shindou. Everything that made up my childhood — I can leave it all behind and build my own life independently. I just need to keep walking straight ahead.

Just walking straight ahead… 

“It’s hot, isn’t it?” remarked a Go professional on his way out of the Institute. He nodded politely at Akira, and smiled. 

“It is,” Akira replied. He buried his cell phone back in his bag, and walked to the entrance of the Institute. 

One step at a time.

. . . 

Inside the train, the sweltering air was made unbearable with the addition of body heat; dozens of exhausted and sweating humans crushed together at rush hour. Akira did not want to see Shindou when he returned to the apartment. He did not want to ignore him and feel the guilt that invariably seized him the moment he turned his back on those indignant eyes. He was sick of the phony and evasive exchanges that had replaced their usual conversations — they felt like spiteful games of tag. He was tired of all of it, and so angry that even the faces of the strangers on the train seemed loathsome. 

The sun beat down on his shoulders outside. A group of women wearing yukata were walking down the sidewalk, holding small purses and adjusting the flowers in their hair. It appeared that there was some kind of local festival happening nearby. 

“Let’s get sushi,” said one of the young women to her friend as Akira walked past them. “I wanna go somewhere fancy.”

I wanna go somewhere nice with you.

Akira supposed that now he and Shindou would never go on that date. Of course they wouldn’t. But he wondered where Shindou would have liked to go. Not for sushi, certainly. Perhaps a yakiniku restaurant. 

As he entered the bottom floor of the apartment building, Akira steeled himself. He was ready to walk past Shindou and go directly into his own room. He would study kifu and eat a simple dinner before going to bed early. He wouldn’t even think about Shindou for the entire evening. 

Tadaima,” he said under his breath as he opened the apartment door. 

Okaeri,” Shindou replied instantly, making Akira jump. He was standing only a meter away from the door, staring at Akira. The expression on his face was calm and determined; the same one he wore when playing Go. Without warning, he moved over to where Akira was and began putting on his shoes. “Come on, we’re going out,” he said.

“What?”

Shindou pulled his backpack onto his shoulders. “We’re going to a restaurant. Let’s go.”

“Shindou, what are you talking about?” He looked at Shindou’s face, trying to find an explanation for this new incomprehensible behavior.

“You don’t have anything to do tonight so it’s fine, right?”

“Where did you get the idea that I didn’t have anything to do!?” Akira asked incredulously.

“Stop being a pain in the ass, and let’s just go!” Shindou said, grabbing Akira’s hand. 

“I don’t want to go!” Akira wrenched his hand away. Even for Shindou, this was much too sudden. 

“Come on!”

“I said I don’t want to!” He took a step away. “Why don’t you listen to me when I tell you something!”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Shindou sighed. “Okay. Whatever. We don’t have to go to a restaurant. We’ll go on a walk instead.”

“I don’t see why I should have to—”

“Go on a walk with me and I’ll leave you alone for the rest of the night. I promise.”

Akira glared at him. “Fine.” He opened the front door again and stepped out. Shindou followed behind him. 

“Where exactly are we going?” Akira asked in the hallway.

“Dunno.”
 
“You don’t..!?”

“Look, I just wanted to get you somewhere where you couldn’t run away. We need to talk.”

“And we can’t talk in the apartment?”

“You’d just go to your room and lock the door or something!”

“… I was planning on talking to you after my match.”

“Well I can’t wait that long,” Shindou said. They had left the apartment building and were outside now, back in the heat and surrounded by the sounds of the city overlaid with the chirruping of cicadas. Shindou turned right, away from the Go Institute and toward the Imperial Palace. Akira walked beside him, glancing at the sweat trickling down the side of Shindou’s face.

“You nearly lost your match today.”

“I know that,” Shindou muttered. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“If you’re winning now by only a half moku margin, you’re going to have to struggle to make it all the way—“

“I know, okay? I’m not here to talk about Go.”

“Then what are you here to talk about?”

“Us.”

Akira exhaled through his nose. “I’d prefer to talk about that later.”

“Yeah, I know you would. But I want to talk about it now.”

“Fine. What do you have to say?”

“I just want to know what I’m supposed to do!” Shindou said, kicking a pebble in front of him on the sidewalk. “You won’t let me touch you. When I try and act normal, like, give you space and just play Go, you still bite my head off over something stupid. And you won’t talk to me about what you’re thinking or anything! I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?”

“What do you want from me, Shindou?” Akira retorted.

“That’s what I’m asking you!”

“You tell me first!” The anger that had been building up for weeks was spilling out into his voice. “What do you want from me?”

Shindou stopped walking, and turned around to face Akira, his eyes flashing. “Okay, fine. Do you wanna know what I want? I wanna be with you!” His voice was much too loud, and his eyes were wild.

“Shindou,” Akira said in a warning tone. 

“I wanna be your boyfriend!” he yelled.

“Shindou, shut up!”

“I wanna take you on dates and kiss you and—”

“SHINDOU!” Akira slapped one hand on Shindou’s shoulder and forced the other hand over his mouth. 

“Mmph!” Shindou struggled against Akira’s grip, fighting to pull his arms away. For a moment they were locked in a tussle, each of them wrangling for control. Akira could feel that their strength was nearly equal, but he was also suddenly aware of the pedestrians around them. As soon as he eased his grip slightly, Shindou pushed him away.

“Ugh!” Shindou wiped his mouth off with the back of his arm. He glared at Akira. “Why are you such a coward?”

“We’re in a public place!” 

“So what?” 

“So what!?” Akira repeated in disbelief.

“I don’t care!” Shindou snarled. “I’m tired of this. What are you so afraid of anyway? What’s going to happen if you go out with me?”

“People will find out!”

“And then? So what if they find out?”

“And then our careers will be ruined, Shindou!” Akira yelled. A few people walking in front of them turned around at the sound of Akira’s voice. He swallowed, embarrassed. Shindou, also recognizing the need to get off of the sidewalk and out of the public eye, gestured to the park on their right. They had reached the outskirts of Chidorigafuchi near the Imperial Gardens, where tonight only a few people were walking under the leafy trees. 

“Do you really believe that though?” Shindou asked more quietly as they stepped onto the path. “Do you really think it’ll ruin our careers? What are they gonna do, take away your license to play Go? We’re the ‘fastest rising young players in the Go world.’ You’re about to win a title at age eighteen. I mean, come on!”

“I don’t see why you should feel personally victimized when you were the one who started all this,” Akira said.

“Yeah, I started it because you said—”

“I never said that I wanted this kind of relationship with you.”

“You said that I was the most important person to you!”

“I never—”

“You did!” Shindou shouted. “I mean, fuck, Touya! You’re making me look like some kind of idiot here! Or some kind of pervert, like I attacked you or something.”

Akira turned his head toward Shindou and looked him directly in the eyes. “You did attack me,” he said quietly.

“I— that’s because you…!” Shindou turned his face away. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m… I’m really sorry.”

Akira looked at the dead leaves swept to the side of the path, and said nothing. The shade of the trees was a relief after walking in the too-bright sunlight. He watched his own footsteps and Shindou’s footsteps beating a rhythm onto the path, falling in and out of sync. 

“I’d like us to be able to keep playing forever,” Akira said softly. “That’s why… that’s why I think we should give up on any kind of romantic relationship.”

“Is this because of your dad?” Shindou asked irritably. “Are you doing this because your dad told you to?”

“No!” Akira snapped. “It’s because I don’t want things to change between us! This is my decision, not my family’s, not anyone else’s. If you want to know, you ARE the most important person to me.” His words hung in the air a moment before he exhaled. “I want to protect that.”

“Yeah? Well you’re going about it backwards,” Shindou said. “You think I haven’t been there? You think I don’t know what it’s like? I get it, okay? You get so terrified of losing someone forever that you distance yourself. You think it’ll be better that way because at least you won’t have to be reminded of him every day. But you know what? That doesn’t work!” Shindou’s voice was filled with emotion. “If you wanna be with someone then you have to be with that person! If you wanna play Go with me then we should play Go every day!”

“Shindou…”

“If you care about someone,” Shindou continued shakily, “If that person is actually important to you, then you have to treasure every single moment you have with him! Because you don’t know when he might just disappear.” Akira saw that Shindou’s eyes were shining with tears. “I don’t want to lose you either Touya. I.. I really don’t.”

Akira’s heart was beating so hard that he thought he himself might cry. He struggled to keep his voice calm. “It makes me happy that you think that, Shindou, but you’re not thinking of your future. Even if you feel that way now, one day you’ll want to get married and—”

“I don’t want to get married!” Shindou yelled, wiping angrily at the corner of his eyes. 

“One day you’re going to want to have a family…”

“I’m not, okay!? The one I want is you!”

“You say that now, but how am I supposed to believe that!?” Akira said angrily. “You won’t even tell me about sai. You don’t even trust me enough for that! Why should I have any reason to believe that you won’t just leave once you get tired of me!”

“I— I’m not gonna do that.”

“The difference between us is that you can and I can’t! Whenever you want to, you can leave me and find a girlfriend for yourself. But if you’re gone, I don’t have anyone! I don’t have any friends. I don’t even have my parents anymore! Do you understand that!?”

“I’m not going to go anywhere,” Shindou said, tears rolling down his cheeks. “Because there’s no one like you, Touya. No girl, no other Go player. No one’s ever gonna come close to you. You’re the only one that knows me. You saw Sai when no one else could. You know what I like and what I hate, and I just… I like you so much!” Shindou’s face contorted as he squeezed his eyes shut, standing with his fists clenched at his sides. “I like you. Are you gonna make me say that again?” He sniffed, again wiping away his tears. “Do you even like me?”

“I like you, Shindou,” Akira said, his heart breaking. “…I love you.”

“Then show me!” Shindou shouted. His face was turned down, and his shoulders were shaking. 

There was no one around them in the park. The trees on all sides cast a mottled pattern of shadows on the ground and made the white of Shindou’s t-shirt look green. Akira took two steps forward, and awkwardly wrapped his arms around Shindou. In response, Shindou’s arms shot around Akira and pulled him in tight. Akira startled, taking in his breath.

“I… I’m not good at this type of thing,” he said.

“I don’t fucking care,” Shindou muttered into Akira’s shoulder.

Akira slowly moved one hand to the back of Shindou’s head and stroked his soft hair. “Shindou… the way you speak is vulgar.”

His face still buried, Shindou laughed. “You’re so lame.”

“You could have chosen a different day to have this conversation, instead of the night before my match.”

“What do you have to worry about? You’re going to win anyway.”

“I don’t know that.”

“You will,” Shindou said, bringing his face away and looking Akira in the eyes. “You’re going to win this. And then…”

“And then?”

“And then…” Shindou set his jaw. “No, it’s gotta be now. I have to ask you now or you’re gonna try and run away again. Touya!” He looked into Akira’s eyes fiercely. “I want you to go out with me!”

Akira swallowed, returning Shindou’s gaze. 

…Ah, I love him. How could I have known that I would come to love him this much?

 Reaching out, he placed his hand on Shindou’s cheek.

“Okay.”

Chapter 17: Honinbo

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In his dream that morning, Akira saw his father. He and his parents were in Ogata-san’s car on their way to some kind of conference far away in Iwate prefecture. Ogata-san had rolled down the windows, and the four of them felt the refreshing breeze on their faces. Akira was looking out at the blue water they were passing by on their right, while on the other side of them a dark green wooded mountain rose up impressively. There were birds in the trees, some of which suddenly flew out in front of them in a flock, and swept out over the ocean. Akira turned to look at his father, and saw that he was laughing. It seemed to Akira the most natural thing in the world that his father should be laughing on such a beautiful day, when the salty wind was strong and invigorating, and all of them were together as a family. 

I’m dreaming, he realized, and opened his eyes to see the ceiling of his bedroom.

The next thought that came into his head was: Today is the day of the final match in the Honinbo race. 

He got out of bed and changed into his suit. He brushed his hair and went to the kitchen where Shindou was standing, frying an egg. 

“Oh, you’re up,” Shindou said over his shoulder.

“I’m surprised that you’re up this early. It’s still dark out.”

“The rice is done if you want some.”

“Thank you.”

The feeling from the dream was still warm in Akira’s chest. As he ladled rice into his bowl and began cutting a banana, he saw in his mind’s eye his father’s laughing face. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Very good,” Akira replied, moving past Shindou to start a soup on the stove.

“Very good, huh?” Shindou laughed. “That’s good.”

“Yes.” Akira got out the cutting board and took a carrot from the refrigerator. From Shindou’s room, there came the sound of a cell phone ringing. When it had rung three times without any sign of acknowledgement from Shindou, Akira frowned.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

“Nah. It’s not important.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s my mom.”

Akira looked over at him. “Are you sure that it’s her?”

“She called yesterday too. She’s just freaking out. It’s fine.”

“Hmmm,” Akira said, scraping the chopped carrots into the soup.

Shindou was wearing the T-shirt and shorts that he used as pajamas. His hair was still mussed from sleep, but he looked somehow more composed and confident than he had for weeks. Akira wondered if their discussion last night had had anything to do with the sudden improvement in his mood.  

“It starts at nine?” Shindou asked, setting his plate of eggs on the table.

“What does?”

“Your match. Duh.”

“Oh. Yes.” Akira watched the back of Shindou’s head as he began eating his breakfast.

“So what’s the schedule?”

“I’ll leave in another hour. Kuwabara-sensei said he wanted to speak to me before the match began, so I’ll be meeting with him at the hotel a bit in advance.”

“A meeting with Kuwabara-sensei? And you said yes?” Shindou turned around, looking appalled.

“Well, I couldn’t say no.”

“Yeah, but… Don’t you think he’s gonna try and mess with you or something?”

“Kuwabara-sensei is a professional. And besides, I don’t suppose you think that my Go could be swayed by anything he could possibly say to me.”

“Okay, yeah… I guess that’s fair enough. Still… ”

“To be honest, I’m more worried about my father.”

Shindou looked up at Akira with cautious eyes. “You think he’s gonna be there?”

“I know he will,” Akira said calmly, sitting down across from him. 

“How come?”

“He told me that he would come in person to my title match, and he doesn’t go back on his word.”

“Even when…?”

“Yes. No matter what.” He took his bowl to his lips. “I need to decide what I’ll say to him when we meet.”

Shindou chuckled and shook his head. “You’re pretty amazing, you know that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, it’s the morning of your title match and you’re just here eating breakfast normally. You’re always like that. I don’t know how you do it.”

“It doesn’t do me any good to get nervous, does it?”

Shindou laughed again, leaning back in his chair. He had a fond sparkle in his eyes. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s that part of you.” 

That part of you that I like.

Shindou hadn’t said the rest of his sentence, but Akira understood it nevertheless. He smiled softly, putting his bowl down. 

“Shindou, I have a favor to ask.”

“Yeah?”

“I’d like you to wait until I get home before you see the match.”

“What? Why?”

“I want to be the one to show it to you. Even if I lose—”

“You’re not gonna—”

“Even if I lose,” Akira persisted, “I want to show the Go to you personally. Like you showed me your Go that night.”

Shindou stared at him and nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll wait until you’re home.”

“Thank you.”

“Touya?”

“What is it?”

Shindou got up from his chair and walked to the other side of the table. Softly, he pressed his lips to Akira’s cheek.

“Do your best.” 

Akira smiled at Shindou. In spite of being the one to have instigated the kiss, it was Shindou’s face that was turning red. 

“I will,” Akira said.

. . . 

The hotel was lavishly decorated and surprisingly empty. Akira turned around when he heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind him, and saw Kuwabara-sensei. With the way that his hands were thrust into the pockets of his suit, despite his puckered lips and squinting eyes, the old man almost looked like a plucky yakuza hoodlum rather than the aged title holder that he was. 

“Touya-kun,” he said, hobbling across the hotel lobby to where Akira was standing, and slapping him on the back, “Good job coming all the way up here.”

