[Kety]
by rex_sun
you still have time.
Kaga kicks off his shoes by stepping on the back of one and then the other. He leaves them where they were shed: not quite by the door but close enough, one on its side, the heels scuffed. Then he staggers around the corner and finds the bedroom, and here he deposits his too-heavy suitcase with a graceless thump. In the bathroom nook he reads the complimentary soaps and makes sure he doesn't have eye boogers. He uses the bathroom and accidently kicks the toilet when the power of the flush startles him.
He checks his cell phone; responds to a few emails, none of which are from his wife. The bed is far too large. He sits on the edge. He takes off his socks and rubs his tender toes on the rough carpet. By the time he has finished responding to his boss, who asked for a check in, his underling, who asked what the hell happened where did you go boss (oops, forgot to tell the little shit), and several of his peers who treat him like he should have arrived fucking yesterday and already written that report he promised he would-- there is a bad crick in his neck, and the sun has set.
He rises with a grunting sigh and small, dull pains firing, and he bemoans his old age in an only half-playful way. As he walks to the kitchen he ignores the next influx of email notifications beeping from his pocket. The hotel staff gave him ice, tea, and coffee; Kaga wonders why his bosses bothered getting him a room with a kitchen in the first place. He would have been more than satisfied with a much simpler room. What does he need pots for when he fully intends to stuff his face with all the junky restaurant foods his wife doesn't allow him? What does he need a couch for if he isn't going to be entertaining?
Or maybe he just wants something to complain about, he realizes, and with no one to see, the fight falls right out of him. He doesn't want ice or tea or coffee. He wants to get as drunk as he reasonably can when he has to be at a stupid conference by noon.
He figures the responsible thing to do would be to let his family know he's landed and safe, and so he does it-- now, before he's drunk and remembers later and has to sit through her bitching-- the bitching that isn't entirely bitching and more like the most annoying silence the world has ever known. 'The house' picks up after three rings and he says gruffly, "I'm here." Because he is a responsible, mature adult who calls to let her know he hasn't gotten lost or mugged when he's out on a business trip and even if they had an argument right before he left, and he doesn't care what she says.
"That's good," Emiko says stiffly, and then she does this thing she does after arguments where she pretends nothing happened at all. She says an insincere apology for using his money to get her hair done and tells him all about the neighborhood gossip he couldn't care less about. Periodically she raises her voice at their son, or she says "Just a moment" before going quiet and returns without explanation.
And because even Kaga has grown weary as he is aged, he doesn't bother to fight again but asks, "How's the little brat?"
He hangs up after telling her that he's probably going to go straight to bed, and he shuffles out the door, key card in his pocket. The door clicks shut behind him.
Now he, Kaga Tetsuo, has been in a great multitude of hotels in his career-- the company is always asking him to attend this conference or meet these people or see about this prospect --and because his boss changes often, he is not enrolled in any sort of sensible frequent-stay program with any one hotel. Nope, he has visited an uncounted number of different chains, rest stops, family businesses. Ryokan from his favorite, long ago fired boss. Those one-man tubes in Tokyo from his least favorite, long ago promoted boss. Western hotels upon western hotels. That is why he can assume great authority within his own mind when declaring that this is the ugliest hotel he's ever visited in terms of decoration. The carpet extends unbroken in what should be rust color that looks more like vomit. It's comforting in that maybe no one will notice if he gets too-too-drunk and does anything regrettable.
Even the elevator has it. Kaga realizes he left his shoes all haphazard somewhere in his room when he glares down at the floor.
The elevator is not stopped in all the five floors it visits. When it opens to the first, no one is waiting on it. Kaga trundles down the hallway; it is deserted, all doors shut. Is it later than he thought? No-- he walks on until the hideous carpet stops very abruptly and changes into tiles that aren't actually dirty but look dirty because of their color --and the sky outside the glass front doors is night but not really dark. A luminescent sort of grey-blue.
He finds the bar like metal finds a magnet and the young bartender-- not exactly busy in a place like this --goes ahead and finishes his phone conversation before he even asks Kaga what he'd like. Kaga waits as patiently as a man who would rather get plastered than buzzed can wait. Then he takes his booze and finds a nice comfy chair in the common area that looks like it can easily be cleaned of stains, props his bare feet up on the glass table, and begins the long awaited process with only Shindo Hikaru and some other guy for company.
Spit-take.
What?
"Shindo?" he asks blankly.
The man-- boy? --man-- The man, previously lost in thought, raises his head from his fist and looks for him, eyebrows questioning. He is one armchair and a loveseat away, in the prime spot of before-the-fire. Unlike the other, nameless guy muttering over his beer in the corner and Kaga himself, this man is not a businessman. He's not wearing a suit like the other guy; he's not wearing the remnant components of a suit worn earlier in the day, even, like Kaga is; he is wearing nice, dark jeans and white sneakers and the jersey of his favorite baseball player. Even now he is a young-looking man, with bright, mischievous eyes and hair that Kaga might have respected when they were both middle schoolers. It's Shindo.
Shindo looks at him, the same expression as back then, so untouched, unchanged. He gives his broad, crooked smile that brings back memories like a sack of bricks and looks Kaga in the eye. "Hello. Who are you?"
Kaga smacks his drink down, maybe a bit more forcefully than he should, upon the accent table. He might have dented the cheap, soft wood. "What do you mean, who am I? Don't you recognize me?"
Shindo's goofy little grin disappears and he says, "Uh, sorry, are you in town for the convention?"
Kaga falters, mouth open. He is, in fact, in town for a convention, but he doesn't think they are on the same page here. "I'm here on business!"
"Well, yeah, I suppose it is business," Shindo mutters. He begins to turn his head, side-eyeing Kaga, and takes a sip of his drink. An awkward dismissal.
"You idiot--" (this time Shindo is the one to choke on his drink) "--have you already forgotten?"
The bartender looks up from his cell, brows knitted. Kaga's being a little loud.
"Oi, who are you calling an idiot?!" Shindo shouts back.
