A/N: Many thanks to ruxi for beta-ing. Any mistakes you find are mine. Written for blind_go Round 8: Clichés. Reposted mostly unchanged but for one paragraph.

Princess, Princess

by Viridian Magie

"Young boys," Kuwabara-honinbou rasps out, "should look the part."

"Well, I'm glad I'm not a young boy then," Akira retorts, and, really, he should have kept silent, because he's obviously set himself up for –

"A bit confused, aren't you?" The old man laughs, "I know this really excellent therapist. Maybe you should give him a ring."

He lets out a long, silent breath, and tells himself that Kuwabara- san is merely trying to psyche him out before the match, and that it will not work. He's a twenty-one year old adult, a professional Go player, and he never gets fazed by anything (except for Shindou's idiotic thoughts on good game strategy, obviously, but only a lunatic would have answered his keima with a hane at 13-4 – it rankles him that it actually worked).

"Speaking from personal experience, Kuwabara-honinbou?" Akira replies in what he feels is his calmest tone, the one he usually saves for particularly annoying customers and Shindou. The calm is shattered quite soon. Or it's more as if the Honinbou slowly, but meticulously whittles away at it, before delivering a final, great blow.

Sometimes Akira thinks Ogata-san is on to something when he claims that certain unnamed Go players are senile.

Or suffer from dementia.

It takes forty-nine seconds for Kuwabara-san to stop laughing, the clock on the wall informs him. He's been staring at it in an attempt to drown out the old man's wheezing through sheer determination. It works when he is playing - a bomb could go off next to him, and he wouldn't notice - but this time his ability to block out anything and everything deserts him. This, Akira knows, does not bode well for the game or for any future games with the Honinbou, for that matter. By the time Kuwabara-san does settle down, the match is about to start, and they have to go. As is customary, the old man waits until the last second to get the final shot in.

Akira loses the match. He likes to think it was because he couldn't stop imagining Kuwabara-honinbou in drag.

He knows that wasn't it.

Two weeks pass, and the thought does not leave him. It sneaks up on him when he least expects it: on the train, in the shower, during a game of speed-Go with Shindou.

While shopping for underwear.

"You might enjoy dressing the part."

No, he wouldn't. He's quite certain of that. Mostly certain. Some.

Akira pauses near the stairway, mentally listing the pros and cons – there are a lot of cons – before deciding to try it just this once, and to prove himself right (and Kuwabara-san wrong).

According to the floor plan he is now contemplating, Womenswear is one level down. He could say that he was buying things for his sister. Or, better, for his girlfriend, since certainly no one buys their sisters underwear. He wonders if people buy it for their girlfriends or if that would make people think he was strange. Well, stranger than they already think he is, for reasons Akira can't quite comprehend. The fact that he plays professional Go seems to be a part of it, but then even other Go players – like Shindou and Waya – think he's strange. Ochi doesn't, which isn't really helping matters, since even Akira knows that Ochi isn't what one might call normal.

Though he's probably never thought about "dressing the part," as Kuwabara-san put it and if he has, Akira does not want to know.

Right. Mind made up, Akira pushes open the glass doors to the staircase. Heading down the stairs makes him think of ladders, which brings about the memory of his father showing him the futility of trying to run once such a pattern has been established on the board. He needs a ladder breaker, he thinks, as he takes the final step onto the second floor, but Kuwabara-san hadn't allowed him to lay one before he closed the trap.

And what, exactly, would constitute a breaker in this case anyway, Akira wonders as he walks past a mannequin dressed in lingerie. He slows down, stops, gaze drawn back to the mannequin and tries to imagine himself...shaking his head, he heads down the next aisle. There is absolutely nothing that can stop him thinking about this – he has tried, after all – and maybe the breaker is actually wearing something – once.

He's holding up a decidedly feminine piece of garment, when it occurs to him that he is holding a pair of lilac-coloured knickers. In public.

Back home, Akira realises that, in his haste to leave madness behind and to escape from Womenswear (and ultimately from the shop itself), he has forgotten to buy himself a new pair of boxers. The next day, while going through the pockets in his coat in search of his mobile, he learns that he is also a thief. One that specialises in women's underwear.