“It’s not a particularly long trip—” Akira began.

“Go. I’m talking about Go,” Kuwabara-sensei said, smiling mischievously. “Ah…yes. Yes. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

“You yourself have defended this title year after year, Kuwabara-sensei,” Akira said, resorting to bland politeness, unsure of what else to say.

“Me?” Kuwabara-sensei waved his hand dismissively. “The story of my Go is yesterday’s news. Not that I’m planning on relinquishing my title to you or anything like that!” He raised his eyebrows at Akira. “But the story of your Go. Now that’s interesting. And Hikaru Shindou…”

In spite of his resolve to stay calm, Akira could not help tensing up at Shindou’s name. He looked at Kuwabara-sensei apprehensively. “Hikaru… Shindou?”

“You two are rivals, aren’t you?” Kuwabara-sensei waved his finger around in the air vaguely. “I’ve always felt something interesting between you two. A true rival isn’t something that comes around every day, and what you two youngsters have isn’t a normal rivalry, I’d say. It was because you chased him that you were able to arrive here, isn’t it?”

Akira stared in wonder at Kuwabara-sensei, who only stuck out his lips thoughtfully and looked up at the chandeliers. “Kind of a showy set up they have here, don’t you think?”

“Kuwabara-sensei,” Akira said. “Have you been watching Shindou’s progress?”

“Oh, I keep my eye on the lot of you,” Kuwabara-sensei said. “But… there’s something strange about that boy.” He raised an eyebrow at Akira. “I’m sure you see it, Touya-kun.”

“There’s no one who knows Shindou’s trajectory better than I do,” Akira said. 

“That’s what I thought. I knew it would be one of you two who’d come to meet me up here eventually. One or the other. Well, it doesn’t matter either way, because I won’t be giving up the Honinbo quite yet.” He chuckled. “Well… maybe you’ll find it through this game.”

Akira frowned. “Find… it? Excuse me, Sensei, but I don’t understand. Find what?”

“The reason why you play Go,” Kuwabara-sensei said, as though it were the obvious answer. “The reason why you’re here. You can only play Go in the dark for so long.” The corners of his lips turned up, and he nodded at Akira. “Well, until our match…” He began to walk away.

“Sensei…!” Akira called after him. “I thought you wanted to meet with me.”

“Was that not enough of a meeting for you?” Kuwabara-sensei said, turning around.

“Ah… no… it was enough, but I—”

“Then rest up,” he said. “You’ll need it.”

Akira swallowed, and watched Kuwabara-sensei hobble away across the royal blue carpet. It hadn’t been the type of meeting he had worried might occur, but he did feel shaken. Everything seemed to come back to the reason why he played Go: the book that he was writing, the emails he got from his fan, Sunahara-san, the conversation he had had with Ogata-san. Akira knew that he played well. His confidence in that area was unshaken. Still, Kuwabara-sensei had brought back to him the fear that had been haunting him for months.  

What if the Go that I play isn’t even my own? How much of my Go can I truly call mine when Shindou’s progress has been so integral to my path as a Go player?

When they hadn’t seen each other for months, Akira had often thought of Shindou during his matches, and he had thought of sai just as much. Shindou’s moves and sai’s moves, and how Akira had responded to them, and how his own style had evolved since he had met Shindou; these sorts of thoughts had always been at the edges of his mind. Now that they were living together, Akira thought of Shindou even more, no matter who he was playing against. In his professional life, as well as in his emotional life, Shindou was always there. Kuwabara-sensei had called attention to their strange bond, and had done so on the day of the final title match — a day that ought to have had nothing to do with Shindou. Was the depth of their relationship really that obvious to outside observers? Perhaps Akira’s father had seen it too, and that was why he had tried to warn Akira to stay out of the relationship. Perhaps he had worried that Akira’s Go would become too dependent on Shindou. 

As Akira took the elevator upstairs to prepare himself for the match, he wondered when his father would be arriving at the hotel as well. 

I have to show him that I can play well no matter what. I’ve decided to be with Shindou, but that doesn’t mean that I’ll play any differently from usual. My Go is mine. Even if I’m living with Shindou — in spite of all that that means for my personal life, I won’t let it sway me professionally. Even if Shindou does end up leaving me someday, I’ll be diligent so that my Go won’t be affected.

He opened the door to his hotel room where a Go board had already been prepared for him by the staff. Setting down his things and sitting in front of it, he breathed deeply and cleared his mind. Whether Kuwabara-sensei’s comments had been intended as psychological warfare or innocent banter, it didn’t matter. 

My Go is mine, Akira thought. My Go is mine.

. . . 

Out of all the games that he had played in his life, there were about ten or twelve that Akira could remember in perfect detail. His game against Kuwabara was destined to become one of these. 

The room they had prepared was an eight-tatami Japanese-style chamber. Two chairs with plump cushions were set on either side of the Go board, and water and tea had been placed within reach of each player. The air conditioning made the room almost uncomfortably chilly, and just as Akira was debating whether to say anything to the staff, Kuwabara-sensei entered the chamber remarking “It’s cold!” and a woman in kimono immediately hurried to the back wall to adjust the thermostat. 

“Touya-sensei.” Several higher-ups from the Go Institute inclined their heads to Akira, and Akira bowed back. There were reporters and a television crew present as well. The entire room was overcome with an expectant hush, with the exception of only Kuwabara-sensei, who was bustling around, loudly making conversation with the younger members of the television crew, and in general behaving rather as though he were the main guest at a dinner party. 

As the time approached, Akira and Kuwabara-sensei each sat down in his chair. A clock near the television crew marked the countdown — there were five minutes of almost complete silence before the game began. At the three minute mark, Akira felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. 

My father will have arrived at this point. He’s watching me from the next room. 

But as quickly as the adrenaline had flooded his body, another image flashed into Akira’s mind. It was his father’s face from the dream he had had that morning and the feeling of the sunlight streaming in through the car windows. Ogata-san at the wheel, his mother, his father, and Akira, all of them together, and the scent of the ocean riding on the wind. As naturally as a cloud that drifts away, Akira felt all of the tension that had seized his body gradually evaporate. Slowly, it was replaced with a firm resolve. 

He’s watching me, Akira thought. I will win this title. 

At the zero mark, Akira and Kuwabara-sensei, as well as the crowd of official spectators to Akira’s right, all bowed. The match began. 

Akira had already planned his first few moves against Kuwabara-sensei. He knew Kuwabara-sensei’s style, and he had an idea of how he wanted the match to develop. After the first seven moves, Akira placed an attachment near Kuwabara’s group in the right-hand corner of the board; a kind of a probe. 

Where do you want this game to go?

He had decided several days before that Kuwabara-sensei’s greatest weakness was his stagnation. While Kuwabara-sensei had years of experience that Akira did not, Akira had flexibility on his side. His playing style was founded on his father’s teaching, but he had all the innovation and inspiration that he had cultivated in his games against Shindou, and through them he had developed a mental catalog of moves that might take an older pro by surprise. When he got the chance, he wanted to destabilize Kuwabara-sensei. It wouldn’t do to rush into anything. Instead he would follow Kuwabara-sensei’s flow until the right moment came. 

In response to Akira’s probe, Kuwabara-sensei was extending out towards the side, which left an opening for Akira to expand into the corner. He sensed that Kuwabara-sensei was waiting for him to jump into local battles, but Akira felt that it was still too soon. He had seen too many of Kuwabara-sensei’s games not to recognize the strategy. Kuwabara-sensei was skilled at subtly building territory throughout the board while his opponent ended up devoting too much energy to one area. Though the balance between local and global was essential in any game, it required special attention in matches against Kuwabara-sensei. Instead of moving into the corner, Akira followed Kuwabara-sensei’s wall on the side. Lifting his head slightly, Akira took in Kuwabara-sensei’s expression: unperturbed. Akira’s face, however, was also stoic. This match concerned skill only. There were no mind games between them now.

Although it was still early in the game and nothing was decided, Akira already felt the pressure of the potential that Kuwabara-sensei had built for himself. Even though he knew that in reality Kuwabara-sensei was spending several minutes on each move, his opponent’s thinking time seemed to speed by in an instant. The hundreds of directions that the game could go, and the probabilities of each of them all whirred through Akira’s head, one overtaking the other overtaking the other. And behind all these different possibilities was the nagging feeling that Akira had already seen a game like this before. There had been a match that had developed in much a similar way, but what was it? Where had he seen it? He knew that it had been an older pro with a forceful but somewhat stale playing style, just like Kuwabara-sensei. That older pro’s opponent had played a series of moves aiming for reduction of territory, and it had seemed for sure as though the stones were too separated to survive, yet the player had managed to capitalize on their positions to stake out an overwhelming area in the center of the board. Despite the dangers it entailed, Akira could see it working for himself. At this point in the match, it could be just the thing to destabilize Kuwabara-sensei. But it was unnerving that he could not remember the player who had originally deployed the tactic. Was he really going to copy the strategy blindly in his final match?

The role of intuition in Go is not insignificant. 

The words arose in his mind, almost as loudly as though they had been spoken. Akira was so surprised that unthinkingly he looked up at Kuwabara-sensei, who had not moved a centimeter, and certainly not said anything. No— no, of course not. Kuwabara-sensei could not have said those words, because they were something that Akira’s father had said to him years ago, once while they were playing a match against each other, just before Akira had started middle school.

The role of intuition in Go is not insignificant. Strategizing is essential, but there are times when you experience a deep impulse, and you must act upon it. 

Father… Akira thought. He could feel almost viscerally the sensation of his father’s eyes on him at this very moment. And so, with a surge of emotion, Akira placed his stone on 10-15, extending out into the center, and waited for Kuwabara-sensei’s response.

At first, there was no response. Five moves later, ten moves later, the stone at 10-15 that Akira had placed seemed to have made very little difference. Kuwabara-sensei was fighting to gain dominance in the lower left side of the board, and Akira was dividing his efforts between exerting pressure in that area, and protecting one of his groups from being cut off in the upper left. But as the game progressed further and Akira was able to solidify the central region, the situation was becoming gradually more precarious for Kuwabara-sensei. It was not that Kuwabara-sensei’s Go had lost any of the steadiness that it had showed in the early game — in fact much the opposite — but that exactly was what was bringing Akira into the lead. 

It was just as he had predicted; Kuwabara-sensei could not keep up with the unconventional style Akira was now using — the style that he had developed throughout his games with Shindou. Kuwabara-sensei responded with orthodox joseki to Akira’s plays, and the joseki were coming up short. 

Do you see me, Father? Akira thought as he deftly placed his stone on the board. This is my Go. This is my strength.

The board filled up and the battles were becoming more detailed. Kuwabara-sensei captured four of Akira’s stones while Akira was concentrating on expanding his liberties elsewhere. That hurt, but it was clear that overall Kuwabara-sensei was at a disadvantage in the majority of the battles. If Akira won the capturing race in the center of the board, he would win the game. His mind feeling clear and sharp, Akira considered four separate possibilities for his next move after Kuwabara-sensei played. But as he was in the midst of following each of them in his mind, he heard a grunt from the other side of the table.

“Mmh.” Kuwabara-sensei’s head was lowered and his eyebrows were pushed together. Then without a word, he lowered his head further into a bow, and begin clearing the stones from the board. 

Oh.

Akira also began clearing the stones in a daze. The cameras were flashing, and one of the officials was saying something about the match having ended. It was so sudden, he felt almost disappointed not to be able to keep playing.

“Akira Touya is the new Honinbo. Congratulations.”

Akira’s fingers were trembling slightly from relief. “It was fearsome Go,” he heard Kuwabara-sensei mutter. It was neither a compliment nor an accusation, simply a statement of facts. For several minutes, they stayed in their positions on either side of the board, rebuilding the game and considering their moves while shutters snapped all around them, sounding like the beating of wings.

“So this is the new wave…” Kuwabara-sensei murmured to himself. Then to Akira:  “Your father will be proud.”

That was right — his father. Akira stood up from the board. Several people were already walking towards him with words of congratulations on their lips. Akira nodded and smiled and thanked them, but his mind was elsewhere. Where was his father? 

He moved into the hall, responding somehow or other to the questions he was posed and the praise he was offered, and found himself immediately drawn into an interview with the Weekly Go. He said words to them — anything. His mind couldn’t grasp the sense of what they were asking. He knew he would regret giving half-hearted answers, but he couldn’t help his sense of urgency, the desire to leave as quickly as possible. 

I have to see my father. I have to see his face. 

The crowded hallways drifted past him. He could not explain to himself the intensity of the need that he felt. More than a desire it was a sensation in his body. He didn’t know what he would say to his father, but he felt somehow that he had to put into words all that occurred to him since he his dream that morning: the strange feeling of calm that he had experienced just before the match and the words of advice that had appeared in his mind. His feet moving over the royal blue carpet, surrounded by the sounds of cameras, Akira felt as though he were sleepwalking.

“Akira!” 

Upon hearing his given name, Akira turned around to see Ashiwara-san beaming at him. 

“Ashiwara-san…”

“You did it! It was beautiful. Where did you get the idea for that move at 10-15? It was absolutely brilliant!” Ashiwara-san’s smile was filled with warmth and joy. 

“I don’t know,” Akira said, still feeling disoriented. “It came to me.”

“But Akira, you’ve got a lot of nerve to win your first title at eighteen! Where’s the respect for your senpai, huh? Here I thought we were friends…” 

“Ashiwara-san, where is my father?” Akira asked. 

“Touya-sensei?” Ashiwara-san looked puzzled. “I haven’t seen him…” 

“I’m sorry, I have to find him,” Akira said. He began to walk away.

“Akira, let me treat you to lunch soon!” Ashiwara-san called from behind. “It’s a promise, all right?”

Leaving Ashiwara-san behind, Akira moved through the crowd, passing dozens of familiar faces. There was Serizawa-sensei who was saying something to him, there was Morisawa-san, who looked elated. There were some insei fans, their faces filled with awe, and Ogata-san was smiling in a shadowy corner of the hall all by himself. Akira heard the voices calling to him, but he didn’t respond. His feet moved him forward, through the noise and chaos. 

He found himself in the lobby, where the crowds were finally beginning to thin. The woman at the reception desk smiled cordially at him as he approached.

“Excuse me,” he said. The murmuring of voices sounded faintly behind him. “I would like to know if you have any records of the spectators who’ve come to see the match.”

“I’m afraid that information is…”

“It’s my father, Kouyou Touya. I haven’t been able to find him. I need to see him. Please,” he said.

The receptionist blinked her eyes at the note of desperation in his voice. 

“Of course,” she said. “One moment.”

Akira gripped the edge of the desk, waiting.

“It looks like he hasn’t come,” said the receptionist.

“That can’t be possible.”

“We do… well, we do keep records of every person who enters.”

Akira stared at her, wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry, but according to our records, no one named Kouyou Touya entered the building today.”

Notes:

This chapter was more Go focused, but I hope it wasn’t too boring to read. I’ve finally reached the last chapter as far as the writing process goes, but I’ll keep posting every Tuesday as usual. It’s been over a year of working on this project, and I’m feeling bittersweet as I come to the end of drafting :’)

Chapter 18: Broken bonds

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

If anyone at the hotel thought it was strange that Akira Touya refused interview after interview on the day he became the youngest Go player ever to win the Honinbo title, none of them showed it. And when he politely excused himself from the proposed celebratory dinner outing, nothing was said. It was natural, people agreed, that he should be tired after his match. No one suspected any deeper reason than that. And so at length the stifling mass of spectators, reporters, and fans released him, and soon he was outside and anonymous once again, no longer the newly-crowned Honinbo, no longer a Go player, no longer even Akira Touya. He felt the layers of identity slipping away from him as he entered the crowded train station and lost himself among the hurrying passengers. A stranger among strangers, he became no one.

No longer a son.

