Apocalypse (one-shot)
Title: Apocalypse
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Survival, one-shot
Characters: Shindou Hikaru, Touya Akira
Pairings: HikaAki, Shounen-ai
Summary: Disaster strikes. Akira and Hikaru struggle to find their way back.
I'm just trying to start writing again. This hit me in a fit of sudden inspiration, and I stayed up until five in the morning feverishly writing it down. It's not much, but it's nice to start participating in fandom again.
Apocalypse
“Here,” Shindou said, tying a second knot. “It’s not much, but it’s better than bleeding all over the place.”
Trust Shindou to find a way to make a joke, even now.
“Mm,” Akira said, and shifted his left leg a bit, testing the makeshift bandage against the jagged cut along his lower thigh. He winced, and much to his dismay, saw blots of red beginning to form along the khaki cloth.
Shindou frowned.
“Maybe we shouldn’t move for a while. At least until it starts scabbing over.”
“But what if it doesn’t scab?” Akira said, and hearing a hint of shrill hysteria in his voice. “What if I need stitches? And this doesn’t heal because it somehow got infected and-”
“Okay, okay,” Shindou said, standing up from the pile of concrete rubble he’d been resting on. “We’ll worry about that when it happens, all right? I…” He paused, and he turned his head toward the closest opening he could find, though it was hard to make it through the clouds of ever present dust and smoke.
It wasn’t until that moment when Akira realized that Shindou had his injuries: a cut across the temple that had dripped blood down his neck and onto his shirt.
“Shindou, your head…”
“It’s okay,” Shindou told him, trying to smile and failing. “It’s all dried up by now. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as yours.”
“Do you need...?”
“Naw, I said I was okay,” he assured him.
Akira sat back on the slab of concrete he was on, trying to make his mind pick up some semblance of rational thought, but nothing was working.
“What happened, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Shindou said. He sat back down, but next to Akira, leaning away from a twisted, iron pipe that had managed to break its way out from beneath. “Does it really matter? It’s not like there’s anything we can do even if we did.”
For some odd reason Shindou was being uncommonly calm about this. Akira couldn’t imagine what was keeping him this calm, unless he was like him, fighting hysteria with every word.
“There was a flash of light, and that… awful sound,” Akira said, shuddering at the still too raw memories of it.
“Yeah, and then that wave of heat.”
They continued to look at the grayness, which was gradually becoming darker, the smoke taking on an orange tinge. Were there fires beyond their tiny shelter?
“What if it had been a nuke?”
Akira turned to look at him, his eyes widening.
“But why? We haven’t done anything! We haven’t been at war.”
“Maybe now there will be,” was all Shindou said.
“There were those earthquakes too,” Akira protested. Those had been responsible for their current injuries. And why no building had been left standing.
Next to him, Akira felt Shindou shivering. In the growing dark, Akira could barely make out his face, but he knew that it wasn’t because of the weather. It was mid July, and the air was thick and humid. Their clothes, dirty and caked with some sort of odd grey dust, was stuck to their skin, sticky and uncomfortable. Summer. It was summer, Akira thought, and they were hiding in a building with only half its walls left, huddled on a slab of concrete that might have been a part of its second floor. Beyond them there was nothing: no people, no buildings. For all Akira knew, he and Shindou could be the only people left.
“Let’s play go.”
Akira felt Shindou shift. If he could see, he knew Shindou would be giving him a look of shocked disbelief.
“What?! Here? Now? Touya…”
“What else can we do?” Akira snapped. “It’s too dark to try walking, we don’t have food or water, there’s nobody out there, and I don’t know if I can sleep right now.” He paused. “I don’t want to think about what’s happened either.”
Silence.
“3-4.”
“Touya…”
“3-4, dammit,” Akira said through gritted teeth. He felt his eyes burn, and willed himself not to cry. Stupid, stupid, why was this happening?
“… 16-4.”
They never finished the game. Shindou started leaning his head against Akira’s shoulder during chuban, and Akira found himself curled up against him as best he could, resting his own head against the cool concrete. Together, they slept fitfully through the night.
* * *
Dawn never arrived. Instead the darkness simply lightened, going from black to steel gray. Akira woke up stiff and sore, but any lingering drowsiness left him when he realized that he was alone. Panicking he sat up, a hand going instinctively to his bandaged thigh as he struggled to stand.
“Shindou? Shindou!”
He felt his voice tremble toward the end, and knew that if Shindou didn’t return quick, soon, immediately, that he would go insane right where he was. When silence was all that greeted him, Akira began to sway. He bit his lip, trying to keep from screaming, and began picking his way over the uneven rubble toward the opening.
“Shindou!” he shouted, this time no longer able to keep the tears out of his voice.
“Touya!”
Suddenly Shindou was there, appearing like a ghost out of the gray smoke. He was no longer wearing his yellow jacket, but carrying it. In his other hand, he carried a pink tote bag, bulging with unknown objects.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, picking up the pace toward the end.
“Where’d you go?” Akira demanded. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Revenge for all the times you gave me one,” Shindou retorted easily. He set the tote bag down, and Akira saw that it was filled with food, mostly bread. The yellow shirt had been turned into a makeshift knapsack, and when Akira heard the sloshing sound, he knew that Shindou had also brought water.
“Where…”
“I remembered that was a convenience store nearby. I thought I’d go check. I mean, last night, your point about food and water… anyway I woke up before you did and didn’t want to wake you up, so I thought I’d go check. There’s still tons of stuff there. Once we finish all this we could go back and refill, assuming others don’t get to it first.”
“Should we move there next?” Akira asked.
“Ummm… no. No. I think we should probably leave this place soon. Maybe start trying to get to the nearest station? Anyway, that place… it’s kinda out in the open.”
Something about Shindou’s ever-present cheerfulness felt off, as if he was hiding something. Akira identified it all too easily, recognizing the same feeling in himself.
“Shindou, where’d you find the tote bag?”
“Oh this?” Again, that forced cheerfulness, but as Shindou continued to speak, his voice began to grow higher and higher in pitch. “I found it at the store, actually. I mean it was just laying there and… and…”
Akira’s eyes widened in horror.
“I mean, it’s not like she’d need it anymore, right? And we’re still alive, so…”
Suddenly Shindou began to shake. He covered his face with his hands, but it wasn’t long before Akira saw the tears dripping through the cracks between his fingers.
There was nothing Akira could do but stare helplessly. He was socially awkward at the best of times, and right now he couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, what Shindou might have seen.
