Chapter Text
Of all the various friends Hikaru had dicked around during his demon ordeal, he probably felt worst about Yashiro.
Yashiro was just too nice. He was a grumpy bastard and too insistent on cleanliness for him to be a natural teenager, but he just…objectively was not a dickhead. After several unpleasant conversations, Hikaru could now (begrudgingly) admit that he felt guilty about how he’d treated Touya, but at least Touya had been a dickhead right back at him. He always gave as good as he got, especially when it came to being an arsehole. But Yashiro?
Yashiro had just been worried. He’d pushed once he’d overheard Hikaru on the phone to Utagawashi, yeah, but…he’d been pretty okay about it. It had been annoying, but okay. And Hikaru was hardly going to forget how he’d opened his home at the drop of a hat when he’d needed it. And he’d called Hikaru about the news, possibly saving his life in the process, because what if Hikaru hadn’t been prepared for Kaminaga to come that night? It…might have been nasty. Nastier, he amended to himself, because the night had already been plenty nasty.
Generally, Yashiro was not a dickhead, and that meant Hikaru felt much guiltier about being a cagey bastard with him than with Touya, and especially for what he’d probably put him through with calling the police and whatever else. So, logically, Hikaru had been steadfastly avoiding thinking about the boy.
This was made much more difficult when his mother brusquely informed him that she’d given Yashiro permission to stay over that weekend, because he’d wanted to visit Hikaru and couldn’t do it in the week.
Hikaru stared at her as the words sank in, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. “…When’s he getting here?” He asked, eventually, and felt far less cheerful about his imminent release from the hospital than he had been before.
“This evening, actually.” His mother said, casting a befuddled glance to the flower arrangement at his bedside. “He’ll be there when you get home tomorrow. It might be useful for you – he can be your hands while he’s here, after all.”
“Great.” Hikaru said, unenthusiastically.
“Don’t be like that.” She said, tone automatically shifting to the sternness that was her ingrained response to Hikaru-in-a-mood. “He’s your friend, isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” He sighed, a little morose. He had been hoping to get through at least two days without having any more highly uncomfortable talks, but that had probably been overly optimistic of him. “Well. I guess he can play Go, at least.”
“You’re not allowed to play a game for six weeks.” She reminded him, eyes wandering back to the flowers again.
“Verbal. Verbal Go. I’m not going to use my hands.” He clarified, shuffling on the bed. “He can place my stones for me.”
“That’s nice.” His mother answered distractedly, clearly not listening past the initial assurance. “Hikaru, weren’t there more flowers than this? I thought there were six of the sunflowers.”
He was honestly surprised she’d noticed that, but… “I gave one to a friend.” He shrugged. It was hardly a secret.
“Oh, I see. Akira-kun?”
“You think I’d give Touya a sunflower?” Hikaru asked incredulously, then paused to consider it. “…Maybe I should give him one. Just to fuck with him. He’d be so confused.”
“Hikaru. Language.”
“Yeah.” He said, already delighted at the idea. He could just imagine the faces the other pro would make. “Anyway, no, it wasn’t him. I gave it to Setsu.” He made sure to say it very casually. Dismissively, even.
Her eyes narrowed at him. “Setsu, you say. I was told that someone by that name had visited you, but I’d never heard the name before.”
Hikaru gave her an oblivious stare. “What, I haven’t mentioned Setsu before?” He said, affecting a tone of confusion.
“You haven’t.” She confirmed.
“Oh. Well, I guess we’ve not been friends that long.” He mused, consideringly, as though it all made sense now. “Well, anyway, we played a game a while back, and we’re friends now.”
“Oh.” She said, already sounding less interested. He could practically see her slotting Setsu into the ‘Hikaru’s Go friends’ category. Excellent. “I see. Is Setsu good at Go?”
“Good-ish. Better than most amateurs I tutor, but nowhere near as good as me.” He said, and threw in some more technical stuff to throw her off. “I mean, if I was going to guess, I think Setsu would probably either pass the pro exam or get one of the top spots. But, like, that joseki is old, and it’s old and clumsy so there’s tons of weaknesses. Any pro could win against that, probably.”
“That’s nice, Hikaru.” She said tolerantly, clearly not listening anymore. Success.
He nodded to himself with satisfaction, and allowed her to work out her remaining bits of small talk and idle news at him before she left for the day. He had, quite expertly, made it so at least one person would accept Setsu as an acknowledged real friend-of-Hikaru if it ever came up. After all, if Setsu was walking around embodied now, it was best to make some preparations. It wouldn’t be enough of a bastion against the bull-headed curiosity of his crazy friends, but it was better than nothing.