Feeling nauseous, he held onto the railing at the end of the platform. The first time that his father had rejected him, the shock had been so severe that he hadn’t been able to take it in all at once. For weeks afterward, the realization had dawned on him again and again, the pain echoing as he recalled what had happened. But even throughout that, a part of him must have still been hoping. Even though he knew that he could never return to the tranquil family life he had enjoyed before, some part of him must have wanted it. How could he have been stupid enough to hope for reconciliation? How could he have let himself be fooled by a dream, thinking like a child that somehow his own fantasy could become the truth, that his father’s mind could be changed only if Akira believed it? Now, with this second rejection, Akira felt that the bond between them had been sharply, cleanly, and irrevocably severed. For his father to go back on his word and reject Akira’s Go was to deny the deepest and most sacred element of their relationship. Now that hope was shattered, Akira felt with increasing clarity an emotion he had not yet experienced towards his father: anger.

With every stop along the Namboku line, the sensation grew within him. Teeth clenched and fists balled, he resisted the urge to yell and riot right there on the train. The sky was a cloudy white-grey as he got off at his station and made his way to the apartment. Rushing past the neighbor who was standing unhelpfully in the middle of the entry hall, he ran up the stairs, swung the apartment door open as hard as he could, and burst into the living room, staring around him at the placid interior, unsure what to do with the energy that felt as though it would explode if he left it alone for any longer. 

Shindou. Where was Shindou.

Akira ripped off his suit jacket and slammed his possessions onto the table. There was no other sound in the apartment. He wanted to roar or to destroy something. Lacking any other option, he paced from one end of the living room to the other, turning on his heel when he reached the wall and repeating his trajectory. 

“He wasn’t there.”

Akira turned around at the sound of Shindou’s quiet and matter-of-fact voice. He was standing calmly outside of his bedroom door, his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants.

“It was in Tokyo!” Akira spat out, his feet beginning again to carry him back and forth across the floor. “He said he would come to see me play no matter where it was, and it was in Tokyo and he still couldn’t come to show his support! What was everything before that then? He taught me Go for over a decade. What was all of that supposed to mean? He teaches me for years and years, and now he can’t be bothered to come to his son’s title match only twenty minutes away because of some sort of idiotic prejudice?”

Akira glared at him. When Shindou didn’t say anything in response, he exhaled sharply. 

“Damn him! What right does he have? How… how dare he!? He was the one who always told me to work ahead steadily without giving up. And I saw what he went through and what his colleagues went through, and I knew that I would also walk the same path, so I never gave up, no matter what! I only wanted to be like him! Not just his Go, but the way that he faced the world. That dignity and self-control… I didn’t give up because I knew that he would never forgive me if I gave up. And now…” Akira’s voice shook with anger. “And now he gives up on me!”

Having reached one end of the room, Akira turned around again, unable to stop the pacing. He was breathing hard and quivering, not seeing anything around him, overwhelmed by the rage that he could still not adequately express. 

“How can I ever respect him again? How can I…”

“Touya.”

“What!?” 

“You’re gonna break that.” Shindou quietly stepped forward and took Akira’s IC card, which he had been gripping so tightly that the sides had dug into the palm of his hand.

His hands now empty, Akira didn’t know what to do with himself. With effort, he slowed his steps and turned to face Shindou. He could barely endure the sensation of standing still, but he forced himself to look into Shindou’s eyes, which were quiet and steady. 

“I can’t forgive him,” Akira said. 

“Yeah.”

“That he could reject me over something like this…”

“Yeah.”

“It’s not like him! It doesn’t make any sense! I thought he would at least try to understand, but he didn’t even try. And I’ve won the Honinbo, but I can’t—“

“You won?” Shindou asked.

The question caught Akira off-guard, and he blinked. 

“Y-yes. I won.”

“Huh.” Shindou smiled softly. “Congratulations.”

Akira turned away from him and walked to the table, grasping the edge with both hands. 

“I don’t feel as though I’ve won,” he said. “I don’t feel as though I’ve won anything at all.”

Shindou came up to his side. “Do you still wanna show me the game?”

Akira looked over at him slowly, as though awakening. “That’s right… you haven’t seen it yet.”

“You told me not to. It was pretty hard, you know, avoiding hearing anything about it at the Go Institute. I had to leave the room like three times while they were talking about it.”

“I—“ Akira swallowed. “… Thank you,” he managed. “And your game?”

Shindou shrugged and laughed. “I lost.”

“You what!?”

“Relax. It wasn’t part of the prelims. When I thought about you and your match and how you were gonna meet your dad, I started getting nervous and I couldn’t calm down. And my opponent was pretty strong too.”

“If I had known it would have that effect on you, I wouldn’t have asked you not to look at the game.”

“It’s no big deal,” Shindou said. “It’s like you told me before: this is only one game. There’s no end.”

There is no end to this. You start to rot…

Unbidden, Ogata-san’s words floated to Akira’s mind. He attempted to relax his grip on the edge of the table and took a deep breath. “When did I say that to you?” he asked.

“After the first Hokuto Cup. Remember? When I lost against Ko Yongha.” 

Akira remembered. He remembered Shindou’s tear-stained face — tears of frustration at having lost. Shindou at that moment had looked so vulnerable and somehow beautiful…

“Shindou,” Akira said. “I— I don’t know why I’m doing this. I thought I played Go for myself, but all I could think about during the match today was my father. It shouldn’t matter. Whether or not he comes to my title games… I should be able to play no matter what. But in the end, I don’t know. Have I been playing for him all this time? I wanted to show him I was independent from you. I thought if he saw that, maybe he would understand that it didn’t matter whether I married or whether I carried on our name… if I could show him that my Go by itself was enough. But when I chose my moves today, I kept thinking about your Go. And how your Go has changed mine. And in the middle of the game, I used another player’s style instead of my own. I don’t even know whose Go I was copying.” He clenched his teeth. “I won, but I don’t…” His voice was restricted, and it hurt to speak. “I can’t…!”

Unable to finish his sentence, Akira stared down at the table and his hands. Softly, Shindou’s hand moved to rest on top of Akira’s, their fingers lightly interlaced. 

“You know,” Shindou said, “I’m not playing Go for myself either. Maybe some people do. Maybe a lot of people do, I dunno. But I don’t think it’s a bad thing to play for someone else. I don’t think it makes you weak or anything like that. When I’m playing a match against someone and I use a move that reminds me of you or of…” He breathed in. “…Or of Sai… it makes me happy. Cause it means that I’m not alone. I can remember all the times we played together, and all those good memories and stuff. I don’t think I’d wanna play Go if I didn’t have those memories. Maybe that’s just me, but…”

Akira stared at Shindou’s hand over his. He moved his own hand from underneath and Shindou started to draw away, but Akira caught him and interlaced their fingers properly this time, so that their palms were together. The emotion that he was feeling was overpowering, but he couldn’t put a name to it. He only wanted to feel Shindou’s hand in his. 

“I can see it in your Go, Shindou.”

“You can see what?”

“Everything that you said. All of those happy memories. I can see everything that you are in your Go, and I can see sai. Almost every time we play.”

“Yeah.” Shindou squeezed Akira’s hand. “And in your Go too. I can see your dad sometimes. But mostly it’s you.”

Akira turned his head to look at Shindou’s face. Shindou’s light-colored bangs fell into his eyes, and he looked almost sad, as though he were carrying a heavy weight inside of him. Neither of them said anything, but as Akira stared into Shindou’s eyes, he was overcome by a feeling of melancholy.

Shindou has been here for me, Akira thought. More than anyone else, he’s been here for me every day. And yet these days when I look into his eyes, there’s so much sadness. I don’t want him to make that kind of face.

Akira let go of Shindou’s hand and reached out to brush his hair behind his ears. Shindou smiled and closed his eyes. 

“That feels good,” he said. 

Several more times, Akira brushed Shindou’s hair back with his fingers, on either side of his face. Then, still looking at his closed eyes, he leaned forward and softly pressed his lips to Shindou’s.

The kiss lasted only a moment before Akira drew back, his heart beating too loudly in his chest. 

“Touya!” 

Without warning, Shindou drew him into a hug, squeezing him tight so that their chests were flush. A part of Akira immediately began to panic again, unsure of how to respond to the physical contact he was so unaccustomed to. But even as his heart raced and his breath caught on the inhale, he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sensation of Shindou’s arms around him. 

“Sorry. Is this okay?” Shindou whispered into Akira’s ear. 

“It’s okay,” Akira whispered back. He adjusted his position so that his arms were on Shindou’s back. Eyes still closed, he moved his hands up slowly, feeling the lines of Shindou’s shoulder blades. 

“I don’t get you at all sometimes,” Shindou said softly.

“I can say the same thing,” Akira replied. 

“Can I kiss you again?” The question this time was even quieter.

“…Yes.”

He was already drunk on the unfamiliar sensation of Shindou’s warmth; he felt once again as though he had stepped into a different reality far removed from everything that he knew. Seeing only the darkness behind his eyelids, Akira felt Shindou’s lips meet his own, a hand coming up to rest on his cheek. 

Oh, I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him.

The kiss grew deeper, and Akira pulled Shindou closer, cautiously responding to the soft press of Shindou’s tongue inside his mouth. He was nervous and aroused and almost woozy, but he gave himself to the rhythm of their kisses, the sounds of their lips as they drew apart making him feel feverish.

“Honinbo,” Shindou said, grinning, in between kisses. 

“You should also quickly become the Meijin already,” Akira murmured before leaning back into another kiss — this one long, lingering, and tender.

They drew away from each other. Akira felt as though he had forgotten how to breathe as the tips of Shindou’s fingers moved against his jawline. 

“Why the hell do you have to be so goddamn handsome?” Shindou asked, sounding genuinely offended.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Akira tried to respond in an angry tone, but suspected that his voice was betraying the embarrassment that he felt. 

“It’s like… really hard to look you in the eyes sometimes,” Shindou confessed throatily. “When you look at me like that.”

“But you still look back at me,” Akira said. 

“Yeah. I can’t help it.”

With one hand on Akira’s waist, Shindou ran his other hand through Akira’s hair thoughtfully. It was clear that he was contemplating something, that there were words he was deciding whether to voice. 

“What is it, Shindou?” Akira asked.

“No, I was just thinking… what are you going to do now?”

“What am I going to do?” he repeated.

“Yeah. I mean, you’re the Honinbo now. You can do whatever you want, right?”

“That’s not true. I still have my responsibilities as a professional, and I—“

“But what do you want to do?” Shindou asked again. “What do you want?”

What do I want?
 
Shindou’s simple question barreled into Akira’s mind with an unexpected force, baffling him. When was the last time anyone had asked him that question? It had always been understood that Akira lived for Go. Go came before all else, and Akira worked in service to it, spending all his hours teaching, studying, playing, eating and sleeping so he could wake up the next day and begin again. What he wanted outside of that had never been a question he had asked himself. It hadn’t seemed relevant.

Akira let his eyes wander down Shindou’s torso, at the contour of the muscles barely suggested through the fabric of his T-shirt. Then he looked back into Shindou’s clear brown eyes. 

“I want you,” he said. “I want to touch you.”

A blush spread across Shindou’s face, from his cheeks to the tips of his ears.

“You know y-you…” he stuttered. “When you say something, you really just go ahead and say it, don’t you?”

Akira said nothing, waiting for an answer. 

“You, uh… you can if you want though. Touch me, I mean.”

“Like this…” Akira said, drawing his fingers down along Shindou’s sides, his statement half a question.

“Yeah,” Shindou breathed, his mouth half open and his eyes closed. 

As Akira reached Shindou’s hip bones he paused, staring at the hem of the grey T-shirt.

“Take this off,” he commanded.

“Wh-what are you ordering me around for!” Shindou stammered, apparently jarred out of the state he had been in.

“It’s in the way.”

“Well why do I have to take it off!? Why don’t you do it!?”

“It’s your shirt, Shindou!”

“Yeah, and normally it’s the other guy who takes it off!”

“Normally? What’s normal about two men doing this together?”

“Ugh! You know what!?” Shindou wrinkled his nose, leaned forward, and began unbuttoning the collar of Akira’s dress shirt.

“What are you doing!?”

“If you don’t know how to do this the right way, then I’ll do it!”

“How do you know what the right way is?”

Shindou came to the last button at the bottom and softly pulled the shirt over one of Akira’s shoulders so that his skin was exposed.

“You know… there’re videos and stuff.”

“You watch those?” Akira asked in shock.

“It’s not like I watch them, like, all the time or anything! But you know, I’ve like… seen them.”

“Shindou…” Akira began, feeling his skin grow hot with the kiss that Shindou was pressing to his bare shoulder, “…when did you know?”

“That I liked guys?” Shindou asked, turning his face up.

“Yes.”

“Uhhh… last year I guess? Before that it was… well, I guess I kinda knew.”

Suddenly self-conscious and aware of the nakedness of his own skin, Akira swallowed and readjusted his open shirt.

“… Aren’t you going to take that off?” he asked, gesturing to Shindou’s T-shirt.

“Are you getting embarrassed?” Shindou asked, grinning.

“I am NOT embarrassed!” Akira retorted, perhaps too loudly. He took a deep breath, collecting himself. “…But I think if we’re going to do this, we should do it properly, in the bedroom.”

“Okay.” Shindou smiled. “I can get behind that.”

. . . 

It was different from the first time. Different, and beautiful and strange. 

The first time Shindou had touched him, months ago, Akira had been paralyzed with the intensity and overwhelmed by a thousand doubts and fears. The doubts had not disappeared entirely this time — he was still quite aware of the awkwardness of his movements — but he knew now without any question that he wanted Shindou, and that Shindou wanted him. That mattered much more than anything else. That was enough. 

Both of them naked on Akira’s futon, their explorations were hesitant and halting at times. Shindou’s voice quietly asked Akira a dozen times “Does this feel good?” and Akira answered with words or with kisses. In spite of all of Shindou’s projected self-confidence, Akira found it was the moments of unguarded shyness that captivated him the most. When Shindou’s large eyes turned up to Akira in evident sparkling adoration, sweat glistening on his light pink skin, Akira was overcome with a strong desire to keep him close and to protect him, for years and years and years. 

Neither of them was truly confident in himself, and as was usually the case, the uncertainty tended to come out as quibbling and contrariness. In the middle, Shindou went to the bathroom, leaving Akira disheveled and aroused on the futon, and for this he earned himself an indignant knock to the head upon his return. But there were moments of silence too, when Akira forgot his embarrassment and even began to feel that there was something natural about the way their bodies felt together. When Shindou leaned into him, his face lost in pleasure, Akira felt a sense of awe — it had never occurred to him that he had the power to create this kind of expression on Shindou’s face. It was erotic and deeply intimate. There were so many parts of Shindou, he realized, that he had yet to discover. So when it was over and they were both quiet under the covers, Akira pressed his lips to the back of Shindou’s neck and swore to himself that he would discover as many pieces of Shindou as he could in the time that they had together — however long that might be. 

“Shindou…” Akira said at length, into the waning light of the room.

“Yeah.”

He brushed his fingers across the nape of Shindou’s neck and asked the question gently. “The one that you play Go for… is it sai?”

Shindou squirmed under the covers, turning his body around to face him before burying his forehead in Akira’s chest. 

“Yeah.”

“I see.”

Akira left the conversation there.

The colors of the late evening streamed in through the window. Shindou’s breathing, which had tensed when Akira had asked his question, was slowly falling back into a relaxed rhythm. Akira could hardly believe that only a few hours ago he had been playing his match against Kuwabara-sensei. He could hardly believe that he now possessed the title that he had been working toward all his life. Just thinking of it made his heart quicken, though there was still too much anger attached to this victory for him to fully enjoy a sense of pride. The game itself had been satisfying. As he recalled the plays as they had unfolded, he felt only frustrated that the match had ended as abruptly as it had, and that he still could not recall the name of the Go player whose idea he had borrowed. 