They lie quietly hidden in the deepest, darkest corner of his wardrobe for seven days before he retrieves them, half convinced that they must have burnt a hole into the floor. It's almost ironic that the silk – silk! – is perfectly cool when Akira feels as if he were on fire (with shame). His cheeks are red enough to support that image, certainly. Any moment now, steam is going to rise from his skin, and there's some water still clinging to him from the shower he took as an excuse to undress. The thought of undressing solely for this didn't bear thinking about.

There's a pair of slacks on his dresser, and a shirt and boxers. He does not have to do this; he can put it off until his parents return from their trip the following day, and he knows for sure that he won't do it then. Today is his last chance.

The last. Akira closes his eyes. Last chance. Hell.

He unwinds the towel from his waist, rubs himself dry once more (silk and water don't mix well), slips first one, then the second foot through the holes and pulls –

– they fit. Snugly, but they fit.

Oh God, Akira thinks, biting back a hysterical giggle as he stares at his knickers-clad image in the mirror. Eyes wide, skin flushed, he looks like the lead in a kinky porn flick (not that he has seen many of those, but what with Shindou's habit of appropriating his computer for the sole purpose of downloading porn – Shindou really needs to move out of his parents house and get his own computer – he's had quite of an eyeful by now). The fact that he's breathing harshly – panting – doesn't help, as he tries to banish that thought from his mind. He needs to not look at himself, at his attire.

He needs to take them off.

Except that they feel rather nice, and he's only just put them on, and he really should get a bit more out of this, considering how hyped up he was beforehand. If he dressed... but that would mean that he would have to either take off his slacks to take the knickers off, or wear them all day. His mind skitters away from that line of thought. Finally, he decides to put the towel back around his waist. It is only after he has done exactly that, that it occurs to him that this sort of feels like a skirt.

Fuck.

He notices too late that shouting "No!" at the top of his voice is the worst thing he could have done under the circumstances. Granted, he can't think how best to answer the Honinbou's inquiry, but anything has to be better than attracting the attention of every single person in the room (if not the whole Institute) with an outraged shout that was as clear an admission of guilt as if he had made an announcement in Go Weekly.

"I haven't," he adds weakly, though it is doubtful whether Kuwabara-san hears him. He is too busy wheezing and hacking and rubbing tears from his eyes, while around them people stop and stare. Akira wants to sink into the floor. He wants it really, really desperately.

This time, he is more prepared. He has a cover story, he has cash (no chance of anything suspicious on his credit card bill), and he is as far from home as he can be without leaving Tokyo entirely. His parents are in Korea, Shindou is visiting the Kansai Institute, Ogata-san is playing a match and no one else knows him well enough to pick up on the fact that he does not, in fact, have a girlfriend whose birthday is coming up, and who happens to be roughly his size.

Akira is as prepared as he could possibly be.

Still, his knees are weak.

Once he is inside the department store (has walked through the door, cool, calm and collected as you please), Akira is just a bit stumped. During his preparation, he has thought of every contingency, of every detail, except –

– except for deciding what he actually wants. Well, a skirt. And a blouse, of course. Stockings. That's easy, but beyond that, he hasn't really thought about style or colours or cut. He almost jumps out of his skin when a shop assistant sidles up to him to ask if he needs help.

"Ah, yes," Akira blurts, fingering the knot of his tie. The salesgirl smiles at him while he stutters his ways through his carefully thought out cover story. He thinks he was convincing or maybe the young woman has a really good poker face. Either way, she does not call him a pervert, but rushes off instead to collect an assortment of outfits. It takes Akira a bit to figure out that accepting help was a Bad Idea, and by the time he does, he is half buried underneath a wide array of extremely provocative clothing. The skirts he is presented with don't reach past his kneecaps, and the tops are all stretch material – formfitting. Tight. Is it too much to ask for something that will not make him look like a hooker? At last, he shoos the salesgirl away, hits the stacks on his own. It takes him a while to find something halfway decent, longer to find something he can see himself wearing. He is a bit uncertain about the size – he's forgot all about asking earlier, and there is no way he'll ask her now. Or worse, explain things to another salesperson. Obviously, this means he has to keep the receipt in case the clothes don't fit, and he must return them, which means he has to try them on soon, before his parents return from Seoul.

