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ravenna_c_tanTitle: Touya's Pride (1 of 11)
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Pairing: Hikaru/Akira eventually
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Non-commercial fanfic.
Summary: Touya Akira loses a match and suffers a crisis of faith. Could wily old Kuwabara-sensei have the answer? Or is the answer to be found in Touya's eternal rival, Shindou Hikaru?
Warnings: This is not a fluffy Aki/Hika fic. There is what could be termed cross-gen/chan, and also psychological manipulation as part of the plot. The sexuality is graphic, but not gratuitous. Touya is 16. Spoilers for the series, also.
A/N: I posted an "intro" to Hikaru no Go for those who want to read the fic without watching or reading the whole series, on LJ and IJ.
Touya's Pride
by Ravenna C. Tan
Everything changed after Ogata-san wrestled the Honinbou title away from Kuwabara-sensei.
No, I'm wrong. Things began to change before that. My father retiring and then traveling the world of Go. Shindou and I becoming friends...
But I. I had not changed and did not change until after Ogata-san's victory. My father had definitely changed--he was the one who threw the party in Ogata-san's honor. Even Kuwabara-sensei was there; he has never been known to turn down a chance for some fun. I had never seen Ogata so drunk. He was so drunk I don't think he realized it was me he was asking to dance, and not the girl standing next to me. Still, it was good to see him smile for once.
I had planned to leave the party early. I had a match in the morning, the preliminaries for the Meijin title.
I am not normally nervous before a match. But just the mere thought of taking the title my father had held for so long made my heart skip a beat. Touya Koyo had been Meijin so long, very few could even remember a time when he had not been referred to as Touya Meijin.
Surely I, at sixteen years old, could not expect to wear that mantle, take on that name? Or so went the half the blather on the Go forums on the Internet, the other half taking the opposite view, that my ascendance to my father's former place was somehow fated as inevitable.
If only they knew how hard it was. I may have inherited the love of Go from my father, and learned at his knee for all my life, but it is still my mind, my brain, my spirit, that has to move the stones. I will be given nothing in this life that I do not earn with my own skill.
I was just leaving the party, waiting for a taxi in the lobby of the hotel where the party was being held, when I overheard Kuwabara-sensei talking to someone else. I am quite certain he did not know I was listening, for I have never heard him speak of his losses in public. He also sounded somewhat drunk.
"It is all Touya's fault anyway," he said, and I pricked up my ears at that. My fault? My father's?
My father's. "I've lost my edge ever since he quit being a pro. It's worse than if my wife left me."
"But Kuwabara," came the bemused reply. "Your wife did leave you."
I expected Kuwabara-sensei to laugh at that, but he made an angry noise. "The loss of my eternal rival is like the loss of a limb," he went on. "It takes two legs, two feet to climb up the mountain. Bah, you don't understand."
My car arrived then, and I hurried into the dark back seat of the taxi, my mind spinning. I have my rival, my other half, in Shindou. There was a time when he nearly quit Go, and I felt as if the firm path I had been treading suddenly turned to sand, washing away beneath my feet. Shindou returned. We see each other often. We play at least two or three times a month.
He pushes me to stay ahead. Always.
It had not occurred to me before then that my father and Kuwabara-sensei had that kind of relationship when they were younger. As seasoned title-holders, they seemed beneath my understanding of "rivalry," and yet now that I thought about it, it made sense.
How Kuwabara-sensei must have been stung underneath it all, that my father had walked away from their world, and then one of Touya Kouyo's proteges in Ogata-san would be the one to take the title from him.
But these thoughts did not occupy me for long, as less than I day later, I had my own troubles to deal with.
I lost the match. I lost badly.
I never lose badly. The last time someone cut my head off like that was Shindou himself, back in the days when he was inexplicably some kind of idiot savant of Go. He has never explained it and I've decided for myself that it had to be something like that. As if he could go into a "zone" and play like someone else--he couldn't even hold the stones, but his moves were incredible. I saw him play a game in a junior high tournament that had such breathtaking beauty, it was difficult to describe.
