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The day does not start out weird. It is actually nothing strange about Touya waiting for Hikaru outside the go institute when Hikaru walks out from one of his games. And maybe it is a bit unusual that Touya suggest that they go out for ramen instead of suggesting a game, but it is certainly not unheard of. And that they talk about Hikaru’s game in the restaurant and start to argue about the validity of the moves is absolutely expected. No, the weird comes in when Touya suddenly, instead of yelling at Hikaru or possibly trying to throw something at his head, pulls back, draws a deep breath and says,
“Yeah, ok, maybe your right.”
Hikaru drops his chopsticks. He stares at Touya in mute horror, wondering if this is the end of the world.
Touya draws in another deep breath.
“Ok, no. No, you are absolutely not right. But. But, I just. Can we just not argue?”
“Uhhh.” Hikaru says because he has no idea of how to handle this. Arguing is what he and Touya does. It is as certain as sunshine and go playing. That Touya suddenly wants to stop arguing must be a horrible sign of something and Hikaru is desperately trying to figure out what. He stares at Touya for a minute and then blurts,
“Oh my god, are you dying?”
“What?!” Touya says “No! Why would you think that?!”
“Are your parents dying?! “
“No! What are you even talking about?!” Touya draws a couple of deep, calming breaths again. “Look, nobody’s dying, ok. Can’t we just have a nice meal without arguing?”
Hikaru stares some more. Something is terribly wrong with the world. Touya meanwhile sulkily returns to his food. They finish the meal in awkward silence. Hikaru feels a sense of relief when he eats the last bite, because then they can go and play go and there is no way in hell Touya will refrain from yelling at him when they have actually played. The world will thus have a chance to right itself.
But Touya looks at him from under his bangs and awkwardly suggest that they go and watch a movie.
Hikaru stares again. He longs for the simple logic of a go board. And a world where Touya has not been exchanged for a pod person.
“I, uh. What kind of movie?” he asks carefully, trying to envisage any movie Touya would like to watch instead of playing go. “Is it some… uh… culturally significant, uh…”
It turns out Touya has tickets to an action movie. An action movie!
“Are you sure you are ok?” Hikaru asks faintly, because he cannot imagine any reality where Touya Akira would voluntary go and watch any such thing.
Touya glares at him.
“I’m fine. I just thought it could be interesting, that’s all.”
“Uh, ok” Hikaru says, because he has actually been wanting to see this particular movie. Plus if Touya is having a stroke or something, it is vital that Hikaru is there and can take him to the hospital.
The movie is actually pretty good. Touya unsurprisingly does not think so.
“But it was completely absurd!” he says with agitation as they leave the darkness of the movie theater, “Physics does not work that way! And why would he even–”
“Why are you talking about physics?! Jeeze, you were the one who wanted to see it. What did you think it would be, a realistic description of what happens when one guy fights an army with a sword?”
Instead of snapping back at him Touya only flushes and looks down and Hikaru feels like an asshole. He really doesn’t understand what brought about this version of Touya and desperately wishes for the one that yells and insults his mental abilities.
“So, uhm, what do you want to do now?” he asks carefully, trying to make peace. “Play go?” he adds hopefully. It turns out Touya think they should go to the park, and since that is seriously a step down in weirdness from the action movie Hikaru eagerly accepts. It is early spring, the sun is shining and the park is full of couples in love looking at each other adoringly. Hikaru feels very awkward, but he and Touya manage to find a secluded corner and Touya disappears for a while and returns with ice cream. By now Hikaru has concluded that Touya probably has inhaled some sort of heavy drug during the day, so he doesn’t even ask about the ice cream. It is actually very nice to sit outside with the sun in his face for a change and Hikaru is sort of relishing it.
“This is nice” he tells Touya as they are sitting there, and Touya smiles at him. Touya is often very intense and very serious, but he has this particular way of smiling at Hikaru sometimes. It is a smile that is very soft and very warm in a way that heats up Hikaru’s chest and makes it hard for him to breathe. Suddenly the day feels pretty awesome.
Then Touya turns to him, opens his mouth and Hikaru has this feeling that something profound is about to happen. Which is of course when his phone rings and Hikaru realizes that Touya’s bizarre behavior has made him totally forget the teaching game he is supposed to be having right now (well ok, maybe it isn’t only Touya’s fault but he sure didn’t help). So Hikaru spends the next few minutes cursing up a storm in his own head all while he apologizes profoundly on the phone and promises to come over right this minute. And when he hangs up Touya thankfully forgets that he is the weird alternate reality version of himself and calls Hikaru a thoughtless idiot. It makes Hikaru feel a bit better, but even as he goes to bed that night he can’t stop thinking about what the hell all this was about.
He takes time to whine to Waya when they meet the next day to discuss a game. It is possible that he is actually rambling but he needs to make Waya understand the absolute weirdness of everything that happened.
“And then he brought me ice cream. Ice cream. I mean, what was that about?” He finishes. Clearly this is incomprehensible.