Kaga is vaguely aware that they are both on their feet. And now the staff members all the way at the front desk are looking over.
"It's me, Kaga!"
"I don't know a Kaga, fool!"
"What the hell do you mean, you don't know a Kaga?! Look at this face!"
"You keep asking me what I mean like I could make it any plainer! Did you flunk out of school or something?"
Kaga stomps his foot. "That's funny, Shindo, since I know you never even went to high school!"
Shindo points an accusing finger. "How do you know about my sch--..."
Kaga lets the idiocy pour out of Shindo's ears as he lights himself a cigarette. The staff warily turn back to their duties. A guard in plain clothes wanders by deliberately.
"Kaga," Shindo says.
"Dumbass."
Shindo squints at him. "God, you're old."
Kaga makes an awful but justifiable racket.
***
Shindo makes up for his inherent and unblemished assholishness by inviting Kaga to a real bar, and paying on top of that. Kaga demands a booth but doesn't say it's for his aching back. He probably should have napped after the plane, but he can sleep when he's dead, he supposes. Shindo slides in across from him and keeps up that obnoxious squinting until Kaga acerbically asks if he is waiting on his eye prescription to come in. Then Shindo just frowns and munches on crackers.
"Your hair's different," Shindo finally says. He's sprawled out on his seat, legs spread and arms loose.
"Your's is more or less the same," Kaga says with a sniff and a discreet stretching of his back.
Shindo's hand lands on top of his yellow-and-black mop-- or well, it's not as much of a mop as it used to be, he supposes, and the pattern's a bit different. Other than that, Shindo is remarkably ageless. He's still wearing the kind of clothes as back then, and his face is boyish and charming still. It seems he hasn't a care in the world when he smiles like he does.
"And anyway," Kaga continues, "I can't be expected to keep the same hairstyle for ten--"
"Isn't it more like fifteen?"
"--twelve years."
"Oh. I thought it was because you're an office worker."
Kaga stares. He isn't sure why but he feels almost offended.
"You are, aren't you?" Shindo asks.
"It's a good job," Kaga affirms. Shindo huffs a laugh. Kaga takes it to mean, 'Not as good as mine', and he suddenly wants to strangle the little bastard. Shindo is lucky Kaga has always been so fond of him and his dorky, socially inept ways. "Well, aren't you going to ask me what I do?"
Shindo opens his mouth, not even giving the courtesy to think about what a jackass he is, and spouts yet more jackassery: "Does it matter?"
Kaga swells with anger. As he's about to retaliate, though, Shindo turns his head, and his face lights up. "My opponent!" he shouts, rudely pointing a finger that Kaga follows, feeling unearthed. Another ghost has approached the table: Touya Akira, and now Kaga knows the world is unfair, because he, too, is untouched by the passage of time, except perhaps for a line between his brows. Kaga hides his face in his hands; suddenly he feels very tired. He rubs his eyes as if that'll wake him from the entire dreamlike affair while Touya slides in next to Shindo.
Touya's drink makes a politely inaudible meeting with the table. "I didn't know we were expecting company."
"We were discussing hair," Shindo says. His eyes twinkle.
Touya's face goes stone cold, but he doesn't pause for even a second. When he bows, his hair swishes forward. "Hello, my name is Tou--"
"--Touya Akira," Kaga grunts. He hasn't forgotten.
"Oh yeah!" Shindo gasps. "Kaga, you're not still angry, are you?"
Kaga lets out a short laugh and drinks. He has a feeling he's going to be more than a little drunk by the end of the evening. "Give me some credit. We're not still kids, you know."
Shindo shrugs. "Disappointing."
Kaga instinctively pegs him on the forehead with a thrown peanut.
"Uhm..." Touya pipes in.
"Hey, Touya. This is Kaga."
"Kaga what?" Kaga jabs.
"Doesn't matter," Shindo ducks.
"Excuse me," Touya says. His expression says that he's biting back a truly epic sigh of frustration. Kaga said he wasn't still angry, but something in him still likes to see Touya Akira squirm. "Have we met before, Kaga-san?"
"Maybe in a different life," Kaga says cryptically. He goes for another drink.
***
By the closing of the bar, Shindo has his arm around Kaga's shoulders and his other hand is waving an enthusiastic goodbye to Touya's back. Kaga watches the man he used to know as a very small boy walk away. There's an odd sort of yawn within his body and yet he also feels inordinately heavy. There's something so admirable about the straightness of Touya's back that Kaga feels inadequate.
"He never did recognize me," Kaga mutters.
"You're not wearing shoes," Shindo giggles. It's true; Kaga looks down and realizes that his socks are fucking filthy. They're the kind with thick soles for foot comfort, though. After a while he hadn't realized his feet were bare.
Shindo wanders off ahead of him, staggering just a little. The guy can chug it, Kaga will give him that. Shindo had explained enthusiastically that he is that rare breed of son-of-a-bitch that doesn't really get hangovers. Kaga wants to kill him-- but for some reason his intent keeps getting interrupted by the vision, a flash of Touya Akira's back in his mind's eye. It's distracting, and it sucks out all the fight from him, and instead of killing Shindo, all he wants to do is sleep.
"Why would he have recognized you?" Shindo thinks to ask a bit later. "I never did really get it."
Kaga trips over a raised piece of concrete. Shindo catches him. Grudgingly he admits, "We were in the same go class when we were kids."
"Woah, seriously?"
"Mmhmm." Kaga thinks about that for a second. "You know..."
"Yeah?"
"Touya..."
"What about him?" Shindo asks, a tone of impatience hiding his absolute curiosity.
"...he hasn't changed his hairstyle his entire fucking life, man."
Shindo falls to the ground, he is laughing so hard. His hand leaves Kaga's elbow; Kaga had gotten used to it there like he'd gotten used to having bare feet. Kaga laughs, too. It feels good.
At last Kaga holds out his hand, ready to help Shindo back up, but Shindo has already braced himself against his own knees. He stumbles back and forth but eventually catches his balance and only then notices Kaga's hand. Shindo slaps it lightly and says, "Thanks, I got it."