Then it was like he lost the touch as he learned more Go. Perhaps he was actually tainted by those who tried to teach him, or by those he played? I do not know. He fell back into confusion and then fought his way up through the ranks of the insei, until for the past year or so he has nearly stood even with me.
Nearly.
I held my dignity after the loss until I was in the taxi home. Then the tears flowed. Never had I suffered such a painful loss as a pro. It hurt all the more because I knew it was not because my opponent had been that much better than me, but because I had not responded as I should have. It was as if my heart had frozen.
I arrived home to an empty house. Father and mother had left for Beijing that afternoon, and I had the house to myself. I skipped dinner and climbed directly into bed.
This is good, I tried to tell myself. The last time you were defeated that badly, you questioned your strength, and then you leapt forward, right into the ranks of the pros. From the moment you turned pro, you went on a winning streak. When you finally lost, you didn't break stride, reeling off more wins after that. You won both your matches in the Hokuto Cup. When you really want to win... you do.
Wait a moment. Did that mean I didn't really want the Meijin title?
I was startled out of these thoughts by someone at the door. I looked at the clock. Nearly ten at night. Who could it be? It had to be Shindou. Who else would appear out of nowhere without warning? And was he here to gloat or to console me? I couldn't bear the thought of either. But I threw a robe on over my pajamas and went to the door.
"Kuwabara-sensei!" I was so shocked to see him there that my exclamation of his name was no doubt rude.
He just chuckled at that, though.
"My father isn't here," I said, stupidly, like I was half-asleep still. "He left for Beijing today."
He chuckled again. "It isn't your father I'm here to see. I'm here to speak with you, Touya Akira."
"Me?" But my manners were returning. Even if it was very odd for him to show up at the door like that. "Please come in. May I get you some tea?"
"Oh, certainly, certainly," he said breezily, doffing his shoes and following me into the kitchen.
"Please," I said, indicating a seat in the dining room. "I won't be but a minute with the water." The electric kettle was already starting to hiss as I laid out the cups.
He just chuckled again, in that maddening, cryptic way of his. "Akira-kun," he said then, as if I were a child playing at serving him tea as a game. "No need to be so formal with me. It's just us two here. No one watching. No one checking your manners."
"I..." I wasn't sure whether to feel insulted, or whether it would be insulting to him if I went on in a formal way. "The tea will be just a moment," I said, not honestly knowing how to address him if we weren't going to be on formal terms.
He was suddenly standing very close. "Touya Akira, don't play games with me. It's not necessary. I didn't come here for tea or for polite conversation. It is the very fact that you hide behind your manners and your training that holds you back. You hide behind the image of Touya Akira, perfect son, and you get in your own way."
I swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"
"Aha. I see the glint in your eye. You know perfectly well what I mean, you just can't yet admit it to yourself. Can you tell me what you fear most, Touya Akira 3-dan?" He was so close I could smell cigarettes on his breath.
"Kuwabara-sensei..."
"Well?"
The kettle clicked off, the water at a full boil. I ignored it. "I'm not afraid of any--"
"No, no, no, Akira-kun. No man has no fears except a fool. You know that. And you are not a fool." He stepped away from me then, and took up the kettle as if this were his own kitchen, and poured water into the pot, preparing the tea for us both. He hummed a bit as he worked while I just stood there, dumbfounded.
He pushed a cup in my direction and then took up one himself, holding it in both hands as if he needed to warm arthritic fingers. But he did not sit down at the table, nor go into the dining room. He stood there, looking up at me. I had grown another few inches, and he was stooped. "I will tell you what you fear," he said, looking into the cup, and then up at me with a mischievous glint in his eye. "You fear humiliation. You fear being brought low in front of all the people who revere you. Tell me, do you think your father fears this?"
I blinked, taken aback by both his assertion and the sudden turn of the question toward my father. "No. He never fears losing. He chases the most difficult opponents..." Almost to the point of obsession, in fact.
"Exactly!" Kuwabara-sensei laughed. "He never fears humiliation. But what you may not know, Akira-kun, is who taught him to overcome that fear."
His unspoken "me" hung in the air between us, the answer to my unspoken question. You? Of course. My own father's rival, though not so eternal, in the end.