“Shindou it’s…” he began, but then paused, biting his lip. No, he couldn’t say it. There was nothing okay about any of this. So he simply stood, watching Shindou cry silently, feeling useless. His eyes wandered toward the tote bag. It was pink. Akira noted the cartoon cats on the front, and felt himself growing sicker. Shindou had said, “She.” How old had she been? And how… his mind shied away from the next question.
He didn’t know how long they stood there, but after awhile Shindou’s tears stopped flowing. Sensing that it was temporarily over, Akira bent down, kneeling clumsily while he untied the knot of the makeshift knapsack.
“Here,” he said, fishing out a bottle of water and handing it to Shindou, who took it silently. Akira grabbed one himself, but only took a sip. There was no telling when they’d find more. “We should probably find a way out of here,” he added. “At least get to the closest station.”
There was a muffled sniffle as Shindou wiped away the last of his tears.
“Yeah. Touya, take the bag. It’s lighter. I’ll carry the water.”
Akira nodded, and lifted the bag easily, trying not to look too hard at the brown spots on the bottom corner. Shindou had mostly chosen bread. Some were squished, but most remained whole. It was probably the smartest choice he could have made.
“Let’s go.”
They stepped out onto what was left of a narrow alleyway. Akira walked carefully, trying not to strain his injured leg too much. Shindou followed next to him, both arms carrying his makeshift sack, eyes blank. Neither of them had the urge to speak.
They saw another living person around what Akira guessed was midday. The man stood, his suit in tatters, and seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
“I thought I was the only person left alive,” he said by way of greeting.
Akira didn’t reply, but nodded numbly. He wasn’t sure what he felt. Relief? It was good to know that he and Shindou weren’t alone.
“We’re trying to get to the station,” Shindou told him.
“Ah, that sounds like a good idea.”
There were fires burning as they walked down the center of a former busy intersection. Akira noted the cars crushed beneath shattered bridges, his eyes darting instinctively away from the giant slabs of concrete. He didn’t want to look too closely. He didn’t want to end up crying like Shindou.
As they neared the station, more signs of life emerged. A woman carrying a toddler with a broken leg. A lone schoolgirl, wearing a uniform so covered in dust that it was no longer possible to determine what its original color had been. By silent consensus, they formed a group. Whether the others were following Shindou or they were following the others, Akira didn’t know. It was late afternoon when they reached what had once been Shinjiku station. Akira’s left leg was in so much agony that he was leaning against Shindou to ease the pain, but even he couldn’t completely hold in a cry of shock at what he saw.
There was almost nothing left.
The schoolgirl, so overcome with horror, began to sob, her shrieks cutting through Akira’s eardrums like a knife. Arakawa-san, the salary man, went to her side. His words of comfort rang hollow and desperate, but the girl eventually began to quiet.
“Look, there’re tents.”
Even in the destruction, there was some attempt at organization. Akira saw a line of people, and the smell in that direction revealed that food was being served. Another line at the opposite end had a good number of people wrapped in various sorts of bandages. To the side, there was someone attempting first aid.
“Come on,” Shindou said. “Maybe they can do something about your leg.”
They sat together, waiting their turn. Akira found that compared to others, his injuries were relatively mild. In front of him was a young man with a crushed foot. Another had actually amputated his own arm, after managing to struggle out from under a collapsed vegetable mart. When his turn finally arrived, Shindou waved the woman away, insisting that they look at Akira first.
“It’s shallow enough,” the nurse said. The cut had begun to bleed again. Some of the scabs had pulled away with the bandages. “Let’s clean this, and I’ll wrap it up again.” She looked up Akira, apologetic, “I’m sorry, this is the best I can do.”
“That’s all right,” Akira said. “There’s a lot of people who need help more than I do.”
She smiled gratefully at him, and proceeded to wrap his leg tight with a white linen cloth. Even Shindou got the cut on his forehead cleaned, though he insisted that he didn’t need a bandage. Considering how quickly the man agreed, Akira guessed that those too, were in short supply.
It seemed that no one knew anything at all about what had happened. They’d asked, and gotten shaken heads.
“All lines are down,” one boy around their age said. “The phones aren’t working, and there’s definitely no electricity. It’s a good thing it’s summer right now, otherwise those of us left alive would be dying of cold too.”
Somehow Akira couldn’t bring himself to feel grateful for even that much.
“My parents are in China,” Akira said quietly to Shindou later. “I wonder if the same thing is happening there, or if they’re okay.”
“They’re probably fine,” Shindou said. “I wonder how mom’s doing.”
But the lines were down, and there was almost little to know communication at all, even in the city. A few people from Yoyogi wandered by, reporting more of the same. The furthest out so far came from Sugamo. News was traveling slowly in Tokyo. Nobody knew if this had only occurred in this city, or all over the country. Or perhaps, all over the world.
Shindou, being Shindou, managed to scavenge up some empty sacks once used to hold rice. He’d spread them out, carefully layering them so that at the very least they wouldn’t be sleeping on concrete. It didn’t do much to soften the ground, but at least the ground here was smooth. Shindou’s yellow jacket became a pillow, and they spent the second night curled up together.
That night, neither of them played go.
* * *
A week passed, and slowly, slowly, news trickled in. A few people managed to fix up what cars there were left. They’d driven around the city, gathering what information they could.
The Diet was trying to convene, but with most government officials possibly dead or missing, they were proving to be ineffective. It seemed Tokyo hadn’t been the only one hit. Nagoya and Osaka had been just as destroyed, though not necessarily in the same way. Yokohama had been hit by a massive tsunami. Entire villages had disappeared under sudden landslides.
The only thing anyone knew was that this was probably not the result of a nuclear war.
“If it had been, troops from the invading country would have arrived by now,” an old man insisted. Akira believed him. But that made things even more confusing.
“A natural disaster?” several people speculated.
“Maybe a meteorite hit us,” another suggested.
It didn’t matter.
“I want to go home,” a little boy said.
Akira wondered if home even existed anymore.
“We can’t stay here,” Shindou said, the tenth day after what many were now referring to as the Apocalypse.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. I want to know if my mom is okay, or if… if the house is even there.”
“Where do you live?”
“Ogikubo.”
“I live almost in the other direction,” Akira said quietly.
“I know,” Shindou said.
But somehow, the idea that they would each go their own way never occurred to them. It was eventually decided that they would try heading out to Shindou’s house first. It was further out, but, as Shindou pointed out, it was almost a straight line east of Shinjuku. And since Touya’s parents weren’t at home, there was less urgency on Akira’s part.
“If my place doesn’t work out,” Shindou said, never specifying what he meant by that, “we’ll head back the way we came and head to your place.”
“All right.”