They carry on. Kaga asks why Shindo and Touya aren't going to the same hotel. Shindo says he was at that hotel, but he caused too much trouble and they shunted him to this one. "As if that could keep me and Touya apart," Shindo huffs, at once admitting that it was Touya that had gotten him in trouble before and also that he would continue to get in trouble if that trouble concerned Touya.
"I knew it," Kaga sighs. "You haven't changed at all."
"You have," Shindo mumbles.
"Who, me?" Kaga thinks on it. He can't remember what he used to be like to compare it to. He thinks maybe he used to be a brat, and when he got older he was embarrassed of himself, and so he had purposefully stopped remembering.
But Shindo shrugs-- an uncomfortable shrug --and then grins and asks if he wants a game of go. And Shindo looks Kaga in the eye like: 'Do it or else.' or 'I don't respect you.' or 'You aren't my friend.' Maybe he isn't thinking that at all. Something in Kaga is cowering.
"Fuck you," Kaga spits. "Why the fuck would I play that lame game? We should play shogi instead!"
Kaga suddenly realizes he doesn't bring his shogi board around anymore.
No one to play it with.
"I'm too drunk," Shindo laughs. "Let's play something I know I could beat you in with my eyes closed."
Saved, Kaga thinks oddly. Then he is ashamed of that.
"I'll crush you," Kaga declares.
"Weak!"
***
Kaga waits, wondering if he should or shouldn't. The game before him is utter defeat. Shindo yawns so hard his eyes squeeze shut; Kaga takes that moment to bow.
"Good game," Shindo says.
"Bullshit."
Shindo clears the board with hands steady enough. He'd sobered up a little on leftover breakfast muffins he swiped from the complimentary line this morning. He seems to pause when the board is cleared and stares at the 19 by 19 lost in thought. "Kaga, how old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
"You still have time," Shindo murmurs, the softest voice Kaga has ever heard from him. In a lightening quick moment, something that has been running after Kaga all night finally catches up: his heart hurts. His whole body hurts. His throat hurts. He really, really wants to punch Shindo. More than that he wants to punch Touya Akira. More than that he wants to punch his dad, but he can't because his dad is dead.
Then the moment disappears quickly enough; Shindo steamrolls right over this instance of tenderness like he does most. Kaga grudgingly allows Shindo to compliment his game with lines such as-- "Still good, though rusty" and "You were always good even when you hadn't practiced".
Shindo grins and says wistfully, "Yeah, you always were... I remember that I never thought I'd beat you, back then."
"Of course not! I taught you, didn't I?"
"Don't give yourself so much credit. It was Tsutsui-sempai who taught me. Well, and a couple of other people." Shindo rubs his chin where a bit of stubble has grown. His voice is incredibly fond as he continues: "But you were always, you know, Kaga. First chair. You always carried around that 'king' fan, right? I guess you were. The king, I mean, and not just in shogi."
"There were people that could have defeated me," Kaga grumbles. "Have defeated me," he adds with a gesture to the open board.
"Ah, but you carried yourself like a king, and everyone believed it."
Shindo reminisces like this for some time before Kaga can't take it anymore and he has to say goodnight. Shindo stays on the floor, grinning like a fool, and when Kaga reaches the door, he calls out, "You should come see my exhibition match tomorrow."
"Is it Touya?" Kaga pauses with his hand on the lever.
"Yeah, it is! How'd you know?"
"You called him your opponent earlier, fool."
"Oh, did I?"
"Time?"
"Eh?"
"What time, I said! Pay attention!"
Shindo scrunches up his face, then twists his body and slaps his hand around the little end table behind him. He produces a paper worn like it had been constantly folded and refolded. "One thirty," he reads off.
Kaga shrugs. "Sorry bud. Busy."
"Aw man! Is it really that important?" Shindo whines as he tosses the paper casually. It slides under the couch. He's going to go nuts looking for it in the morning.
"It's my job."
"I guess you must like it, then."
Kaga grips the lever harder. What a very strange thing to say. You go to your job because it's your job. You don't always have to like everything you do. Sometimes you put up with things you don't like so you can go home to the things you do-- (except he hadn't really been liking her for a while now) --It's just part of growing up. It's realistic. Not everyone can do whatever the hell they like, like Shindo and Touya. Your hobbies and even your passions don't always become your job. So you go to your job whether you like it or not because you have to survive somehow.
Kaga leaves.
***
He dreams but can't remember it in the morning. In misery he presses his aching head into the cool pillows and only the images of Shindo, Touya, and his father remain, fading ever faster, something like sun shadows on the back of his eyelids. His morning goes on a sluggish autopilot of aspirin and orange juice and one plain navy suit, sitting down for just a moment in the hotel lobby to get his bearings. At some point Shindo hurtles through like a whirlwind, suit pants wrinkled at the bottoms where they've bunched at his shoes because apparently it is beyond Shindo actually to tailor these sorts of things that need tailored. His tie is hanging like a scarf and his cuffs are unbuttoned and his jacket is stuffed between his bag and his hip.
Kaga tries to hide but Shindo spots him anyway. "Good morning, Kaga!" he chirps, proving his claim of being a lucky no-hangovers bastard.
"Shindo," Kaga huffs. Shindo steals his toast.
"You know, I had the most awesome dream last night about you and me and Tsutsui, and Touya was there too, and at some point you and Touya had a go game, and dude you totally wrecked him! That's how I knew it was a dream, ha ha, but then as payment for losing Touya shaved his head and then I was certain that it was a dream-- ever have one of those? Where you just realize that you're dreaming? They're so awesome, sometimes you can control it and stuff--"
"Shindo, are you late?"
"--you know, you're right, I am, I went nuts looking for my schedule this morning, but I'm sure someone at the convention will know. Hey, are you coming? It's in that hotel that Touya's staying at, actually, and--"
"I said I wasn't coming," Kaga snaps, pressing his fingers into his eyeballs. "I've got work!"
"But if I'm late, surely you are, too?" Shindo asks innocently.
"...fuck!"