Later that day, after his mother had left, Waya and Isumi came to visit. Hikaru felt them approaching not long after they walked into the hospital, identifying their somewhat-familiar souls once they were close enough to ambiently feel. He made a face at his bedclothes as they lingered at reception, presumably signing in.
Clearly, he had been far too optimistic in hoping he’d manage to go two days without awkward conversations.
He sighed, resigned, and sat up to watch the door as they approached. It was Isumi who knocked, calling “Shindou-kun?” through the door. “It’s Isumi, and Waya.”
“Yeah, I know.” He said, unthinkingly, and then shook his head. Ugh. “Come in.”
The door opened, and two faces poked their way in, eyes immediately fixing on him. The mood-patterns on their souls twisted oddly as they processed his appearance, and he wondered what it was that they were seeing. Isumi stepped in, and then Waya, closing the door behind him.
“…Huh.” Waya said, looking distinctly bothered by the sight of him.
“Don’t just stand there, it’s weird. Pull up some chairs or something.” Hikaru told him, a little crossly. If he was going to have more awkward conversations, he at least didn’t want them looming over him for it. There was a distinctly uncomfortable quiet as they followed his directive, situating themselves by the bedside. Hikaru made sure to plant his hands in plain view, just to get that out of the way.
“I’m glad you’re alright, Shindou-kun.” Isumi said, once he was seated. “We haven’t heard much, just that you’d been injured and ended up in hospital but it wasn’t serious.”
Waya nodded, taking the opening to speak. “I was just kind of pissed about you not coming to the Kisei match, at first.” He ventured, tilting his head a little to stare at Hikaru’s hands with a befuddled expression. “I guess no one called the Association until later, so at first your match was ruled as a forfeit, and, uh…”
“You thought I was being a match-forfeiting tool again?” Hikaru guessed, unamused. It seemed that streak of unpleasantness would, quite literally, forever be haunting him.
“I didn’t really think anything, I was just pissed off.” Waya denied, somewhat shifty-eyed. “I may have sent some angry messages.”
“Don’t bother reading them.” Isumi advised him. “They’re terribly rude.”
“Anyway, we didn’t hear from you at all for like two days and that started to be weird, so we texted your neighbour, and she said you were in the hospital.” Waya went on, as though Isumi hadn’t spoken. “And she just didn’t say anything else, so…”
“I think I was still unconscious then?” Hikaru suggested, thinking it through. “I was out for like three days, so probably she didn’t know enough to tell you.” Both Isumi and Waya stared at him, visibly taken-aback.
“…I didn’t know that.” Waya admitted, unusually subdued. “Three days? That’s…I guess it makes sense we didn’t hear much from her, then. A day later she got back to us and said you were fine but had injured your hands, and that didn’t sound too bad, you know?” He gestured to Hikaru’s hands, which were still in plain view in their orthoses. “But that looks more serious than I thought, you know. I guess I sort of thought that somehow this whole hospital thing was just more bullshit and I’d walk in and you’d have, like, a tiny cut or something, but…”
Hikaru sighed. He was just…so tired of all of this. “I was unconscious for three days, I’ve got permanent hand damage, and also I’ve got an infection.” He said, flatly. “It’s gonna be a good two months before I can play a game with my own hands again.” Predictably, both of them looked quite stunned at that.
Any moment now, they were going to ask what had happened. And he’d have to tell them, because they’d been worried, and they were his friends, and that meant he should tell them something, because it wasn’t fair otherwise. But he was just so sick of it. This whole week had been stuffed full of horrible talks and he was completely, utterly tired. And he still had to talk to Yashiro.
At least he was starting to run out of people who he had to be somewhat truthful with.
“Do you mind telling us what happened?” Isumi asked, and despite himself, Hikaru felt some tension release. That was…an unexpectedly nice way of asking. He shrugged tiredly.
“I got attacked by a guy with a sword.” He answered, dully, slumping back against the back of the hospital bed. “And then I got away, but a load of my tendons were cut up so they had to do surgery.”
Both visitors stared at him. Isumi was observing him with a slightly furrowed brow, the look of his soul somewhere between an instinctive flash of dubiousness and a more dominant understanding, but Waya…
He folded his arms. “Shindou,” he said, a little tightly. “I swear to god, if you’re choosing now to bullshit when you’re in fucking hospital-“
Hikaru’s face twisted in tandem with the tense, unhappy lurch of his guts, and he turned away with an angry, hissing huff. “I’m not bullshitting.” He retorted. I learned my lesson there with Touya, he almost said, but he bit back the words.
“A sword.” Waya said, voice rising with disbelief, and no small edge of his own anger. “Come on, Shindou, who the fuck gets attacked with a sword? That’s not even a little believable!”
