Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ All That Matters ❯ One-Shot

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: My name is neither Hotta Yumi or Obata Takeshi (hell, I'm not even Japanese), so obviously the amazingness that is Hikaru No Go doesn't belong to me. Unfortunately. I'm just letting Hikaru and Akira play for a little bit.
A/N: First- I'm American, so I'm going to apologize ahead of time for any "Americanisms" that made their way into this fic. I know almost zero about the Japanese culture. I also know almost zero about Go (so the descriptions are pretty vague). This is my very first Hikago fic and I'm still very much a newbie in the world of fanfiction in general, so please keep that in mind. No beta, all mistakes are mine.

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.” ~Oscar Wilde
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


They're in mid game and Shindou is already getting desperate. His moves are becoming increasingly random and rapidly approaching completely insane. He's known for these sort of moves, of course, but this feels different to Akira somehow. It's careless, erratic, not thought all the way through. Akira wonders briefly whether his rival has finally lost it like everyone thought he had YEARS ago. He shakes himself free of this thought and places a stone, effectively cutting apart one of the haphazard groups of black. He still can't make heads or tails of the general shape of what his opponent is trying to do, but then Akira realizes mid-analysis that Shindou is smiling, and his stomach drops out.

Akira always knew that one move could completely change an entire game- he's taken advantage of that himself many times, after all- but he never imagined that it could be quite this devastating. His last move played right into his rival's plans and allowed Shindou to basically rip him apart at the seams in the most brutal way possible. The stones that had seemed random and haphazard before are now connected brilliantly and Akira can't even see an opening at first. He blinks and looks again. No . . . there really isn't a place to move now where he won't immediately get his head cut off. White is dead.

Shindou is grinning like an idiot the entire time Akira is calculating possible outcomes in his head. At best, he'll lose by seven moku. At worst . . . well, he's just not going to think about it. He's grinding his teeth as he resigns, and even he's surprised by the pure acidity in his voice when he yells, "What the HELL was that?"

"It was pretty awesome, wasn't it?" Shindou laughs.

Akira suddenly hates the way Shindou's eyes sparkle when he's happy. He especially hates the way his rival has to be RIGHT so god damn much, because it really was kind of awesome in a completely insane sort of way. Not that he'd ever admit that. God knows the last thing Shindou needs is an ego boost.

"No. It was reckless and stupid. A lot like you, actually."

"Yeah, it was obviously really stupid since I won!" Shindou yells.

"What if I'd gone someplace else here?" Akira says as he points to his last move. "I could have completely messed up your plan and cut you to pieces in the process."

"You wouldn't have." Shindou smirks, "Besides, if you COULD'VE, why DIDN'T you?"

"Because I didn't know you were going to do THAT, you idiot!" On impulse, Akira picks up Shindou's last stone and throws it at him.

Looking back on it, that was probably going a bit too far.

"YOU let me murder you and I'M the idiot?"

Shindou picks up a handful of Go stones off of the goban and throws them at Akira's face. Luckily, he turns just in time that the stones hit the side of his head instead. Unluckily, this just enrages Shindou further and before Akira's even aware of it the other boy is leaping over the Go board and tackling him to the floor. Akira is suddenly VERY glad that his parents aren't home with the way Shindou is yelling and cursing at him.

"Get off!" he yells back and tries to shove the other boy off of him. This meets with limited success, considering that even though Akira is a little taller, Shindou is a little heavier, and since they're on the floor he can't use his height as an advantage anyway. The boy unfortunately remains sitting on Akira's stomach.

"I'm not an idiot!" Shindou insists.

He pokes Akira in the chest for emphasis, though not hard enough to hurt. Akira's not really sure whether this was intentional or not. However, it does seem to give Shindou an idea, because the boy suddenly gets a grin on his face that can only be described as 'evil'.

"Are you ticklish?" he asks suddenly.

"Don't be ridiculous." Akira snaps. He tries pushing Shindou off again, before his rival gets any more bright ideas, but he has just as much luck as last time.

"I'll take that as a yes."

And all of a sudden the tips of other boy's fingers are making their way along his stomach, at least the part that's not being sat on, and he feels all of the air go out of his chest at once.

"What are you doing?"

He winces at the sound of his voice, but if Shindou notices that it's a bit higher than normal, he doesn't mention it.

"Trying to figure out where you're ticklish."

"Why?"

"Because everyone's ticklish." Shindou says as if that explains everything.