"How... how did you..."
He clucked his tongue, silencing me, and fussed over blowing on his tea and then sipping it with great satisfaction. "Well, if you are truly interested to know..."
He was toying with me. I nearly dropped my tea cup--no, nearly smashed it. Instead I set it on the counter while I tried to master my emotions. "Kuwabara-sensei," I said sharply. "You did not come here in the middle of the night..."
"It's merely ten, my boy..."
"In the middle of the night, just to share a cup of tea with me." I did not much like to be toyed with, or condescended to like a child. "If you have some lesson to impart, I will gladly listen. But if you are merely here to gloat over my failure..."
"Akira-kun, Akira-kun..." He made placating motions with his hands, as if I were a wild horse that needed to be tamed. "You see? You are so afraid of being made fun of, even by an old man like me, that you lash out. You undermine yourself before you even begin. Your cheeks are scarlet--is it with rage, little tiger? Or with shame? Or both? I think both, And you will learn to master both. If, that is, if you will listen to me."
He was right, of course. I forced my hands to relax, letting go the childish fists I had balled them into. "I-I will listen."
He clucked his tongue again. "You think this is a lesson I can teach like the answer to a riddle? I'll speak some magic words that will show you the path to enlightenment? Ah, Akira-kun, if only it were so easy. What you are asking cannot be learned in a day. How long until your father returns? Three weeks? Will you become my student for three weeks, until he returns?"
"I will." I bowed. A leap forward. I clung to the belief that this was the sign I had been looking for. That my defeat heralded the arrival of a new dimension in my Go. Kuwabara's question about my father made the unspoken implication clear. I had gone as far as I could under my father's tutelage. If I wanted to progress, I had to learn something new, out from under his watchful eye.
"Good." He punctuated his word by putting down his cup. "Then for the next three weeks, you must do everything I say. Everything, you understand me?"
I looked up and saw that ever-mischievous gleam in his eye. "Sensei?"
"Defy me and I shall walk away and leave you. Understand me, Akira-kun. This will not be easy training. You will want to resist." His voice turned soft, almost kind. "But if you are to learn to get past this fixation on humiliation, it is the only way. It will be hard."
"I understand." I bowed again, vowing to myself that I would not question. That I would walk forward with my eyes open and do whatever he asked.
"Good," he said with a chuckle and then turned to the door. "Let us play a game now, then."
"Yes, sensei."
"And take off your clothes," he said, over his shoulder.
"Sensei!"
"Questioning my orders already?" he called, already in the room with the goban.
"N-no, sensei!" I stammered, thinking on what he had just said. It would be hard. I would want to resist. And my own now empty-sounding promise to myself to do whatever he said.
Which proved how weak I truly was. My hands shook as I unbuttoned my pajama shirt and carried it draped over one arm into the room where the goban sat. Kuwabara-sensei was already seated in front of it, watching me hawklike as I lay the shirt down and then slipped the pants off, too.
I was blushing furiously and could not meet his eyes. The thought flitted through my mind that if he wanted to humiliate me and debase me, he could not have found a better way. But perhaps that was the point. At least he did not pull out a cell phone camera or make remarks about my nakedness or do anything but sit there as if we were about to play a match.
I sank to my knees across the board from him and sat back on my heels. I could feel the soles of my feet against my bare buttocks and my cheeks went hot anew.
"Nigiri," he said, as if I were not naked as a newborn in front of him.
I was able to forget for a while, as we played, but I could not forget entirely. Especially not when he began to remind me. Just a small comment here or there was enough to make me feel as if the entire world were looking at me. It was like a nightmare I sometimes had, playing a match entirely naked.
Kuwabara-sensei for his part barely looked up from the board. He beat me soundly, too, forcing my resignation in under an hour's time.
"I have nothing," I said, bowing my head.
He got slowly to his feet. "No, no, stay there," he said, when I tried to rise, too. "Bow your head and study the game we just played. Replay it in your mind, Akira-kun. I will be back in the morning for your next lesson."
And with that, he left, sliding the door closed behind him with a hiss like a sword slicing through cloth.
(go on to part two...)