He supposed, really, that this was kind of his fault. If he hadn’t made such a habit of saying complete crap when questioned about uncomfortable topics, it might be more believable, but… “Me, obviously!” He shot back, the distinct and unpleasant sensation of stress seething in his limbs and bubbling through his voice. “I didn’t ask to get attacked by a crazy swordsman, but it happened! If you don’t believe me you can just fuck off.” His energy bristled and churned around him, but he held it inwards, not risking something like what had happened with Touya.
Waya half-stood up, looking very ready to get argumentative, and while his soul wasn’t as weirdly expressive as Touya’s, it was easy to see similar emotions there as during the fight earlier that week. It just figured that Hikaru would get the same response by actually telling the truth, didn’t it.
Then, suddenly, like a breath of fresh air, Isumi held his hand out as though to bar Waya from moving. “I believe you.” He said to Hikaru, voice quiet and sympathetic.
Waya stared at him incredulously. “What? Isumi-“
“It was on the news, wasn’t it? That man in Yokohama was killed with a sword, and it was reported that there was a linked incident last Friday here in Tokyo.” He went on, looking perfectly calm, though his soul didn’t quite match that outwards appearance. “Was that you?”
Hikaru averted his eyes from Waya, fixing them on Isumi. His shoulders loosened a little. “…Yeah.” He agreed, woodenly. “Same guy. I had to talk to the police about it, once they finished operating on my hands.”
“I’m sorry.” Isumi said, completely and sincerely sympathetic. “That must have been a horrible experience.”
He looked away again, because the sympathy was uncomfortable to look at, too. “I’m fine. I lived, didn’t I?” For a given value of ‘lived’, since one of the consequences was that he was now sort of dying. Hikaru grimaced at the thought, and then deliberately pushed it away.
Waya looked between him and Isumi, face contorted into conflicted confusion. “…What?” He asked, almost uncomprehendingly. “Are you trying to tell me you actually got attacked with a sword?”
“I fucking said so, didn’t I?” Hikaru bit out, voice positively caustic.
“Yeah, but most of the time when you say stuff like that it isn’t true.” Waya said, and Hikaru considered telling him that, in fact, a lot of the bullshit he spouted was actually true. “But…you actually, like, got attacked?”
Isumi sighed. “Waya.”
Hikaru considered saying something very uncomplimentary, but breathed, and fell back on Akari’s advice. “Yes, Waya. I actually got attacked. With a sword. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
Waya looked almost personally affronted at the last sentence. He leaned forwards in an quick, thoughtless motion. “Not even why it happened? I mean, why the hell did the murderer guy go after you? Is it someone you know, Shindou? Do you know if they caught him yet?”
It was like Touya all over again. Hikaru restrained another biting response. “I just said I didn’t want to talk about it. And no, they haven’t caught him yet.” That was probably something else he’d have to deal with, once he left the hospital. Kaminaga.
Hikaru really wished he could spend maybe two consecutive days just…resting. Not having to have horrible conversations. Not having to deal with someone who was partially responsible for some of the horrible things that had happened to him.
“So you do know him?” Waya pressed, as if he’d heard a completely different response.
Hikaru scowled. “When the hell did I say that?” He demanded.
“You didn’t, but you didn’t deny it, so-”
“That doesn’t mean it’s true! I said I didn’t want to talk about it!” Under ordinary circumstances, he’d have clenched his fists. Paced around. Maybe thrown something. Instead he held rigidly still, eyes fixed determinedly on his hands as frustration prickled at his throat.
Waya started to talk again, but barely got another syllable out before he was mercifully stopped.
“Waya.” Isumi said, firmly. Almost sternly. “He’s literally sitting in a hospital bed. Now isn’t the time to bother him, and if he doesn’t want to talk, you need to respect that.”
Cautiously, Hikaru looked over. Waya was staring at his friend, looking somewhat betrayed. “But-“
“No.” The older pro reiterated, and fixed him with a surprisingly steely look. “Don’t be unkind.”
Sullenly, Waya fell quiet. Hikaru was briefly very, very relieved that he hadn’t come to visit alone. It would have been a nightmare.
Isumi looked over at him. “Shindou-kun? Would you like us to stay for a while? We could discuss some of the games you’ve missed in the last week, if you like.”
He blinked, and leaned back. “No.” He said, bluntly. “No, I’m tired. I want to rest.”
His friend nodded, and…that, apparently, was that. He rose from his chair, pulling Waya with him. “We won’t stay any longer, then. Come on, Waya.” He ignored the younger boy’s protests as he herded him easily to the door. He looked back briefly. “I hope you feel better soon.”
