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answer_keyby kexing
Remembrance Part 4
Akira goes back to the store. It isn’t really a conscious decision but his legs seem to be on auto-pilot and Shindou’s presence is pulling him in. His hands are still shaking so much that he has trouble getting the door open.
Shindou has emerged from the backroom, and his head turns immediately when Akira walks in. At any other time Akira would view this as a victory, but right now he can’t even lift his own head. I don’t know what to do, he thinks. What can I possibly do? He is shaking from the cold.
“Have you been crying?”
Shindou sounds horrified, which doesn’t help ease the ache in Akira’s chest one bit. Even if Shindou cares, even if he has started to react to the world around him, it isn’t enough. There isn’t enough time and there is no Sai that can push him over the edge into remembering. There is nothing.
“No,” he snarls, and then adds “shut up” even though Shindou isn’t saying anything. He feels the cold touch on his neck again climbing down along his spine, blurring his memories and restricting his airways. Hell is feeding. What was I doing here, again?
His mind is foggy with cold and he can’t seem to clear it. There is something he has to do connected to a blue door but he can’t remember what.
Shindou has resumed kicking the counter with the tip of his shoe and is giving Akira increasingly worried glances. The silence in the room is oppressive.
”Hey,” Shindou tries again. “Did something happen?”
Akira isn’t even really listening. He is still caught up in the cold, struggling and failing to keep his memories alive. A perfect meal for a small, family-run establishment.
“Is this about that stupid board game again?” Definitely anxious now.
Shindou is clearly worried about him, and Akira tries to collect himself. But he can’t fight the feeling of helplessness that is drowning him. I... I don’t remember. What was it I was supposed to do? He is so very cold. There is something in his go that is missing and he doesn’t understand what. He can see it in his father’s face and in Ogata’s pointed comments. He knows his mother worries. But he doesn’t know how to-
“I mean, how hard can a dumb game be?”
It is the last part that finally snaps Akira out of it. It is obviously said solely to rile him up, but it still works like a charm. Because in that moment, Akira actually, for once, forgets all the right things. He forgets that Shindou is lost, that they don’t even know each other in this reality. He just hears that dismissive provocation and reacts to it like always has reacted to every single stupid thing Shindou has ever said, and the cold melts away. His head snaps up and he looks at Shindou, really looks at him, like he would look at him from across a go board.
“I’ll show you how hard,” he says.
And something flares up in Shindou’s eyes, a reaction and an answer to that underlying invitation for a fight and for a minute everything is exactly the same as it has always been. Because that’s Shindou, the real Shindou, under all the layers of emptiness.
”Fight me.”
“Always.”
Then Shindou looks away, confused, maybe scared, and visibly trying to regain his feet. But he’s awake now, aware of Akira’s presence in a way he wasn’t before and something curls in Akira’s stomach. Shindou has told him this before he realizes, after a league game when they both got very drunk. They rarely talk about their first games, mainly because Shindou avoids every mention of them like fire, but that day they did even if Akira can’t even remember how they got started on the subject. But Shindou had laughed at him then, and told him that how weird he had found it as a kid that Akira was chasing him everywhere demanding games in something as stupid as go. Akira was a bit miffed to hear that, he remembers, even if it was fairly innocuous.
“It wasn’t only me,” he had said with annoyance and a somewhat wounded pride. “You chased me too, remember?”
And Shindou had grinned, all relaxed and happy.
“Yeah, but that wasn’t even about go in the beginning, not really. I just wanted you to look at me with those eyes again.”
At which point both of them realized what he was saying, Akira had gone red, Shindou had spilled all his sake and neither had ever brought up the subject again. Right now Shindou is reacting to those same eyes, to that challenge, with a heat Akira hasn’t been able to bring out of him so far this week. All parts of Shindou is still exists, waiting to be remembered. This is one half of his go, Akira thinks. And the other is Sai. There has to be a way to find Sai, there has to be a way to-
And then he knows. He almost laughs out loud, because it is so obvious. He puts out his hand towards Shindou and suddenly he feels like twelve again, standing in front of the subway exit demanding a game that would change everything.
“Alright then. Let’s play a game right now.”
Shindou stares at him bewildered, obviously not prepared for his sudden change of mood.