If anyone asked him about the stone that he had placed at 10-15, he needed to find a way to answer them. He knew that he would not be able to avoid all of the interviews forever — it had been irresponsible of him to brush them off in the first place. And he doubted he would be able to respond to the reporters with the kind of charming evasiveness that his father often employed when he didn’t want to answer a question… 

Akira breathed in sharply, and Shindou shifted against him.

“What’s up?”

Akira swallowed. “No, it’s nothing. I just realized something, that’s all.”

Shindou propped himself up on one elbow and looked at Akira. 

“Everything okay?”

“It was my father,” Akira said. “The player whose Go I used as my own. I had read the kifu of the match that he played in Nanjing against Xin Daoming a few months ago, and during my game against Kuwabara-sensei I realized that the Go I was playing was unfolding just like that match in Nanjing. But at the time I couldn’t remember what game it was or who the players had been. Because of how unconventional it was, I had assumed it had been a young Go player whose style I was copying. But it was him.”

“You were copying your dad’s Go?”

“Yes.”

Shyly, Shindou’s finger reached out to lightly stroke the back of Akira’s hand.

“You know… how do I say this? I feel like that was probably the right move for you to play.”

He looked at Akira. “Do you know what I mean? I feel like it makes sense that you borrowed his move. Out of all the people who’ve played against him, you probably know his Go the best, right? You were probably the only one who could’ve used that move and actually made it work. And even if you say you were just copying his idea, he is a former Meijin after all. You could’ve done a lot worse for someone to copy.”

I would have liked to use my own strength, Akira thought. But he didn’t say it. 

“Yes,” he said. “You’re right.”

Shindou sat up suddenly. 

“Hey. Do you wanna get something to eat?”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Like somewhere nearby. We can save the whole ‘me-treating-you-to-something-fancy’ thing for another day.”

Akira sat up as well and considered.

“There’s Ichinoya within two blocks, and Sanjirou if we walk a little farther. I think that Cafe Yorimichi will already be closed by now.”

“Okay. Then Sanjirou?”

“I thought you would say that.”

“Well yeah. ‘Cause it’s delicious. Come on.”

As Akira got dressed, he smiled to himself. He felt different, and yet somehow nothing had changed. Shindou was heaving his oversized yellow backpack over his shoulders and putting on his shoes. They were going out to a restaurant together, just like they often had for lunch after a game at the Go salon. The air outside was still hot and humid, and Shindou was complaining about it under his breath. 

As they sat down at the counter at Ramen Sanjirou, Shindou pulled his chopsticks apart and said “So you’ll show me the game tomorrow?”

Akira nodded. “Whenever you’d like.”

Notes:

When I was writing this I thought to myself "Oh no, oh dear, MUST I write a sex scene? Do I really HAVE to?" and then I remembered "Wait, this is MY fan fiction; I can do what I want! I shall simply glide over the sex scene.... poetically." And so that is what I attempted to do. My apologies to those who wished for something more explicit.

Chapter 19: Isumi-san

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Akira had expected that the days following his winning the Honinbo title would be busy, but he had not anticipated just how busy they would be. For a full two weeks, his life was so full of interviews and meetings that when he returned to the apartment he could barely sit up straight, let alone concentrate enough to play his evening matches against Shindou at anything near his usual ability. This new development was not lost on Shindou of course, who gleefully found fault with Akira’s Go, claiming that he had a right to hold Akira to a higher standard now that he held a title. Akira would have liked to argue more adamantly in his own defense, except that most of Shindou’s criticisms were playful, and by the time their matches were over he rarely had the energy to argue back at all. He would lean on his fists silently staring at the board until Shindou’s ongoing stream of criticism eventually turned into a list of all the reasons why Akira should go to bed. Throughout all this, the late summer heat was unrelenting and the cicadas cried in the trees noisily outside the apartment windows. Shindou came home one day carrying four boxes of popsicles in a convenience store bag — the sum of which still only lasted them less than a week. 

“Are you gonna be home and awake for longer than like three minutes tomorrow?” Shindou asked.

“I wish I could say yes,” Akira replied, pulling a popsicle from the freezer and trudging to the living room to fall down into a chair.

In spite of the frenetic pace of Akira’s schedule, he found that without his noticing it, a part of him had relaxed. Perhaps it was only the knowledge that the title was now his, but he felt as though something deep inside him that had been tensed for the longest time had finally eased, and once again he could breathe. Because of this, even when the interviewers asked him about his father — how did it feel to take home a title twelve years before Kouyou Touya first won his? — Akira was able to draw on his sense of inner calm, and give a response that was neither false nor revealed the rift in their relationship. Surprisingly, few of the interviews even broached the subject of the contents of his Go. Akira thought that this was a little frustrating — surely the strategy of the game he had played was more relevant and interesting than Akira’s feelings after having won? But on the other hand, the lack of strategy-related questions allowed him to continue to avoid speaking of his borrowed move: the stone that he had placed at 10-15. He still didn’t feel ready to speak of it.

“You’re totally overthinking this,” Shindou had informed him. “You think they care about what move you played where or whose Go you borrowed? Half these guys don’t even know the difference between keima and kosumi. You know actually, I bet you if you started really getting into the details of your Go in an interview, they’d change the subject!”

Akira thought that this was an exaggeration, but he found it reassuring nevertheless. 

And so he made his way through the two weeks of interviews and oppressive heat, and was just beginning to feel that his weekly schedule was again approaching what it had been when Isumi-san called out to him in the halls of the Go Institute on Thursday afternoon. 

Of course, thanks to Shindou’s anecdotes and the general talk in the Go Institute, Akira knew of Isumi-san. He knew that he was one of Shindou’s good friends, and that he had become a professional around the same time as Shindou had. Still, he and Akira had never officially met, so Akira was more than a little surprised to see the tall, mild-eyed young man walking up to him after his match. 

“Touya-san… do you have a minute to talk?” 

The way that he spoke was pleasantly formal without being distant, and Akira was reminded somehow of how Ashiwara-san used to speak when he was younger.

“I don’t have anything to do right now,” Akira replied. “You’re Isumi-san, right?”

Isumi-san smiled. “That’s right. A friend of Shindou’s. I know we’ve never met officially, but Shindou’s always talking about you so I feel like I almost know you.”

“I have the same feeling,” Akira said, laughing. “He often speaks to me of you as well.”

“Listen, I know it’s sudden,” said Isumi-san, “But I couldn’t get the game that you played against Kuwabara-sensei out of my head. I wanted to ask you about your strategy. I don’t know if you’ve already had lunch, but if it’s all right with you maybe we could get something to eat…”

“Yes,” Akira agreed. “I would like that.”

They decided to walk to a nearby European-style lunch cafe. Isumi-san’s walking pace was leisurely and companionable, and Akira found himself unexpectedly completely at ease as they dipped in and out of small talk and silence. 

“The truth is,” Isumi-san said as they sat down at their table, “I wanted to come to watch your match at the hotel, but I was boarding a plane just when it started. Afterwards, when I looked at the kifu, I really regretted not having been able to watch it in person.”

“Where were you flying?” Akira asked.

“Back home from Shanghai. I was there visiting a Go Institute. I first visited a Chinese Go Institute a couple years ago to do some training, but I was blown away by the level of skill their young players have. Somehow I keep going back,” he said with a sheepish smile. 

“My father often plays in China and Korea,” Akira said. “He told me how impressed he was with the younger players outside of Japan. I’ve been meaning to make a trip to one of the Chinese Institutes someday myself.”

“It’s worth it,” Isumi-san said emphatically. “I feel inspired every time I go back. I wish I had booked an earlier plane this time though; I’d completely forgotten about the Honinbo race. I knew if anyone had a chance at taking the title from Kuwabara-sensei, it was probably you, Touya-san. But I never would have expected the strategy you used in the mid-game! I thought for sure that the stone at 10-15 was going to die, but it became an anchor in the central region. Where did you get the idea?”
 
Akira cleared his throat. Finally, after days of waiting for it to come up in an interview, someone had asked the question, and now he had to answer. He felt relieved that it was Isumi-san asking the question rather than an interviewer, but it was still difficult for him to get his words out. 

“It was my father’s Go,” he said, keeping his voice dispassionate. “I borrowed the idea from a previous game of his that I had studied.”

“Really!” 

Akira was surprised to see genuine enthusiasm in his face. Isumi-san smiled wistfully. “No wonder… I thought it must be something like that — a stroke of inspiration. It’s incredible that you were able to draw on a previous game and integrate it seamlessly into your own Go. That’s the type of Go I’d like to play as well.”

It was strange to Akira that the answer he had given had been so easily accepted by Isumi-san. To Akira, copying his father’s Go had been a moment of weakness, but it seemed that to Isumi-san it was a sign of skill. 

“I’ve seen your Go before, Isumi-san,” Akira said. “I was hoping to be able to play against you in an official match, but for whatever reason the Go Institute never seems to pair us up. If you’d like to play an unofficial game sometime…”

“I would be honored,” Isumi-san said. 

From their patio seats, they could hear the light jazz music drifting faintly from indoors. Akira opened his menu, and Isumi-san did as well. It was an unusual feeling to be sitting across from a fellow Go player in a cafe this way. Isumi-san was polite and quiet, and Akira felt happy to be there with him in such a relaxed environment. It was not the way that he felt around Shindou — not in the slightest. But something about it made him recall that afternoon months ago when he and Shindou had played a game at a small cafe while the rain fell down outside.

“I think of you as a friend.”

Oh, thought Akira suddenly, That must be what this is. That’s why it feels so natural. Talking to someone who shares the same interest, without any hostility between us…

He looked up at Isumi-san, who smiled at him warmly from behind the menu.

“Have you decided on what you’re going to order?” he asked.

“I think I’ve nearly—” Akira began to say, but before he could finish his sentence there was the sound of a ringtone. Isumi-san, looking quite flustered, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, checked the name on the screen, and took the call.

He stood up, bobbing his head in apology towards Akira, who waved his hand reassuringly.

“Hi,” Isumi-san said to the person on the phone. “No, I’m at lunch with a colleague. Yeah. What is it?”

Akira turned the menu over to look at the drinks.

“Oh. Then six-thirty wouldn’t… I see. No, I wanted to see you too. Well, if you can’t…”

There was a pause.

“Listen, if that’s the case, why don’t you just stay over tonight? …Yeah, it’s no problem. Of course I mean it…How would that be an inconvenience for me!? … No, it’s really okay. Whenever you get off work. Yeah. Okay. See you tonight.”

Isumi-san hung up and sat back down, looking embarrassed. 

“I’m really sorry about that, Touya-san.”

“Please, it’s no problem at all,” Akira said. “A friend?”

“Ah, it was my, uh…” Isumi-san blushed. “My lover.”

“Oh.” Akira felt embarrassed at having pried. He set down the menu and looked around to see if there were any servers nearby while Isumi-san set his cell phone down on the table. He seemed to be trying to collect himself.

But only a moment later the phone rang again. Akira saw on the screen of the phone the name “Daisuke.”

“Aaah!” Isumi-san wailed, his face growing redder. He picked up the phone, standing up again in a hurry. 

“What is it this time? …No! It’s fine! I told you it was fine! You don’t have to worry so much. Just come over whenever and I’ll make you dinner! …Yeah. Yeah, please don’t worry about it. Okay. See you.”

Isumi-san sat down again and swallowed. He looked about as uncomfortable as Akira felt. 

“Touya-san, I am so sorry.”

“No, no, please don’t be…”

Neither of them looked at the other. Akira’s heart was beating quickly, and even though he knew it was rude to ask, he couldn’t keep to himself the question pressing on his mind. 

“Was that the same person as before?”

Isumi-san looked as though he was about ready to die from embarrassment.

“Ah, um, yes.”

“Your lover’s name is Daisuke?”

“Yes, we’re both men.” 

Isumi-san’s face was turned away, and Akira knew that he ought to have posed the question more delicately, or rather not at all, but instead of feeling ashamed he only felt a growing excitement. 

He’s a Go player just like me and he… 

“That was probably something you didn’t really want to know about me,” Isumi-san said, looking at the geranium pot by his left shoulder rather than at Akira. “I’m sorry, but if you could keep it a secret…”

Akira hurried to explain himself. “No, of course I would never mention it to anyone! I didn’t mean to look shocked or anything like that, it’s just that I’ve never met anyone older than me who… or really anyone at all…” He folded his hands on the table, trying to express his feelings accurately. “I’m… impressed, quite honestly. It must be difficult for you as a Go player.”

Isumi-san laughed. “I’m not as famous as you are, Touya-san. I’m sure my life is not nearly as scrutinized as yours. Well, I can’t say it’s been easy, but in general I don’t think Go has anything to do with my private life.” He met Akira’s eyes and seemed to sense enough safety there to continue on. “It’s been all right. It’s been… better than all right. I think it’s actually harder on Daisuke than me. People look at me and they think I’m just too focused on Go to have a girlfriend. But Daisuke’s always been the type of person where people know it when they see him. He can’t really hide it; it’s just the way he is. Sometimes I wish I could do more for him. It bothers me that he’ll never be able to blend in, while I can do it without even trying.”

Akira considered Isumi-san’s face. “It’s true. You don’t look…”

“I know.” Isumi-san smiled. “I don’t look it. Before we started dating, that’s what Daisuke told me too. But then when we started talking more, I…” Isumi-san suddenly stopped, appearing self-conscious. “Ah, I’m sorry. What am I doing! I came here to talk to you about Go, and now I’m going on about my private life!”

“It’s fine,” Akira said sincerely. “I don’t often get the opportunity to have conversations like this.”

Isumi-san started laughing again. “I can imagine!”

“No, that’s not what I mean! Not just about sexual orientation, but more generally too. I don’t often hear about Go players’ personal lives. I know you didn’t intend to tell me about it, but I don’t… I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with being in a relationship with a man. Maybe it sounds strange for me to say so, but I think it’s inspiring.”

Isumi-san’s eyes turned quiet, and he looked at Akira searchingly. “You’re different from what I expected, Touya-san.”

 “I am?”

“Everyone talks about the formidable Go player Akira Touya, but you’re surprisingly… I’m not sure. I’m not sure how to put it.”

“Whatever Shindou tells you about me is probably wrong.”

Isumi-san shook his head seriously. “No, Shindou talks about you all the time, but now that I’ve met you I get the impression that he’s usually not so far off the mark. I don’t really have a rival, so I don’t know what it’s like, but it seems like he knows you pretty well.”

Akira wasn’t sure how to respond, so he said nothing for a moment. The light jazz music mingled with the sound of the traffic in the streets.

“Isumi-san, do you regret your sexual orientation?” Akira asked.

“No.” The answer came quickly. Much more quickly than Akira had expected. “I like girls, but I don’t want to marry one,” Isumi-san said. “Of course there are hardships with the way that I am, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I’m not out to my parents, and Daisuke isn’t out to his, but for the most part we can live freely. Daisuke has some friends who are also gay, and we meet up with them sometimes. So I don’t feel like I really have anything to regret. Besides…” A small bashful smile appeared on Isumi-san’s face. “He’s really cute. Really cute. No matter what, I want to be by his side from now on.”

Akira looked down at his hands. “Yes. I think you should be.”

. . .

When no server came by their table for another several minutes, Akira went back to the entrance to investigate, and discovered that they had been supposed to order their food inside. He returned to the table to inform Isumi-san of their error, and both of them laughingly went to the counter to order — Isumi-san asking for the shrimp doria and Akira deciding on a chicken omurice with demi-glace sauce. 

When each of them had received his dish and the afternoon heat began to relent as the sun mercifully passed under a cloud, the subject turned once again to China and Korea, and the intimidating power of Go players abroad. 

“Something I’ve always wanted to do,” Isumi-san was saying “Is to do a survey of the Go Institutes in China and Korea, and an in-depth analysis of the different playing styles of foreign Go players.”

Akira brought his hand to his mouth, considering. “Well… of course there are the differences that come from the traditional rulesets, like the values of some of the seki. I had a long discussion with the first board on the Chinese team at the last Hokuto Cup about how those differences affected strategy. But really, it’s a deep subject. You could write a whole book on it.”

