"Oh my god," Hikaru said blandly when he woke up on a futon that smelled too musty to be his own. "What is this place, where am I?"
Waya rolled his eyes. "Calm down, Shindou. You're at my apartment."
"Why am I here?" Hikaru blathered on, as if Waya had not spoken. "Why does my head hurt? What happened last night?"
"We were all out last night celebrating Nase and Komiya passing the Pro Exam," Isumi said cheerfully. "You got wasted."
Hikaru tried to think back but that just made his headache worse. "Oh, I am never drinking again," he moaned, rolling over and burying his face into the pillow.
"Get used to it, lightweight," Waya grumbled, looking as though he had stayed up all night. "Once you start getting hired to play teaching games with the corporate people who want to look cultured, you're going to be downing lots more than just what we drank last night."
"Why did no one tell me about this?" Hikaru wailed. Isumi handed him a glass of orange juice, which he accepted gracefully.
"It's part of the business," Isumi said cheerfully. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll build up enough tolerance in no time."
Hikaru remembered the time he had passed out in Korea and grimaced. "Unlikely," he muttered.
"Don't you have that one Amateur Festival to go to today?" Waya asked pointedly. Hikaru glanced over at the clock.
"Oh, sh-"
/
"What idiot shows up an hour late and does not call first?" Yeongha asked crossly, leaning against the doorframe.
"I said I was sorry," Hikaru panted. "We were celebrating last night, and I crashed on my friend's couch."
Yeongha made a face. "You smell like alcohol and stale food." He pointed a finger toward the bathroom at the far corner of his hotel room. "I am not being seen in public with you in this state. Go clean yourself. You can borrow something to wear afterward."
Hikaru blanched. "But—"
"Now." The forcefulness left no room for discussion.
Hikaru scowled. "As long as I won't be disturbed," he said suspiciously.
"Tempting as the idea may be," Yeongha said without blinking. "I would never disrupt the sanctity of the bath."
"See that you don't," Hikaru mumbled.
/
"I can't believe this," Hikaru muttered as he stared at the rack of clothing before him. "Do you have like, an ordinary t-shirt?"
"Of course not," Yeongha said, affronted. "I would never wear something so pedestrian."
"I'm not going into public wearing…" Hikaru gestured at the wide walk-in closet with the fitted jeans, the fitted button-ups, and the impossibly trendy fitted hoodies. Not to mention the ties and scarves and vests and hatsthat Yeongha seemed to be so fond of. "…any of this."
Yeongha snorted and then tossed two spontaneously picked out hangers at him. "Stop complaining," he said. "It'd do you some good to get out of your beloved 5-themed clothing every now and then."
Hikaru frowned at him, but given the suspiciously moist state of his current clothing, he had few other options.
Surprisingly, everything fit. Whether it was because Hikaru's shoulders were more pronounced than he previously thought or Yeongha's penchant for tight clothing, not only did it fit, he even admitted (albeit grudgingly) that he didn't look half bad.
"Now we can leave," Yeongha said eyeing him critically (if not inappropriately). "Are you certain you do not want a scarf with that?"
"I'd rather jump off a bridge," Hikaru replied cheerfully.
/
The moment they arrive, the officials immediately come over to usher Hikaru over to a table where he was to play the winner of the tournament, a tanned, beefy man from Hiroshima who insisted on playing Shindou-pro. Hikaru allowed himself to be dragged off, offering only a shrug to his companion.
Yeongha took a seat just outside the edges of the gathering crowd. There were a relatively large number of people gathered to watch this sudden (according to Shindou's opponent) rematch. Quite a large number of younger people, Yeongha thought to himself, far more of the demographic who could appreciate Shindou Hikaru.
He also spied the son of the former Meijin, who froze upon seeing him, and immediately circled around the crowd and made a beeline in his direction..
"Touya Akira," he greeted coolly.
"I know what you're doing," he hissed back, unexpectedly impassioned. Yeongha raised his eyebrow .
"What do you mean?" he asked innocently. "I lent him clothing after a long night as any friend of his would." Touya's face flushed red with frustration. He had never done this before, Yeongha realized with some delight. He had never fought in the battlefield of love, and was floundering like a beginner who needed his thumb to place stones.
"You have greatly influenced Shindou's Go lately," Akira said quietly, in careful Korean. "But you can't stay by his side forever, not the way I can. He will improve from what you have taught him, but his Go is meant for me."
Yeongha knew people like Touya Akira, whose feelings were so tied to the craft that they completely failed to differentiate the feeling between that person and that person's ability. Luckily for him, Ko Yeongha did not play with handicaps.
"I like Shindou Hikaru," Yeongha replied matter-of-factly. Touya blinked, jaw dropping when he realized Yeongha meant it exactly in thatway. "His Go is also very exciting to me, but if you think his Go is the only thing I'm fighting for, you will never defeat me."
