Chapter Text
In his defense, Akira had been drunk when he’d made his silent oath to Hikaru.
Upon hearing the news that Shindou Hikaru had successfully eliminated Touya Akira Meijin from the Honinbo tournament preliminaries, Nase Asumi had all but pounced on the opportunity to consume unholy amounts of alcohol in the company of every living being she could tolerate. Somehow over the years, this ended up including Akira. It had taken a grand total of 2 minutes for Hikaru to convince him to join everyone in their toast, and within the close of the hour, Akira and Hikaru were plastered together, rendered immobile in front of Nase's brand new Sony TV, half-heartedly watching a pirated Japanese dub of Ratatouille, and engulfed in various pockets of Nase’s dingy couch and in various pockets of each other.
"This is dogshit!" Hikaru garbled, full of rapidly dying passion. "Why couldn't Linguini just learn to fuckin' cook on his own?"
"Maybe his passion was in business administration... And it's-... And that was his way of showing appreciation... For Remy..."
He groaned. "Can you be wrong- or like, impractical- for, like, thirty seconds? Be on my side, for once..."
Akira had then hidden his mouth against Hikaru’s collarbone, so he'd sacrificed the ability to respond. He’d expected to smell the vaguely garlicky, woody scent he always associated with the half-blond, but after a few more seconds of investigation, Akira had realized he could not smell a thing.
He’d been comfortably exhausted, illogically angry, and lulled into that false sense of privacy that Hikaru always promised. In retrospect, the only reason he hadn’t spoken the oath out loud was because 1. he was getting the inauspicious feeling of being filmed by at least three people from the kitchen, 2. he thought his words might get jumbled up and he'd end up quoting Anton Ego's long-winded restaurant review instead, and 3. Hikaru was a brash drunk until he wasn’t.
“I knew you’d win the second you sat down across from me.”
Hikaru sighed over his hair, contentment and melancholy mingling together in his voice. “That's 'cause I’m going to be Honinbo. Just watch me.”
His tone left little to doubt, and Akira wondered what about the Honinbo title - and the Honinbo title alone - made him so determined. Although Akira could make a few guesses. “Who else would I watch?”
“I can think of someone.”
Akira’s eyes drifted open - he hadn’t remembered ever closing them, the last thing he remembered being his absolute fascination with the animation of Remy in his element (A rat cook! Plating a dish meant for commoners! For the elite! Which genius thought of this?) - and he pressed his forehead to Hikaru’s jaw. “I… would not be the only person who wants to watch Sai again.”
Hikaru tugged on a strand of his hair, huffing. “So you admit you want to watch Sai.”
“When have you ever let me watch Sai play anyway…”
At that, oddly, Akira felt a smile form against the top of his head. “You’ve watched him play the most actually.” Hikaru let his cheek rest atop Akira in both an affectionate and I-lost-control-of-my-neck kind of way. “Well, second most. Behind me, of course.”
Akira manages a lackluster scoff. “It sure doesn’t feel that way.”
And maybe it was because Hikaru paused long enough to signify the end of their conversation, or maybe it was because Akira got distracted by the way he could suddenly feel the background music of Remy and Linguini's new bistro sequence playing in his gut, but Akira had been viscerally startled when Hikaru opened his mouth again.
“Akira...” And there was something unfamiliar, something chilling in his voice. “I’m sorry.”
Ending credits long forgotten, a hushed ‘huh?’ tumbled its way out of his mouth.
“I can’t lose-…” Another long breath escaped Hikaru, as if he was trying to expel something that held his heart hostage. “I don’t know how to share it with you. You’ll think I’m making fun of you.”
Akira blinked, as if that would help him hear the words better. Was Hikaru saying that Akira would never believe him? Was that fear in Hikaru’s voice? “For what?”
A strangled noise reverberated throughout his body. “You know.”
Akira did know.