“…Thanks.” He said, and held carefully still until the door was closed and his friends’ presences were receding down the hallway.
Slowly, he slumped into the bed, the beginnings of a stress-headache clawing at his brain. He wished he could look forwards to getting out of hospital, but…
Yashiro.
Hikaru sighed, and turned over to go to sleep. It wasn’t even late afternoon yet, but he was tired, and utterly fed up with dealing with everything. Sleep was easier.
---
The morning of his release, Hikaru went through the usual wound-checking and hand exercises with a distinct feeling of trepidation. He nodded through the comments on the progress of his healing, made approving noises over the apparent slight improvement of his infection, and obligingly twitched his fingers in all the ways he was told, but his thoughts were manifestly elsewhere. He had slept off some of the tension, but his mood felt alarmingly fragile, and he was not at all looking forward to another unpleasant conversation.
Then nurse Furutani brought in the clean, non-hospital clothes his mother had dropped on, and Hikaru was instantly intrigued.
“That’s a real t-shirt.” He pointed out, oddly charmed by the sight of the completely normal clothing. “And real trousers. Not….hospital crap.”
“They are indeed.” Nurse Furutani agreed, looking secretively amused. “We’ll see how well you do at getting into them, hm?”
“Why would I-“ He started to ask, then looked at his hands. They remained, as expected, within the hell-implements that controlled their positioning. “…Right. So putting clothes on is going to be a pain now.”
“I think I can safely say that lots of things are going to be a pain.” The nurse nodded, looking far too cheerful about the whole thing, and cajoled him into accepting the clothing. “See how you do on your own to begin with, I’ll help if you need it.”
In the end, embarrassingly, Hikaru did indeed need help. It was just a normal t-shirt, no buttons or anything, but manoeuvring his hands through the thing without pulling his fingers into bad-feeling positions proved to be basically impossible, so he had so sit sullenly while the nurse did it for him and pulled the shirt over his head. He managed the trousers through sheer bull-headed determination, using judicious applications of weight through his elbows to hold them in place on the bedside while he pulled his legs into them. Actually fastening them proved to be a pain, though. He managed the zip but not the button, and stubbornly pulled his shirt down over it to conceal that small failure.
“I emerge victorious.” He said to Nurse Furutani, who obligingly offered some applause. After that it was just a matter of waiting for his mother to show up and sign a load of papers.
When she did arrive, she arrived with not only Akari but also Yashiro in tow. Hikaru was thankfully forewarned to this by his far-reaching senses, but it made the initial moments no less awkward.
Hikaru ignored his mother and Akari entirely in favour of staring tensely at Yashiro. Yashiro, for his part, folded his arms and looked very accusative. His soul revealed a great number of conflicting feelings and looking at them made Hikaru feel distinctly guilty.
“Oh god, am I going to have to mediate again?” Akari said, after looking between them for a few seconds. Hikaru was inclined to forgive her the words, because it neatly broke the awkward silence.
“Mediate?” Yashiro asked, as the group as a whole led Hikaru out of his hospital room. He’d only been down the corridor to go to the toilet in the whole time he’d been there, so approaching the stairs felt almost exciting. “What did you need to mediate?”
Hikaru noticed that his mother looked quite interested in the answer, too. “Hikaru and Touya-kun had a fight and they were being idiots about it, so I sorted it out.” She peered at Hikaru. “Did it go alright, on Thursday?”
“….It went okay.” He admitted, grudgingly. “But then Waya came yesterday and made a pain of himself, like I knew he would.”
“Oh dear.” His mother said, sounding mildly concerned.
“In fairness, I feel like you’ve been putting off all these conversations for a while, so I think you’re just overdue.” Akari pointed out, with just the slightest edge of sympathy. He didn’t feel particularly comforted.
Yashiro side-eyed him, and said nothing. The silence was very expressive. Hikaru instantly felt both guiltier and more stressed.
“Maybe.” Hikaru said, vaguely, and allowed the polite conversation of his mother and Akari to fill the quiet, interspersed with an occasional comment by Yashiro.
His mother had actually hired a taxi to get them home, which was unexpected, but pleasant. He wouldn’t have enjoyed navigating public transport with his hands as they were. Humiliatingly, Akari had to plug in his seatbelt, as he couldn’t move his fingers enough to get the necessary leverage. There would probably be a lot of things like that, in the weeks to come. Hikaru produced a long and rather depressed sigh at the thought of it, and turned his head to the side.
Hikaru stared out of the window, watching the streets progressively become more familiar. At the same time, he could feel a bright patch of energy growing closer, a familiar mesh woven into brick and wiring. The house-wards. He was surprised by how much he was looking forward to walking through them, considering what he’d seen happen to the ones on the shrine. They still felt safe, even if he knew that they didn’t stand up to serious threats.