The match concluded. Yeongha headed off to greet a victorious Shindou, and Touya Akira stood, rooted to the same spot, for a long time, feeling as though once again, he had encountered a foe who stood from somewhere high above.
/
The Ouza finals concluded at last, with Kurata 7-dan taking the empty seat left by the retirement of Touya Kouyo. The media room was filled with younger professionals who had stayed after their matches to watch the title game.
"What an inelegant game," Touya murmured, almost disappointed.
"That was…not the best we've seen them play," Isumi said carefully.
"They were too caught up in the battle in the center board," Saeki said, looking at the board. "When Zama-sensei lost the center, he couldn't recover." All in all, it was a very ferocious fight, but the lack of a deeper game was a bit of a let-down, especially in such a prestigious event.
"Well that's that," Waya sighed, pushing his chair back. "Time to go to my teaching game, later."
"I should go too," Isumi said, bowing politely at Sakurano-sensei. "I promised a game of NetGo to a friend in China, wouldn't want to miss it."
Sakurano covered her smile with her fingers. "Le Ping is keeping up with his studies?"
Isumi smiled good-naturedly and bowed himself out. He had one shoe slipped on when he heard his name spoken softly from the mouth of Touya Akira.
"Could I ask you a question?" he said tentatively.
"Of course," Isumi said kindly, sensing that whatever Touya was going ask required a great deal of courage.
"If…if someone appeared who was…challenging you for—uh, Waya-kun," Touya said, stumbling over his words. "How would you…what would you do?"
"I think," Isumi said slowly and carefully, knowing exactly who Touya was thinking of, "I would be happy if Waya found someone who could better his Go."
"Wouldn't you be…"
"Waya and I aren't rivals." Touya cocked his head inquiringly. "Our Go does not make us rivals," Isumi explained. "But we are good friends, and friends don't worry about being replaced."
"I see."
"I know what is worrying you," Isumi said gently. "If Shindou can find a way to better his Go, isn't that a good thing for you?"
"It's not." Isumi was taken aback by the bluntness of the statement. Touya's face was tight with worry. "Thank you for your help, Isumi-san."
/
"Hey, open up," Hikaru pounded on the hotel room door. "Shinoda-sensei told me you haven't showed up in a few days, what's the matter with you?" No answer. "I know you're in there, I asked the lady at the front desk."
Silence. And then he heard a muffled, "the hell would she know".
"Ha, it was a bluff!" Hikaru said triumphantly. "I knew you were in there. Open up."
After a reasonable amount of time, the door swung open and the sight greeting him nearly made Hikaru step back in shock. "Wow you look terrible," he blurted out. Yeongha glowered at him. With the puffy eyes, the dark circles, and the unbelievably ratty pajama bottoms, he didn't look nearly half as intimidating as he was probably capable of.
"Are you sick?" Hikaru asked incredulously. "Don't you know only idiots catch summer colds?"
"It's September," Yeongha said, sounding very congested. "September is Fall. What do you want?"
"Just making sure you were alive," Hikaru shrugged. "I can do that, can't I?"
Yeongha stared at him before running a hand through his very untidy hair. This was about the least put together Hikaru had ever seen him, even after rooming with him for three months.
"I'll be fine, Shindou." He sounded exhausted. "Go away."
"But you're not," Hikaru insisted, following Yeongha into his room.
"Don't do this, Shindou," Yeongha said quietly, trying to look dangerous but achieving only a bleary-eyed stare. "Don't give me this one centimeter; you know what I'll do."
Hikaru hesitated, but the more he thought about it, the less cautious he became and the more he saw someone who was unwell, in a foreign country, who probably wouldn't let anyone take care of him anyway.
"C'mon," he said gently. "Go lay down.I'll stay for a bit."
Yeongha gaped at him before flopping clumsily onto the bed. "Do what you want," he said into the pillow.
Ten minutes later, room service arrived with three bowls of ramen and two large bottles of water. An hour after that, the bowls of ramen were empty and Yeongha was halfway through the second bottle. "Happy?" Yeongha grouched, tossing the empty water bottle at Hikaru's head. "I think I liked you better when you were all angry at me."
Hikaru frowned. "Really?"
Yeongha grunted. "No."
/
They played two game of Go later that night.
And afterward, Yeongha somehow managed to weasel Hikaru into giving him a backrub, a task that even Hikaru would eventually admit was far more easily achieved than he wanted to admit.
/
Hikaru woke up that night with an arm slung around his waist, his back against Yeongha's front.
I'll just deny it in the morning, he thought, before dozing off again.
[ / ]
Writers Block + MapleStory = Bad Author. Hope everything worked.