Author: Ravenna C. Tan
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Pairing: Hikaru/Akira eventually
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Non-commercial fanfic.
Summary: Touya Akira loses a match and suffers a crisis of faith. Could wily old Kuwabara-sensei have the answer? Or is the answer to be found in Touya's eternal rival, Shindou Hikaru?
Warnings: This is not a fluffy Aki/Hika fic. There is what could be termed cross-gen/chan, and also psychological manipulation as part of the plot. The sexuality is graphic, but not gratuitous. Touya is 16. Spoilers for the series, also.
A/N: I posted an "intro" to Hikaru no Go for those who want to read the fic without watching or reading the whole series, on LJ and IJ.
Touya's Pride
by Ravenna C. Tan
Everything changed after Ogata-san wrestled the Honinbou title away from Kuwabara-sensei.
No, I'm wrong. Things began to change before that. My father retiring and then traveling the world of Go. Shindou and I becoming friends...
But I. I had not changed and did not change until after Ogata-san's victory. My father had definitely changed--he was the one who threw the party in Ogata-san's honor. Even Kuwabara-sensei was there; he has never been known to turn down a chance for some fun. I had never seen Ogata so drunk. He was so drunk I don't think he realized it was me he was asking to dance, and not the girl standing next to me. Still, it was good to see him smile for once.
I had planned to leave the party early. I had a match in the morning, the preliminaries for the Meijin title.
I am not normally nervous before a match. But just the mere thought of taking the title my father had held for so long made my heart skip a beat. Touya Koyo had been Meijin so long, very few could even remember a time when he had not been referred to as Touya Meijin.
Surely I, at sixteen years old, could not expect to wear that mantle, take on that name? Or so went the half the blather on the Go forums on the Internet, the other half taking the opposite view, that my ascendance to my father's former place was somehow fated as inevitable.
If only they knew how hard it was. I may have inherited the love of Go from my father, and learned at his knee for all my life, but it is still my mind, my brain, my spirit, that has to move the stones. I will be given nothing in this life that I do not earn with my own skill.
I was just leaving the party, waiting for a taxi in the lobby of the hotel where the party was being held, when I overheard Kuwabara-sensei talking to someone else. I am quite certain he did not know I was listening, for I have never heard him speak of his losses in public. He also sounded somewhat drunk.
"It is all Touya's fault anyway," he said, and I pricked up my ears at that. My fault? My father's?
My father's. "I've lost my edge ever since he quit being a pro. It's worse than if my wife left me."
"But Kuwabara," came the bemused reply. "Your wife did leave you."
I expected Kuwabara-sensei to laugh at that, but he made an angry noise. "The loss of my eternal rival is like the loss of a limb," he went on. "It takes two legs, two feet to climb up the mountain. Bah, you don't understand."
My car arrived then, and I hurried into the dark back seat of the taxi, my mind spinning. I have my rival, my other half, in Shindou. There was a time when he nearly quit Go, and I felt as if the firm path I had been treading suddenly turned to sand, washing away beneath my feet. Shindou returned. We see each other often. We play at least two or three times a month.
He pushes me to stay ahead. Always.
It had not occurred to me before then that my father and Kuwabara-sensei had that kind of relationship when they were younger. As seasoned title-holders, they seemed beneath my understanding of "rivalry," and yet now that I thought about it, it made sense.
How Kuwabara-sensei must have been stung underneath it all, that my father had walked away from their world, and then one of Touya Kouyo's proteges in Ogata-san would be the one to take the title from him.
But these thoughts did not occupy me for long, as less than I day later, I had my own troubles to deal with.
I lost the match. I lost badly.
I never lose badly. The last time someone cut my head off like that was Shindou himself, back in the days when he was inexplicably some kind of idiot savant of Go. He has never explained it and I've decided for myself that it had to be something like that. As if he could go into a "zone" and play like someone else--he couldn't even hold the stones, but his moves were incredible. I saw him play a game in a junior high tournament that had such breathtaking beauty, it was difficult to describe.