Waya sighs. Then he rubs his forehead and sighs again.
“Shindou,” he says with a note of barely held together patience, “we're friends, right?”
“Yeeees?” Hikaru says, since there really isn’t anything else he can answer to that.
“And you wouldn’t want to cause me pain, right?
“Nooo?”
“Then why,” Waya says, clearly at the end of his patience “are you telling me about your and Touya Akira’s dating problems?!” Why would you possibly do that to me?!”
Hikaru chokes on his tea.
“What? What are you–? Me and Touya does not have dating problems!”
“Then why have you been whining about them for the last hour?” Waya says unsympathetically. Look, can’t you just let me believe that the only thing you and Touya do is yell at each other and play go? Do you have to talk about your romantic outings in the park? Because I really don’t want to know. ”
“But it wasn’t a date.” Hikaru complains. “Why would you think that? It was just–” Then he cuts himself of, because now that he thinks about it, it really does sound like a date. But it hasn’t even crossed his mind. Because this is Touya that they are talking about, and if Touya wanted to date him then it would surely be connected to go and not this weird girl magazine stuff.
“But that doesn’t even make sense!” He wails “I mean, who even does things like that. It is like he just put ‘date’ in a search engine and–” Then he goes quiet again, because holy shit, Touya totally would put date in a search engine, wouldn’t he? It is not like he has any clue about this stuff on his own. Hikaru feels himself flushing.
“Uhm,” he says, looking at Waya “Uh, I have to…”
Waya flails his hands.
“I do not want to know. At all. Please never tell me. Come back when you actually want to talk about go.
And Hikaru grins at him and takes off.
When he gets to Touya’s apartment he remembers that Touya has lessons in Chinese the entire morning so he ends up sitting outside Touya’s door waiting for an hour. It isn’t good for his nerves. Because what if he has misunderstood something. Maybe this wasn’t a date at all. If it was, wouldn’t Touya just have told him that? On the other hand, it would explain the whole day and Touya really isn’t a master in the subtleties of human interaction. He suddenly realizes that while Touya is very secure and very direct when it comes to go and handles all formal occasions way better than Hikaru himself, he has a tendency follow Hikaru’s lead when it comes to ordinary social stuff. Touya has no clue about people their own age or what would be considered normal behavior among them but he always assumes that Hikaru knows it as a matter of course. Maybe he assumed that Hikaru would just know this too.
Suddenly he hears steps in the stairs and his heart abruptly starts to pound again. He can absolutely not screw this up. Because Touya is as necessary in his life as breathing and to not have him there is as unthinkable as going without air.
Touya looks surprised when he sees Hikaru sitting outside his door.
“Shindou,” he says, “what are you doing here?”
Hikaru smiles at him weakly and shrugs.
“I just wanted to talk to you.” he answers. “Can I come in?”
Touya looks a bit flustered.
“Well, yes. Alright.” he says, but he looks furtively at Hikaru as they walk in to the apartment and his back is very straight and tense.
“So…” Hikaru says, gathering his courage as Touya closes the door, “All that stuff we did yesterday. Was that a date?”
As he sees Touya freezing and sees the look on his face he suddenly knows that he has gotten it right and a heat rushes through his body. He suddenly feels relaxed and almost giddy. Because Touya is as scared as he is, and somehow that helps.
Touya draws a deep breath, seemingly steeling himself for this conversation but Hikaru doesn’t let him catch his breath.
“Because if it was, it was a pretty lame date. And it didn’t end the way it supposed to.”
Touya flushes a deep red, but his eyes flashes and Hikaru contently concludes that they will be back to the yelling stage in no time.
Before Touya can actually start yelling, Hikaru leans in.
“It is supposed to end like this,” he says and kisses Touya.
He had planned to make the kiss brief. To very suavely kiss Touya and then lean back and say something witty. But that was obviously an absurd idea. Because Touya, after a muffled sound and a second of stiffening up, kisses him back, and it is not a soft or meek or mild kiss. It is forceful and passionate and desperate in a way that Hikaru wasn’t expecting. Somehow Hikaru realizes, in the back of his head, he still thought he was the only one who really, really wanted this, but now with Touya pressed up against him he suddenly realizes how much Touya wants him. Hikaru totally loses his head and when they finally pull back still pressed against each other his heart is pounding and he feels like his entire body is on fire. Touya is flushed and gasping, but he is looking at Hikaru with eyes that Hikaru has been fighting a lifetime to get aimed at him and Hikaru’s brain sort of shorts out. He can find absolutely no reason why his tongue isn’t in Touya’s mouth right this instance.
“You could have told me it was a date.” he mumbles as he leans in again seeking Touya’s mouth.
Touya sort of stops him and looks at him with real bewilderment.
“What on earth else could it have been?”
“I thought you might have been on drugs?”
As it turns out, they are back at the yelling stage but Touya kisses him again anyway.