Eventually, they arrived. His mother paid the taxi driver, and then went to unlock the front door. At the sight of it Hikaru felt a lurch in his gut, and hurried after her, suddenly almost desperate to get home again. He passed through the threshold, the wardlight shimmering over him as he breathed in the familiar air of home, and felt suddenly far more emotional than he’d anticipated. He lingered in the doorway, closed his eyes briefly as he struggled for composure, and then stepped in to kick off his shoes.
When he looked up, Akari was just beyond the doorframe, and inspecting him with an annoying understanding look. “…I’ll leave you to get settled back in.” She decided, and stepped back. “I’ll drop by sometime this weekend, okay?” She didn’t wait for a response, merely flashing a smile at him and then turning away in the direction of her own home.
Yashiro shrugged, and stepped inside, closing the door. Hikaru didn’t pay much attention to him, though, instead turning to walk into the familiar space with something painful clenching in his chest at the sight of it. The walls, the doors, the light through the windows-
Hikaru shuddered, and breathed, and found himself near-running up the stairs before he could help himself. Distantly, he heard footsteps following after him, felt Yashiro’s presence trailing in unhurried pursuit, but couldn’t bring himself to care much about that.
He burst into his room, breaths coming uncomfortably fast, and wanted to weep at the sight of it. His room, his goban, his window, the kamidana-
Something guided him, some bright hint of power, something he needed – Hikaru stumbled over to his chest of drawers and pulled on a drawer-handle without even thinking about it, rummaging as carefully as he could with his mangled hands until his fingertips brushed against paper bright with energy.
He stilled. Carefully, he drew it out, balanced carefully between two fingers and the orthosis.
Quietly, he dropped to the floor, cradling the closed fan and struggling to calm his breathing. He trailed his fingertips over the paper, the contrast between the insensate skin and the undamaged fingers horribly apparent.
The door closed. Yashiro had stepped into the room and pushed it shut behind him. He stood for a moment. “…Shindou?” He asked, uncertainly. Concern moved on his soul, as oddly noticeable and distinctive as it was on Touya.
Hikaru swallowed. “Yeah?” He said, thickly, and tried to unfold his posture a bit.
“Are you okay?”
Despite himself, he laughed at that. A short, and unhappy noise. He decided against answering.
“…Stupid question, I guess.” Yashiro mused to himself, and carefully crouched beside him. “…is that your fan?”
“Duh.” Hikaru answered, and looked down at it. His gut twisted, because…it looked…well. He held it carefully and then flicked sharply with his wrist to open it, and…
The paper was stained. Almost everywhere, there were smears of blood, smudges, fingerprints. Along one edge, it looked as though it had spread out from the hand that held it, soaking along the paper and staining the ribs, dripping down in places. It was dry, red-brown, and crusted in places. The intact white paper was far more sparse than the marred part.
How oddly appropriate. Hikaru choked down another bitter noise, and brushed off some of the crusty bits with his thumb, blowing the blood-powder off.
“…Is that your blood?” Yashiro asked, just a little incredulous.
He shrugged, heavily. “That’s what happens when you try to hold a fan when your hands are all torn up, I guess.” He said, unable to force the flippancy that the words would have been suited for. The sight of the stained fan was quietly, deeply painful.
“So you had it with you when…you know?” The boy sounded terribly confused. “How is it here then? Wouldn’t it…I dunno, be taken for evidence or something?”
“…It wasn’t. It got taken back here.” He carefully avoided saying who had conveyed it. “I guess I can’t carry it around anymore, all stained like this.” Could he have the paper replaced, maybe? Would that disturb the energy imbued in it? He sighed, heavily, and resolved to ask Utagawashi about it. “What a pain.”
Yashiro looked at him, wearing the scowl his face usually settled into whenever he was thinking particularly hard. He felt concerned enough that it was practically shouting out from his soul, enough that he was actively pushing down on the edge of wanting-answers that curled in strangely coherent spirit-shapes near one edge of him.
Hikaru felt even shittier at the sight of it. “I’m sorry.” He said, abruptly, unable to bear the weight of it anymore. “I’ve been a complete dick to you during all this – I just…” He wanted to bury his face in his hands, but his hands were in orthoses. Another pitiful surge of unhappy stress rose in him at that inability, no matter how trivial it was. “Sorry.” He said, again, unable to find words any less inadequate than that.
Tentatively, Yashiro shuffled around so he could look Hikaru in the eye. Sort of, anyway, because Hikaru wasn’t exactly feeling great about eye contact right now. “There’s some stuff I’d really like to ask about.” He said, voice awkward but very serious.
