1Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Title: chiisana yasashisa wo kure
Pairing: Ogata + Akira
Rating: pg-13
Description: So, why did Ogata stay with Touya-sensei for such a long time?
Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go belongs to Obata and Hotta-sensei.
chiisana yasashisa wo kure
By Miyamoto Yui
Chapter 6 – Because I still need you.
"Father hasn't called for me yet."
"Is that unusual?"
"He should have arrived by now. He said he wanted to talk to me before the exhibition."
"You treat this like an official title match."
"It doesn't matter what it is." His eyes narrowed. "I don't want him to catch up just yet."
I cover my mouth, enticed by the vicious side of his competitive nature. I stop myself from licking my lips. "Weren't you just on the phone with 'him'?"
"This and that are different."
"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow, reaching for the container.
"You do the same exact thing." Each word attempts to make a clean incision.
While watching me, I can feel his acidic thoughts begin to char through my spine: "After all, I learned it from you."
I say nothing and sweep my hand from one corner of the board to the other. Without warning, his right arm suddenly stretches across the board to pull my tie. My eyes flash in alarm as I catch myself resisting, hands pushing into the ground and leaning a bit backwards.
Click, clack clack…taptaptap. Some stones drop back onto the board, others roll down to the tatami.
"Mark my words: I will catch up to you."
I gulp as he continues to give me a scathing look. It's the one that aims straight to crush your windpipe.
I thought he only reserved this for Shindou. There's no mistake: He's directing all that at me.
Entranced, all I can do is see where he'll strike next. My fingernails dig into the tatami.
These eyes are truly the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
"I wonder…" Tilting my head, I stare at him frigidly as the knob tightens around my Adam's apple. "…if you or Shindou will get to me first."
I lightly slap his hand away to readjust my tie, but I no longer feel my fingertips.
"No matter what you do, I'm not giving up," he says as I continue to pick up the stones nonchalantly.
Akira sits opposite me, deflated and motionless.
Pressing his wound even farther, I shake my head mockingly, "Tired of Shindou that you've come to play with me again?"
"No…I never stopped. You made sure I wouldn't reach you."
"What dan are you again?"
"It's not about rank. You don't play freely. I have no sense of you on the board when we play anymore."
I place the last stone inside the container. "What do you mean?"
"Half of you plays me. The other is my father."
I close the lid, trying to hide my disconcertment. But the concealed scorching from earlier extends into my chest, bleeding out all sensations to my heart.
What exactly are you trying to figure out?
Placing the container onto the table, I start to get up. "That is only natural. You two are completely different types of opponents even if your techniques parallel once in a while."
"No. What I mean is that your timing and moves are completely vibrant. With everyone else, including myself…"
The pounding gets louder in between my ears, though I pretend with all my might to be unmoved by his words.
"…you're indifferent. Your callousness comes from being perversely self-willed. Not pride or ego."
What a smart boy you've become. With enough time, you too will push yourself away from me, Akira.
Feeling sicker to my stomach, I find myself opening the screen of the balcony and sitting seiza by the threshold. Looking out, I retort and lift up my chin arrogantly, "So what?"
From the corner of my eye, Akira's frowning. "You're always so focused on Father. What makes him so special?"
Why are you asking me this now?
I can't move forward with him. And I will not be able to hold you off for too long either…
"He is my teacher." I watch the flowing grass as the wind passes an invisible hand to rustle through it. "Everything starts and everything ends with him."
When I glance back at him, he gasps. But I ignore it and continue to peer into the darkness.
"So I love Go. That's all there is to it."
This is all I have of him. Our games are all I can keep with me.
I hold my breath, afraid to break and not wanting to say anymore. I've revealed a lot about myself in these last few minutes than all the years we've been together.
Don't figure it out. This single mantra runs ice through my veins.
What else do you want from me, Akira?
When he walks over, he sits down behind me. Pulling me backwards and crossing his arms over my chest, Akira plasters his cheek against mine. Closing my eyes, I feel his breath on my ear, but I attempt to stand up. He holds onto me stubbornly, noticing the tenseness of my shoulders, but cannot fathom that he's killing me softly.
I sigh in annoyance, no longer bothering to fight him.
"I've always wanted to ask you."