On his way to checkout, he passes an advertisement for mascara, which makes him think...

… clearly, Kuwabara-honinbou has driven him insane.

"You know," Shindou says conversationally from the open door to Akira's bedroom, "when I said you could do with a bit of a makeover, out of the suits and stuff, I didn't really mean quite that."

The sound of his voice has Akira's heart trying to jump out of his ribcage, making him wonder if this is what his father felt when he had the heart attack five years ago. He hopes not, because dying in drag in his parents' house, while Shindou is watching, is not how he has pictured his last moments on earth.

Two days have passed since Akira's shopping trip. Two days during which he has apparently forgot that Shindou would return to Tokyo today, and would likely drop in on him at the most inopportune time, because this is what Shindou does. He also never rings the bell, not after discovering that Akira has a habit of forgetting to lock the gate to the garden, and can consequently be sneaked upon.

"Do you mind," he retorts, because he has to say something. It's not the wittiest comeback, but Akira doesn't feel particularly witty right now. Most of his brain seems to be occupied with thinking Oh shit! while the rest is trying to come up with a plausible explanation: an evil twin for instance, or DID – he's reasonably sure he can fake the latter what with all the research he has put into figuring out Shindou's strange behaviour of the past.

"Nah," Shindou chokes off, before dissolving into helpless laughter. He should be getting used to this, Akira thinks while watching him. Shindou's cheeks are flushed and he is almost bent double; in other words, he looks like he might die from asphyxiation any moment. Akira rather hopes so, since it would spare him the trouble of either doing Shindou in himself, or of dying of utter and complete humiliation.

Because 'the best defence is a good offence,' and because Akira prefers to attack, period, he stalks towards Shindou and demands to know what is so damn funny. Lots of people cross-dress, after all.

Shindou bites his lip and gives him a solemn nod, "'Course. Lots."

When Akira comes back out of the bathroom, dressed in slacks and shirt, the red blotches on Shindou's face have disappeared, and he looks serious - or as serious as Shindou ever does, which means that, yes, there still is a glint of humour in his eyes, but at least he's not rolling on the floor – it seems that there are people who actually do that if something is funny enough – and repeating "lots" in between laughing his fool head off.

Akira is sorely tempted to tell him about Kuwabara-honinbou, but he doubts that Shindou's already severely challenged sanity can take it.

"I wasn't laughing, because you were, uh, cross-dressing."

Make that 'very, very severely challenged sanity.'

"Well, not only because of that," he continues, running a hand through his hair. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with it. You can dress... and, it's your business and all." With a feeling of horrified amusement – or amused horror –, Akira realises that this is Shindou's way of offering the proverbial olive branch. It's a small miracle that no one has killed him yet.

"It's just," Shindou carries on blithely, "that it's so you."

"So me," Akira repeats after a pause. First the Honinbou, now Shindou. Is it obvious to everyone? Maybe he needn't have bothered with cover stories. No, forget about cover stories, does everyone believe Akira Touya is a natural transvestite?

"Yeah." Shindou nods. "If I had imagined you cross-dressing, which I didn't, because why would I, not that it's not okay, yeah? But if I had, I would have..., well, actually I wouldn't have, because don't cross-dressers try to look sexy or something?"

Akira opens his mouth, then closes it. Twice. Briefly it occurs to him that he must look like he's trying to imitate one of Ogata-san's guppies, before he banishes the thought and concentrates on what is important, namely that Shindou apparently didn't just know that Akira thought about wearing skirts, which makes him wonder what that earlier remark has been about.

"What is so me," he asks, curling his fingers in an approximation of quotation marks.

Shindou blinks. "Oh, the clothes." The obviously remains unsaid but not unheard. Akira fights back the urge to throttle Shindou and demand that he not be so damn cryptic all the time.

"The clothes?" He has made the jump from guppy to parrot. It's not really a vast improvement, but he's quite willing to stupidly repeat anything, if Shindou only explained things for once in his life.

"Yep." Shindou grins at him, giggles again. "Bet you anything you picked them. You dress like an old woman."