Hikaru nodded, jerkily, and braced himself. He owed answers to Yashiro, at least. He owed something. He could wait a little longer to collapse into a pathetic stressed mess. He inhaled slowly, and tried to press the ambient distress a little further away. Just a little further.
Yashiro eyed him quietly for a few more seconds before he spoke again. “That said,” He voiced, standing up. “You look like complete shit. I can hold off for a while.” He sighed, and stepped back, as though to give himself more room.
Hikaru stared, uncomprehendingly. The pit in his chest where he was squashing his emotions down held firm, still braced as though for impact. “….What?” He near-blurted.
“You heard me.” Yashiro rolled his shoulders, producing a couple of distinct clicks. “I’m not going to grill you when you look like that. Have a nap, or something. I’ll just go sit with my laptop downstairs for a while.”
“…What?” Hikaru asked again, stupidly.
He gestured pointedly in the direction of the bed. “Have a fucking nap, Shindou. You obviously need some rest.” He straightened, nodded, and then went for the door.
Hikaru watched, utterly still, as the boy opened the door, stepped out, and closed it behind him. His presence receded down the hall and down the stairs, engaging in brief conversation with his mother, and then settling comfortably into the living room. He…didn’t come up again.
It took at least a minute of confusedly monitoring Yashiro’s lack of movement before it started to sink in that…actually, he wasn’t going to have to talk right now. The relief came in a hesitant trickle, and then opened abruptly into a dizzying flood. Hikaru gasped for breath and shook and hunched over his knees as the rest of his denied emotions were dislodged, emerging in a horrible and stomach-twisting tide of upset.
“What the fuck.” He mumbled at himself, setting the fan aside to wipe at his face with his sleeve, and then abruptly descended into a thoroughly pitiful mess of a human being that cried all over himself for basically no reason. A while in, he wanted to go to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water, but the realisation that his hands would get in the way of that made him break out into another awful wave of blubbering. He wasn’t even that upset about his hands…was he?
It felt much as though all the collective stress and unhappiness of the last several weeks was clawing its way out through his eyes and throat, but not before it made an enormous mess of his stomach first, twisting it up into nauseating, thorny knots. Hikaru wept so hard he gagged, unable to get his breathing to settle down, even though he was fine. He’d lived, he’d survived, he was home and he was fine. He hadn’t even needed to make himself talk to Yashiro, but here he was, completely incapable of controlling himself. It was at least fifteen minutes until he managed to get anything approaching a hold on himself, and even then it was tenuous at best. Hikaru wrested a towel out of his wardrobe and buried his face in it, then finally tried to take Yashiro’s suggestion.
He crawled into bed and bawled a bit there for good measure, and then after who-knows how long finally managed to drop into the sleep of the completely exhausted.
---
He had very little idea how long he slept for, but he woke eventually, a headache pounding behind his eyes and pressing insistently at his temples. He felt no less exhausted than he had before he fell asleep, but somewhat more settled. The seething stress was still there, but…lower. Less insistent. It felt somewhat less like it would boil up and bubble out of his skin at the slightest provocation. Instead, he just felt…drained. Oddly empty.
He heaved himself out from under the duvet, and staggered out to the bathroom. He negotiated his way around the various obstacles therein, eventually managing to turn the lock on the door, and then successfully navigating the issue of the toilet, and then finally the tap and its cold stream of water. He dunked his face under the spray of it, not particularly caring that he got his hair wet, and wiped at his face and head afterwards with the bath towel. He returned to his room, and sat on the floor, and felt somewhat better for it.
Hikaru sat purposelessly for several quiet minutes, eyes resting somewhere in the region of his knee and fixing there. He sat, and breathed, and after a while felt somewhat more like a human being.
Carefully, he retrieved the fan from where he’d left it, and moved to put it in front of the kamidana. He stood there, impulses warring. He wanted to light some incense and sit at the shrine, but that was motor coordination he didn’t think his hands could manage at the moment. His lighter was a bitch to work on the best of days, and even if he had matches, those might be even harder.
He sighed, and went to try anywhere, hoping he wouldn’t set fire to himself in the process.
In the end, judicious and careful manoeuvring of his thumb managed to ignite the lighter, but it took several frustrating tries to maintain the flame while also balancing a stick of incense precariously between two fingers, and even more attempts to light the incense, and convey it successfully to the burner. All told it took a good twenty minutes to get the damn incense lit, but as soon as the smell hit he couldn’t bring himself to regret it.
He swayed back, staggered by the familiarity and the way a good part of his soul thrummed in response, choking up his throat with fresh and heart-twisting grief.
