I've written a couple of comment fics recently that were ostensibly drabbles but got away from me a bit; so 'tis time to salvage and archive them, and maybe clean them up a little.
This one was for jain; I posted the "Name a character and I'll tell you how they lost their virginity" meme in penance for shamelessly exploiting arboretum on her edition of it, and Jain asked for Waya.
Brief Encounter. Hikaru no Go, Waya, rated R. 1,457 words.
I.
Yoshitaka's starting to get kind of embarrassed, really; he's sixteen, sneaking up worryingly quickly on seventeen, and this is supposed to be the time when, y'know... a guy gets laid. Except it doesn't seem to be happening.
Is it because everyone thinks I'm dating Shigeko-chan? he wonders, standing in his apartment with his shirt off and looking at himself in the mirror. And to tell the truth he probably could do it with Shigeko-chan. She seems like she might let him, sometimes. Except she's his sensei's daughter, and for all that they're kind of the source of Yoshitaka's problems right now, Yoshitaka is very attached to his balls and does not want them cut off.
It's not like I'm ugly, right? he askes the guy in the mirror. Am I?
He's adjusted to the liking guys thing, but it's taken him a year, an anguished, unhappy year, and maybe that's why, he thinks to himself. He was kind of... scared of sex for a while there. And since it's not like he doesn't still like girls too, and since he doesn't really understand how it works with guys -- oh no, not that bit, he's a teenager with an internet connection, he understands how that bit works perfectly well, and though he'd never admit that he found it pretty hot or that he's thought things like I wonder if all guys taste the same when we come, it was and he has -- but since he doesn't really understand how two guys could go on a date, or how you even ask another guy out without getting your nose broken, he's decided he's going to stick to girls for the time being and let the guy thing take care of itself, or not.
Of course, what he's actually sticking to is the form of masturbation peculiar to teenage boys, where you jerk off so many times that you actually physically can't do it again or your dick will bleed (he found this out the hard way) and you're still as hopelessly horny as ever and wearing baggy pants all the time. And if he finds himself thinking not so much of breasts and hips and more of collarbones and smooth flat torsos and the way the lines of muscle bend in like a triangle towards a guy's crotch, if every so often he rolls his tongue around in his mouth like there should be something in there, if he's tried it with a finger a time or two, once he figured out the whole lube thing, and couldn't believe how good it felt -- so what, right? He's well-adjusted, that's all.
II.
It's a tournament. Yoshitaka works a lot of tournaments. The money's good, and he has rent to pay. And no amateur in the history of the world has ever been as annoying as Shindou, so the actual teaching is well within Yoshitaka's capacity for patience. He likes the old men: they actually care about go, most of them, even if they aren't very good at it. It's not like the private teaching jobs, which are so often kids getting forced into it by their parents, or middle-aged posers who think dicking around in shidougo at a nine-stone handicap makes them sophisticated.
He's cleaning up his spot at the end of the first evening when someone suddenly sits down on the other side of the goban. Yoshitaka looks up and starts to say, "I'm very sorry, I'm finished for the--" and bites it off, because it's not one of the ojisans in the chair; it's a foreigner, maybe two years older than him. Yoshitaka's heard about this guy: some big-shot rising Korean pro, not doing so well yet that his reputation has made it across the Sea of Japan, but (if you listen to the Japanese sensei he's come to study with and who apparently won't shut up about him) likely to hit that kind of stardom very soon. His host must be here, and must have brought him along.
Yoshitaka gives him a cordial bow from the shoulders and a polite greeting. As he suspected, Korea-san speaks very little Japanese, but as he's saying whatever incomprehensible Korean thing he's saying, he gestures at the goban and bowls, and Yoshitaka doesn't need an interpreter to work out what that means. He offers Korea-san the bowl of white stones to nigiri.
It's a good game; Korea-san's obviously a bit better than Yoshitaka, but not so much so that Yoshitaka might as well not be bothering. He feels the game slip away in the last part of yose, but for a casual game against a player probably a stone and a half or so his superior, he's satisfied.
You can't really discuss a game without a language in common, so they pack up quietly -- though Korea-san does manage to say "Arigatou gozaimasu" without mangling the pronunciation too badly, which is certainly more than Yoshitaka could do in Korean. And once Yoshitaka's stood up and headed for his room, he's a little surprised to find Korea-san trailing along behind. His room must be down this way too, I guess, he thinks to himself, and so, for reasons he can't quite understand -- something about the way the silence feels weird -- he starts talking. Prattling, really; about the tournaments and how he likes working them, about the ojisans and how nice it is to see people brought together by go, what he thinks of posers who learn the game to impress their boss -- and by the time he's got to the end of that rant, he's at the door of his room.
"Well, um, this is kind of my stop," he babbles. "It was --" he bows quite formally,"-- it was very nice to meet you."
Korea-san's eyes catch Yoshitaka's and hold them there, pinned, as Korea-san reaches out his hand and puts it over Yoshitaka's on the doorknob.
Gulp, thinks Yoshitaka. Uwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa... adds a voice in the back of his brain, in terrified bewilderment.
Korea-san turns the knob and leads Yoshitaka inside. The moment the door is shut his hand whips out and drags Yoshitaka towards him, grinding their bodies together. Yoshitaka can feel the Korean's erection through the thin material of the dress pants, gasps as the rough, cheap material of his own suit scrapes across the head of his swelling cock. And that's the moment he realises: I'm going to have sex with this guy.
Yoshitaka bends in and goes to kiss him -- because that's what you do, isn't it? -- but Korea-san pushes him away with a single finger against his lips. Okay, Yoshitaka's brain stammers, no kissing. I can remember that. Korea-san stops, looks at Yoshitaka for a moment, makes an "ah" noise, and Yoshitaka just has time to think oh god, people can tell?! before the Korean thrusts a hand past his belt and down his pants.
III.
When Yoshitaka drifts out of sleep in the morning, the Korean has gone. And that's probably for the best, because Yoshitaka doesn't really want anyone to see him walking funny -- not even the guy responsible for it.
As he washes up, he studies himself in the mirror. He doesn't know how exactly, but he thought it'd be more obvious. But he looks the same way he always does, just a little flushed, and with an idiot grin that won't seem to go away.
Moving gingerly, he makes his way down to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. There are exhibition games today, and several of his old insei buddies will have arrived last night. He's busy keeping an eye (and, this being who it is, an ear) out for Shindou that he almost misses Isumi-san, who's tucked himself away in a corner, reading one of Cho Chikun-sensei's books and sipping tea.
Yoshitaka tucks himself away in another corner entirely; Isumi-san might notice his, um, limp, and wonder what's wrong, and Yoshitaka just couldn't face explaining that to anyone, let alone Isumi-san, right now.
And suddenly, as he finishes that thought, some part of Yoshitaka's brain draws a line from Isumi-san to some of the things he learned last night, and after a moment's shell-shocked numbness, Yoshitaka thinks to himself: Oh. Oh, my god.
"Waya! Hey! Earth to Waya!"
Yoshitaka wrenches his gaze away to Shindou, who has materialised out of thin air into the seat opposite him, and blinks in astonishment -- because he suddenly recognises the look on Shindou's face, one he's seen several times before. It's the same look he saw in the mirror this morning.
And he realises, with a sick, sinking feeling in his chest, that Shindou recognises it too.