Akira was still limping, but he’d found a crooked iron pole two days ago, and was now using it as a crutch. Shindou had tied his yellow jacket, once again converted into a knapsack, onto the top bent point. They’d chosen not to throw away the water bottles, after Akira had pointed out that it would be a waste, since bottles in general were now in short supply. There wasn’t much they could do about food. Shindou had almost eagerly given away the pink tote bag the day they’d managed to get to Shinjuku station, and now there was no other way to carry anything else.
“We’ll find another convenience store and scrounge up some food,” Shindou said bravely. Akira didn’t voice any doubts, but he thought them.
In the end, they did manage to find another convenience store. They found some unused plastic bags, and filled them up with what was left of the food. A lot had gone rotten. Shindou had violently gagged when he had seen what had once been a beef bowl and rice, but otherwise, there were enough edible things that hadn’t spoiled.
They got into an argument when Shindou started to put candy into the bags.
“It gives you extra energy,” he pointed out. There was one particular tin full of hard fruit candy that had made him go still. “I feel like the older brother in Grave of the Fireflies,” he said.
“Is that a movie?” Akira asked.
“What, you don’t know?!” Shindou said, showing far more enthusiasm than he had since the… thing had happened. “It’s a really famous movie! I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
Akira tried not to roll his eyes.
“17-4,” he said instead.
“4-4,” Shindou said after a long sigh.
They played their way to Ogikubo station, but the closer they got to it, the more agitated Shindou became. Akira didn’t need to ask why. The landscape as they slowly made their way out of central Tokyo became noticeably… flatter.
“Maybe it’s just the immediate area, Shindou,” Akira said.
Shindou nodded mutely, and they continued on.
It was early evening by the time they’d picked their way through to what Shindou thought might be his neighborhood. There was only rubble with a fine covering of ash. Here and there were flickers of ever-present flame, still burning even after all this time.
“There’s no one here.”
“Come on,” Akira said. “Maybe if we just look further.”
Shindou plodded next to him, his face looking pale and pinched.
In the following morning, they still hadn’t managed to find any hint of where Shindou’s house might have once stood.
“I don’t know where anything is anymore,” Shindou said.
Akira remained silent, but he couldn’t help but worry that their food and water supply was running low. They’d need to find another abandoned store again.
Midday came and went, and still there was no sign, not even a part of a name plate. By the time the gray around them started to darken, Shindou was quietly cursing, kicking random piles of rock viciously and taking in sharp inhalations of breath. During that time, Akira watched him from behind, wondering what he should say, if he should say anything at all.
When night fell, Shindou, exhausted, fell to his knees, and began to sob. Akira limped up, and sat down next to him. He reached out a hand to grab Shindou’s own hand, and felt a tight, painful grip in response.
“Don’t leave me Touya. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” Akira said, feeling his own tears well up. “I won’t.”
“You’re all I have left now.”
“I know.”
They slept in the middle of the road, holding each other tightly. Akira didn’t worry about the food and water they’d left next to them.
He knew no one would come to take them.
* * *
Shindou was a mix of emotions the next day, one moment trying to be cheerful, the next snapping at anything Akira said. It wasn’t until Akira lost his temper and shouted back that his house was probably gone too, so stop acting like you’re the only one who’s lost anything, that Shindou fell silent. Akira himself was immediately stricken with guilt, and it didn’t help that Shindou wouldn’t stop giving him hurt puppy-dog looks for the next few hours.
“I don’t know if we should even bother trying to get to my house. What if we got lost?”
“Maybe we should head back to Shinjuku first,” Shindou said.
And that was when they hit a problem.
“Where’s west?” Shindou asked him dumbly a few minutes later.
“The direction where the sun sets.”
“Yeah, about that.”
Until then Akira had never thought about how long it had been since they’d last seen the sky. A chill of fear went down his spine, a kind that was too primeval to suppress.
“We can try to retrace our steps.”
Silent, and rapidly growing more terrified by the second, the two of them walked through the desolate landscape. Compared to the destruction of inner-city Tokyo, this was far worse. They could practically see in any direction for miles unimpeded, and there was a lack of landmarks to guide them back.
“Did we see that pipe before? I think I remember, it was jagging up out of the air all twisted.”
“Maybe.”
With as little as that to go on, they continued to walk. Neither of them mentioned that they were down to four loaves of bread and three water bottles.
A day passed, and they were still lost, wandering. Akira was now sick with fear and dread, wondering if they were going to die this way, slowly, wandering until they starved.
“Shindou...” he began.
“Touya, remember your go?” Shindou said instead.
This caught Akira off guard.
“Huh?”
“Your go. The way you never give up, even when you can see no path to live. You keep fighting anyway, and because of that, you win.” He turned to look at Akira then, and there was a determined glint in his eye.
“That’s go. This is real life,” Akira retorted. “And this kind of life is…”
“What is go if it isn’t real life?” Shindou shouted.
Stunned into silence, Akira could only stare, but he eventually found a voice, and it was a bitter one.
“Go is only a board game.”
This time it was Shindou to fall quiet. He had stopped walking, and was staring at something beneath the pile of rubble and ashes. Suddenly he pointed.
“There. Can you read it?”
Akira turned to look, and much to his surprise, saw a part of a twisted sign.
“Ha… Haze Junior…?”
The look Shindou gave him was triumphant.
“I know the way to the station from here.”
Things became even more surprising soon after. It was as if Shindou’s words had started a chain reaction. Parts of the rubble gradually gave way to cleared surfaces, and then, much to their shock, the remnants of a school gate. Beyond was where the school gymnasium had once stood, but beyond that was a field, containing actual grass. The grass had turned yellow, but until then, Akira hadn’t been certain if he’d ever see plants again.
The place was full of people.
“I… I guess the school was an easier meeting place than the station,” Shindou said dazedly. His hands reached out, gripping Akira’s wrist, as if his touch would reassure Shindou that what they were both seeing was real.
People milled around all over the former school grounds. Clearly someone had been setting them to work, because the activity had purpose, in a way even the area around Shinjuku station hadn’t shown.
“Excuse me, do you guys need any help?”
“Umm,” Shindou began. He looked at the exhausted looking man, and blinked a few times. “… Matsuda…sensei?”
The man blinked in response, but he began to straighten.
“Shindou-kun?”
“Yeah. We kinda got lost and…”
“This is wonderful!” Matsuda-sensei interrupted, now smiling. “Your mother’s here, she’s been worried about you. Wonderful woman, she’s been so helpful with the cleanup.”
Akira felt Shindou’s grip tighten to the point where it was painful.
“Where is she? Do you know?”
“Come, I’ll take you to her.”