“I would love to, honestly,” Isumi-san replied. “I’ve taken enough notes to fill a book I’m sure! There’s also the way that they train in China, and Go’s relative popularity in both China and Korea…”

“Yes. Go in Japan is not nearly as respected when compared to the way it’s seen abroad. I’ve always found that strange.”

“Right? People here tend to think that it’s just a casual pastime for old folks. They don’t know the history, they don’t see it as a sport…”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. If people in Japan saw Go as a sport, if they really saw it as the fierce competition that it is, it would have much more popularity. As it is, we’re losing to other countries in the Hokuto Cup and other international competitions in part because people don’t care in our own home country.”

“I feel sort of responsible, as a Go player,” Isumi-san said. “I feel we all should be doing something to increase the popularity of Go, but I don’t know what to do other than to just keep playing my best game.” He took another bite of his doria, and Akira stared at him, an idea growing in his mind. 

“Isumi-san,” he said. “Why don’t we write a book?”

“What?” Isumi-san looked up from his food, wide-eyed.

“You and I. Why don’t we write a book about exactly what we’ve been talking about? About Go in Japan and the rest of Asia. We could write about the differences in strategy in different countries, and how it’s taught, and the history of Go in China and Korea. We could use your notes and research.”

Isumi-san, without breaking eye-contact with Akira, nodded slowly. 

“That’s not a bad idea. But do you think it would sell?”

“I don’t know,” Akira said. “But I agree with you. As Go players we have a responsibility to extend the popularity of the game. As Japanese, we should be showing the people in our country the beauty of a well-played match. If more people knew about it, we’d be able to draw young players in and get them involved.”

Isumi-san laughed. “This is getting to be a pretty ambitious project. Do you think we could write a book like that?”

“We could try,” Akira said.

“Yeah.” Isumi-san nodded again. “Yeah. We could try. Well, if you’re up for it, I am. Let’s do it.”

. . . 

“So what’s it gonna be? Sushi? Chinese? Soba?” Shindou asked over the phone. “It’s been two weeks, you gotta stop avoiding it now. And last time you ended up paying somehow, so that doesn’t count.”

Akira was standing on a residential street corner a few blocks away from the house of his new tutoring student, Atsushi. After his lunch with Isumi-san, he had gone straight to the lesson — their first lesson together — and now the sun was tracing downwards across the sky. In the next neighborhood over they were doing construction work, and the sounds of hammers and the whirring of machines were carried to Akira on the breeze that blew softly around him.

“Let’s not go out tonight,” Akira said, as he watched a helicopter leaf spiral down to the ground. “I’d rather stay home with you.”

“I’d be coming to the restaurant too, you know?”

Akira laughed quietly. “But I’d like to be at our apartment tonight.”

“At the apartment? Are you sure? Really sure…?”

Akira said nothing, smiling to himself as he imagined what Shindou’s face must look like. 

“Okay,” Shindou gave in. “Okay, okay, I get it… Do you want me to make something?”

“It’s fine,” Akira said. “I’ll be home in a few minutes anyway, so we can make something when I get back. Please turn on the air conditioning before I get there.”

“Oh, it’s on. It’s way on,” Shindou replied.

An older lady, walking home with two bags of groceries, smiled kindly at Akira as she passed by him. Akira inclined his head in return, smiling apologetically for speaking on the phone in the street. 

“I’m going to hang up now,” he told Shindou. “Wait for me. I’ll see you soon.”

“Okay, see ya!” Shindou said brightly, and hung up. 

Akira put his phone away and looked over his shoulder at the older lady walking away with her groceries. He wondered if she had thought that he had been speaking to his girlfriend. Very likely she had; it was what anyone would think. It was also, of course, what Akira had thought when Isumi-san was on the phone with Daisuke-san earlier in the afternoon, before he had learned the truth.

Akira looked at his watch, and began walking towards the station. From a house nearby, he could smell the scent of garlic fried seafood drifting by. That was right, he remembered. He still hadn’t cooked the squid he had bought yesterday. Perhaps he could make it for dinner tonight. 

 

Notes:

I wanted to use the word 恋人 in this chapter, which can be translated as "lover" but has a similar feeling to "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" and is gender neutral. I feel that "lover" has a somewhat illicit or scandalous sound to it, but what can you do? The perfect word doesn't always exist. Sometimes I compose parts of the dialogue for this fic in Japanese and then try to think how to translate it back into English. 'Cause I'm a nerd!

Chapter 20: Shindou's Go

Chapter Text

On a Friday morning in early September, Akira’s hand dipped into the go-ke and delicately placed a stone near Shindou’s solid connection. 

“I meant here,” he said. “This was where I was going to play before, because I hadn’t expected you to be so aggressive.”

“Yeah,” Shindou said, fidgeting uneasily on the other side of the Go board. “Yeah, I know. It was really stupid.”

“Stupid? What do you mean? It was an effective move!”

“I’m talking about my Go, not yours!” Shindou said in an irritated voice. “It was a bad game! I’m not getting any better!” Biting his lip and wrinkling his nose, he took some of the last played stones off the board in order, and then began to replay the end of the match.

“I could’ve played here,” he said angrily. “Or here. You know? But it wouldn’t have made a difference. I was already gonna lose from the start.”

“You only lost by one moku,” Akira said, searching Shindou’s face.

“It was stupid,” Shindou said again. “It’s just bad Go.”

Shindou’s cell phone began to ring from where it had been set on the dining table. He walked up to the table, looked at the phone, then turned it off, set it back down again, and sat across from Akira, his shoulders hunched over.

“Your mother?” Akira asked. 

“Yeah.” 

“Shindou, if she’s calling you so often, don’t you think you should answer?”

“I know why she’s calling me,” Shindou said. Akira waited, but he did not elaborate.

“Well, it’s not like I have any right to lecture you about calling your parents,” Akira said, his eyes turned down.

“I’m going to tell you about it!” Shindou grumbled. “Just not now, okay? It’s just ‘cause she takes everything way too seriously…”

Akira examined the bitter expression on Shindou’s face. For the past few days, Shindou had been unusually harsh with his own Go. Given his normal unshakable self-confidence, it was especially worrying to see him so discouraged now. Akira knew that the pressure from the Meijin race was starting to get to him, and even when Akira assured him that his Go was not declining, as Shindou said it was, the words seemed to have little effect. 

As Shindou began to clear the board, Akira stood up and walked to the kitchen, letting his fingers brush through Shindou’s hair gently on the way. 

“Wh-what?” Shindou turned his head around, his eyes following Akira to the kitchen. “What was that?”

“Did you not like it?” Akira asked over his shoulder.

Shindou scratched his head self-consciously. “No, that’s not it. It’s just that… you don’t usually do that kind of thing.”

“Isn’t that the kind of thing that two people do when they’re going out?” 

“Y-yeah, I guess.” 

Akira began washing the dishes in the sink. After a few moments, Shindou yelled from the living room. “I don’t mind it! I’m not saying that I mind it at all. I, uh… you can do that whenever you want to, okay?”

Akira chuckled. “Okay. I understand.”

“It’s just… kinda embarrassing I guess.”

Akira waited a few seconds before responding. 

“I would think the type of thing we were doing last night is much more embarrassing though.”

“You…!!!”

From behind him, Akira heard a clatter and then the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps. 

“Oi! Don’t say that kind of stuff out loud!” Shindou’s fists knocked against Akira’s shoulders in mock anger.

Akira laughed and patiently bore the attack.

Good. It seems like he cheered up a little.

Gradually, the volley of blows slowed down, the fists unclenching. Shindou’s face pressed into Akira’s back, and he exhaled deeply.

“…Thanks.”

Akira reached behind and took Shindou’s hand in his own. 

“Play your best today and don’t back down,” he said. He could feel the heat of Shindou’s breath against his back; soft, slow breaths like a child’s.

“Yeah.”

. . . 

Shindou’s match against Hayashida 8-dan was set to start at two P.M. Akira intentionally arrived at the Go Institute at half past three, and quietly slipped into the observation room, where Waya and Saeki 6-dan were already watching the match. 

“Oh, it’s Touya,” Waya said, turning around. 

“How far are they?” Akira asked.

Waya scooted his chair aside to make room for Akira to sit down, and gestured at the screen. “Shindou started attacking in this corner, but really early,” he said. “Hayashida’s playing cautiously for some reason. Both of their shapes look all right, but…”

Akira sat down and examined the state of the game displayed on the small television. Shindou was making good progress on the upper half of the board. So far he was showing enough strength to back up his decision to attack early, but some of his stones on the lower left hand side of the board were in danger of being cut off. 

“Don’t you think he should have connected?” Saeki-san said, pointing to the stone that Shindou had just placed.

“Yeah, I dunno,” Waya replied. “Seems like he’s kind of struggling to get a footing in that area. It’s too bad, because he’s doing good pretty much everywhere else.”

Akira silently agreed with Waya’s assessment of the situation. If Shindou proved able to strengthen his position in the lower left, he would have a much better chance of winning the game. There wasn’t very much room for him to be careless in any part of the board, but Akira could see several ways the match might develop positively for Shindou as well. For several minutes the three of them observed the unfolding of each player’s strategy in the silence of the small, stuffy room. 

“Oh that’s right, Touya, I meant to congratulate you.” 

Akira took his eyes off the television to look at Saeki-san, who had leaned over to speak to him. “Don’t tell Morishita-sensei that I said this, but it was a really impressive game; the final match of the Honinbo.”

“Thank you,” Akira said, giving a brief smile before returning his eyes to the screen. Then, realizing what Saeki-san had said, he looked up again. “Why shouldn’t I tell Morishita-sensei?”

Saeki-san hung his head in exaggerated gloom. “You know how he gets about your dad! He’s already giving me a hard time every week at the study group about me only being a 6-dan. He’s put all his hopes in Shindou winning the Meijin race. He says Shindou’s our only chance…”

“Only chance…?” 

“Wait, don’t tell me you don’t know about the rivalry between your dad and Morishita-sensei!?”

“I…” Akira furrowed his eyebrows. In fact, he didn’t know anything about his father having any rivalries. It nettled him that even now, having won the Honinbo, it seemed he couldn’t escape his father’s influence.

“Ugh…” Saeki-san winced seeing the confusion on Akira’s face. “I knew it! It’s one-sided! It’s completely one-sided! That makes it even worse!”

“Toldya so,” Waya said, serenely taking a sip from his energy drink. 

“Wait. Shindou just—” 

Akira was staring at the television screen, where the board showed a new development. While they had been talking, the speed of the game had quickened. Hayashida and Shindou had each played two moves in rapid succession, and Hayashida’s stones in the center were now in danger. Akira’s gaze sharpened as he took in the meaning of the move that Shindou had just played.

“Hold on, that’s really smart!” Waya said, standing up. “Why didn’t I think of that? Saeki, can you get that for me? I wanna try something out.” He pointed to the Go board on the far side of the table. Together, he and Saeki-san began laying out the stones from the game. 

His fingers resting on his lips, Akira watched the match progress another three moves while Waya and Saeki-san rebuilt the game. Now that he could see where Shindou was going, he felt increasingly sure of the final outcome. Shindou was going to win. Even in a different room, he knew that he and Shindou were seeing the same game, reading ahead along the exact same pathways.

Was it always like this? When did I come to know his Go as well as my own? Akira wondered. His connection with Shindou was so intuitive that it sometimes almost frightened him. How is it that I’m so sure that he will win? But he couldn’t explain it to himself; like so many other questions he had about Shindou, there was no answer. His romantic relationship with Shindou and their rivalry were both the same. It was a game in the dark, with no rules. Both of them were moving ahead into the uncertainty, toward the hand of God, toward something, and for the first time in his life, Akira found that he didn’t care whether he knew where he was going. 

“Oh!”

Waya and Saeki-san both exclaimed at the same time as they saw Shindou’s newest move. Yes, Shindou had played where Akira had expected.

“So that’s how it was!” Waya was saying as he placed the stone on the board. “He was coming in from the side, huh…”

Akira’s eyes swept over the room again, over Waya and Saeki-san who were absorbed in the recreation of the match, over the worn-down chairs, the shabby television, and the dim glare of the fluorescent lights. Then, silently gathering his things, he slipped out. He walked down the halls and out of the Go Institute, emerging into the faded sunlight of the autumn afternoon. 

. . . 

“Hey!”

Akira was standing alone in the small park near the Go Institute, watching a line of ants crawl past the toes of his shoes. He looked up to see Shindou jogging the last few steps up to Akira’s side.

“I got your text,” Shindou said, slightly out of breath. “Why’d you leave? Waya said that you came in for ten minutes or so and then when he looked up again you were gone! You really do appear and disappear suddenly you know.”

Akira studied Shindou’s wind-tousled hair and shining brown eyes. “I didn’t need to stay any longer than that,” he said. “I saw your game. It was beautiful Go, by the way.”

Shindou eyes met Akira’s before flicking away embarrassedly. “Uh, yeah. Thanks.” He also looked down to the line of ants and nudged a pebble towards them with his sneaker. “Is there uh… is there a reason why you said you wanted to meet in the park?”

“I thought we could take a walk.” 

Slowly, Shindou smiled. “Yeah. Okay.”

Side by side they walked the wide, dusty path. They passed by the children’s playground and the remnants of some spent fireworks. They looked out over the train tracks and the grey-blue river. Akira took Shindou’s hand.

“H-hey!” Shindou stammered. Akira could see the blood rushing to his cheeks.

“What is it, Shindou?”

“We’re in public, you know?”

“There’s no one around.”

“Ugh! Come on!” Shindou threw his left hand into the air. “You’re not fair at all!” 

“What’s not fair?”

“You! Everything! You know, for months you yell at me for saying even slightly romantic stuff, and now suddenly we’re holding hands in public! Seriously, what the hell!”

“What’s wrong with me changing my mind?” Akira demanded.

“Nothing!”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really! There’s nothing wrong with it!” Shindou said, exasperated, swinging Akira’s hand back and forth. “But if I die an early death because of you, it’s not my fault!”

“Death!?” Akira widened his eyes at Shindou.

“Yeah! Because you’re…” 

“Because I’m what?”

“Because you’re too…!”

“I’m too what, Shindou?”

“YOU’RE TOO CUTE!” Shindou shouted. Letting go of Akira’s hand suddenly, he ran out ahead of them and jumped onto a sakura tree, clambering up the knobby bark like a ten-year-old boy. 

“What are you doing!?” Akira called out. “You’re going to hurt the tree!”

Shindou didn’t respond. After climbing a little higher he stopped as though he had noticed something, and began to examine the surface of the tree. A moment later, he turned around with a grin. “Touya!”

“What?”

“Hey Touya, there’s a Go stone in here!”

Akira, walking up to the base of the tree, shook his head solemnly. “There can’t be.” 

“I’m serious! Look!” Shindou said excitedly.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m telling you, look!”

Akira, with one last distrustful glance at Shindou’s mischievous face, moved one step closer and carefully peered into the small hollow that Shindou was pointing to. Inside, hidden deep within the dark round hole, he saw…

…nothing.

“Shind—” he began to protest, but as he drew his head away from the hollow, his face was caught between Shindou’s two hands and a kiss was being pressed to his mouth. Shindou’s lips were dry, but his hands were warm and soft. Akira closed his eyes, savoring the sensation one lingering instant before carefully pulling back. 

“There. That’s revenge,” Shindou whispered.

Akira stared into his eyes. “How about you get down before you break the tree?” he asked.

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

Akira extended a hand to Shindou, which Shindou accepted. With only a little bit of scrabbling, Shindou’s sneakers slipped down the side of the tree and landed with a thump on the dusty ground. 

“Shall we go?” Akira asked.

“Yeah.”

They walked to the end of the park, Shindou’s hand in Akira’s.