Akira waits. It's uncomfortable, but it's fortunately nothing that he can't deal with since he can't do anything about it anyway. He's perfectly fine. Definitely not ticklish at all, not in the slightest- Oh. My. God.

Shindou's evil grin is back as soon as he hears the involuntary gasp that comes out of Akira's mouth. He pauses for a second and then his fingers brush against
the back of Akira's neck again. He laughs at the shudder this causes.

"Found it." he gloats, "Ticklish."

Akira feels his face getting hotter by the second. He bats the offensive hand away before it can do any more damage, and his voice sounds a little bit like rocks being ground up for cement when he says, "Get the fuck off me, Shindou."

"Just admit that I'm not an idiot, and I won't tell anybody you're ticklish. Or where."

Akira's suddenly very sorry that looks can't actually kill people. It's rather unfortunate in this case. He'd even settle, for the moment, to simply be able to break the fingers that have returned perilously close to the back of his neck, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen either.

"That's NOT ticklish." Akira says through clenched teeth, "Now get away from me, you idiot."

"Yeah, right. And I'm not an idiot."

This time Akira's back arches a little bit when Shindou grazes the skin, and any rational thought disappears along with whatever little blood was left in his brain.

"Fine, fine, you're not an idiot, just stop that!" he gasps.

He sits up and pulls his knees to his chest the millisecond that Shindou stands up. He still can't think clearly, and he's not breathing quite normally yet, but worst of all is that he's so hard it hurts and he can't do anything about it until he can somehow get the moron to leave.

Shindou begins to pick up the Go stones that are now all over the floor. Akira curses under his breath.

"I'll take care of that later. Just go."

"Are you okay?"

"Absolutely perfect."

"You look like you're going to be sick."

"I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Shindou!" Akira says, exasperated.

"What?"

"I'm fine. You can leave."

"I think somebody should stay with you until your mom gets home. You really do look sick."

Akira is sorely tempted to smack Shindou upside the head, but that would require him to get up, and he can't do that at the moment without completely humiliating himself.
He settles for throwing one of the still loose Go stones at him instead. It's a black one.

"Ow."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Yeah, but you might need somebody to hold your hair back when you throw up." he grins.

"Oh, shut up, Shi-- wait, you'd do that?"

Akira suddenly thinks that he shouldn't be quite so pleased with the blush that appears over the other boy's cheeks, but for some reason he can't help but smile. Obviously, Shindou's stupidity is rubbing off on him.

"Sure, why not?"

There's near silence for a few moments where the only sound is of Go stones being returned to their proper goke.

"Why DO you keep your hair like that, anyway?"

"To make you ask dumb questions." Akira responds reflexively, then sighs. "I just like it this way, that's all."

"I think you'd look good with short hair. Maybe spiked up a little bit."

"You would."

"Well, the spikes would fit your personality anyways." Shindou mumbles.

Akira snorts and rests his chin on his knees. He feels somewhat better now- his breathing has regulated and he's no longer blushing, at least. And the ridiculousness of
the conversation is slowly making his other problem go away as well, though not nearly soon enough for his taste.

"You look a little better." his rival smiles at him, somehow reflecting his thoughts.

"I feel a little better."

"You want to play another game?"

"I'll pass." Akira allows himself a smirk, "I'll wait until tomorrow to exact my revenge."

Shindou raises an eyebrow, but uncharacteristically says nothing.

"I'm going to murder you." Akira informs him.

"Yeah, probably."

Akira’s sure that his mouth is hanging open, but somehow he's too shocked to care. They NEVER admitted defeat before a game. EVER. It was against . . . well, something.

"If you go in with an attitude like that, you WILL lose."

"Oh come on, don't act like that. You know it's true. Neither one of us hardly ever wins more than one game in a row anymore."

"It could happen. You shouldn't resign yourself to losing just because of what's happened in the past."

"True, but you shouldn't ignore it, either. It's not like I'm not going to try to win tomorrow. If I don't go in there with 150%, then there's no point in even bothering to
play. It's just that you have an advantage."

Shindou finishes putting the stones away and places a top on each goke.

"There. Now you can't yell at me later for leaving your room a mess."

Akira is about to respond to this when Shindou stretches, pulling his arms up over his head, and that's when everything in Akira's body goes to hell again. It's just an inch or so of skin that's revealed when the other boy's shirt rides up over his stomach, but it's still enough that it almost feels like a bomb goes off in his brain.

"Touya, are you okay?"