Kaga arrives to his own convention some 15 minutes later. Just to be sure, he checks his feet: wearing shoes. Good. It takes another hour of depressing office humor, triangle cups of lukewarm water, and useless plastic pens with chipping logos for Kaga to say not good. But he goes to his damn noon meeting anyway, by god, because he does have a wife and kid to think about, not like that louse Shindo-- why is he still thinking of Shindo? He's got his own life, a life that needs focus--
By 12: 15 Kaga is fidgety and checks his phone. There's an email from his wife. It's slyly snide and it really, really fucking irritates him for some reason.
And by 12: 35 Kaga's eyes wander to the tiny slits in the blinds over the one window where tiny slivers of shining gold sunlight make their way through, and he thinks about Touya.
Man, I used to really hate that guy.
Just this, a whisper to himself in past tense, and the image of Touya's straight back superimposed over a dusty little window. Suddenly he remembers himself as he used to be: wild and malcontent; fierce and noble. He was the king of his own damn mind; so he was haunted by Touya, it didn't mean he was any less king. So he was angry at his father; he let him know. He was a boy who wanted to be a man, known. Feared the world over, or just in his own little world, that school and his underclassmen. He ruled them; he made the rules for himself. Kaga was not the impotent little lackey that he is today.
So he was angry back then: it was his anger that gave him passion, and it was his passion that set him free.
He doesn't bother to excuse himself from the meeting he hasn't been paying attention to for the past seven minutes. He simply exits and lets them wonder.
***
Kaga walks into the hotel where this dratted go convention is being held and Touya is staying, hands in his pockets and shoulders back. He strides up to a cute lady in a short skirt and has her tell him the location of the Shindo vs Touya match. She gladly hands over the schedule and a little information packet that tells him things he already knows about the Shindo-Touya rivalry. He crumples it up and throws it in the trash on his way down the hall.
He plops down into one of the rows of seats before the stage and watches the intensity of the two men upon it. Shindo has rolled up his unbuttoned sleeves. Kaga leans back in his chair, pops his blasted back, and frees his own cuffs.
There is a man in the seats a few rows ahead who keeps looking back at him through thick-framed glasses. Kaga flips him a bird after the third time. The man flushes and sends his eyes back to the stage.
Shindo wins.
***
"YA-HOO!"
"Keep your voice down, you cretin!"
"Are you kidding me? I just flattened Touya in front of a huge audience!"
"Are you saying that's never happened before? You're pathetic."
"Oh, a few times, but it never gets old-- hey, who the hell are you calling pathetic, office drone?"
Kaga leans back from those scorching eyes and sets his mouth into a hard line. Shindo slaps his hand over his mouth and looks away, embarrassed by himself. Then Kaga laughs. Then Shindo stares.
"I quit," Kaga says roughly, gladly, and he punches the top of Shindo's head.
Shindo looks stunned, as if he hadn't spent the last night subtly convincing Kaga to do this very thing. "Quit...? You can't just--"
"Sure I can," Kaga cuts. Before Shindo can properly argue out of his stupidly-hanging mouth, Kaga points behind him. "There's your opponent."
Shindo whirls around and comes face to face with a smiling Touya. "Congratulations," Touya says softly. Shindo's mouth clicks shut and he smiles back, this time full and not crooked. Touya takes him by the wrist in one hand and fixes his sleeve with the other.
As Kaga begins to walk away to leave them to their peace, he very nearly collides with the bespectacled man from the audience. The man looks at him with impossibly wide eyes and then says happily, "It is you! Kaga-san!"
"Who are-- oh no!"
Kaga covers his eyes, vainly fending off his newest headache. Tsutsui claps him on the shoulder and laughs.
A handful of goofy hugs among a trio of schoolboy friends and a smattering of strange looks from one standoffish Touya Akira later, Kaga says, "I've got ice, tea, and coffee in my hotel room, but we can get booze if we want and get drunk off our asses."
"Best plan ever," Shindo says enthusiastically.
***
That night they all drink and get drunk and get stupid. Tsutsui admits that he always, without fail, skips work whenever Shindo, his favorite go pro, plays a game near him. Shindo says that sometimes he makes prank emergency calls to his friends' workplaces just to get them off the hook. Touya (invited against Kaga's will by Shindo), is mostly a quiet drunk who sits on the couch and takes up as little space as possible, smiling and dozing and staring off into space. But then he says lowly, "I skip games sometimes to play a preferred opponent."
Kaga, for his part, calls his wife and tells her all sorts of things that he's been remembering in the past few hours about how they met and what he liked about her and the things they used to do. She sighs. "Are you drunk?" He says, "I'll call you when I'm sober and say the same thing. Then you'll know I'm serious. Watch out for that call. I swear I'm gonna do it. Kiss the kid for me. Bye. Bye bye."
When he hangs up, he grins at the phone and tells the room, "I'm gonna teach my kid shogi."
"Teach him go," Shindo insists. "Have Tsutsui teach him go!"
"I can teach people go," Tsutsui snickers, sloppily placing a stone on the foldable board between him and Shindo (retrieved earlier from Shindo's room).
Touya and Kaga watch the game. Shindo unconsciously switches his hold to that of a beginner's. He still wipes the floor with Tsutsui. Kaga takes Tsutsui's place. He says, "Remember you said I've still got time? Get me there." And Shindo nods and smiles and accepts his challenge. He wants to see Kaga there. Kaga wonders if you can be a go pro and a shogi pro at the same time.
"Gotta thank you, Kaga," Shindo sighs as they play their opening moves. "Haven't been doing so good. Been sucking lately."
"Mmhmm," Touya hums, closing his eyes.
"Then, I'unno, I just remembered," Shindo continues. "Remembered how we all used to be. Like, how you hated Touya and Tsutsui admired Touya and I was just, like, burning after him all the time. Serious as a heart attack back then. Lit a fire under my ass."
"You were on fire today," Tsutsui agrees.
"Always wanna play like this," Shindo says.
"Mmhmm," Touya hums. He slides into a contented sleep.
"Me too," Kaga whispers. "Always wanna be that king."
you still have time.