Chapter 21: Encouragement

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

One day a few weeks later at the Go salon, a familiar voice rang out behind Akira.

“So you were here!” 

By the time Akira had turned around to see who it was, Ashiwara-san had placed a hand on his shoulder and was leaning over the teaching game that Akira was reviewing with Tsurumaru-san. 

“Really, now! Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you!? I know that you’re in high demand these days, but this is ridiculous!” Then, to Akira’s opponent, he apologized. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your game!”

“Ashiwara-san, it’s been a while.” Akira smiled up at him. “Would you like to sit down? We’re almost through.”

Ashiwara-san sat down and looked on with interest as the review wrapped up. It was the first time in a long while that Akira had been to his father’s Go salon. Playing against Shindou every day along with his preparations for the Honinbo race had taken priority throughout most of the summer, and it was only now that he had found a moment to drop by. Of course, as soon as he had entered the salon he had been swamped with requests for teaching games. 

“You played this joseki the last time we played as well, if I’m not mistaken,” he told Tsurumaru-san as he indicated some of her stones on the board. “It’s certainly not the worst way to respond to this situation, but if I attack from this side, it doesn’t hold up very well.”

“Then if I move here…?” she asked.

“That won’t work,” Ashiwara-san and Akira said in unison. 

“My goodness!” Tsurumaru-san laughed, holding a hand to her mouth. “With a Go professional on either side of me, I don’t know if I should feel spoiled or unlucky! But I don’t want to waste your time any longer. I’ll let you two talk to each other.” 

“You don’t have to—” Akira began to say as Tsurumaru-san stood up from the chair and took her purse, but she shook her head.

“I’m sure that as professionals you have very important things to say to each other. Don’t mind me.” Smiling warmly, she snuck away to the other side of the room to rejoin her husband. 

“Oopsies. I think I scared her off.” Ashiwara-san giggled, sitting down in the newly-vacated chair across from Akira.

“Sometimes I wonder if it’s still all right for me to come to this salon,” Akira sighed. “Some of the clientele have started insisting on paying me, even though I only come here to relax. I never accept the money, and it’s not my intention to change the atmosphere in any way, but somehow…”

“Well,” said Ashiwara-san, rubbing his chin, “I suppose they’ve come to see you as an adult. You are a professional after all! It wouldn’t be fair for them to get something for free that other people have to pay for.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Akira said ruminatively.

“Ahh, but it’s good to see you again!” Ashiwara-san leaned back in his chair, looking fondly at Akira. “Anyone would have said that you were avoiding me, with the number of times I’ve just missed meeting you recently!”

“Ashiwara-san, weren’t you in Hokkaido last week?”

“Ah, so you knew about that, huh? Can’t get anything past you, can I? Yep, Sapporo for six days, business and pleasure. So I guess it’s not entirely your fault that we haven’t been able to meet. But Akira,” he said suddenly. “You’ll never guess who I met there!”

“Who was it?”

“Ochi-kun! Do you remember him? He happened to be at the same event that I was attending, though I didn’t get a chance to say hello. You tutored him while he was an insei, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Akira said, feeling a little uncomfortable. He was fairly sure that Ashiwara-san wasn’t aware of the circumstances under which he had accepted to tutor Ochi. At that point, all he had cared about was knowing Shindou’s true strength. He hadn’t been very interested at all in Ochi’s progress except as a way to measure Shindou.

As though sensing the direction of Akira’s thoughts, Ashiwara-san’s expression softened, and he pushed a go-ke towards him gently. “That was back when you were in middle school. You’ve changed a lot since that time, Akira. I was really worried about you back then, you know?”

“You were worried about… me?” Akira asked, taking the go-ke.

“Sure I was! How could I not be? Seeing my bright, innocent Akira turn so serious and brooding! You always seemed dissatisfied about something even though you wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. It was like you were chasing something far ahead of you without taking any time to breathe! Of course I got worried!”

“I — didn’t mean to cause trouble for you, Ashiwara-san.”

“Well, as long as you’ve learned your lesson,” Ashiwara-san said huffily, then laughed. As he began to clear Tsurumaru-san’s game off the board, he looked up at Akira again. “Tell me, did you ever find what you were looking for?”

Akira blinked. “I don’t know…” His gaze grew distant as he considered the question. “I suppose… I did.”

Ashiwara-san smiled. “That’s what I thought! You seem to be doing a lot better.” Placing a black stone on the board, he wrinkled his brow as he studied Akira’s face. “What is it…? There’s definitely something that’s changed about you but I can’t put my finger on it… Oh! That’s it!”

As Ashiwara-san clapped his hands together, Akira tilted his head to the side, amused.

“Something different about me?”

“Yes, it’s the way you look when you play Go! Or… maybe the way you look when you’re not playing Go. Yes, both I think.”

Akira smiled, and placed his stone at the lower right star point. 

“I’m more concerned about the quality of my Go rather than the way that I look.”

“Well of course,” said Ashiwara-san, placing his own stone. “But you used to really look like a different person as soon as you had a go-ke beside you! All throughout your childhood, you would never say what you were thinking around the rest of us professionals, but when we were on the other side of the board from you, oof! The intensity went off the charts!” He chuckled. “It seems like it’s balanced out at least a little these days. You’re a little more relaxed when you play. Maybe just more relaxed in general.”

Akira slid a white stone into place. “…Ashiwara-san, you’re going to lose if you keep talking about me through the entire game. Don’t you think you should concentrate?”

“Akira, I swear! Here I am, trying to give you a pep talk and you—”

“That was a pep talk?”

“Yes! And the point is that you’re growing up into a fine adult! So keep doing what you’re doing! Don’t give up! Haste makes waste! Preparation is the first step to success! You can do anything you set your mind to!”

Akira laughed at this chain of random proverbs.

“You too, Ashiwara-san.”

“What do you mean, me too!” Ashiwara-san retorted. “I’ve already been a professional for years now! I’m not the one who needs encouragement!” But as Ichikawa-san walked up to them with two cups of coffee, Ashiwara-san’s indignant expression faltered, and he sighed. “… Oh, what am I saying? I suppose you’ve already won the Honinbo, so it’s not really the place of a title-less average joe like me to be encouraging you. Ichikawa-san!” He rapped his fist against the table crossly. “Akira’s growing up too quickly! Can’t you do something about it?”

Ichikawa-san set down the coffees carefully next to each of them and wiped her hands on her apron. “Akira-kun has been grown up for a few years already now. The only thing for us to do is get used to it.”

“Our young sensei has grown up, but that Shindou kid is going to be a little punk for the rest of his life!” shouted Kitajima-san, joining the conversation from two tables away.

“Kitajima-san, you always bring up Shindou-kun, even when he’s not in the room!”

“Ah! That’s right!” exclaimed Ashiwara-san, looking over to Akira. “What about Shindou-kun? Are you still talking with him? Have you seen him recently?”

“Oh didn’t you know?” Ichikawa-san said as she handed a spoon to Ashiwara-san. “Akira-kun and Shindou-kun are sharing an apartment.”

Akira turned his head to stare at her in shock.

“It’s been… let’s see, about five months now? Is that right?”

“Nearly six months,” Akira murmured vacantly, trying to process the implications of this new information.

“Oh, that’s right,” Ichikawa-san said. “Because it was just after Sasaki-san gave me those summer decorations. How is Shindou-kun? He hasn’t been back here since then.”

“He’s well,” said Akira carefully. “He’ll be going to Hiroshima next week for the next match in the Meijin race… Ichikawa-san, did you by chance talk to my father about the fact that I’m living with Shindou?”

“Yes, of course!” Ichikawa-san said brightly. “I thought it was so wonderful! I’ve always wanted to share an apartment with a friend! Is it a nice apartment? He doesn’t bother you too much?”

“Um, not too much,” Akira replied.

“You lucky duck!” Ashiwara-san patted Akira on the shoulder. “I bet you guys play Go all the time! I’m jealous! Must be nice having a rival!”

“Yes,” Akira said, stirring some sugar into his coffee before taking a sip. “It is nice.”

“You know what, Akira? You may think it sounds stupid, but I’m going to tell you something really important. All right? Are you ready?” Ashiwara-san held up one finger solemnly. “Being an adult is all about connection! Remember that!”

“I’ll remember,” Akira replied, nodding his head seriously.

“Go too! Go is all about connection. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don’t get too independent.”

“I won’t.”

“If you have something bothering you, don’t keep it all to yourself.”

“Understood.”

Ashiwara-san grinned and slapped both hands onto his thighs. “All right! Well, with that out of the way, let’s continue our match, shall we?”

“Ashiwara-san, it’s still your turn.”

“There you go being right about things again!” Ashiwara-san complained. “Hmph! There!” He placed his stone. “Are you happy?”

“Yes,” Akira said, now laughing. “I’m very happy. Thank you.”

. . . 

When Shindou came back that evening, Akira was on the phone.

“I know it’s asking a lot,” Akira said as Shindou shrugged off his backpack and kicked off his shoes. “I’m quite aware of my position in asking you this, and I’m fully prepared to take responsibility for whatever consequences may arise if it comes to reneging on the contract. I can go to another publisher if need be, but I thought I would like to negotiate if it’s at all possible.”

Shindou, raising his eyebrows at Akira as he passed by, jogged into the kitchen, and presumably having secured a snack, jogged away into his room.

“Yes,” Akira said. “Yes, I’m aware. But I’m afraid I’m not able to write the book as you suggested it… No, that won’t be necessary.”

From Shindou’s room there came a low grating sound, as though something very heavy were being dragged across the floor. A moment later the grating stopped, and Akira heard “Oof!” and then a loud thud and “Shit! Damn it! OW!”

Akira looked up concernedly, and watched Shindou limp into the bathroom.

“Ah, no. I’m sorry, I was momentarily distracted. Yes, as I said, I’m open to negotiating. I would need to include my co-author on the negotiations though, of course.”

Shindou emerged from the bathroom still limping and wincing before disappearing into his room.

“If that’s all right with you. Yes. I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. This Thursday? Oh, this next Thursday. Please give me a moment. Yes, that should be fine. Thank you. Thank you so much… Thank you. Goodbye.”

Akira hung up and walked over to the doorway of Shindou’s room. His eyes passed over the scattered magazines and clothes on the floor and came to rest on the large bookshelf that was for some reason in the very center of the room. 

“What are you doing?”

Shindou was sitting on the edge of his bed, examining one of his feet gingerly. He looked up at the sound of Akira’s voice.

“Oh, hey. What’s up? I was just moving some stuff around.”

“I can see that. Why?”

Shindou grinned. “Look, it’s perfect, right? Don’t you think that corner would be great for my Go board? I had it at the end of my bed, but it’s too cramped there. So I was gonna move the bookshelf so I could fit it—”

“You’re injured,” Akira interrupted.

“Oh, yeah. I kinda dropped the shelf on my toe when I was moving it.”

Navigating around the bookshelf, Akira moved to the bed to take a look at Shindou’s toe, which was bleeding. Then he went to the kitchen and returned to Shindou’s room with the first aid kit. He opened it and handed Shindou a band-aid and a disinfectant square.

“Use these.”

“Oh, thanks,” Shindou said, and began to tear at the outer wrapper of the disinfectant square. He glanced up at Akira. “So you’re quitting the book deal?”

“Rather than quitting, I’d say I’m modifying my plans. It seems that the publisher is at least not totally opposed to the idea of a different book. They weren’t very happy about the ultimatum that I gave, but that can’t be helped. I’ll have to talk to Isumi-san of course about what he wants to do, but I think—”

“Wait, Isumi-san? Why are you bringing up Isumi-san?”

“He’s my co-author.”

“Wait, WHAT?” Shindou set down the still unopened disinfectant square and gawked at Akira. “With Isumi-san? You two are writing a book!? I mean, do you guys even know each other?”

“He invited me out for lunch recently.”

“What, and now you guys are writing a book together all of a sudden!?”

“When we spoke, we found that we had very similar interests. He has notes that I’d like to make use of. I’ve already written a rough outline for the contents of the different chapters.”

“Seriously? Are you for reals? Hold on, hold on…”

Akira smiled at Shindou’s bewildered expression. Picking up the forgotten disinfectant square, he opened it and knelt down to place it on Shindou’s toe.

“Wait a sec— what are you— Hey!”

“You weren’t doing anything about it,” Akira said, looking up into Shindou’s eyes. “Sit still.”

“Touya! I can do that myself! You don’t have to—”

“Band-aid,” Akira said, holding out his hand out to Shindou.

“Seriously, why are you always so…” Shindou grumbled, but he handed Akira the band-aid anyway.

Akira wiped some of the blood away with the square. “…This is a book that I want to write,” he said as he carefully positioned the band-aid’s sterile cloth over the wound. “I don’t want to write a book about my father. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write that book now. This book with Isumi-san will be something I can put my best effort toward.”

There was silence from Shindou. 

Akira gave Shindou’s foot a light squeeze and made to stand up. “I’ll help you with the bookshelf,” he began to say, but stopped when he saw Shindou’s expression.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hey, uh, listen…” Shindou said. “About your dad… I was gonna ask you earlier, but I couldn’t find the right time and you were also super busy and uh… anyway. You know how my mom’s been calling me a ton recently?”

Akira nodded.

“Well that’s because I came out to her.”

Akira stared at him, dumbfounded.

“I mean, I didn’t say I was dating you specifically, so you don’t have to worry about that,” Shindou said hurriedly, “But I said I was dating a guy and that we were living together.” 

“When did you tell her?” Akira asked. 

“After the thing with your dad. I felt, you know… I felt really bad. I mean, it’s kind of my fault and all. And I wanted to do something for you I guess. Not like this makes us equal or anything… Like, I know how bad it’s been for you… and I guess it’s not really the same because my dad still doesn’t know. But I just wanted…” Shindou swallowed and turned his face away. “…That’s why my mom’s been calling so much. She kept crying on the phone, so I got tired of answering. But uh… yeah. She says she wants to meet you. I mean, not YOU you, but she said she wanted to meet my boyfriend. So…”

Akira had rarely seen Shindou this flustered before. Still kneeling, he reached out to touch Shindou’s knee, not sure of what to say.

“You don’t have to go,” Shindou said. “I totally get if you don’t want to. My mom would keep quiet about it. She wouldn’t go blabbing about it to her friends or anything, but it still would be telling one more person, so I get it if you don’t want to meet her.”

Akira hesitated. “Usually you introduce someone to your parents after the relationship becomes serious.”

“I am serious about you! I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life! I mean, I’m not just playing house or anything like that!” Shindou’s face was flushed with anger, and Akira’s heart contracted. 

“I’m sorry,” Akira said.

“It’s fine,” Shindou muttered. “I already said you don’t have to if you don’t want.”

“That’s not what I mean, Shindou! I want to meet her. I want to meet your mother.”

He found he couldn’t find the right words. He felt somehow stupid, as though he had been missing something important that had been right in front of his eyes the entire time. Gently, he lowered his forehead so that it rested against Shindou’s knees.

“I’ll meet her whenever you want. Before you go to Hiroshima if you’d like.” He took a deep breath. “…I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry I didn’t know how you felt. I’m sorry I’m still not good at this. Even when you’re the most important person to me, I’m still unable to convey my feelings properly… 

To his surprise, Akira heard Shindou laughing. Slowly, he raised his head.

“What are you apologizing for! You’re such a weird guy!” Shindou put both hands in Akira’s hair, and ruffled it energetically. 

“Shindou! What are you…!”

“Uwaaah! You look so cute like this! Touya! You should look in the mirror! You’re super cute!”

“Stop it!” Akira batted Shindou’s hands away, and drew back, trying to arrange his hair back into place. 

“You are though, you know… you’re really fricking cute…” Shindou said softly. Akira’s heart gave a loud thump as he met Shindou’s eyes, and so he averted his gaze and stood up.

“I’ll help you move the bookshelf later, once your foot is better. For now you’ll just have to leave it here.”