They weaved through people going about various tasks, too involved in what they were doing to notice that there were newcomers. There was a single-mindedness about the whole setup, as if the people here knew that something was about to happen, and that there wasn’t enough time to prepare for it. Perhaps these people knew something Akira didn’t.
“Excuse me, sir?” Akira began clumsily.
Matsuda-sensei turned to look at him curiously.
“Oh, I forgot to introduce him, this is Touya. Touya Akira. We play go together,” Shindou babbled.
“Ah, nice to meet you Touya-kun,” the man said.
“I was wondering how much you know about what’s happened?”
“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” Matsuda-sensei said. “But one of the people here worked at the geology department at Tokyo University. He said it’s possible that some sort of volcano erupted.
Supervolcano or something. I didn’t understand much of it I’m afraid. As Shindou-kun will no doubt tell you, I’m only a math teacher.”
He looked apologetic, but it was more information than Akira had had in days.
“What kind of volcano would cause this kind of destruction?”
“I don’t know. But from what he told us, this warmth won’t last. We’re in for a nuclear winter.”
He jerked his head toward the work crews. Now that Akira had more time to observe, he saw that many of them were carrying small pieces of the remaining rubble to use as stonework for new buildings. Others were mixing dirt and ash with water, to fill in the crevices.
A nuclear winter.
“What are we going to do about food?” he heard himself saying, but felt relief when no one bothered to answer him.
As they neared the work crews, Matsuda-sensei ran ahead, and began gesturing at one of the workers.
“Shindou-san, Shindou-san! Look, a miracle!”
“Mom,” Shindou whispered. Akira expected Shindou to let go of his wrist and run to greet his mother, but much to his surprise, Shindou refused to let go. “Come on,” he said, and dragged Touya along, ignoring Akira’s still-injured leg and the fact that Akira had nearly dropped his improvised crutch in the rush.
“Hikaru! Oh my goodness! Oh my god! Hikaru!”
“Mom!”
Hikaru’s mother was crying. Her face was dirty from the work she’d been doing, and the tears formed a wide, shining streak down her face as she rushed to embrace her son.
“How did you get back here?”
“Followed the road from Shinjuku station back here.”
“And you’re all right? You aren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine mom, I’m fine.”
“I haven’t heard anything from your father or grandfather, and with you out, I’d thought, oh I’d thought...”
“It’s okay mom, like I said, I’m fine. And I found my way back.”
Shindou was smiling. His face had lost its tight, pinched look, and his shoulders, previously tense, had relaxed. The grip on Akira’s wrist though, never lost its strength. He returned his mother’s embrace with only his left hand. Akira, while not a part of the reunion, was not left out either.
“Thank you,” Shindou-san said, smiling at Akira. “Thank you for leading him back to me.”
“Shindou did most of the work,” Akira said honestly. “If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know if I’d still be alive right now.”
“Oh now, I can’t believe that,” she said.
“Mom!” Shindou protested.
Akira forced himself to smile, and tried to keep the rest of the conversation polite and casual. There was no need to mention his own situation. He was happy for Shindou. Very, truly, seriously happy.
Despite Shindou’s mother’s protests, Shindou insisted that he and Akira sleep separately away from her.
“I’m not five, mom. Even after everything I’m still eighteen you know. It’s not like anything will happen during the night anyway.”
“You should have gone with her,” Akira told him later, as they readied for bed in a secluded Shindou had been quick to claim as “theirs”. There wasn’t much to do other than lie down over a few scavenged blankets. “She was so worried.”
“Don’t be stupid, she’ll see me in the morning,” Shindou said, his scowl barely visible in the camp light.
“But still…”
“Look, do you want me to leave you alone?”Since the answer was obvious, Akira kept his mouth shut. “We should try to go see how your place is,” Shindou said.
“There’s no need,” Akira interrupted.
“Touya, just because…”
“Shindou, I live… lived in a wooden house.”
A slight pause.
“Ah, good point.” At least Shindou had the tact not to say anything else. “But still…”
“Shindou, what’s the point of going there?”
“No, nono,” Shindou said with a wave of his hand. “I’m done with that. What I want to say is, if you don’t want to stay here, we don’t have to stay.”
“What?”
“Look, mom knows I’m okay now. And to be honest, she can be a bit of a pain if you’re around her too long, so.”
“Shindou, that’s a horrible thing to say about your mother.”
“It’s true!” But it wasn’t the topic of Shindou’s mother that was making Shindou so agitated. He glared at him, as if frustrated at his inability to put his thoughts into words. “We could try going to China.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said since all this has happened,” Akira said. He was starting to realize what Shindou was getting at, and far from comforting him, it was making him angry. “Look, I don’t want your pity. My parents are probably fine. I’m fine. Even my leg is fine. You don’t have to keep holding on to me like you’re afraid I’m about to topple over any second.” He stopped, not sure what else he should say, but knew that it wasn’t enough to defuse his increasing feelings of anger and jealousy.
“You thought that was why I was holding your hand?” was Shindou’s incredulous response.
That caught Akira up short.
“Why then?”
“I didn’t want to let go of you!”
“Shindou…”
“Look Touya, just… just shut up all right? Just…”
Akira, who had been prepared to yell at him, never mind the sleeping people around him, was suddenly silenced as Shindou roughly grabbed him forward. Before he had even realized what was happening, Shindou’s lips, dry and cracked, with hints of dust, were on his own. For some reason this didn’t matter. Akira found himself kissing him back, eager to get more hints of the inside of Shindou’s mouth. He wasn’t aware of how long it lasted, just that it felt like an eternity, and yet ended far too soon. They reluctantly broke apart, gasping. Neither of them had had enough breath to last a second longer.
“You,” Shindou panted, his voice fierce, “are the world’s biggest idiot.”
“N-no,” Akira said, still trying to catch his breath. “You are.”
“Oh my god,” Shindou said. “Could you say anything more lame?”
“What else was I supposed to say?”
“Ah whatever. You wouldn’t be Touya if you didn’t say lame things like that.”
“What the-!”
“Hey, will you guys over there shut up?”
“Yeah, save the lovey-dovey stuff for later, okay?”
The two of them felt silent. From the heat in his cheeks, Akira knew he was blushing horribly, and he was sure that Shindou was too.
“Ummm…”
“Let’s sleep.”
“Yeah.”
That night, they slept, curled up tightly against the other, hands clasped between them. Akira slept, secure in the fact that Shindou would be there in the morning. He didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, but that didn’t matter as much as it would have before. They had each other, and they had their go.
What is go if it isn't real life?
Shindou, brave, cheerful, stupid Shindou, had found the one path to life.
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Survival, one-shot
Characters: Shindou Hikaru, Touya Akira
Pairings: HikaAki, Shounen-ai
Summary: Disaster strikes. Akira and Hikaru struggle to find their way back.