Kaga kicks off his shoes by stepping on the back of one and then the other. He leaves them where they were shed: not quite by the door but close enough, one on its side, the heels scuffed. Then he staggers around the corner and finds the bedroom, and here he deposits his too-heavy suitcase with a graceless thump. In the bathroom nook he reads the complimentary soaps and makes sure he doesn't have eye boogers. He uses the bathroom and accidently kicks the toilet when the power of the flush startles him.
He checks his cell phone; responds to a few emails, none of which are from his wife. The bed is far too large. He sits on the edge. He takes off his socks and rubs his tender toes on the rough carpet. By the time he has finished responding to his boss, who asked for a check in, his underling, who asked what the hell happened where did you go boss (oops, forgot to tell the little shit), and several of his peers who treat him like he should have arrived fucking yesterday and already written that report he promised he would-- there is a bad crick in his neck, and the sun has set.
He rises with a grunting sigh and small, dull pains firing, and he bemoans his old age in an only half-playful way. As he walks to the kitchen he ignores the next influx of email notifications beeping from his pocket. The hotel staff gave him ice, tea, and coffee; Kaga wonders why his bosses bothered getting him a room with a kitchen in the first place. He would have been more than satisfied with a much simpler room. What does he need pots for when he fully intends to stuff his face with all the junky restaurant foods his wife doesn't allow him? What does he need a couch for if he isn't going to be entertaining?
Or maybe he just wants something to complain about, he realizes, and with no one to see, the fight falls right out of him. He doesn't want ice or tea or coffee. He wants to get as drunk as he reasonably can when he has to be at a stupid conference by noon.
He figures the responsible thing to do would be to let his family know he's landed and safe, and so he does it-- now, before he's drunk and remembers later and has to sit through her bitching-- the bitching that isn't entirely bitching and more like the most annoying silence the world has ever known. 'The house' picks up after three rings and he says gruffly, "I'm here." Because he is a responsible, mature adult who calls to let her know he hasn't gotten lost or mugged when he's out on a business trip and even if they had an argument right before he left, and he doesn't care what she says.
"That's good," Emiko says stiffly, and then she does this thing she does after arguments where she pretends nothing happened at all. She says an insincere apology for using his money to get her hair done and tells him all about the neighborhood gossip he couldn't care less about. Periodically she raises her voice at their son, or she says "Just a moment" before going quiet and returns without explanation.
And because even Kaga has grown weary as he is aged, he doesn't bother to fight again but asks, "How's the little brat?"
He hangs up after telling her that he's probably going to go straight to bed, and he shuffles out the door, key card in his pocket. The door clicks shut behind him.
Now he, Kaga Tetsuo, has been in a great multitude of hotels in his career-- the company is always asking him to attend this conference or meet these people or see about this prospect --and because his boss changes often, he is not enrolled in any sort of sensible frequent-stay program with any one hotel. Nope, he has visited an uncounted number of different chains, rest stops, family businesses. Ryokan from his favorite, long ago fired boss. Those one-man tubes in Tokyo from his least favorite, long ago promoted boss. Western hotels upon western hotels. That is why he can assume great authority within his own mind when declaring that this is the ugliest hotel he's ever visited in terms of decoration. The carpet extends unbroken in what should be rust color that looks more like vomit. It's comforting in that maybe no one will notice if he gets too-too-drunk and does anything regrettable.
Even the elevator has it. Kaga realizes he left his shoes all haphazard somewhere in his room when he glares down at the floor.
The elevator is not stopped in all the five floors it visits. When it opens to the first, no one is waiting on it. Kaga trundles down the hallway; it is deserted, all doors shut. Is it later than he thought? No-- he walks on until the hideous carpet stops very abruptly and changes into tiles that aren't actually dirty but look dirty because of their color --and the sky outside the glass front doors is night but not really dark. A luminescent sort of grey-blue.
He finds the bar like metal finds a magnet and the young bartender-- not exactly busy in a place like this --goes ahead and finishes his phone conversation before he even asks Kaga what he'd like. Kaga waits as patiently as a man who would rather get plastered than buzzed can wait. Then he takes his booze and finds a nice comfy chair in the common area that looks like it can easily be cleaned of stains, props his bare feet up on the glass table, and begins the long awaited process with only Shindo Hikaru and some other guy for company.
Spit-take.
What?
"Shindo?" he asks blankly.
The man-- boy? --man-- The man, previously lost in thought, raises his head from his fist and looks for him, eyebrows questioning. He is one armchair and a loveseat away, in the prime spot of before-the-fire. Unlike the other, nameless guy muttering over his beer in the corner and Kaga himself, this man is not a businessman. He's not wearing a suit like the other guy; he's not wearing the remnant components of a suit worn earlier in the day, even, like Kaga is; he is wearing nice, dark jeans and white sneakers and the jersey of his favorite baseball player. Even now he is a young-looking man, with bright, mischievous eyes and hair that Kaga might have respected when they were both middle schoolers. It's Shindo.
Shindo looks at him, the same expression as back then, so untouched, unchanged. He gives his broad, crooked smile that brings back memories like a sack of bricks and looks Kaga in the eye. "Hello. Who are you?"
Kaga smacks his drink down, maybe a bit more forcefully than he should, upon the accent table. He might have dented the cheap, soft wood. "What do you mean, who am I? Don't you recognize me?"
Shindo's goofy little grin disappears and he says, "Uh, sorry, are you in town for the convention?"
Kaga falters, mouth open. He is, in fact, in town for a convention, but he doesn't think they are on the same page here. "I'm here on business!"
"Well, yeah, I suppose it is business," Shindo mutters. He begins to turn his head, side-eyeing Kaga, and takes a sip of his drink. An awkward dismissal.
"You idiot--" (this time Shindo is the one to choke on his drink) "--have you already forgotten?"
The bartender looks up from his cell, brows knitted. Kaga's being a little loud.
"Oi, who are you calling an idiot?!" Shindo shouts back.
Kaga is vaguely aware that they are both on their feet. And now the staff members all the way at the front desk are looking over.