“What? I thought you were gonna help me!” Shindou exclaimed, limping along behind Akira into the kitchen. 

“I changed my mind.”

“You’re not gonna tell me that I’ve gotta stay in bed and rest all evening just because of my foot, right?”

“Even if I said so, you wouldn’t listen to me.”

“Yeah, you’re right about that!” Shindou said, slipping into the space between Akira and the kitchen counter. “You know, you’re way too cute! If you keep on doing cute stuff all the time, I’m definitely gonna have to do something about it.”

Akira sighed at this non sequitur. “I am a man, Shindou. I would think that ‘cute’ is not the word,” He maneuvered past Shindou to reach into the cabinet for the canisters of loose leaf tea.

“Well it is for you.”

“Why don’t you sit down?” Akira asked, as he felt Shindou’s arms nonchalantly wrap around his waist, once again impeding his tea-making. 

“Don’t wanna.”

“Shindou,” Akira warned.

“Touya, let’s play a match.”

“That’s why I’m making tea! But I can’t if you won’t let me go!”

“Wait really?”

“Yes!” Akira said exasperatedly.

“Awesome! I’ll go set it up!” 

As Shindou half-limped half-jogged into the living room, Akira took a deep breath. He touched his hair —  it was still not quite the same since Shindou had ruffled it. He tried to fix it one way, then a different way, and stole a glance at his reflection in the air vent over the stove. He looked very silly.

He began to attempt to fix his hair a third time, then lowered his hand deliberately. If Shindou insisted on doing ridiculous things, then he would have to learn to live with the consequences. And if those consequences included losing in Go to someone whose hair looked as silly as Akira’s did at the moment, then all the better.

As the tea kettle began to whistle, Akira took it off the stove and set to work making a cup of tea for Shindou and for himself.

Notes:

I feel kind of bad for Ashiwara-san, who was already getting teased by Akira when Akira was twelve. I think an eighteen-year-old Akira would perpetually have the upper hand.

Chapter 22: Family

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What about these?”

“What are they? Cream puffs? No, I don’t think so.”

“You say no to everything! How about these then?”

“Shindou, we can’t bring chocolate snacks to your mother’s house!”

“Why not? She’s literally my mom. She doesn’t need anything fancy. You said you wanted to bring a dessert. Isn’t this a dessert?”

“I meant fruit!” 

“What’s wrong with the fruit on that shelf?”

“I was looking for a melon.”

“Okay, then grapes?”

“Hmmm. They’ll have to do.”

Akira knelt down to examine the packages of grapes on the display rack. His lavender dress shirt and brown slacks contrasted sharply with Shindou’s neon orange hoodie and blue jeans, and he was aware of how strange they must look shopping together at a convenience store. However, it was important to him that he dress nicely for his first meeting with Shindou’s mother, even if Shindou didn’t think so. He wanted to make a good impression.

“We’re gonna be late.”

“Weren’t you the one who insisted on a match before we left?”

“Yeah, and I said speed Go! And you were like ‘that’s not going to help you in the Meijin race,’ and then you kept taking forever to think about each move, and then you said we had to get a dessert—”

“These ones will do fine.”

“Oi! Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes. You’re saying it’s my fault that we’re late.”

“Because it is!”

“It is not, Shindou.”

“It is though!”

“It is NOT my fault!” Akira said, stepping up to the register. “Just these please. Oh, and I’ll take this too.”

“Cough drops?” Shindou asked, picking up the package. 

“I’ll be giving a presentation while you’re in Hiroshima,” Akira explained. “I like to have them on hand.”

“Oh yeah. It’s the lecture on sabaki moves, right? Crap, I wanted to see that.”

“You’ll have more important things to be thinking about,” Akira said, putting the grapes and cough drops into his black canvas bag.

“Okay, so hear me out,” said Shindou as they walked out of the convenience store and headed toward the train station. “You know when I did that pincer, and then you started leaning in with the group below? So I was thinking, what if you’d left that group alone and attacked me where I was trying to go instead? I feel like that would’ve shifted the weight on the board.”

Akira conjured up in his mind their board from earlier in the afternoon. “You were overconcentrated in that area. There was no benefit for me to approach you there.”

“Okay, but you were so close in the first half of the game. It was after the pincer that you started losing your grip, right?”

“No, it was because I didn’t destroy you on the right side of the board while you were weak there.”

“What, you mean in the early game?”

“I had an intuitive sense that I ought to be breaking your ladder then, but I ignored it. That was my main mistake.”

“Hold on — but that was way early.”

“Yes, that was where I went wrong. Shindou, do you have your IC card?”

“Yeah, I got it here.”

They made their way through the gates to the platform and were able to catch the train just before the doors closed.

“You know, my mom doesn’t know anything about Go,” Shindou said once on the train. He took Akira’s bag for him and grabbed hold of an overhead grip. “If you start talking about anything Go-related, her eyes’ll glaze over.”

“My mother is the same way,” Akira said.

“She’s definitely going to talk about her favorite TV show. She brings it up in like every conversation.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“Ugh, and she’s probably going to make karaage for dinner. She always makes that when guests come over.” He looked over apprehensively at Akira. “Do you like karaage?”

“I don’t mind it.”

Shindou fell silent and looked out the window, frowning. In the past few days, Akira had not failed to remark the tenseness that Shindou displayed whenever the subject of today’s dinner was mentioned. Akira had tried to convince Shindou that it was fine to schedule the dinner for after he had returned from Hiroshima, but Shindou had said that he wanted to get it out of the way sooner rather than later. As Akira watched Shindou’s eyes flit back and forth as they followed the passing buildings and trees, the conductor’s muffled voice announced the next stop over the loudspeakers.

“This is it,” Shindou murmured to Akira. 

“Okay.”

They got off the train and made their way toward Shindou’s house, but Shindou remained silent, his eyes far away and his brow slightly furrowed. Akira, sensing that it would be better to leave him alone, used the time to look around him at the small, unassuming houses lined up side by side and the trees in the yards with their red and orange leaves. Shindou’s neighborhood, he thought, was not so very different from any of the other residential areas that he had passed through before. He might have walked through it years earlier and never known that his one true rival was day by day learning, changing, and growing stronger in one of these houses. 

“Okay, we’re here,” Shindou said, his steps slowing in front of a modest two-story dwelling. “Are you ready?”

Akira nodded. And Shindou, looking rather as though he were about to launch a perilous attack on enemy territory, stepped up to the front door and rang the doorbell.

“Coming!” came the voice through the door. The woman who opened it was possibly the most motherly-looking person Akira had ever seen. She was wearing a yellow apron over a white dress, and her face was worn with thin lines of care and framed by dark brown hair. To his surprise, in spite of the obvious differences between them, Akira could clearly see the physical resemblance between mother and son. 

“Oh, you’re here!” Shindou’s mother said, looking from Akira to her son. “It’s so good to finally meet you!” She smiled at Akira. “Now, dinner is nearly—”

“Mom, you’re blocking the way in,” Shindou complained.

“Oh, I…” Shindou’s mother faltered, and Shindou took this opportunity to step past her, shrugging off his backpack on his way and taking off his shoes. He turned around to Akira, who was still outside, and motioned him in. 

“My name is Akira Touya,” Akira said to Shindou’s mother, who still seemed to be dazed from her son’s rude behavior. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“It’s very nice to meet you too,” Shindou’s mother replied. She laughed self-consciously. “Um… please come in!” 

Akira followed her inside, and took off his shoes in the entryway.

“Mom, this is Touya,” Shindou said. “Touya, my mom. Cool. Great. So now we can all sit down or whatever right?”

“Hikaru, your friend has just gotten here. There’s no need to—”

“He’s not my friend, he’s my boyfriend, okay?” Shindou thrust his hands in his pockets and slid his socks along the floor towards the kitchen. “What’d you make? Karaage?”

“Oh dear…” Shindou’s mother appeared quite overwhelmed. Akira stood at the edge of the entryway, taking in the bouquet of flowers in a vase to his left, the skid-marked wooden stairs, the soft light coming from the kitchen. It was a normal modern home, very different from Akira’s family home. In spite of the welcoming atmosphere, or perhaps because of it, he couldn’t help feeling out of place. He was not a tutor visiting a student, nor could he assume the lighthearted air he might take if he were indeed only a friend to Shindou. 

To Shindou’s mother, what was he? The one who took her son away from her? A deviant?

“Well… Akira-kun…” said Shindou’s mother, turning to him. “I’m very indebted to you. I appreciate all you’ve done for Hikaru.”

“No, I’m the one who—”

“What, are you guys still doing all those formalities?” Shindou drawled, sliding back into the entryway. “Mom, your broccoli’s burning.”

“Oh goodness!” Shindou’s mother rushed past her son into the kitchen.

Turning towards him, Akira leveled a glare at Shindou. “Why are you talking to her that way?” he demanded.

“Like what?”

“You’re being extremely rude.”

Shindou looked at the floor, glowering. “I’m not! I just—”

“You are!”

“I just don’t wanna be here,” Shindou said angrily. 

“I don’t understand. You told me that you wanted me to meet your mother. This was your idea.”

“Yeah but I forgot that it was gonna…!” 

“What?” Akira searched his face, trying to understand.

“I just have a lot of memories here,” Shindou said, his gaze drifting to the staircase. “That was kinda why I moved out in the first place, ‘cause I didn’t wanna think about it all the time. And now you’re here and my mom’s here, and it’s really weird…”

“How do you think I feel?” Akira countered. “This is your home. I’ve never been here before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to your mother.”

“Seemed like you were doing fine,” Shindou muttered.

“Wasn’t this visit something you wanted to do for me?” Akira asked.

Shindou swallowed, his face downcast. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Yeah, it was… I guess. I mean, if it even makes a difference to you.”

Akira frowned. “We’re here now, so let’s do what we have to.”

Shindou snorted in spite of himself. “You’re making it sound like we’re at the Hokuto Cup or something.”

“The Hokuto Cup I can handle.”

Shindou’s mother stepped back into the room to see her son laughing and a faint smile playing on Akira’s face. The hand in which she had been anxiously gripping a potholder fell down to her side, and something in her expression relaxed.

“Won’t you come in and sit down?” she asked gently. 

“Okay,” Shindou said, still chuckling. “Okay. Let’s go.”

. . . 

Shindou’s mother had prepared not karaage, but chicken nanban, served with a broccoli and sweet potato salad, white rice, and miso soup. Akira sat down at the table across from Shindou, but when Shindou’s mother returned to the dining room she waved her hand at her son in a shooing motion. 

“Why don’t you sit by him? Don’t let him sit all by himself like that.”

“It’s not like he’s a kid,” Shindou grumbled, but as he sat down in the new chair, his hand found Akira’s under the table and gave a quick squeeze.

“Akira-kun, please eat a lot okay? I made too much so you don’t have to worry about holding back.”

“Thank you.” Akira dipped his head in gratitude as Shindou’s mother piled too much chicken onto his plate.

Shindou gave him a knowing side glance. He was well aware of how little Akira usually ate for dinner, and normally at their apartment he would eat whatever Akira couldn’t finish. Tonight, Akira only hoped that Shindou would have the dignity and discretion not to steal anything from his plate while they were at the table.

The clinking of dishes continued cheerily for a few moments as the platters were passed around, but once everyone had been served, a conspicuous silence hung over the table. Akira plucked the smallest piece of chicken off his plate and brought it to his mouth, carefully staring at the tablecloth in front of him and waiting for something to happen. Shindou’s mother was the first to speak.

“Akira-kun, you’re a Go player like Hikaru?”

“That’s right.”

She smiled encouragingly. “Hikaru told me you won a title recently.”

“Yes, fairly recently.”

“I admit I don’t know very much about Go at all. Was it an important title?” 

“Yes, I would say it was somewhat important.” 

Beside him, Shindou did a very poor job of stifling his laughter.

“You worked very hard, didn’t you?” Shindou’s mother said, bringing a napkin to her mouth and paying no heed to her son. “I was so surprised when I learned how serious the world of professional Go was. Until Hikaru became interested, it was never something I had even known existed!”

Akira nodded slightly. “It’s a difficult world to penetrate for beginners. It’s not like baseball or competitive table tennis. I’m currently co-authoring a book on Go aimed at a general audience, but it’s been challenging for me to write it in such a way that anyone can easily understand.”

“Oh, you’re writing a book! How interesting!” She looked from her son to Akira tentatively. “Akira-kun, er… how old are you?”

“I’m eighteen years old.”

“Oh then you’re… you’re younger than Hikaru then!”

“Why do you have to sound so surprised, huh?” Shindou said, raising his eyebrows at his mother. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well he’s already writing a book so I just thought —”

“So?”

“And he’s taller than you are, dear…”

“Ughhhh!” Shindou moaned, letting his head hang down so that his hair fell into his tartar sauce. Akira made to tap Shindou on the shoulder, but Shindou’s mother was faster.

“Hikaru! You’re getting your hair all caught up in your food. Oh, look at you!” She got up from the table and returned with a wet washcloth which she attempted to place on her son’s forehead. 

“Mom! Stop! Seriously!” Shindou tried to wave her away, but she persisted, dabbing off the sauce from the ends of his bangs while dodging his flailing hands.

Akira watched the scene unfold before him, and found that his chest had tightened painfully. He saw in his mind’s eye the image of his own mother wiping away strawberry ice cream from the corner of his mouth on a shinkansen many years ago. That motherly hand, those gentle eyes. Even if Shindou made a show of apathy and embarrassment, surely he knew how precious these things were.

Don’t waste these moments. Can you understand how lucky you are?

“Are you done yet? You’re done, right?” Shindou was saying, pushing his mother away firmly with both hands. He looked over at Akira. “You too. You don’t have to force yourself to eat everything if you’re not hungry, you know?”

“No, I’m not forcing myself at all,” Akira said. He turned to Shindou’s mother. “It’s very good.”

He felt that if he spoke normally to her, everything would be fine. Shindou still had a mother who loved him and accepted him in spite of everything. The least Akira could do was to put his own worries aside and be pleasant.

Shindou’s mother smiled at him hesitantly. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. But somehow once again there was a heaviness in the air, and the conversation dwindled away. Akira was having difficulty repressing the sadness that had flooded him unexpectedly. He drank some soup, his eyes still turned down. He had no idea what he could say to Shindou’s mother. There was nothing he could say. This was not his home. He had no home. No matter what he said or did here, in Shindou’s mother’s eyes surely he would never be more than—

“Um…” 

Across the table, Shindou’s mother was still smiling uncertainly. “You know, a while back I watched a movie,” she said.

Akira met her eyes, startled by the sudden remark. 

“It was… well, I can’t remember the title but it was just after Hikaru called me and told me… everything… and I…” She laughed. “It just happened that it was playing in theaters, so I went to see it.” 

She set her chopsticks down, continuing unsteadily. “I’d never seen any movie about… gay people before, and I wasn’t sure if it would be something I could understand, but when I got into the story I couldn’t stop thinking about Hikaru and about what his life was going to be like later. The men in the movie lived such difficult lives, but they couldn’t help it. It wasn’t their fault that they were different. I was probably the only one in the movie theater who was crying at the end of the film! But I…” She smiled again, as though trying to reassure herself. “Well, I just thought, no matter what happens, there’s nothing that can be done about it, is there?”

Akira could sense that Shindou had tensed up beside him. “Mom, forget it. We don’t have to talk about this stuff.”

Shindou’s mother leaned forward across the table. “Akira-kun, when Hikaru told me about what happened between you and your father…”

“Mom, STOP!” Shindou said. “He doesn’t want to talk about it, okay? Leave it alone!”

“But Hikaru—”

“Shindou, it’s fine.” Akira placed his hand on Shindou’s arm firmly. “It’s all right. I don’t mind talking about it.” He looked into Shindou’s mother’s gleaming eyes. “What he told you was right,” he said. “I don’t have a father anymore.”

Her eyes were so tender, so loving as she looked back at him that he almost couldn’t bear it. “Akira-kun,” she said gently. “It’s been very difficult for you, hasn’t it?”