Then it was like he lost the touch as he learned more Go. Perhaps he was actually tainted by those who tried to teach him, or by those he played? I do not know. He fell back into confusion and then fought his way up through the ranks of the insei, until for the past year or so he has nearly stood even with me.
Nearly.
I held my dignity after the loss until I was in the taxi home. Then the tears flowed. Never had I suffered such a painful loss as a pro. It hurt all the more because I knew it was not because my opponent had been that much better than me, but because I had not responded as I should have. It was as if my heart had frozen.
I arrived home to an empty house. Father and mother had left for Beijing that afternoon, and I had the house to myself. I skipped dinner and climbed directly into bed.
This is good, I tried to tell myself. The last time you were defeated that badly, you questioned your strength, and then you leapt forward, right into the ranks of the pros. From the moment you turned pro, you went on a winning streak. When you finally lost, you didn't break stride, reeling off more wins after that. You won both your matches in the Hokuto Cup. When you really want to win... you do.
Wait a moment. Did that mean I didn't really want the Meijin title?
I was startled out of these thoughts by someone at the door. I looked at the clock. Nearly ten at night. Who could it be? It had to be Shindou. Who else would appear out of nowhere without warning? And was he here to gloat or to console me? I couldn't bear the thought of either. But I threw a robe on over my pajamas and went to the door.
"Kuwabara-sensei!" I was so shocked to see him there that my exclamation of his name was no doubt rude.
He just chuckled at that, though.
"My father isn't here," I said, stupidly, like I was half-asleep still. "He left for Beijing today."
He chuckled again. "It isn't your father I'm here to see. I'm here to speak with you, Touya Akira."
"Me?" But my manners were returning. Even if it was very odd for him to show up at the door like that. "Please come in. May I get you some tea?"
"Oh, certainly, certainly," he said breezily, doffing his shoes and following me into the kitchen.
"Please," I said, indicating a seat in the dining room. "I won't be but a minute with the water." The electric kettle was already starting to hiss as I laid out the cups.
He just chuckled again, in that maddening, cryptic way of his. "Akira-kun," he said then, as if I were a child playing at serving him tea as a game. "No need to be so formal with me. It's just us two here. No one watching. No one checking your manners."
"I..." I wasn't sure whether to feel insulted, or whether it would be insulting to him if I went on in a formal way. "The tea will be just a moment," I said, not honestly knowing how to address him if we weren't going to be on formal terms.
He was suddenly standing very close. "Touya Akira, don't play games with me. It's not necessary. I didn't come here for tea or for polite conversation. It is the very fact that you hide behind your manners and your training that holds you back. You hide behind the image of Touya Akira, perfect son, and you get in your own way."
I swallowed hard. "What do you mean?"
"Aha. I see the glint in your eye. You know perfectly well what I mean, you just can't yet admit it to yourself. Can you tell me what you fear most, Touya Akira 3-dan?" He was so close I could smell cigarettes on his breath.
"Kuwabara-sensei..."
"Well?"
The kettle clicked off, the water at a full boil. I ignored it. "I'm not afraid of any--"
"No, no, no, Akira-kun. No man has no fears except a fool. You know that. And you are not a fool." He stepped away from me then, and took up the kettle as if this were his own kitchen, and poured water into the pot, preparing the tea for us both. He hummed a bit as he worked while I just stood there, dumbfounded.
He pushed a cup in my direction and then took up one himself, holding it in both hands as if he needed to warm arthritic fingers. But he did not sit down at the table, nor go into the dining room. He stood there, looking up at me. I had grown another few inches, and he was stooped. "I will tell you what you fear," he said, looking into the cup, and then up at me with a mischievous glint in his eye. "You fear humiliation. You fear being brought low in front of all the people who revere you. Tell me, do you think your father fears this?"
I blinked, taken aback by both his assertion and the sudden turn of the question toward my father. "No. He never fears losing. He chases the most difficult opponents..." Almost to the point of obsession, in fact.
"Exactly!" Kuwabara-sensei laughed. "He never fears humiliation. But what you may not know, Akira-kun, is who taught him to overcome that fear."
His unspoken "me" hung in the air between us, the answer to my unspoken question. You? Of course. My own father's rival, though not so eternal, in the end.