I'm just trying to start writing again. This hit me in a fit of sudden inspiration, and I stayed up until five in the morning feverishly writing it down. It's not much, but it's nice to start participating in fandom again.
Apocalypse
“Here,” Shindou said, tying a second knot. “It’s not much, but it’s better than bleeding all over the place.”
Trust Shindou to find a way to make a joke, even now.
“Mm,” Akira said, and shifted his left leg a bit, testing the makeshift bandage against the jagged cut along his lower thigh. He winced, and much to his dismay, saw blots of red beginning to form along the khaki cloth.
Shindou frowned.
“Maybe we shouldn’t move for a while. At least until it starts scabbing over.”
“But what if it doesn’t scab?” Akira said, and hearing a hint of shrill hysteria in his voice. “What if I need stitches? And this doesn’t heal because it somehow got infected and-”
“Okay, okay,” Shindou said, standing up from the pile of concrete rubble he’d been resting on. “We’ll worry about that when it happens, all right? I…” He paused, and he turned his head toward the closest opening he could find, though it was hard to make it through the clouds of ever present dust and smoke.
It wasn’t until that moment when Akira realized that Shindou had his injuries: a cut across the temple that had dripped blood down his neck and onto his shirt.
“Shindou, your head…”
“It’s okay,” Shindou told him, trying to smile and failing. “It’s all dried up by now. Besides, it wasn’t as bad as yours.”
“Do you need...?”
“Naw, I said I was okay,” he assured him.
Akira sat back on the slab of concrete he was on, trying to make his mind pick up some semblance of rational thought, but nothing was working.
“What happened, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Shindou said. He sat back down, but next to Akira, leaning away from a twisted, iron pipe that had managed to break its way out from beneath. “Does it really matter? It’s not like there’s anything we can do even if we did.”
For some odd reason Shindou was being uncommonly calm about this. Akira couldn’t imagine what was keeping him this calm, unless he was like him, fighting hysteria with every word.
“There was a flash of light, and that… awful sound,” Akira said, shuddering at the still too raw memories of it.
“Yeah, and then that wave of heat.”
They continued to look at the grayness, which was gradually becoming darker, the smoke taking on an orange tinge. Were there fires beyond their tiny shelter?
“What if it had been a nuke?”
Akira turned to look at him, his eyes widening.
“But why? We haven’t done anything! We haven’t been at war.”
“Maybe now there will be,” was all Shindou said.
“There were those earthquakes too,” Akira protested. Those had been responsible for their current injuries. And why no building had been left standing.
Next to him, Akira felt Shindou shivering. In the growing dark, Akira could barely make out his face, but he knew that it wasn’t because of the weather. It was mid July, and the air was thick and humid. Their clothes, dirty and caked with some sort of odd grey dust, was stuck to their skin, sticky and uncomfortable. Summer. It was summer, Akira thought, and they were hiding in a building with only half its walls left, huddled on a slab of concrete that might have been a part of its second floor. Beyond them there was nothing: no people, no buildings. For all Akira knew, he and Shindou could be the only people left.
“Let’s play go.”
Akira felt Shindou shift. If he could see, he knew Shindou would be giving him a look of shocked disbelief.
“What?! Here? Now? Touya…”
“What else can we do?” Akira snapped. “It’s too dark to try walking, we don’t have food or water, there’s nobody out there, and I don’t know if I can sleep right now.” He paused. “I don’t want to think about what’s happened either.”
Silence.
“3-4.”
“Touya…”
“3-4, dammit,” Akira said through gritted teeth. He felt his eyes burn, and willed himself not to cry. Stupid, stupid, why was this happening?
“… 16-4.”
They never finished the game. Shindou started leaning his head against Akira’s shoulder during chuban, and Akira found himself curled up against him as best he could, resting his own head against the cool concrete. Together, they slept fitfully through the night.
* * *
Dawn never arrived. Instead the darkness simply lightened, going from black to steel gray. Akira woke up stiff and sore, but any lingering drowsiness left him when he realized that he was alone. Panicking he sat up, a hand going instinctively to his bandaged thigh as he struggled to stand.
“Shindou? Shindou!”
He felt his voice tremble toward the end, and knew that if Shindou didn’t return quick, soon, immediately, that he would go insane right where he was. When silence was all that greeted him, Akira began to sway. He bit his lip, trying to keep from screaming, and began picking his way over the uneven rubble toward the opening.
“Shindou!” he shouted, this time no longer able to keep the tears out of his voice.
“Touya!”
Suddenly Shindou was there, appearing like a ghost out of the gray smoke. He was no longer wearing his yellow jacket, but carrying it. In his other hand, he carried a pink tote bag, bulging with unknown objects.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, picking up the pace toward the end.
“Where’d you go?” Akira demanded. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“Revenge for all the times you gave me one,” Shindou retorted easily. He set the tote bag down, and Akira saw that it was filled with food, mostly bread. The yellow shirt had been turned into a makeshift knapsack, and when Akira heard the sloshing sound, he knew that Shindou had also brought water.
“Where…”
“I remembered that was a convenience store nearby. I thought I’d go check. I mean, last night, your point about food and water… anyway I woke up before you did and didn’t want to wake you up, so I thought I’d go check. There’s still tons of stuff there. Once we finish all this we could go back and refill, assuming others don’t get to it first.”
“Should we move there next?” Akira asked.
“Ummm… no. No. I think we should probably leave this place soon. Maybe start trying to get to the nearest station? Anyway, that place… it’s kinda out in the open.”
Something about Shindou’s ever-present cheerfulness felt off, as if he was hiding something. Akira identified it all too easily, recognizing the same feeling in himself.
“Shindou, where’d you find the tote bag?”
“Oh this?” Again, that forced cheerfulness, but as Shindou continued to speak, his voice began to grow higher and higher in pitch. “I found it at the store, actually. I mean it was just laying there and… and…”
Akira’s eyes widened in horror.
“I mean, it’s not like she’d need it anymore, right? And we’re still alive, so…”
Suddenly Shindou began to shake. He covered his face with his hands, but it wasn’t long before Akira saw the tears dripping through the cracks between his fingers.
There was nothing Akira could do but stare helplessly. He was socially awkward at the best of times, and right now he couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, what Shindou might have seen.
“Shindou it’s…” he began, but then paused, biting his lip. No, he couldn’t say it. There was nothing okay about any of this. So he simply stood, watching Shindou cry silently, feeling useless. His eyes wandered toward the tote bag. It was pink. Akira noted the cartoon cats on the front, and felt himself growing sicker. Shindou had said, “She.” How old had she been? And how… his mind shied away from the next question.