“Yes. It has,” he said. There was a lump in his throat.

“I thought so,” she said. “I knew so. There’s no way a son can hear something like that from his own father and not suffer terribly.”

To his surprise, Akira found that the corners of the room were beginning to look watery.

“You’ve been so strong,” she said. “You’ve done so much more than you should have to at your age. Than you should ever have to.” A tear fell down her cheek as she reached out across the table towards him. “But Akira-kun, because it’s you that’s with Hikaru, I know that things will be all right. I was so worried when I heard that Hikaru was living with a man, but I can’t tell you how relieved I am to know that it’s someone like you.” She took his hand and squeezed it tightly. “Please take care of him.”

Akira couldn’t respond to her, his own tears threatening to fall from where they were welling up.

“I—”

“Hey,” Shindou interrupted, leaning back in his chair. “You know, there’s something that’s kinda bothering me about this. How come it’s ‘Please take care of Hikaru?’ Why does it have to be like that? You’re kinda making it sound like I can’t take care of myself.”

“That’s because you can’t,” Akira said bluntly as he wiped some of the wetness from his eyes.

“I can’t? And who made dinner last night!?”

“You can’t call spaghetti and a can of sauce at 8:30PM dinner!”

“You ate it though!” Shindou accused.

“I ate exactly one bite and only because you insisted that I try some!”

“You ate two bites!”

“I did not!”

“You totally did!”

“I only ate one! And I had told you that I had already had dinner but you— oh.” Akira remembered at that moment just where he was, and that Shindou’s mother was still sitting across from him. But the expression she was wearing was warm and pleased.

“Hikaru,” she said, her face glowing. “I’m so happy for you.”

“What?” Shindou turned around as she got out of her chair and walked to the kitchen. “Hey! What do you mean?”

“I’ll go bring out the grapes.”

“Oi! Don’t ignore me! I swear, both of you guys…”

“Shindou, you can have the rest of my chicken if you’d like,” Akira said.

The annoyed expression disappeared, and a wide grin took its place on Shindou’s face. “All of it? Nice!” 

With remarkable dexterity, Shindou swiftly picked up the three remaining pieces of chicken off of Akira’s plate, and brought them to his own. Akira smiled, and got up from his seat to help Shindou’s mother clear the table.

. . . 

When the three of them were finally gathered at the door and saying their goodbyes, it was already dark and chilly outside. 

“Hikaru, you’ll save one of the bottles of tea for Akira-kun, won’t you?”

“It doesn’t really matter ‘cause we’re living together…”

“Hikaru, please!”

“Okay, okay! I will!”

“And you’ll remember to put the salad in the refrigerator?”

“Yeah! I’m not gonna forget! I don’t even know why you made so much salad though.”

“Thank you so much for dinner tonight,” Akira said. “Everything was delicious.”

“Oh, I’m so glad. I’m sorry Hikaru’s father wasn’t here. His job makes it impossible for him to come home for most of the year. But maybe next time you come around.”

“I’d be very glad to meet him.”

“Mom, it’s cold! Can we go?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll let you go.”

Akira began to bow his goodbye, but Shindou’s mother exclaimed “Oh, Akira-kun! One more thing!”

“What is it?”

She took him aside, grasping his arm. “Akira-kun… I want you to know you’re always welcome here. I know it’s not what you’re used to, but I want you to think of this as another home. If you can. Please.”

Akira nodded softly. “Thank you. I — thank you.” He looked at the cozy orange light emanating from the front window and the bedraggled potted plants by the front door. “I’m sure we’ll be back again soon, if you’ll have us.”

“Of course,” she said, letting go of his arm. “Come back when you can. I know you’re both busy.”

“Mom, are you done? My hands are freezing!”

“I told you you’d need gloves!” Akira said, turning towards him. 

“I wouldn’t need them if you guys weren’t gonna chat all night!”

“You’d better go.” Shindou’s mother smiled.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!”

She waved goodbye until they turned the corner and disappeared from sight.

The moon shone bright and yellow over the small houses in the neighborhood. Seeing Shindou shivering, Akira took both his hands and rubbed them between his own until they were good and warm. 

“Thanks,” Shindou said.

They briskly walked the rest of the way back to the train station.

Notes:

A little sadness, a little joy.

Chapter 23: An evening in

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Dear Sunahara-san,

I’m very sorry for my profound lateness in replying to your last email. I have been quite busy with preparations for the Honinbo title. However, I admit that if I said that it was only busyness that kept me from responding, I would be lying. In your first email to me, you asked me why it is that I play Go. Honestly, I didn’t have know the answer to that question myself at that time, and I couldn’t think of how to respond to you. A few things have occurred to me since then, and although I’m afraid the rest of this email may become long-winded, I hope you will allow me to write out my reasons as I have come to understand them.

Perhaps it sounds trite for me to say so, but I have always found Go fascinating in part because it is a game that has come to us through the millennia. It has a rich and ancient history, and in it is buried all the skill and knowledge of countless great predecessors — masters such as Honinbo Dosaku or Honinbo Shuusaku. But Go is still alive. It is constantly changing and evolving as new players bring their own ideas. I think in the beginning I wanted to become one of those who changed the game through the influence of my own skill. I thought that if I were able to leave an enduring mark on the game, my life would be meaningful. Even today, the search for the Hand of God is one of the main motivations that inspires me to work harder and improve my Go, but it is a long path — an eternal path with no end in sight. So that alone is not what motivates me to play.

Throughout my career so far, I have often experienced frustration. There have been times when my own lack of skill has been laid bare before me, and the crushing realization of how far I have yet to go has left me feeling severely disappointed in myself. In those times, what has motivated me to continue is the beauty that I see in others’ Go.

The beauty of Go is the beauty of seeing another person’s mind. There are some things that cannot be expressed through words, and I believe that Go has always been able to express something that I can find nowhere else. I’m hungry for that exhilaration. I will never get tired of it for the rest of my life. So, more than for my own improvement, I think I can say that I play in order to meet with others on an even higher level. I’ve spent much of my life chasing after those above me. I’ve chased after my father, naturally. I’ve also found a rival to chase — someone who frustrates me and compels me and who draws me ever upward. I trust in him because I know we are both looking in the same direction.

A good friend told me recently that Go is all about connection. I think that’s true. When we play Go, we connect to all the past teachers before us. We set an example for all the students who will come after us. I used to believe that I could play Go independently, relying solely on my own skill. But now I see that my journey as a Go player has been marked by the support and influence of others at every step of the way. My Go is not my own; it’s the Go that was built slowly through every game I have ever played against another. That is why when I play Go, I am not alone.

I’ve likely written more than you expected or needed, but I hope that this email has provided you with a satisfactory answer to your question. I appreciate, as always, your continued support.

Sincerely,

Akira Touya Honinbo

 

Akira read over the email once more, then hit the send button. He stretched his neck from side to side and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. A noise next to him caused him to look up.

“A laptop now, huh?”

Shindou flopped down on the couch and scooted near to Akira to snuggle his head against his shoulder.

“Shindou,” Akira said, adjusting his position to accommodate him. “How long have you been home?”

“Just a minute or two,” Shindou said, stroking Akira’s hair back behind his ear. He looked out of the corner of his eye at the laptop. “Pretty fancy stuff.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve bought since I won the Honinbo.”

“Oh. Very frugal of you.”

“Mm.”

Akira pulled Shindou in closer and felt a kiss pressed against his neck in response.

“Wanna play a match?” Shindou asked.

“I think I’m a little tired.”

“For reals? Okay, then… do you wanna have dinner?”

Shindou’s shirt smelled good. Akira leaned in further, relaxing completely and letting his body weight fall against him.

“You really are tired, aren’t you?” Shindou laughed, stroking Akira’s head. “What about TV? I’ll make dinner. There’s that movie on tonight, right? The Hollywood one you wanted to see.”

“Will you watch too?” Akira murmured.

“Yeah, I’ll watch.”

“Good.”

. . .

“Hey, you know, I’m thinking of learning coding,” Shindou yelled from the kitchen.

Akira turned on the television and switched the channel from NHK to Movie Plus. “Why would you do that?”

“The other day I was at Waya’s place, and he was showing me this Go video game with AI on his Playstation. It’s not bad actually.”

“There’s no way that you lost against a video game.”

“Well yeah, I won, but playing against it was kinda cool, you know. And Waya was saying that in the future they might make an AI that could actually defeat top pros.”

“I highly doubt that,” Akira said.

“I dunno. But I wanted to try it anyway. Coding I mean.”

Akira breathed in the spicy scent drifting from the kitchen, and pulled a blanket over himself.

“Well in any case you should save whatever side hobbies you’re thinking of taking up until after the Meijin race is decided,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

A muffled ringtone from nearby let Akira know that Shindou’s cell phone had once again fallen in between the cushions of the couch. He fished it out.

“It’s Akari-san,” he said. “Do you need to answer it?”

“Oh shit! She’s gonna be pissed at me,” Shindou said. “I said I was gonna visit her at her college but it totally slipped my mind. Uh, don’t answer it.”

“When were you supposed to visit her?”

“Thursday night.”

“But that’s when—”

“Yeah, I know. That was dinner with Mom. I’m not gonna tell her that, obviously.”

As the title of the movie finally appeared on the television screen, Akira reflected. There had been a point at which Akira had suspected that Shindou was interested in Akari-san romantically. Now, the idea seemed laughable to him. When Shindou looked at him with steady, loving eyes, Akira knew there was no one else who could ever captivate Shindou’s attention the way that they had long ago captivated each other.

Finally, Shindou and I are looking at each other as I think we were always meant to. From the very first time that I met him there was always something that drew me forward, making me chase after him. I had worried that loving him might mean losing sight of that, but instead I’ve come to know his Go even better. If anything, both of us are progressing faster than we ever have before.

“Touya, is the movie starting?” Shindou asked.

“It’s already started,” Akira informed him.

“Crap! I’m not even close to being done with dinner. Can you tell me what I miss?”

“I’ll tell you,” Akira said, and directed his attention back to the screen.

. . .

“Bradley!” Patricia cried, her blonde hair fluttering in the wind.

“This is crazy,” Shindou said, leaning against Akira’s shoulder as he chewed on a piece of kimchi.

“Bradley, please! Don’t go there! I know you’re going to get hurt, and I can’t bear it!” Patricia fell down to her knees crying.

“What the hell even is this movie.”

“Shindou, I’m trying to watch this,” Akira said.

On the screen, the fighter jets soared overhead, and Bradley turned back to look over his shoulder, his gaze stoic.

“I love you, Patricia.”

“Bradley, no!”

“Seriously though,” Shindou said, turning around to look at Akira. “He knows he’s gonna die, and he’s going anyway. That’s just stupid. And jeez, foreigners sure do say ‘I love you’ a lot. This is what? The fifth time?”

“Not that many,” Akira murmured.

“It’s at least the fourth time. Why do they say it that much?”

Akira said nothing and continued watching the movie. Bradley’s gloved hand gripped the steering wheel of the jet. He punched at the buttons on the control panel, and the machine rose into the air.

“Hey Touya,” Shindou said over the whirring of the engine.

“What?”

“Say it.”

“Say what?”

“Say ‘I love you’ to me.”

“Now?”

Akira looked at Shindou’s face and turned down the volume on the remote.

“Why do you want me to say that?” he asked.

“Just do it.”

Shindou was wearing an irritatingly smug expression. Akira sighed.

“No.”

“Why not!?”

He turned the volume up again and crossed his legs. “It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s not embarrassing. That guy just did it.”

“Well, I’m Japanese.”

“Say it in English then.”

“If you think it’s so easy, then why don’t you say it?”

Shindou pouted. “That’s not…”

“Go ahead. I’m waiting.”

The sound of gunshots and labored breathing continued from the television as Akira stared into Shindou’s eyes.

“Well it’s too embarrassing if you’re just staring at me like that!” Shindou stammered, his cheeks coloring.

“So you admit that it’s embarrassing.”

“If you’re in a relationship, don’t you think it’s normal to want your boyfriend to say ‘I love you’ sometimes?”

“I don’t need him to tell me. I already know that.”

“Tooooouyaaaaaaa!” Shindou whined. On the screen, there was a large explosion, and Shindou jolted. “Holy shit…”

“Just watch the movie,” Akira said, pulling Shindou closer against him.

“Did Stanley die?”

“Who’s Stanley?”

“Uh, that guy. The guy in the jet.”

“That’s Bradley, Shindou!!”

. . .

As the ending credits rolled, Akira stroked Shindou’s hair.

“Shindou.”

“Mm.”

“Shindou, don’t go to sleep here.”

Shindou lifted his head up and looked around blearily at the TV screen.

“Did Stanley die?”

“No, Bradley did not die.”

Shindou laid his head back down on Akira’s lap. “Oh. That’s good.”

“You say that as though you were paying any attention at all to the movie.”

“Hey, I was paying attention. There was that part where there were planes.”

“That was the entire movie.”

“And there was a girl.”

“Yes, her name was Patricia. Shindou, I think you had better go to sleep.”

“Okay.”

“On a bed.

“Ughhhhh…”

Akira dragged Shindou up from the couch and pushed him in the direction of his own room. Then he got out his laptop and opened the word processor document with his notes for the second chapter of his book. In his inbox there were two emails from the Go Institute, and one from Isumi-san. As Shindou brushed his teeth, Akira set the kettle to boil on the stove and looked over Isumi-san’s message with interest. Another trip to China next month, and a prospective trip to Korea in November. For the second trip, Akira was invited to come along if he was available.

“Are you going to sleep?” Shindou called from his room.

“I’ll be a while,” Akira replied.

“Okay. Well, good night then!”

“Good night, Shindou.” After sending out a tentative reply to Isumi-san, Akira quickly lost himself in internet research on the Korean Go Institute. There was an unexpected wealth of information on an amateur player’s personal blog, and by the time that he had collected a page or two of notes, the clock in the kitchen said 11:09, so Akira got up and put his laptop away. The kimchi hotpot that Shindou had made for dinner had created a formidable mess in the kitchen, but Akira judged it was too late at night to do anything about it. He made a mental note to himself to scold Shindou in the morning.

Akira got into his pajamas and brushed his teeth. The door to Shindou’s room was slightly ajar, but as he made to shut it, something made him stop. He looked into the darkness at Shindou’s disheveled sleeping form.

“Shindou.”

There was no reply.

“Shindou,” he said just a little louder, but Shindou did not move.

Softly, Akira stepped over to Shindou’s bed and looked down at his face. Shindou’s chest rose and fell. His hair was in disarray, and one hand rested on the pillow next to his cheek. Akira stared at him. Was he asleep? Really asleep?

“I love you forever,” he whispered to his rival, his lover…

As expected, it really was embarrassing to say out loud. Akira exhaled, and began to step away from the bed when a hand suddenly broke free from under the covers and pulled at the hem of Akira’s pajama shirt.

“What are you— Sh-Shindou!!”

“Where do you think you’re going, huh?” said the sleepy voice. “Get in here. God, you’re cute sometimes.”

And Akira was pulled back into the bed.

Notes:

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. This is the first time I’ve ever written something so long! It was a great chance for me to experiment with plot development, character development, etc. There are some things I wish I had written more skillfully, but I’m overall happy with how the story turned out. It was important for me to write something that went a little beyond usual rom-com tropes; I wanted to try writing something that showed Hikaru and Akira continuing to work things out after they got together as well! Neither of them is perfect, but they’ve made the first step — the first commitment to each other in the long series of commitments that will make up their relationship.

I know this is just a fan fiction, and I feel a little silly when I think about how much time I’ve spent mulling over it, reworking paragraphs, and rereading chapters over the past year… but everyone’s comments have been so encouraging and lovely to read. If you have a moment, I would always love to hear your thoughts, interpretations, constructive criticism, etc!

On to the next fic, hopefully! See you again soon!

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