Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ Riding the Wave ❯ Can Do No Wrong ( Chapter 2 )

Riding the Wave

Can Do No Wrong

They walked in companionable silence until they reached the parking lot. Touya Akira pulled out his keys to deactivate the alarm and noticed that Shindou's car was nowhere to be found. "You walked?"

"No, I caught a ride with a friend. I planned on taking the subway back though, no big deal."

"I can give you a ride if you'd like."

Shindou shrugged. "It's not like I'm in a hurry to get home. It's just me and the four walls after all, since Akari has...er...something to do tonight. If I take the subway home, there's a greater chance that something interesting will happen." He paused when Akira gave him a wry smile. "That is, I mean, if I just go straight home there's nothing to do! Not that you'd be boring!"

"Actually, I was thinking of inviting you to dinner, to congratulate you," Akira said, shaking his head with suppressed amusement. Really, Shindou was too much some days.

As expected, the other man brightened immediately. "Really? Why didn't you say so? That sounds a lot better than--"

"Just get in the car, Shindou."

Akira drove in contented silence for a time, Shindou was just smiling out the window. I'd give anything to know what he's thinking now--though it's probably just something simple like how happy he is that he doesn't have to cook tonight. He shook his head, reminding himself to keep his attention on the road and not his rival.

Shindou was the first to break the silence. "So, what was going on with that little girl back there? I didn't expect you to offer her lessons like that."

"She's got talent," he said after a slight hesitation.

"So have a lot of kids we've run into over the years, but you usually wait for them to decide for themselves. It looked like you would have offered to teach her for free."

Akira checked his mirrors, readying for the left turn ahead. "Actually, that's what I mean to do," he said softly as he made the turn.

"What?" His passenger was clearly shocked by this announcement. "Why?"

Why indeed? Her game wasn't that spectacular, even though she won. Her claim that she'd never lost though...what was that? Was that the moment I decided...?

"You'll laugh," Akira muttered, shaking his head as he looked for a parking spot.

"Nah! Why would I do that?" Shindou's voice was as bright and chipper as when they had been teenagers, for the first time in entirely too long. Maybe making him laugh wouldn't be so bad....

"She reminded me of you," he admitted finally, pulling into a space and shutting off the car. "There's a ramen place just around the corner, and with luck they'll only charge twice as much as this parking garage will."

Shindou laughed, whether at the first statement, or the wry joke that accompanied it Akira didn't know. He didn't want to ask either. "You remembered my favorite!"

"How could I forget? For an entire year there, you'd bound in and demand that if you won I would treat you to ramen."

He grinned and bowed slightly, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "Oh yeah, I guess I did do that. It made the games more interesting though!"

Akira finally opened his car door and got out, again finding himself overwhelmed by the boisterous personality of his companion. "For you, maybe." They closed the doors and he set the alarm as they walked away. "For me, it was...I was just happy to play." Their footsteps echoed as they walked until they reached the sidewalk. "I miss that, you know."

"I've been thinking about that lately," Shindou admitted, looking down at his feet. "Maybe we could start playing on a regular basis again, like we used to at your father's--"

"No."

"Touya?"

He took a deep breath, then tried to come up with a reason that would make sense, and wouldn't betray his feelings. "With your wedding coming up, you'll be too busy. Then you'll be spending too much time with your bride--honestly, I'm surprised you're free right now."

"This is about what happened three years ago, isn't it?" Shindou sounded bitter, hurt, and defensive.

"No! Of course not!" Well, it was, but not in the way he assumed. "I would not have agreed to be your best man if I held any of that against you."

"I won't be that busy," Shindou said softly, still staring at his feet. "Akari is taking care of pretty much everything. She said she just wants me to show up to it, and doesn't really care about anything else."

"Shindou?" This didn't sound like any of the weddings he'd heard about from anyone else he knew. When Ogata had finally gotten married, for example, he'd been constantly busy for months, and he was hardly ever seen without his fiancé. He had also acted a lot different from this...it was nothing Akira could put his finger on, but this didn't seem right. "Is *this* about what happened three years ago?"

"What?" He stopped short on the sidewalk, turning surprised eyes on Akira.

"The wedding. Waya-san got married a year ago, and now you are asking me out of the blue to be at your wedding. I thought if anyone would be your best man, he--"

"Don't. Don't talk to me about him right now, please."

A tense silence passed between them for a few heartbeats, then they turned as one and entered the ramen stand. Neither spoke for a while except to order; it wasn't until they started eating that the air between them lost the emotional charge. "I'm sorry," Akira finally said, hoping to rekindle the conversation. "I didn't realize things were still like that."

"You've got to stop doing that, Touya."

"Hmmm?" He was caught with a mouth full of food.

"You keep finding the truth about me that no one else seems to see. It's spooky."

He blinked, and then paused for a drink of water. "I know you better than anyone else. Isn't that what I told you?" Akira thought he was making a joke, but the look in Shindou's eyes told him he'd struck too close to home yet again.

"You still wouldn't understand. You can know all you want about me, but you're still the golden boy of the go world, and I'm the class clown. They only tolerate me because I'm good at what I do. You only tolerate me because--"

"Shindou! What's gotten into you? We're not kids anymore. You reached me ten years ago, and it hasn't been about that ever since!"

"You're the one who brought up the wedding. Well, congratulations, you're right. It's all about the scandal, and the fact that now that Waya is married he's been able to put it all behind him, and I just want the same."

Akira nodded. "I--I thought, when you mentioned you were marrying a girl I'd never met named Akari, I thought I remembered you had mentioned her before when we were teenagers. You said she was like a sister, and she drove you crazy because she couldn't play go to save her life, but she tried anyway."

"My God," Shindou said with wide eyes. "You remember everything, don't you?"

Everything about you, he thought, pushing away his empty bowl. He didn't say anything though; he just shrugged as if that would be answer enough. His friend and rival didn't need...wouldn't appreciate such sentiment from him at this point. Not if he was trying to hide from the hole of controversy he'd found himself in all those years ago. Instead he decided to change the subject. "Are Wednesday nights good for you?"

"What?"

"You want to play again, like old days. You've got me feeling nostalgic, and Wednesdays are best for me. If that doesn't work, we'll figure out another night, even if I have to rearrange lessons or something, okay?" Inwardly, Akira was kicking himself for this, but he found himself doing it anyway. He was even looking forward to it. It had been too long since they'd spent any time together on a regular basis, and he didn't want to pass up this opportunity, even if it hurt, even if it scared him.

"You're serious?"

Akira pulled out a piece of paper and a pen and started drawing a map. "You haven't been to my place since I moved out on my own. I'll give you this map, and we'll go over there tonight and play a game, just to make sure you don't get lost."

"You'll never let me live that down, will you?" Shindou was laughing though, so that was a good sign. He looked brighter again, somehow more alive.

That erased any qualms Akira had been harboring. "Of course not! That's what friends do, right?"

"No, friends forgive and forget."

"Sure, sure, after some good-natured ribbing to remind you of the happy times. You only have yourself to blame, you're the one who taught me that."

"It's been too long since we played for any reason other than," Shindou sighed, "business."

Akira couldn't agree more, but...no, it wouldn't do any good to point fingers of blame now. It was ancient history. He would leave the past behind them. Shindou was someone you had to take day by day. He would drive a person insane with his strange and unexpected behavior otherwise. It had been that way from the beginning....