"It's me, Kaga!"
"I don't know a Kaga, fool!"
"What the hell do you mean, you don't know a Kaga?! Look at this face!"
"You keep asking me what I mean like I could make it any plainer! Did you flunk out of school or something?"
Kaga stomps his foot. "That's funny, Shindo, since I know you never even went to high school!"
Shindo points an accusing finger. "How do you know about my sch--..."
Kaga lets the idiocy pour out of Shindo's ears as he lights himself a cigarette. The staff warily turn back to their duties. A guard in plain clothes wanders by deliberately.
"Kaga," Shindo says.
"Dumbass."
Shindo squints at him. "God, you're old."
Kaga makes an awful but justifiable racket.
***
Shindo makes up for his inherent and unblemished assholishness by inviting Kaga to a real bar, and paying on top of that. Kaga demands a booth but doesn't say it's for his aching back. He probably should have napped after the plane, but he can sleep when he's dead, he supposes. Shindo slides in across from him and keeps up that obnoxious squinting until Kaga acerbically asks if he is waiting on his eye prescription to come in. Then Shindo just frowns and munches on crackers.
"Your hair's different," Shindo finally says. He's sprawled out on his seat, legs spread and arms loose.
"Your's is more or less the same," Kaga says with a sniff and a discreet stretching of his back.
Shindo's hand lands on top of his yellow-and-black mop-- or well, it's not as much of a mop as it used to be, he supposes, and the pattern's a bit different. Other than that, Shindo is remarkably ageless. He's still wearing the kind of clothes as back then, and his face is boyish and charming still. It seems he hasn't a care in the world when he smiles like he does.
"And anyway," Kaga continues, "I can't be expected to keep the same hairstyle for ten--"
"Isn't it more like fifteen?"
"--twelve years."
"Oh. I thought it was because you're an office worker."
Kaga stares. He isn't sure why but he feels almost offended.
"You are, aren't you?" Shindo asks.
"It's a good job," Kaga affirms. Shindo huffs a laugh. Kaga takes it to mean, 'Not as good as mine', and he suddenly wants to strangle the little bastard. Shindo is lucky Kaga has always been so fond of him and his dorky, socially inept ways. "Well, aren't you going to ask me what I do?"
Shindo opens his mouth, not even giving the courtesy to think about what a jackass he is, and spouts yet more jackassery: "Does it matter?"
Kaga swells with anger. As he's about to retaliate, though, Shindo turns his head, and his face lights up. "My opponent!" he shouts, rudely pointing a finger that Kaga follows, feeling unearthed. Another ghost has approached the table: Touya Akira, and now Kaga knows the world is unfair, because he, too, is untouched by the passage of time, except perhaps for a line between his brows. Kaga hides his face in his hands; suddenly he feels very tired. He rubs his eyes as if that'll wake him from the entire dreamlike affair while Touya slides in next to Shindo.
Touya's drink makes a politely inaudible meeting with the table. "I didn't know we were expecting company."
"We were discussing hair," Shindo says. His eyes twinkle.
Touya's face goes stone cold, but he doesn't pause for even a second. When he bows, his hair swishes forward. "Hello, my name is Tou--"
"--Touya Akira," Kaga grunts. He hasn't forgotten.
"Oh yeah!" Shindo gasps. "Kaga, you're not still angry, are you?"
Kaga lets out a short laugh and drinks. He has a feeling he's going to be more than a little drunk by the end of the evening. "Give me some credit. We're not still kids, you know."
Shindo shrugs. "Disappointing."
Kaga instinctively pegs him on the forehead with a thrown peanut.
"Uhm..." Touya pipes in.
"Hey, Touya. This is Kaga."
"Kaga what?" Kaga jabs.
"Doesn't matter," Shindo ducks.
"Excuse me," Touya says. His expression says that he's biting back a truly epic sigh of frustration. Kaga said he wasn't still angry, but something in him still likes to see Touya Akira squirm. "Have we met before, Kaga-san?"
"Maybe in a different life," Kaga says cryptically. He goes for another drink.
***
By the closing of the bar, Shindo has his arm around Kaga's shoulders and his other hand is waving an enthusiastic goodbye to Touya's back. Kaga watches the man he used to know as a very small boy walk away. There's an odd sort of yawn within his body and yet he also feels inordinately heavy. There's something so admirable about the straightness of Touya's back that Kaga feels inadequate.
"He never did recognize me," Kaga mutters.
"You're not wearing shoes," Shindo giggles. It's true; Kaga looks down and realizes that his socks are fucking filthy. They're the kind with thick soles for foot comfort, though. After a while he hadn't realized his feet were bare.
Shindo wanders off ahead of him, staggering just a little. The guy can chug it, Kaga will give him that. Shindo had explained enthusiastically that he is that rare breed of son-of-a-bitch that doesn't really get hangovers. Kaga wants to kill him-- but for some reason his intent keeps getting interrupted by the vision, a flash of Touya Akira's back in his mind's eye. It's distracting, and it sucks out all the fight from him, and instead of killing Shindo, all he wants to do is sleep.
"Why would he have recognized you?" Shindo thinks to ask a bit later. "I never did really get it."
Kaga trips over a raised piece of concrete. Shindo catches him. Grudgingly he admits, "We were in the same go class when we were kids."
"Woah, seriously?"
"Mmhmm." Kaga thinks about that for a second. "You know..."
"Yeah?"
"Touya..."
"What about him?" Shindo asks, a tone of impatience hiding his absolute curiosity.
"...he hasn't changed his hairstyle his entire fucking life, man."
Shindo falls to the ground, he is laughing so hard. His hand leaves Kaga's elbow; Kaga had gotten used to it there like he'd gotten used to having bare feet. Kaga laughs, too. It feels good.
At last Kaga holds out his hand, ready to help Shindo back up, but Shindo has already braced himself against his own knees. He stumbles back and forth but eventually catches his balance and only then notices Kaga's hand. Shindo slaps it lightly and says, "Thanks, I got it."