"Yes?" His heart beats nervously and furiously onto my back.
"Why did you study under Father?"
I'm glad he wasn't looking into my face, but my tone probably couldn't cover the bittersweetness. "Because I admire him very much."
"Didn't you ever think of leaving?"
I shake my head and immediately lower my eyes to the woven floor. "Never. I wouldn't ever do that."
There. I've stabbed myself, haven't I?
Just then, his phone vibrates. A music box plays simultaneously, but he keeps his left arm on my chest to keep me from leaving. In my head, I'm singing along when I realize it's Misora Hibari's "Ai san san".
"Hello Mother."
But his smile turns into a line until his jaw drops. The color of his face drips away into white as my chest hardens. With mute lips, he hands me the phone.
Something's definitely wrong.
"Is this Ogata-kun?"
Mrs. Touya's voice is clearly distressed. She's always so cool about everything that my throat strangles itself to even answer, "Yes?"
"Koyo-san is in the hospital. He had a heart attack on the way to the ryokan and has gone straight into surgery."
The garbled voice on the phone makes no sense after those two sentences. I turn towards Akira who's frozen in place, but gripping onto my shirt, hugging me even tighter.
"We're going now. What is the name of the hospital?"
+/+/+/+/+/
The taxi drive to the hospital is a blur between my mind being shot, thoughts firing from all directions. My heart rendered useless as I barely oscillate between senseless and screaming, ready to detonate at any given moment.
The "adult" should be in control, but the plaster keeping me together is Akira.
I know I should comfort him, but…
He's looking out the window with his chin over his palm, fingers over his mouth, but his left hand reaches out for mine. He squeezes it like he'll break my fingers while trying to appear brave. I wouldn't know though. I don't and don't want to feel anything.
The foundation of my Go is close to death.
+/+/+/+/+/
Somehow, I manage to bob on the surface of consciousness as the hospital staff instruct and direct us to the seats outside the hall where the surgery is taking place. After all the paperwork is finished, or what we manage to fill out between the two of us, Akira refuses to let go of my sleeve, saying that I must stay with him. He convinces the personnel to let me stay even though it's a restricted family members only area.
Temporarily, I push away my anxiousness over the photographers that will start to camp out at the hospital entrance…
We are sitting on gray chairs with one separating us. I rack my brain on what to say, but I manage to tell him, "Your mother was calling on the way to Haneda, so she should be here in a few hours. She was able to book the last flight on ANA, but it'll land in Yonago."
Akira's been quiet for a while now, and this is the first time I've seen him so distraught that it makes me more unnerved though my face remains placid. The usual solidness of his mind crumbles, as if we both know what this time meant.
"I was always prepared for it," he sighs. "Maybe that's why this time I was worried because he said he needed to talk to me."
"Wouldn't that-"
"Father usually doesn't warn me about things like that."
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes briefly and sit right next to him. Pulling him close with my arm around his back, without looking, my hand finds his cheek so that he'd lean on my shoulder. I clench my teeth knowing I'm sinking deeper inside myself.
"Close your eyes."
"But-"
"Even if you can't relax, just rest your eyes for now."
I hear footsteps, metal squealing from room to room, voices each telling their stories, sobbing, but in my mind, they're all heard from a distance as I listlessly wait.
My life is trickling away, one hidden drop at a time.
+/+/+/+/+/
When Mrs. Touya arrives, she sits next to Akira and thanks us for settling as much as we could. She starts to finish all the papers we could not complete, and I finally ask for a bit of solitude to clear my head while I avoid looking at the "In progress" sign shining clearly before us.
I walk to the top, the roof above all the other buildings of this countryside. Fenced walls surround me as I sit on a wooden bench. I am about to take out a cigarette, but stop to push it back in.
Silence.
Even the static inside my brain ceases. I am always thinking what to do next, where to go, be a few steps ahead so that while the past kept me under its scrutiny, it couldn't snatch my sanity away. I had no particular strategy though. I knew all along I had no embedded goals, just this man with the book.
I've never learned to live with serenity. I disturb it with noise anytime I can, but not out here. There is nothing to block the vastness passing through my ears. I pretended that I could, but I can no longer evade the magnitude of what's passing in and outside of me.