The other boy is suddenly crouching down in front of him so that they're almost nose to nose. Akira realizes that if he moves forward just a few inches . . . he shakes his head at that thought as if the motion will actually help, completely unaware that Shindou takes this as an answer to his question.

"What's going on with you today?" the boy mumbles.

Akira has absolutely no idea. If he's honest with himself, he has to admit that he's had these kinds of thoughts about his rival for a few years- but he'd always been able to control it, at least around other people. His sudden inability to do so now unnerves him more than he'll ever admit.

"Come on, get up."

"What?"

Shindou sighs dramatically and stands up, holding his hand out at Akira.

"You should be in bed. It's beyond me why you wouldn't call and cancel the game when you obviously don't feel well . . . "

'I felt FINE before you started touching me!' Akira wants to shout, but he doesn't. Instead he says "That's because MOST things are beyond you."

"I'm going to let that go since you're sick." Shindou glares at him. "Now come on."

"No." he scowls at the hand that's wiggling in front of his face, incidentally the same hand that caused all this in the first place. His scowl deepens at that thought.

"What do you mean, no?"

"It's a word that is generally used when one is refusing to do something." Akira deadpans.

"Who knew you were such a smart ass?" The other boy laughs, "Seriously. You look like you're going to pass out any second, and it'll be better if you're already in bed if you actually do."

"First of all, in case you haven't noticed, there is no bed in here. You'd have to get out the futon first. Second, I'm fine where I am."

Shindou looks surprised for a second, then glances around the room and frowns.

"Oh. Where do you keep the futon, then?"

"Did you not understand the 'I'm fine where I am' part?"

"If you don't tell me where it is, I'm just going to have to search the room to find it."

"Closet, left-hand side, second shelf from the top." Akira mumbles.

The boy grins.

"I knew you'd see it my way."

Shindou pulls out the futon and sets it up in a decidedly half-assed fashion, humming something unrecognizable while he works. Akira tries valiantly to not look at his rival's backside and fails miserably, as it's sort of impossible not to watch when it keeps moving along to some unheard beat in its owner's head. He closes his eyes to defend himself against this vision. Not that it's really any better, because it's almost like a picture of Shindou is painted to the inside of his eyelids, but at least there's no chance of getting caught staring this way.

"Alright. Up."

He realizes that the other boy must be standing in front of him again, holding out his hand in order to help him up.

"I told you that I'm fine where I am."

He still has his eyes closed, so he doesn't see the expression that suddenly appears on Shindou's face. It's a look that the normally happy boy usually only gets in front of a Go board- something his friends have officially dubbed 'The scary as hell I'm-going-to-rip-out-your-insides-and-eat-them-for-breakfast look'. Therefore, the only warning Akira gets is a mumbled "That's it," before he feels himself getting pulled unceremoniously to his feet.

When he was younger, Akira had sometimes wished that he could become invisible- but he'd never wanted it anywhere NEAR as much then as he does right at this moment. He suddenly realizes that his eyes had opened with the shock of being pulled up like that. Even more of a shock is how close he's standing to the other boy, so close that their bodies are ALMOST touching, though not quite. Shindou's eyes are slightly larger than normal and Akira can't help but think how pretty they are. They’re so green and full of life and flashing with some emotion that he can't quite identify. His lips are tangled up with Shindou's before he's even aware of leaning forward, and just as the thought 'Oh my God, I'm kissing Shindou' flits across his brain, he violently pushes himself away.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Akira stares at the floor for a moment. He's completely unable to look at the other boy. He doesn't think he could stand to see the rejection in his rival's eyes, so he does the only thing he can think of.

"Touya!"

He's just starting to slide the bedroom door open in order to escape when a hand grabs him by his left shoulder and turns him around, pushing him against the door.

"Touya..." Akira winces at the consoling tone in Shindou's voice and doesn't answer. "What are you sorry for?"

The last is said so quietly that Akira almost doesn't hear it. He scoffs and mumbles something about how it's obvious and he's not going to dignify that with a response.

"But you didn't even give me a chance to kiss you back."

Then Shindou's mouth is on his, and it's so perfect even though neither of them knows what they're doing, so actually it's sloppy and too wet and not perfect at all. But it's Shindou, and that's all that really matters. It's all that's ever mattered.


~End~

*EDIT* Someone on LJ pointed out a technical error with the door- so that has now been fixed. (Nevermind that the sentence is awkward... but whatever. It's canon, dammit.)