It was almost pleasant, was the thing. As always, it hurt like Sai had only just gone, like he was still reeling, like he was still looking for white robes when he turned around. But…it was clean. Clear. As long as he didn’t let himself sink into it too much, the anguish was sharp and awful in the same way as the shining edge of a blade, and so much less complicated than the thorny mire of stress and exhaustion he’d found himself in.
Hikaru supposed that was as good a sign as any that he really needed a break. His literally crippling soul-wounds were less unpleasant than the accumulated muck of the last few weeks.
He stared at the kamidana, and didn’t know what to say. I survived? I nearly died, but I didn’t? I was almost possessed, but I wasn’t in the end? I broke a demon that was even older than you? I saw spirits die? I’m going to have to deal with the damage to my hands for the rest of my life?
…I survived the demon, but I’m dying anyway?
His breath hitched, and he shook, and then apparently he wasn’t done crying yet after all.
The incense had burned out by the time he stopped, this time, but the scent of it lingered. It helped, in its way. The spark in the shrine remained, as quiescent and unaware as ever.
“…ugh.” Hikaru sighed, after a while, wiping his face with his sleeve again. He wondered how puffy his eyes were now, with the salt burning at his eyelids and scouring his cheeks yet again. “Fucking hell.” He expressed to himself, and then rose to walk over and collapse on his bed.
He had no idea what to do with himself.
After a while, it occurred to Hikaru that his phone was probably around somewhere. He got up and looked around for it, eventually finding it in plain sight on his bedside table, which for some reason he’d neglected to check in the first place. He tapped at the power button, but it seemed to be out of charge. He shrugged, and plugged it in, and left it on his bedside table where he’d found it.
He looked around his room, wondering if there was anything else he should be doing. Naturally, his eyes lingered on the goban, but it wasn’t as though he could meaningfully interact with it for a while. He shook his head, and for lack of anything better to do, laid back in bed and reached out with his energy to feel the house wards.
They didn’t feel as strong as he remembered. He wasn’t sure whether that was because he was stronger, the wards actually were weaker, or because he’d seen what happened to the wards on the shine. He felt at them dubiously, and wondered if a few offerings at the house shrine would brighten them up a bit. That, in turn, reminded him that he really needed to be particularly devout at the house shrine for a while. Inari had, quite literally, directly saved his life. There probably weren’t many people who could say that they’d been saved through direct divine intervention. It was quite a thought.
Hikaru sighed, and reached out further, and further, finding a couple of fairly weak spirits that felt like Inari-foxes, who twisted away from his energy with alarmed sparks of something-powerful-reaches. He didn’t find any spirits he recognised.
Hesitantly, he moved the reach around. Directed it in the direction of his grandfather, the shrine, Utagawashi…and, presumably, Kaminaga.
Something felt odd in the ambient energy, as his reach extended. As though something was spilling, churning, exhaling sourness into the air. For a moment, he felt a jolt of pure, instinct-level fear – but it wasn’t demonic. It was utterly different. The low-level energy he felt his way through was stained with pain, as though someone had dropped hurt like ink into water somewhere up-stream, and it had filtered down as it flowed. Dilute, but still evident. Pain, said the spirit-layer, like a ripple from a stone. Something suffers.
The further he reached, the stronger the feeling became, until it fed back through into his own energy like a stain. The eddies of someone else’s agony broke on him, vague and indistinct, with a choking edge of horror and shame.
Hikaru shuddered, and pulled away. He’d felt enough.
His awareness returned to his surroundings in an odd shift of attention. He had so much energy now, and so much reach, that the sensory feedback from it seemed to block out the actual sensations from his body, though only when he was actively reaching. He cleared his throat and blinked rapidly, finding that he’d apparently not been blinking while he investigated the surrounding area.
He became uncomfortably aware of Yashiro’s presence downstairs. A distinctive soul, like Touya, and very easy to notice.
Hikaru shifted on the bed, and checked the time. There was still probably hours to go until dinner. He’d slept quite a long time, but he’d arrived home in the morning, so it wasn’t that late. He sighed, and pulled himself upright, rubbing his face lethargically on his sleeve. His cheeks felt raw and sore from all the salt, and the edges of his eyes ached even more caustically. He offered an unhappy grumble to the empty room, and then staggered out of the bedroom door.
Yashiro’s soul flickered a bit at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, and Hikaru watched it as he descended. He wandered reluctantly into the sitting room, where Yashiro was sat with his laptop, and offered a vague noise of greeting.
The boy looked over at him critically. “...Did you sleep?” He asked, tilting his head. “You still look exhausted.”