“But I, uh, I know I said… but… I mean, I told you, I don’t even play go,” he says almost pleadingly and visibly embarrassed, but he isn’t backing away. Akira wonders if Shindou even can back away or if it is a universal constant that they will rise up and face each other’s challenges.
“Yes, you do,” he simply says and grabs Shindou’s hand, dragging him along. That must be an utterly nonsensical statement to Shindou who could have objected in a thousand ways but the only protest he makes is about leaving the shop unattended. Akira ignores him. Shindou keeps yanking a bit to get his arm back, but there is no real force in it, and soon he just gives up and allows himself to be tugged along. Akira wonders if Shindou somewhere in the back of his head recognizes the situation too.
They are quiet on the way; Shindou doesn’t even ask where they are going. He just shuffles his feet on the subway and looks uncomfortably at Akira from under his bangs when he thinks no one is looking. If this wasn’t so deadly important Akira would laugh at the absurdity of it all.
They reach their destination. His father’s go salon. It is evening and the salon is closed and dark, but Akira has his key from the real world and it works perfectly. He pulls Shindou behind him to the same table in the corner where they had played their first two games.
Shindou clears his throat awkwardly and stares at the board as Akira pushes him down into the seat and sits down opposite him. When he looks up, they just look at each other from across the board for a few moments. Then Akira simply slides the goke with the black stones towards him and holds his breath.
“But”, Shindou says, the first thing he has said for at least a half hour, “I really don’t know how to-”
“Shut up”, Akira says. “Just place your first stone.”
His voice is firm but his stomach is tight with panic, because if he is wrong... He wonders if Shindou is going to argue, but he doesn’t. Strangely subdued, he hesitantly picks up a black stone, holding it incorrectly between his fingers. Akira’s hands are clenching and unclenching under the table. He isn’t sure, he really isn’t sure, until he sees a strange shiver go through Shindou and sees him place the stone in the right place on the board. Akira almost cries with relief. What Hell doesn’t understand, he thinks, is that he knows Shindou better than anyone. Even if Shindou doesn’t remember them, all the pieces of what makes him are still there. “Sai is in my go”, he told Akira that time after Hokuto cup, and that is the truth. It doesn’t matter if this world never had Sai. The Sai Shindou knew is still in him, still in every stone Shindou will ever place. Even if Akira doesn’t fully understand who Sai was or what happened to him, he knows this, this game that had to be one of the first ones Sai played with Shindou’s help. It has always been Shindou’s games that protect the existence of Sai and now, in here, placing stones on a go board for what probably is the first time in this reality, Shindou is also coming face to face with Sai. Remembering him.
They play quietly. Akira has replayed this particular game so many times that he doesn’t even have to think about the placement of the stones. Shindou seems to be getting more and more certain of where his stones should go next, but his hand is shaking worse and worse. When there are four or five moves left before Akira resignation, Shindou suddenly slides the stone correctly between his fingers and slams it down like he has been doing it his whole life, then he freezes, staring at the board. Abruptly he makes a sound like something is physically hurting him and puts his head in his hands.
The salon is completely silent. Akira waits for a moment, holding his breath, but Shindou stays unmoving with his hands over his face breathing in and out. Akira hesitantly gets up and walks up to him.
“Shindou?” he carefully says and places a hand on Shindou’s shoulder unsure. Shindou shivers again still quiet and his hand presses harder against his face for a moment. Then suddenly he moves. He lunges forward, grabs Akira’s shirt and pulls him in, leaning with his face against Akira’s chest, his breath picking up pace. It takes a while for Akira to realize that Shindou is crying. Pressed up against him, Shindou is making quiet gasping sounds and his shoulders are shaking. Akira can feel his shirt getting wet. They are both still silent. Akira is feeling totally lost about what he is supposed to do now. He settles for awkwardly patting Shindou on his head for a while but that really doesn’t seem enough. Finally, he decides that he has to say something. He can’t stand the silence anymore.
“Shindou,” he says again, hesitantly. What he means to say is Are you alright? but what comes out is “You are getting snot on my shirt,” which isn’t what he wanted to say at all. Shindou stills and then he sort of vibrates against Akira’s chest and Akira realizes that it is from laughter.