"How... how did you..."
He clucked his tongue, silencing me, and fussed over blowing on his tea and then sipping it with great satisfaction. "Well, if you are truly interested to know..."
He was toying with me. I nearly dropped my tea cup--no, nearly smashed it. Instead I set it on the counter while I tried to master my emotions. "Kuwabara-sensei," I said sharply. "You did not come here in the middle of the night..."
"It's merely ten, my boy..."
"In the middle of the night, just to share a cup of tea with me." I did not much like to be toyed with, or condescended to like a child. "If you have some lesson to impart, I will gladly listen. But if you are merely here to gloat over my failure..."
"Akira-kun, Akira-kun..." He made placating motions with his hands, as if I were a wild horse that needed to be tamed. "You see? You are so afraid of being made fun of, even by an old man like me, that you lash out. You undermine yourself before you even begin. Your cheeks are scarlet--is it with rage, little tiger? Or with shame? Or both? I think both, And you will learn to master both. If, that is, if you will listen to me."
He was right, of course. I forced my hands to relax, letting go the childish fists I had balled them into. "I-I will listen."
He clucked his tongue again. "You think this is a lesson I can teach like the answer to a riddle? I'll speak some magic words that will show you the path to enlightenment? Ah, Akira-kun, if only it were so easy. What you are asking cannot be learned in a day. How long until your father returns? Three weeks? Will you become my student for three weeks, until he returns?"
"I will." I bowed. A leap forward. I clung to the belief that this was the sign I had been looking for. That my defeat heralded the arrival of a new dimension in my Go. Kuwabara's question about my father made the unspoken implication clear. I had gone as far as I could under my father's tutelage. If I wanted to progress, I had to learn something new, out from under his watchful eye.
"Good." He punctuated his word by putting down his cup. "Then for the next three weeks, you must do everything I say. Everything, you understand me?"
I looked up and saw that ever-mischievous gleam in his eye. "Sensei?"
"Defy me and I shall walk away and leave you. Understand me, Akira-kun. This will not be easy training. You will want to resist." His voice turned soft, almost kind. "But if you are to learn to get past this fixation on humiliation, it is the only way. It will be hard."
"I understand." I bowed again, vowing to myself that I would not question. That I would walk forward with my eyes open and do whatever he asked.
"Good," he said with a chuckle and then turned to the door. "Let us play a game now, then."
"Yes, sensei."
"And take off your clothes," he said, over his shoulder.
"Sensei!"
"Questioning my orders already?" he called, already in the room with the goban.
"N-no, sensei!" I stammered, thinking on what he had just said. It would be hard. I would want to resist. And my own now empty-sounding promise to myself to do whatever he said.
Which proved how weak I truly was. My hands shook as I unbuttoned my pajama shirt and carried it draped over one arm into the room where the goban sat. Kuwabara-sensei was already seated in front of it, watching me hawklike as I lay the shirt down and then slipped the pants off, too.
I was blushing furiously and could not meet his eyes. The thought flitted through my mind that if he wanted to humiliate me and debase me, he could not have found a better way. But perhaps that was the point. At least he did not pull out a cell phone camera or make remarks about my nakedness or do anything but sit there as if we were about to play a match.
I sank to my knees across the board from him and sat back on my heels. I could feel the soles of my feet against my bare buttocks and my cheeks went hot anew.
"Nigiri," he said, as if I were not naked as a newborn in front of him.
I was able to forget for a while, as we played, but I could not forget entirely. Especially not when he began to remind me. Just a small comment here or there was enough to make me feel as if the entire world were looking at me. It was like a nightmare I sometimes had, playing a match entirely naked.
Kuwabara-sensei for his part barely looked up from the board. He beat me soundly, too, forcing my resignation in under an hour's time.
"I have nothing," I said, bowing my head.
He got slowly to his feet. "No, no, stay there," he said, when I tried to rise, too. "Bow your head and study the game we just played. Replay it in your mind, Akira-kun. I will be back in the morning for your next lesson."
And with that, he left, sliding the door closed behind him with a hiss like a sword slicing through cloth.
(go on to part two...)