They carry on. Kaga asks why Shindo and Touya aren't going to the same hotel. Shindo says he was at that hotel, but he caused too much trouble and they shunted him to this one. "As if that could keep me and Touya apart," Shindo huffs, at once admitting that it was Touya that had gotten him in trouble before and also that he would continue to get in trouble if that trouble concerned Touya.
"I knew it," Kaga sighs. "You haven't changed at all."
"You have," Shindo mumbles.
"Who, me?" Kaga thinks on it. He can't remember what he used to be like to compare it to. He thinks maybe he used to be a brat, and when he got older he was embarrassed of himself, and so he had purposefully stopped remembering.
But Shindo shrugs-- an uncomfortable shrug --and then grins and asks if he wants a game of go. And Shindo looks Kaga in the eye like: 'Do it or else.' or 'I don't respect you.' or 'You aren't my friend.' Maybe he isn't thinking that at all. Something in Kaga is cowering.
"Fuck you," Kaga spits. "Why the fuck would I play that lame game? We should play shogi instead!"
Kaga suddenly realizes he doesn't bring his shogi board around anymore.
No one to play it with.
"I'm too drunk," Shindo laughs. "Let's play something I know I could beat you in with my eyes closed."
Saved, Kaga thinks oddly. Then he is ashamed of that.
"I'll crush you," Kaga declares.
"Weak!"
***
Kaga waits, wondering if he should or shouldn't. The game before him is utter defeat. Shindo yawns so hard his eyes squeeze shut; Kaga takes that moment to bow.
"Good game," Shindo says.
"Bullshit."
Shindo clears the board with hands steady enough. He'd sobered up a little on leftover breakfast muffins he swiped from the complimentary line this morning. He seems to pause when the board is cleared and stares at the 19 by 19 lost in thought. "Kaga, how old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
"You still have time," Shindo murmurs, the softest voice Kaga has ever heard from him. In a lightening quick moment, something that has been running after Kaga all night finally catches up: his heart hurts. His whole body hurts. His throat hurts. He really, really wants to punch Shindo. More than that he wants to punch Touya Akira. More than that he wants to punch his dad, but he can't because his dad is dead.
Then the moment disappears quickly enough; Shindo steamrolls right over this instance of tenderness like he does most. Kaga grudgingly allows Shindo to compliment his game with lines such as-- "Still good, though rusty" and "You were always good even when you hadn't practiced".
Shindo grins and says wistfully, "Yeah, you always were... I remember that I never thought I'd beat you, back then."
"Of course not! I taught you, didn't I?"
"Don't give yourself so much credit. It was Tsutsui-sempai who taught me. Well, and a couple of other people." Shindo rubs his chin where a bit of stubble has grown. His voice is incredibly fond as he continues: "But you were always, you know, Kaga. First chair. You always carried around that 'king' fan, right? I guess you were. The king, I mean, and not just in shogi."
"There were people that could have defeated me," Kaga grumbles. "Have defeated me," he adds with a gesture to the open board.
"Ah, but you carried yourself like a king, and everyone believed it."
Shindo reminisces like this for some time before Kaga can't take it anymore and he has to say goodnight. Shindo stays on the floor, grinning like a fool, and when Kaga reaches the door, he calls out, "You should come see my exhibition match tomorrow."
"Is it Touya?" Kaga pauses with his hand on the lever.
"Yeah, it is! How'd you know?"
"You called him your opponent earlier, fool."
"Oh, did I?"
"Time?"
"Eh?"
"What time, I said! Pay attention!"
Shindo scrunches up his face, then twists his body and slaps his hand around the little end table behind him. He produces a paper worn like it had been constantly folded and refolded. "One thirty," he reads off.
Kaga shrugs. "Sorry bud. Busy."
"Aw man! Is it really that important?" Shindo whines as he tosses the paper casually. It slides under the couch. He's going to go nuts looking for it in the morning.
"It's my job."
"I guess you must like it, then."
Kaga grips the lever harder. What a very strange thing to say. You go to your job because it's your job. You don't always have to like everything you do. Sometimes you put up with things you don't like so you can go home to the things you do-- (except he hadn't really been liking her for a while now) --It's just part of growing up. It's realistic. Not everyone can do whatever the hell they like, like Shindo and Touya. Your hobbies and even your passions don't always become your job. So you go to your job whether you like it or not because you have to survive somehow.
Kaga leaves.
***
He dreams but can't remember it in the morning. In misery he presses his aching head into the cool pillows and only the images of Shindo, Touya, and his father remain, fading ever faster, something like sun shadows on the back of his eyelids. His morning goes on a sluggish autopilot of aspirin and orange juice and one plain navy suit, sitting down for just a moment in the hotel lobby to get his bearings. At some point Shindo hurtles through like a whirlwind, suit pants wrinkled at the bottoms where they've bunched at his shoes because apparently it is beyond Shindo actually to tailor these sorts of things that need tailored. His tie is hanging like a scarf and his cuffs are unbuttoned and his jacket is stuffed between his bag and his hip.
Kaga tries to hide but Shindo spots him anyway. "Good morning, Kaga!" he chirps, proving his claim of being a lucky no-hangovers bastard.
"Shindo," Kaga huffs. Shindo steals his toast.
"You know, I had the most awesome dream last night about you and me and Tsutsui, and Touya was there too, and at some point you and Touya had a go game, and dude you totally wrecked him! That's how I knew it was a dream, ha ha, but then as payment for losing Touya shaved his head and then I was certain that it was a dream-- ever have one of those? Where you just realize that you're dreaming? They're so awesome, sometimes you can control it and stuff--"
"Shindo, are you late?"
"--you know, you're right, I am, I went nuts looking for my schedule this morning, but I'm sure someone at the convention will know. Hey, are you coming? It's in that hotel that Touya's staying at, actually, and--"
"I said I wasn't coming," Kaga snaps, pressing his fingers into his eyeballs. "I've got work!"
"But if I'm late, surely you are, too?" Shindo asks innocently.
"...fuck!"