“Yeah, well, it’s an ugly damn shirt.” Shindou says, still with his face in said shirt. “You should be grateful that it gets any action at all. Stop taking fashion tips from Ogata-sensei.”
It is hard to explain the dizzying relief he feels at Shindou talking like Shindou again and Akira starts laughing too. He can feels his own eyes getting wet and he can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed about it.
“Shut up”, he says, but there is no bite to his voice. “At least my clothes fit me.”
Shindou gives of a muffled snort and doesn’t move for a moment, then he carefully wipes his face against Akira’s shirt and looks up. His eyes are red, but he looks alive. He looks like Shindou again with eyes filled with promise and intent and drive in a way that makes Akira’s chest ache with relief and gratitude.
“Hey,” Shindou says, his voice a bit wobbly.
Too which Akira probably could answer a number of things, but the only thing he manages to get out is,
“God, you asshole!”
And Shindou starts laughing again but it is a laugh dangerously close to crying.
Akira honestly doesn’t know what to do with him. One part of him desperately wants to hug Shindou really, really hard or do something equally embarrassing, the other wants to punch Shindou’s lights out for putting him through this. But most importantly, he wants to get both of them out of here right now.
“Shindou,” he says, his voice a bit hoarse. “We have to leave.”
Shindou doesn’t seem inclined to protest. He just wipes his face again and nods.
“Yeah, leaving would be nice.”
Which possibly is the biggest understatement of the century, but Akira feels no need to point that out. He is fairly impressed that neither of them has broken down in hysterics yet.
They don’t touch on their way to the blue door, but Shindou stays so close to him the entire way that they might as well have. Akira compulsively checks that Shindou actually is right beside him the whole time and for once Shindou doesn’t even seem inclined to make fun of the situation. The blue door is still in exactly the same place, looking weirdly misplaced in the dark ally. They stand quietly in front of it for a moment.
“That’s the door out,” Shindou says, and it isn’t a question. Akira wonders for a second how much Shindou knows about what went on here, but he doesn’t ask. Instead he just grabs Shindou’s wrist again, opens the door and pulls him through.
kexingRemembrance Part 4
Akira goes back to the store. It isn’t really a conscious decision but his legs seem to be on auto-pilot and Shindou’s presence is pulling him in. His hands are still shaking so much that he has trouble getting the door open.
Shindou has emerged from the backroom, and his head turns immediately when Akira walks in. At any other time Akira would view this as a victory, but right now he can’t even lift his own head. I don’t know what to do, he thinks. What can I possibly do? He is shaking from the cold.
“Have you been crying?”
Shindou sounds horrified, which doesn’t help ease the ache in Akira’s chest one bit. Even if Shindou cares, even if he has started to react to the world around him, it isn’t enough. There isn’t enough time and there is no Sai that can push him over the edge into remembering. There is nothing.
“No,” he snarls, and then adds “shut up” even though Shindou isn’t saying anything. He feels the cold touch on his neck again climbing down along his spine, blurring his memories and restricting his airways. Hell is feeding. What was I doing here, again?
His mind is foggy with cold and he can’t seem to clear it. There is something he has to do connected to a blue door but he can’t remember what.
Shindou has resumed kicking the counter with the tip of his shoe and is giving Akira increasingly worried glances. The silence in the room is oppressive.
”Hey,” Shindou tries again. “Did something happen?”
Akira isn’t even really listening. He is still caught up in the cold, struggling and failing to keep his memories alive. A perfect meal for a small, family-run establishment.
“Is this about that stupid board game again?” Definitely anxious now.
Shindou is clearly worried about him, and Akira tries to collect himself. But he can’t fight the feeling of helplessness that is drowning him. I... I don’t remember. What was it I was supposed to do? He is so very cold. There is something in his go that is missing and he doesn’t understand what. He can see it in his father’s face and in Ogata’s pointed comments. He knows his mother worries. But he doesn’t know how to-
“I mean, how hard can a dumb game be?”
It is the last part that finally snaps Akira out of it. It is obviously said solely to rile him up, but it still works like a charm. Because in that moment, Akira actually, for once, forgets all the right things. He forgets that Shindou is lost, that they don’t even know each other in this reality. He just hears that dismissive provocation and reacts to it like always has reacted to every single stupid thing Shindou has ever said, and the cold melts away. His head snaps up and he looks at Shindou, really looks at him, like he would look at him from across a go board.