He didn’t know how long they stood there, but after awhile Shindou’s tears stopped flowing. Sensing that it was temporarily over, Akira bent down, kneeling clumsily while he untied the knot of the makeshift knapsack.
“Here,” he said, fishing out a bottle of water and handing it to Shindou, who took it silently. Akira grabbed one himself, but only took a sip. There was no telling when they’d find more. “We should probably find a way out of here,” he added. “At least get to the closest station.”
There was a muffled sniffle as Shindou wiped away the last of his tears.
“Yeah. Touya, take the bag. It’s lighter. I’ll carry the water.”
Akira nodded, and lifted the bag easily, trying not to look too hard at the brown spots on the bottom corner. Shindou had mostly chosen bread. Some were squished, but most remained whole. It was probably the smartest choice he could have made.
“Let’s go.”
They stepped out onto what was left of a narrow alleyway. Akira walked carefully, trying not to strain his injured leg too much. Shindou followed next to him, both arms carrying his makeshift sack, eyes blank. Neither of them had the urge to speak.
They saw another living person around what Akira guessed was midday. The man stood, his suit in tatters, and seemed as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
“I thought I was the only person left alive,” he said by way of greeting.
Akira didn’t reply, but nodded numbly. He wasn’t sure what he felt. Relief? It was good to know that he and Shindou weren’t alone.
“We’re trying to get to the station,” Shindou told him.
“Ah, that sounds like a good idea.”
There were fires burning as they walked down the center of a former busy intersection. Akira noted the cars crushed beneath shattered bridges, his eyes darting instinctively away from the giant slabs of concrete. He didn’t want to look too closely. He didn’t want to end up crying like Shindou.
As they neared the station, more signs of life emerged. A woman carrying a toddler with a broken leg. A lone schoolgirl, wearing a uniform so covered in dust that it was no longer possible to determine what its original color had been. By silent consensus, they formed a group. Whether the others were following Shindou or they were following the others, Akira didn’t know. It was late afternoon when they reached what had once been Shinjiku station. Akira’s left leg was in so much agony that he was leaning against Shindou to ease the pain, but even he couldn’t completely hold in a cry of shock at what he saw.
There was almost nothing left.
The schoolgirl, so overcome with horror, began to sob, her shrieks cutting through Akira’s eardrums like a knife. Arakawa-san, the salary man, went to her side. His words of comfort rang hollow and desperate, but the girl eventually began to quiet.
“Look, there’re tents.”
Even in the destruction, there was some attempt at organization. Akira saw a line of people, and the smell in that direction revealed that food was being served. Another line at the opposite end had a good number of people wrapped in various sorts of bandages. To the side, there was someone attempting first aid.
“Come on,” Shindou said. “Maybe they can do something about your leg.”
They sat together, waiting their turn. Akira found that compared to others, his injuries were relatively mild. In front of him was a young man with a crushed foot. Another had actually amputated his own arm, after managing to struggle out from under a collapsed vegetable mart. When his turn finally arrived, Shindou waved the woman away, insisting that they look at Akira first.
“It’s shallow enough,” the nurse said. The cut had begun to bleed again. Some of the scabs had pulled away with the bandages. “Let’s clean this, and I’ll wrap it up again.” She looked up Akira, apologetic, “I’m sorry, this is the best I can do.”
“That’s all right,” Akira said. “There’s a lot of people who need help more than I do.”
She smiled gratefully at him, and proceeded to wrap his leg tight with a white linen cloth. Even Shindou got the cut on his forehead cleaned, though he insisted that he didn’t need a bandage. Considering how quickly the man agreed, Akira guessed that those too, were in short supply.
It seemed that no one knew anything at all about what had happened. They’d asked, and gotten shaken heads.
“All lines are down,” one boy around their age said. “The phones aren’t working, and there’s definitely no electricity. It’s a good thing it’s summer right now, otherwise those of us left alive would be dying of cold too.”
Somehow Akira couldn’t bring himself to feel grateful for even that much.
“My parents are in China,” Akira said quietly to Shindou later. “I wonder if the same thing is happening there, or if they’re okay.”
“They’re probably fine,” Shindou said. “I wonder how mom’s doing.”
But the lines were down, and there was almost little to know communication at all, even in the city. A few people from Yoyogi wandered by, reporting more of the same. The furthest out so far came from Sugamo. News was traveling slowly in Tokyo. Nobody knew if this had only occurred in this city, or all over the country. Or perhaps, all over the world.
Shindou, being Shindou, managed to scavenge up some empty sacks once used to hold rice. He’d spread them out, carefully layering them so that at the very least they wouldn’t be sleeping on concrete. It didn’t do much to soften the ground, but at least the ground here was smooth. Shindou’s yellow jacket became a pillow, and they spent the second night curled up together.
That night, neither of them played go.
* * *
A week passed, and slowly, slowly, news trickled in. A few people managed to fix up what cars there were left. They’d driven around the city, gathering what information they could.
The Diet was trying to convene, but with most government officials possibly dead or missing, they were proving to be ineffective. It seemed Tokyo hadn’t been the only one hit. Nagoya and Osaka had been just as destroyed, though not necessarily in the same way. Yokohama had been hit by a massive tsunami. Entire villages had disappeared under sudden landslides.
The only thing anyone knew was that this was probably not the result of a nuclear war.
“If it had been, troops from the invading country would have arrived by now,” an old man insisted. Akira believed him. But that made things even more confusing.
“A natural disaster?” several people speculated.
“Maybe a meteorite hit us,” another suggested.
It didn’t matter.
“I want to go home,” a little boy said.
Akira wondered if home even existed anymore.
“We can’t stay here,” Shindou said, the tenth day after what many were now referring to as the Apocalypse.
“Where are we supposed to go?”
“I don’t know. I want to know if my mom is okay, or if… if the house is even there.”
“Where do you live?”
“Ogikubo.”
“I live almost in the other direction,” Akira said quietly.
“I know,” Shindou said.
But somehow, the idea that they would each go their own way never occurred to them. It was eventually decided that they would try heading out to Shindou’s house first. It was further out, but, as Shindou pointed out, it was almost a straight line east of Shinjuku. And since Touya’s parents weren’t at home, there was less urgency on Akira’s part.
“If my place doesn’t work out,” Shindou said, never specifying what he meant by that, “we’ll head back the way we came and head to your place.”
“All right.”