We try so hard to control what we know we shouldn't. What we couldn't. But that is impossible.
Still, the warrior's blood running through our nation shouts from the depths of my soul, "Never say die!"
I look up to the stars for an answer. Now I can see them without restrictions, no city to obstruct its path, but somehow, I don't want to today.
I have nothing.
Placing my glasses onto my shirt, they hang against my sternum. I fold my hands, closing my eyes and pressing my thumbs into the middle of my forehead.
I shouldn't throw anything. I shouldn't shout or lose my patience.
Shaking in the shadows, I am finally faced with the fact that my life is nearly passing away with him. They are inside Sensei's bones.
And all without his knowledge.
How did people do this? Especially those retainers for their lords? Didn't I make a promise here that no matter what, I'd stay with him even when he rose without me? Even when he had a wife and child?
Why did I do this to myself?! Because no one made me feel that way? That Akira was the closest to purifying what I myself plucked out-
"WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN ME?" my voice screeches in a painful whisper. Tears splash into my open palms when I finally open my eyes.
I do not know when, but my body gives out and I start to fall asleep.
"Because I still need you," a voice replies while I drift from consciousness. Through the haziness, I find myself staring into Akira's face. I reach out towards it as he pushes his cheek into my palm.
Even in a delusion, you comfort me. You're the one that erases all my worries away for stolen moments of peace.
His hair tickles my cheeks as he bends down to kiss me.
Knowing he'd never do this in reality, I laugh inwardly and kiss him back.
Such sweetness…
He then pushes me down further into the bench, sitting on top of me. I savor feeling him against me. He tilts his head as he leans down to lick my lips, the loose strands mildly stroke my neck. When I open my eyes again, I pull on his neck so that he lowers his head to kiss me again. His fingers shakily undo each of my buttons.
But after pushing the hems away, he pushes a warm hand onto my stomach and rubs my chest slowly. Then, he gets my hands and reaches under the kimono as we both hold onto his hips, fingers digging into his thighs and knuckles touched by the lining.
The stars above him illuminate the shadowy shape of his body as he smiles down at me.
"I still need you, Seiji," he whispers.
You've never called me by name before.
"You say that, but didn't you leave me for Shindou-kun?" I give him a sardonic smile, running my fingers through his hair. "You will never return to me."
Both of you. Both of you were never mine to begin with.
I can't camouflage the tears that are falling down the sides of my eyes.
Damn it!
"That's not entirely true," he protests.
"Aki-"
He slips his tongue into my mouth.
+/+/+/+/+/
When I wake up, the sun bursts onto my face. The laundry sheets flap against the breeze with a smell of detergent and starch filling the air.
"What a wonderfully confusing dream…" I mumble to myself and put my glasses on.
The soreness over the rims of my eyes lull with the gentleness of everything, a perfectly floating bubble waiting to be popped. The hallucination was still so vivid that my body aches while catching my breath just thinking Akira sitting-
"Ogata-sensei?"
Sliding his fingers through an opening between two white sheets, Akira approaches me, giving a relieved expression at seeing me there.
"How-"
"I looked all over for you when you didn't return. And then I realized you'd be at the roof rather than the vending machines. Mother was concerned over you leaving so abruptly."
It wasn't you?
"So she was worried." I get up and push my hand towards my forehead, not wanting to show my disappointment though I do feel a slight headache coming on. "I'll apologize to her later."
"Father's pulled through," he tells me with a small smile. "But he's sleeping now."
Thank you, Kami-sama…
The wave of gratefulness washes over me, but my eyes burn, unable to shed any drops of water.
"Let's go back to the hotel to change and drop your mother's luggage off in your father's room. We need to talk to them about our situation."
He nods and asks, "When we come back, can you practice with me?"
His eyes won't meet mine. His pride, like mine, won't say, "You must or else I'll lose it."
I agree and clean my glasses as we both head down towards Mrs. Touya. But as his figure leads the way, all I can think about is the smoldering question weighing obviously in the air.
The flavor of those phantom lips still lingering in my mouth.
No. Of course you wouldn't.
Tsuzuku… / To be continued…
1/1/2020 11:43:43 PM – Los Angeles
1/2/2020 4:43PM – Tokyo