Kaga arrives to his own convention some 15 minutes later. Just to be sure, he checks his feet: wearing shoes. Good. It takes another hour of depressing office humor, triangle cups of lukewarm water, and useless plastic pens with chipping logos for Kaga to say not good. But he goes to his damn noon meeting anyway, by god, because he does have a wife and kid to think about, not like that louse Shindo-- why is he still thinking of Shindo? He's got his own life, a life that needs focus--
By 12: 15 Kaga is fidgety and checks his phone. There's an email from his wife. It's slyly snide and it really, really fucking irritates him for some reason.
And by 12: 35 Kaga's eyes wander to the tiny slits in the blinds over the one window where tiny slivers of shining gold sunlight make their way through, and he thinks about Touya.
Man, I used to really hate that guy.
Just this, a whisper to himself in past tense, and the image of Touya's straight back superimposed over a dusty little window. Suddenly he remembers himself as he used to be: wild and malcontent; fierce and noble. He was the king of his own damn mind; so he was haunted by Touya, it didn't mean he was any less king. So he was angry at his father; he let him know. He was a boy who wanted to be a man, known. Feared the world over, or just in his own little world, that school and his underclassmen. He ruled them; he made the rules for himself. Kaga was not the impotent little lackey that he is today.
So he was angry back then: it was his anger that gave him passion, and it was his passion that set him free.
He doesn't bother to excuse himself from the meeting he hasn't been paying attention to for the past seven minutes. He simply exits and lets them wonder.
***
Kaga walks into the hotel where this dratted go convention is being held and Touya is staying, hands in his pockets and shoulders back. He strides up to a cute lady in a short skirt and has her tell him the location of the Shindo vs Touya match. She gladly hands over the schedule and a little information packet that tells him things he already knows about the Shindo-Touya rivalry. He crumples it up and throws it in the trash on his way down the hall.
He plops down into one of the rows of seats before the stage and watches the intensity of the two men upon it. Shindo has rolled up his unbuttoned sleeves. Kaga leans back in his chair, pops his blasted back, and frees his own cuffs.
There is a man in the seats a few rows ahead who keeps looking back at him through thick-framed glasses. Kaga flips him a bird after the third time. The man flushes and sends his eyes back to the stage.
Shindo wins.
***
"YA-HOO!"
"Keep your voice down, you cretin!"
"Are you kidding me? I just flattened Touya in front of a huge audience!"
"Are you saying that's never happened before? You're pathetic."
"Oh, a few times, but it never gets old-- hey, who the hell are you calling pathetic, office drone?"
Kaga leans back from those scorching eyes and sets his mouth into a hard line. Shindo slaps his hand over his mouth and looks away, embarrassed by himself. Then Kaga laughs. Then Shindo stares.
"I quit," Kaga says roughly, gladly, and he punches the top of Shindo's head.
Shindo looks stunned, as if he hadn't spent the last night subtly convincing Kaga to do this very thing. "Quit...? You can't just--"
"Sure I can," Kaga cuts. Before Shindo can properly argue out of his stupidly-hanging mouth, Kaga points behind him. "There's your opponent."
Shindo whirls around and comes face to face with a smiling Touya. "Congratulations," Touya says softly. Shindo's mouth clicks shut and he smiles back, this time full and not crooked. Touya takes him by the wrist in one hand and fixes his sleeve with the other.
As Kaga begins to walk away to leave them to their peace, he very nearly collides with the bespectacled man from the audience. The man looks at him with impossibly wide eyes and then says happily, "It is you! Kaga-san!"
"Who are-- oh no!"
Kaga covers his eyes, vainly fending off his newest headache. Tsutsui claps him on the shoulder and laughs.
A handful of goofy hugs among a trio of schoolboy friends and a smattering of strange looks from one standoffish Touya Akira later, Kaga says, "I've got ice, tea, and coffee in my hotel room, but we can get booze if we want and get drunk off our asses."
"Best plan ever," Shindo says enthusiastically.
***
That night they all drink and get drunk and get stupid. Tsutsui admits that he always, without fail, skips work whenever Shindo, his favorite go pro, plays a game near him. Shindo says that sometimes he makes prank emergency calls to his friends' workplaces just to get them off the hook. Touya (invited against Kaga's will by Shindo), is mostly a quiet drunk who sits on the couch and takes up as little space as possible, smiling and dozing and staring off into space. But then he says lowly, "I skip games sometimes to play a preferred opponent."
Kaga, for his part, calls his wife and tells her all sorts of things that he's been remembering in the past few hours about how they met and what he liked about her and the things they used to do. She sighs. "Are you drunk?" He says, "I'll call you when I'm sober and say the same thing. Then you'll know I'm serious. Watch out for that call. I swear I'm gonna do it. Kiss the kid for me. Bye. Bye bye."
When he hangs up, he grins at the phone and tells the room, "I'm gonna teach my kid shogi."
"Teach him go," Shindo insists. "Have Tsutsui teach him go!"
"I can teach people go," Tsutsui snickers, sloppily placing a stone on the foldable board between him and Shindo (retrieved earlier from Shindo's room).
Touya and Kaga watch the game. Shindo unconsciously switches his hold to that of a beginner's. He still wipes the floor with Tsutsui. Kaga takes Tsutsui's place. He says, "Remember you said I've still got time? Get me there." And Shindo nods and smiles and accepts his challenge. He wants to see Kaga there. Kaga wonders if you can be a go pro and a shogi pro at the same time.
"Gotta thank you, Kaga," Shindo sighs as they play their opening moves. "Haven't been doing so good. Been sucking lately."
"Mmhmm," Touya hums, closing his eyes.
"Then, I'unno, I just remembered," Shindo continues. "Remembered how we all used to be. Like, how you hated Touya and Tsutsui admired Touya and I was just, like, burning after him all the time. Serious as a heart attack back then. Lit a fire under my ass."
"You were on fire today," Tsutsui agrees.
"Always wanna play like this," Shindo says.
"Mmhmm," Touya hums. He slides into a contented sleep.
"Me too," Kaga whispers. "Always wanna be that king."