Akira was still limping, but he’d found a crooked iron pole two days ago, and was now using it as a crutch. Shindou had tied his yellow jacket, once again converted into a knapsack, onto the top bent point. They’d chosen not to throw away the water bottles, after Akira had pointed out that it would be a waste, since bottles in general were now in short supply. There wasn’t much they could do about food. Shindou had almost eagerly given away the pink tote bag the day they’d managed to get to Shinjuku station, and now there was no other way to carry anything else.
“We’ll find another convenience store and scrounge up some food,” Shindou said bravely. Akira didn’t voice any doubts, but he thought them.
In the end, they did manage to find another convenience store. They found some unused plastic bags, and filled them up with what was left of the food. A lot had gone rotten. Shindou had violently gagged when he had seen what had once been a beef bowl and rice, but otherwise, there were enough edible things that hadn’t spoiled.
They got into an argument when Shindou started to put candy into the bags.
“It gives you extra energy,” he pointed out. There was one particular tin full of hard fruit candy that had made him go still. “I feel like the older brother in Grave of the Fireflies,” he said.
“Is that a movie?” Akira asked.
“What, you don’t know?!” Shindou said, showing far more enthusiasm than he had since the… thing had happened. “It’s a really famous movie! I can’t believe you haven’t seen it.”
Akira tried not to roll his eyes.
“17-4,” he said instead.
“4-4,” Shindou said after a long sigh.
They played their way to Ogikubo station, but the closer they got to it, the more agitated Shindou became. Akira didn’t need to ask why. The landscape as they slowly made their way out of central Tokyo became noticeably… flatter.
“Maybe it’s just the immediate area, Shindou,” Akira said.
Shindou nodded mutely, and they continued on.
It was early evening by the time they’d picked their way through to what Shindou thought might be his neighborhood. There was only rubble with a fine covering of ash. Here and there were flickers of ever-present flame, still burning even after all this time.
“There’s no one here.”
“Come on,” Akira said. “Maybe if we just look further.”
Shindou plodded next to him, his face looking pale and pinched.
In the following morning, they still hadn’t managed to find any hint of where Shindou’s house might have once stood.
“I don’t know where anything is anymore,” Shindou said.
Akira remained silent, but he couldn’t help but worry that their food and water supply was running low. They’d need to find another abandoned store again.
Midday came and went, and still there was no sign, not even a part of a name plate. By the time the gray around them started to darken, Shindou was quietly cursing, kicking random piles of rock viciously and taking in sharp inhalations of breath. During that time, Akira watched him from behind, wondering what he should say, if he should say anything at all.
When night fell, Shindou, exhausted, fell to his knees, and began to sob. Akira limped up, and sat down next to him. He reached out a hand to grab Shindou’s own hand, and felt a tight, painful grip in response.
“Don’t leave me Touya. Don’t leave me.”
“I won’t,” Akira said, feeling his own tears well up. “I won’t.”
“You’re all I have left now.”
“I know.”
They slept in the middle of the road, holding each other tightly. Akira didn’t worry about the food and water they’d left next to them.
He knew no one would come to take them.
* * *
Shindou was a mix of emotions the next day, one moment trying to be cheerful, the next snapping at anything Akira said. It wasn’t until Akira lost his temper and shouted back that his house was probably gone too, so stop acting like you’re the only one who’s lost anything, that Shindou fell silent. Akira himself was immediately stricken with guilt, and it didn’t help that Shindou wouldn’t stop giving him hurt puppy-dog looks for the next few hours.
“I don’t know if we should even bother trying to get to my house. What if we got lost?”
“Maybe we should head back to Shinjuku first,” Shindou said.
And that was when they hit a problem.
“Where’s west?” Shindou asked him dumbly a few minutes later.
“The direction where the sun sets.”
“Yeah, about that.”
Until then Akira had never thought about how long it had been since they’d last seen the sky. A chill of fear went down his spine, a kind that was too primeval to suppress.
“We can try to retrace our steps.”
Silent, and rapidly growing more terrified by the second, the two of them walked through the desolate landscape. Compared to the destruction of inner-city Tokyo, this was far worse. They could practically see in any direction for miles unimpeded, and there was a lack of landmarks to guide them back.
“Did we see that pipe before? I think I remember, it was jagging up out of the air all twisted.”
“Maybe.”
With as little as that to go on, they continued to walk. Neither of them mentioned that they were down to four loaves of bread and three water bottles.
A day passed, and they were still lost, wandering. Akira was now sick with fear and dread, wondering if they were going to die this way, slowly, wandering until they starved.
“Shindou...” he began.
“Touya, remember your go?” Shindou said instead.
This caught Akira off guard.
“Huh?”
“Your go. The way you never give up, even when you can see no path to live. You keep fighting anyway, and because of that, you win.” He turned to look at Akira then, and there was a determined glint in his eye.
“That’s go. This is real life,” Akira retorted. “And this kind of life is…”
“What is go if it isn’t real life?” Shindou shouted.
Stunned into silence, Akira could only stare, but he eventually found a voice, and it was a bitter one.
“Go is only a board game.”
This time it was Shindou to fall quiet. He had stopped walking, and was staring at something beneath the pile of rubble and ashes. Suddenly he pointed.
“There. Can you read it?”
Akira turned to look, and much to his surprise, saw a part of a twisted sign.
“Ha… Haze Junior…?”
The look Shindou gave him was triumphant.
“I know the way to the station from here.”
Things became even more surprising soon after. It was as if Shindou’s words had started a chain reaction. Parts of the rubble gradually gave way to cleared surfaces, and then, much to their shock, the remnants of a school gate. Beyond was where the school gymnasium had once stood, but beyond that was a field, containing actual grass. The grass had turned yellow, but until then, Akira hadn’t been certain if he’d ever see plants again.
The place was full of people.
“I… I guess the school was an easier meeting place than the station,” Shindou said dazedly. His hands reached out, gripping Akira’s wrist, as if his touch would reassure Shindou that what they were both seeing was real.
People milled around all over the former school grounds. Clearly someone had been setting them to work, because the activity had purpose, in a way even the area around Shinjuku station hadn’t shown.
“Excuse me, do you guys need any help?”
“Umm,” Shindou began. He looked at the exhausted looking man, and blinked a few times. “… Matsuda…sensei?”
The man blinked in response, but he began to straighten.
“Shindou-kun?”
“Yeah. We kinda got lost and…”
“This is wonderful!” Matsuda-sensei interrupted, now smiling. “Your mother’s here, she’s been worried about you. Wonderful woman, she’s been so helpful with the cleanup.”
Akira felt Shindou’s grip tighten to the point where it was painful.
“Where is she? Do you know?”
“Come, I’ll take you to her.”