“I’ll show you how hard,” he says.
And something flares up in Shindou’s eyes, a reaction and an answer to that underlying invitation for a fight and for a minute everything is exactly the same as it has always been. Because that’s Shindou, the real Shindou, under all the layers of emptiness.
”Fight me.”
“Always.”
Then Shindou looks away, confused, maybe scared, and visibly trying to regain his feet. But he’s awake now, aware of Akira’s presence in a way he wasn’t before and something curls in Akira’s stomach. Shindou has told him this before he realizes, after a league game when they both got very drunk. They rarely talk about their first games, mainly because Shindou avoids every mention of them like fire, but that day they did even if Akira can’t even remember how they got started on the subject. But Shindou had laughed at him then, and told him that how weird he had found it as a kid that Akira was chasing him everywhere demanding games in something as stupid as go. Akira was a bit miffed to hear that, he remembers, even if it was fairly innocuous.
“It wasn’t only me,” he had said with annoyance and a somewhat wounded pride. “You chased me too, remember?”
And Shindou had grinned, all relaxed and happy.
“Yeah, but that wasn’t even about go in the beginning, not really. I just wanted you to look at me with those eyes again.”
At which point both of them realized what he was saying, Akira had gone red, Shindou had spilled all his sake and neither had ever brought up the subject again. Right now Shindou is reacting to those same eyes, to that challenge, with a heat Akira hasn’t been able to bring out of him so far this week. All parts of Shindou is still exists, waiting to be remembered. This is one half of his go, Akira thinks. And the other is Sai. There has to be a way to find Sai, there has to be a way to-
And then he knows. He almost laughs out loud, because it is so obvious. He puts out his hand towards Shindou and suddenly he feels like twelve again, standing in front of the subway exit demanding a game that would change everything.
“Alright then. Let’s play a game right now.”
Shindou stares at him bewildered, obviously not prepared for his sudden change of mood.
“But I, uh, I know I said… but… I mean, I told you, I don’t even play go,” he says almost pleadingly and visibly embarrassed, but he isn’t backing away. Akira wonders if Shindou even can back away or if it is a universal constant that they will rise up and face each other’s challenges.
“Yes, you do,” he simply says and grabs Shindou’s hand, dragging him along. That must be an utterly nonsensical statement to Shindou who could have objected in a thousand ways but the only protest he makes is about leaving the shop unattended. Akira ignores him. Shindou keeps yanking a bit to get his arm back, but there is no real force in it, and soon he just gives up and allows himself to be tugged along. Akira wonders if Shindou somewhere in the back of his head recognizes the situation too.
They are quiet on the way; Shindou doesn’t even ask where they are going. He just shuffles his feet on the subway and looks uncomfortably at Akira from under his bangs when he thinks no one is looking. If this wasn’t so deadly important Akira would laugh at the absurdity of it all.
They reach their destination. His father’s go salon. It is evening and the salon is closed and dark, but Akira has his key from the real world and it works perfectly. He pulls Shindou behind him to the same table in the corner where they had played their first two games.
Shindou clears his throat awkwardly and stares at the board as Akira pushes him down into the seat and sits down opposite him. When he looks up, they just look at each other from across the board for a few moments. Then Akira simply slides the goke with the black stones towards him and holds his breath.
“But”, Shindou says, the first thing he has said for at least a half hour, “I really don’t know how to-”
“Shut up”, Akira says. “Just place your first stone.”
His voice is firm but his stomach is tight with panic, because if he is wrong... He wonders if Shindou is going to argue, but he doesn’t. Strangely subdued, he hesitantly picks up a black stone, holding it incorrectly between his fingers. Akira’s hands are clenching and unclenching under the table. He isn’t sure, he really isn’t sure, until he sees a strange shiver go through Shindou and sees him place the stone in the right place on the board. Akira almost cries with relief. What Hell doesn’t understand, he thinks, is that he knows Shindou better than anyone. Even if Shindou doesn’t remember them, all the pieces of what makes him are still there. “Sai is in my go”, he told Akira that time after Hokuto cup, and that is the truth. It doesn’t matter if this world never had Sai. The Sai Shindou knew is still in him, still in every stone Shindou will ever place. Even if Akira doesn’t fully understand who Sai was or what happened to him, he knows this, this game that had to be one of the first ones Sai played with Shindou’s help. It has always been Shindou’s games that protect the existence of Sai and now, in here, placing stones on a go board for what probably is the first time in this reality, Shindou is also coming face to face with Sai. Remembering him.