Which is why it had disturbed him to realize… Hikaru was relieved to tell him this. Akira felt it in the way Hikaru slackened against him, hand tangling into his hair, relaxing ever so slightly but enough to show him that, against every fiber of reason in him, Hikaru wanted Akira to know.
So he couldn’t help it. The oath had practically bubbled out of him, hidden in the only word he could conjure.
“Ok.”
Hikaru’s fingers stilled in his hair. “Ok?”
Akira nodded. “Ok.”
"Ok."
And he hoped that, somehow, Hikaru heard him.
If your fear is of pushing me away with the truth, then I'll bridge the gap myself and meet you right where you are.
Sure, Akira might have been drunk enough to forget that Nase Asumi and Waya Yoshitaka had amassed so much blackmail material on him that night - at least he had the common sense to know that they had many, many, more videos of him cuddling an equally drunk Hikaru than what they had sent Akira earlier in the morning (in a group chat they had created years ago, as soon as he had turned legal, just to spam him, damn them, seriously) - but he had not been drunk enough to forget the fear he had heard in Hikaru’s voice.
So Akira decided, without delay or compunction, that if beginning a diary and adding to a bullet point list daily was what it took to get to the bottom of Hikaru’s secrets, then that was precisely what he was going to do. He also decided, with a little bit more delay and compunction, that he was never, ever, going to show the contents of this diary to another soul. He would accept the risk of institutionalization, but he refused to be the butt of another one of Hikaru’s jokes.
Regardless, he titled the cursed thing.
Unraveling Fate:
A Case Study of Shindou Hikaru, Shuusaku Honinbo, and Sai
And for the subject matter, he diligently brainstormed.
Theories:
- Sai is Shuusaku, now a 170ish year old, hospitalized man, living in secret, and who Hikaru stumbled upon and was taught go by so vigorously that he was prepared enough to play a teaching game and a bloodbath with me (and only that much)
- Sai is an ill, bed-ridden, Shuusaku-obsessed teacher who Hikaru respected so much that he perfectly replicated Sai’s play style in any match that called for Sai's skill or otherwise, and proceeded to lose that skill as Hikaru pursued go with his own hands
- Sai was actually an immortal, omniscient rat that lived in Hikaru's bleached hair and played Hikaru's games ratatouille style
This was officially the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life.
He was glad for Ogata’s car horn to distract him from the utter shame of manufacturing hand written evidence of his fixation on Hikaru. It felt like he had admitted defeat in an unspoken game they were playing. And so Akira shoved the journal out of his sight, or as out of sight a journal on a shelf can be, and left to join his senior in his red ‘93 Mazda RX-7 (government name and all, the man never let him forget).
Ogata looked him up and down once, exaggeratedly, and did not hide his simper.
He knew Akira could present himself neatly despite being obviously hung over. He could just never resist being an asshole. “Please don’t,” Akira begged, wary.
Ogata’s smug only ripened. “I didn’t say anything.”
It was 9:24am. There was a dense layer of fog over the streets. It felt like an ax was stuck in his skull. He’d set off on the most important, most embarrassing mission of his life. And it was a Sunday.
Akira was already having a long week. He allowed himself a sigh.
“Is it true?” The familiar scent of tobacco and bergamot permeated the car despite the open windows.
Akira had long ago conceded that he’d one day collapse from the sheer amount of secondhand smoke he’d been exposed to since he was a child, but he now thought he might collapse the second he got out of the car from secondhand Burberry fumes. “Is what true?”
Ogata’s grin was slight but sharp around his cigarette. “You didn’t make it home last night.”
“I fell asleep at Nase-san’s apartment.”
“Anyone else conveniently fall asleep at Nase-san’s apartment?”
“If you know the answer, then I’d prefer we don’t continue this.”
“In your rebellious phase, aren’t you.” The topic was almost dropped with a long hum. But only almost. “Harumi noticed someone surprising leaving your place in a hurry this morning.”