They weaved through people going about various tasks, too involved in what they were doing to notice that there were newcomers. There was a single-mindedness about the whole setup, as if the people here knew that something was about to happen, and that there wasn’t enough time to prepare for it. Perhaps these people knew something Akira didn’t.
“Excuse me, sir?” Akira began clumsily.
Matsuda-sensei turned to look at him curiously.
“Oh, I forgot to introduce him, this is Touya. Touya Akira. We play go together,” Shindou babbled.
“Ah, nice to meet you Touya-kun,” the man said.
“I was wondering how much you know about what’s happened?”
“Not a lot, I’m afraid,” Matsuda-sensei said. “But one of the people here worked at the geology department at Tokyo University. He said it’s possible that some sort of volcano erupted.
Supervolcano or something. I didn’t understand much of it I’m afraid. As Shindou-kun will no doubt tell you, I’m only a math teacher.”
He looked apologetic, but it was more information than Akira had had in days.
“What kind of volcano would cause this kind of destruction?”
“I don’t know. But from what he told us, this warmth won’t last. We’re in for a nuclear winter.”
He jerked his head toward the work crews. Now that Akira had more time to observe, he saw that many of them were carrying small pieces of the remaining rubble to use as stonework for new buildings. Others were mixing dirt and ash with water, to fill in the crevices.
A nuclear winter.
“What are we going to do about food?” he heard himself saying, but felt relief when no one bothered to answer him.
As they neared the work crews, Matsuda-sensei ran ahead, and began gesturing at one of the workers.
“Shindou-san, Shindou-san! Look, a miracle!”
“Mom,” Shindou whispered. Akira expected Shindou to let go of his wrist and run to greet his mother, but much to his surprise, Shindou refused to let go. “Come on,” he said, and dragged Touya along, ignoring Akira’s still-injured leg and the fact that Akira had nearly dropped his improvised crutch in the rush.
“Hikaru! Oh my goodness! Oh my god! Hikaru!”
“Mom!”
Hikaru’s mother was crying. Her face was dirty from the work she’d been doing, and the tears formed a wide, shining streak down her face as she rushed to embrace her son.
“How did you get back here?”
“Followed the road from Shinjuku station back here.”
“And you’re all right? You aren’t hurt?”
“I’m fine mom, I’m fine.”
“I haven’t heard anything from your father or grandfather, and with you out, I’d thought, oh I’d thought...”
“It’s okay mom, like I said, I’m fine. And I found my way back.”
Shindou was smiling. His face had lost its tight, pinched look, and his shoulders, previously tense, had relaxed. The grip on Akira’s wrist though, never lost its strength. He returned his mother’s embrace with only his left hand. Akira, while not a part of the reunion, was not left out either.
“Thank you,” Shindou-san said, smiling at Akira. “Thank you for leading him back to me.”
“Shindou did most of the work,” Akira said honestly. “If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t know if I’d still be alive right now.”
“Oh now, I can’t believe that,” she said.
“Mom!” Shindou protested.
Akira forced himself to smile, and tried to keep the rest of the conversation polite and casual. There was no need to mention his own situation. He was happy for Shindou. Very, truly, seriously happy.
Despite Shindou’s mother’s protests, Shindou insisted that he and Akira sleep separately away from her.
“I’m not five, mom. Even after everything I’m still eighteen you know. It’s not like anything will happen during the night anyway.”
“You should have gone with her,” Akira told him later, as they readied for bed in a secluded Shindou had been quick to claim as “theirs”. There wasn’t much to do other than lie down over a few scavenged blankets. “She was so worried.”
“Don’t be stupid, she’ll see me in the morning,” Shindou said, his scowl barely visible in the camp light.
“But still…”
“Look, do you want me to leave you alone?”Since the answer was obvious, Akira kept his mouth shut. “We should try to go see how your place is,” Shindou said.
“There’s no need,” Akira interrupted.
“Touya, just because…”
“Shindou, I live… lived in a wooden house.”
A slight pause.
“Ah, good point.” At least Shindou had the tact not to say anything else. “But still…”
“Shindou, what’s the point of going there?”
“No, nono,” Shindou said with a wave of his hand. “I’m done with that. What I want to say is, if you don’t want to stay here, we don’t have to stay.”
“What?”
“Look, mom knows I’m okay now. And to be honest, she can be a bit of a pain if you’re around her too long, so.”
“Shindou, that’s a horrible thing to say about your mother.”
“It’s true!” But it wasn’t the topic of Shindou’s mother that was making Shindou so agitated. He glared at him, as if frustrated at his inability to put his thoughts into words. “We could try going to China.”
“That’s the stupidest thing you’ve said since all this has happened,” Akira said. He was starting to realize what Shindou was getting at, and far from comforting him, it was making him angry. “Look, I don’t want your pity. My parents are probably fine. I’m fine. Even my leg is fine. You don’t have to keep holding on to me like you’re afraid I’m about to topple over any second.” He stopped, not sure what else he should say, but knew that it wasn’t enough to defuse his increasing feelings of anger and jealousy.
“You thought that was why I was holding your hand?” was Shindou’s incredulous response.
That caught Akira up short.
“Why then?”
“I didn’t want to let go of you!”
“Shindou…”
“Look Touya, just… just shut up all right? Just…”
Akira, who had been prepared to yell at him, never mind the sleeping people around him, was suddenly silenced as Shindou roughly grabbed him forward. Before he had even realized what was happening, Shindou’s lips, dry and cracked, with hints of dust, were on his own. For some reason this didn’t matter. Akira found himself kissing him back, eager to get more hints of the inside of Shindou’s mouth. He wasn’t aware of how long it lasted, just that it felt like an eternity, and yet ended far too soon. They reluctantly broke apart, gasping. Neither of them had had enough breath to last a second longer.
“You,” Shindou panted, his voice fierce, “are the world’s biggest idiot.”
“N-no,” Akira said, still trying to catch his breath. “You are.”
“Oh my god,” Shindou said. “Could you say anything more lame?”
“What else was I supposed to say?”
“Ah whatever. You wouldn’t be Touya if you didn’t say lame things like that.”
“What the-!”
“Hey, will you guys over there shut up?”
“Yeah, save the lovey-dovey stuff for later, okay?”
The two of them felt silent. From the heat in his cheeks, Akira knew he was blushing horribly, and he was sure that Shindou was too.
“Ummm…”
“Let’s sleep.”
“Yeah.”
That night, they slept, curled up tightly against the other, hands clasped between them. Akira slept, secure in the fact that Shindou would be there in the morning. He didn’t know what would happen tomorrow, but that didn’t matter as much as it would have before. They had each other, and they had their go.
What is go if it isn't real life?
Shindou, brave, cheerful, stupid Shindou, had found the one path to life.