They play quietly. Akira has replayed this particular game so many times that he doesn’t even have to think about the placement of the stones. Shindou seems to be getting more and more certain of where his stones should go next, but his hand is shaking worse and worse. When there are four or five moves left before Akira resignation, Shindou suddenly slides the stone correctly between his fingers and slams it down like he has been doing it his whole life, then he freezes, staring at the board. Abruptly he makes a sound like something is physically hurting him and puts his head in his hands.
The salon is completely silent. Akira waits for a moment, holding his breath, but Shindou stays unmoving with his hands over his face breathing in and out. Akira hesitantly gets up and walks up to him.
“Shindou?” he carefully says and places a hand on Shindou’s shoulder unsure. Shindou shivers again still quiet and his hand presses harder against his face for a moment. Then suddenly he moves. He lunges forward, grabs Akira’s shirt and pulls him in, leaning with his face against Akira’s chest, his breath picking up pace. It takes a while for Akira to realize that Shindou is crying. Pressed up against him, Shindou is making quiet gasping sounds and his shoulders are shaking. Akira can feel his shirt getting wet. They are both still silent. Akira is feeling totally lost about what he is supposed to do now. He settles for awkwardly patting Shindou on his head for a while but that really doesn’t seem enough. Finally, he decides that he has to say something. He can’t stand the silence anymore.
“Shindou,” he says again, hesitantly. What he means to say is Are you alright? but what comes out is “You are getting snot on my shirt,” which isn’t what he wanted to say at all. Shindou stills and then he sort of vibrates against Akira’s chest and Akira realizes that it is from laughter.
“Yeah, well, it’s an ugly damn shirt.” Shindou says, still with his face in said shirt. “You should be grateful that it gets any action at all. Stop taking fashion tips from Ogata-sensei.”
It is hard to explain the dizzying relief he feels at Shindou talking like Shindou again and Akira starts laughing too. He can feels his own eyes getting wet and he can’t even find it in himself to be embarrassed about it.
“Shut up”, he says, but there is no bite to his voice. “At least my clothes fit me.”
Shindou gives of a muffled snort and doesn’t move for a moment, then he carefully wipes his face against Akira’s shirt and looks up. His eyes are red, but he looks alive. He looks like Shindou again with eyes filled with promise and intent and drive in a way that makes Akira’s chest ache with relief and gratitude.
“Hey,” Shindou says, his voice a bit wobbly.
Too which Akira probably could answer a number of things, but the only thing he manages to get out is,
“God, you asshole!”
And Shindou starts laughing again but it is a laugh dangerously close to crying.
Akira honestly doesn’t know what to do with him. One part of him desperately wants to hug Shindou really, really hard or do something equally embarrassing, the other wants to punch Shindou’s lights out for putting him through this. But most importantly, he wants to get both of them out of here right now.
“Shindou,” he says, his voice a bit hoarse. “We have to leave.”
Shindou doesn’t seem inclined to protest. He just wipes his face again and nods.
“Yeah, leaving would be nice.”
Which possibly is the biggest understatement of the century, but Akira feels no need to point that out. He is fairly impressed that neither of them has broken down in hysterics yet.
They don’t touch on their way to the blue door, but Shindou stays so close to him the entire way that they might as well have. Akira compulsively checks that Shindou actually is right beside him the whole time and for once Shindou doesn’t even seem inclined to make fun of the situation. The blue door is still in exactly the same place, looking weirdly misplaced in the dark ally. They stand quietly in front of it for a moment.
“That’s the door out,” Shindou says, and it isn’t a question. Akira wonders for a second how much Shindou knows about what went on here, but he doesn’t ask. Instead he just grabs Shindou’s wrist again, opens the door and pulls him through.
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Date: 2013-09-26 12:21 pm (UTC)