Akira fought a profound groan. “We are driving to watch his match. You know why he was in a hurry.” Between the two of them, Hikaru had always gotten away with partying without so much as a headache in the morning. One could even argue that Hikaru played better after a night of drinking. So no, the headache was always with Akira, to deal with both his own hangover and a Hikaru who refused to wake up on time for his big matches. “He never plans these things properly. He was lucky my place was so close by.”
“You think he plans?” Ogata seemed genuinely surprised.
A quirk lifted the corner of Akira’s mouth. “Usually no.”
“And when he does?”
“He wins. Like at our game yesterday.” Akira felt a shiver run up his spine. He blamed it on the unwelcome rain-mist-fog of the morning. “Maybe I set myself up, but I knew I was going to lose. He’s going to be Honinbo.”
The sandy haired man hummed again, mulling that over in the face of a red light. “Is that a bet?”
Akira met his gaze. “I don’t think it would be wise to bet against him during this tournament.”
At that, Ogata’s eyes widened, unfocused as if he had heard something different in the words. Or perhaps heard the same words but from a different time. He blew out a cloud of smoke, wispy and formless as a ghost under the moon. “The last time I bet against Shindou Hikaru, he played a game with a 15 moku handicap.”
Akira snapped to face him fully. “What?”
“In all fairness,” he said with a harsh puff of air, “I only bet against him to spite that old blimp Kuwabara.”
“His beginner’s match.” Akira remembered going over every move of both Hikaru’s and his father dozens of times and nothing - nothing - had added up. “Kuwabara sensei had mentioned something about an unthinkably disproportionate limitation to his plays… but…”
A 15 moku handicap? Against his father? 15?!? Reviewing the hands once more in his head, reconfiguring them around something so preposterous, Akira felt something akin to incredulity as the game made more sense. Not less.
Not to mention, Hikaru’s play style had been quite distinctly…
Brushing the hair away from his face and pulling into a parking spot in front of the institute, Ogata nodded, “Sensei hadn’t appreciated Shindou-kun’s so-called restraint either. Then again, he hasn’t played a game like that ever since.”
No.
No, of course Hikaru hasn’t.
How hadn’t he recognized it before?
And suddenly Akira was throwing himself out of the car. It was 9:29am. Ogata was tsk-ing behind him, something about slamming doors too hard. Hikaru had less than a minute before reporting his attendance for his match. Akira did not care.
His legs carried him through the haze of the morning, steering through the go institute with nothing but muscle memory and force of will, and the ax in Akira’s skull was piercing, throbbing, as he caught sight of a tuft of blond on black. Within seconds, his fingers were digging into the linen sleeves of the suit jacket Hikaru borrowed from his closet mere hours ago. Akira twirled the yelping man with vigor, pulling him along and away from the prying eyes of the others waiting in the Room of Profound Silence.
“Akira?” Hikaru looked affronted, brows twisted in confusion as he pushed Akira to an arms length to hold him steady. “Dude, you good? My game's literally-”
“Your beginner’s match,” Akira was out of breath, “was the first time Sai played against my father.”
Hikaru quietened, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
Akira only felt a little guilt for catching him so off guard with no warning. Only a little. “Your game made no sense… because you tried to hide Sai from my father.”
The half-blond blinked once. And again. In them Akira thought he found… wonder? “You-”
“Shindou-san?” The boys snapped out of their bubble. “Are you ready? It’s time to begin-”
“I’ll be right there.” The words were murmured, and Hikaru’s gaze fell, hidden from Akira. He took a breath, heavy but settled, and stepped around Akira to enter the room. But just before he vanished from Akira’s sight, he paused, a hand on the door frame, peeking somewhat bashfully at his rival. “We were idiots to think a handicap could fool him, but it’s a little too late to give your dad an apology. Try not to break his heart for me?”
It was Akira’s turn to gape.
Hikaru smiled at his expression. Without another word, he turned and disappeared, a little more at ease than before.