Hikaru snorted, and went to sit beside him. “That’s life, I guess.” He said philosophically. “I slept, but it didn’t help that much.” Physically, at any rate. It had helped to settle the stress a bit. “What are you doing?”
“I was reading kifu for a bit, but now I’m reading manga.” He indicated his screen, where indeed there was what looked like a manga page. Hikaru blinked.
“On the computer?” He asked, utterly confused. “You can do that?”
Yashiro rolled his eyes. “You don’t get on the internet much, do you?”
“I look at Go stuff.” He protested.
“Exactly.”
Hikaru looked at him. Yashiro, very calmly, looked back.
Hikaru shifted on the sofa, and fell into an uncomfortable silence wherein he experienced both an intense need to say something and an intense desire not to. He struggled wordlessly for several expectant moments until Yashiro finally took pity on him.
“Are you feeling any better now?”
He shuffled again. “Yeah. I mean…yeah, I guess.”
Yashiro inspected him for several seconds, and nodded. “I should maybe put my laptop upstairs.” He suggested, leadingly.
“…Yeah.” Hikaru agreed, and stood from the sofa, making his way awkwardly back towards the stairs. Yashiro shut his laptop, unplugged it, and followed.
He took a seat on the floor, not far from the goban, as though it might offer some moral support. Yashiro entered and shut the door behind him, setting his things down neatly in a corner. He took his time about it, arranging all the stuff so it looked immaculate, and seemed to be in no hurry to talk, so Hikaru gathered his courage and just…did it himself. Just to get it over with.
“You can ask things now.” He said, abruptly, forcing the words out in a brief moment of willpower. “You know, if you want.”
Yashiro made a thoughtful noise, still tidying his stuff, but sat down after a few seconds, back against the wall. He tended to look odd, sitting down like that. He was tall with particularly gangly limbs, and his legs always looked unnaturally long when he sat on the floor. “Yeah?” He expressed, amiably, as though he didn’t much care either way. He did, though. It was all over him. Outwardly he just seemed to be wearing his near-permanent serious-face, but the conflict between wanting-to-know and concern was abundantly obvious on his soul.
Hikaru stared at him confusedly, and made a face. “Yeah.” He echoed, since the other boy seemed to be waiting for some form of confirmation.
He brought a hand up to itch at an eye, and after a moment, fixed a look at Hikaru that was far more serious than his usual perma-face. “I can wait, you know.” He said, plainly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay.” Hikaru’s head drew back at the words, in a sort of reflexive recoiling. It didn’t seem to go unnoticed.
“…But you want to ask things.” Hikaru pointed out, stupidly. He blinked quickly, trying to figure out what Yashiro’s angle was, but…
“Yeah, but you’ve been through some nasty shit.” Yashiro said sensibly. “I do have things I want to ask, but I figure I know more than most people already. I can wait.”
Hikaru flinched back in another almost-recoil, bizarrely flustered by the words. “That’s…” He started, and stopped. That’s not what you’re supposed to say, he almost said, but that barely even made sense to him. “That’s…not…” He shook his head, oddly frustrated and distinctly off-balance. He’d expected resistance, and found none, and now… “Just – ask your questions. It’s fine.” He insisted. Get it over with, he repeated to himself.
Yashiro observed him for several more frustrating moments, and nodded. “Alright.” He said, straightening slowly. “First thing, then. Did you know that guy was going to come after you, when you were on the phone to me?”
That…wasn’t a question he’d been expecting, somehow. Hikaru blinked rapidly, and set his shoulders rigidly. “I mean, I was pretty sure he’d come after me eventually?” He hedged, in a reflexive dodge of the real question being asked. Yashiro didn’t react outwardly to the vague mistruth aside from a very slight shift in his expression, but…there was an obvious shade of disappointment, to be felt by spiritual means. Hikaru winced at it, all the painful prickling guilt surging up again, and exhaled gustily. “…Yeah, I knew.” He admitted, to the real question: did you lie when you said nothing was going to happen? Did you know he was going to come after you that night, when you made me wait?
Yashiro’s expression tightened, a little, and the breath that escaped him was almost a hiss. “That was a shitty thing to do, Shindou. Making me wait to get the police involved.” He informed him, directly. He wasn’t angry, was the thing. Wasn’t even annoyed. He was just sort of…unhappy, disappointed, and a bit hurt. It twisted in him.
This was why Hikaru didn’t like telling the truth.
“…Yeah.” Hikaru agreed, offering no defence. If he’d died, Yashiro would have been in the spectacularly shitty position of someone who could have got the police involved, but hadn’t. It probably wouldn’t have helped. But he didn’t know that.
“Why the hell did you leave the house then, if you knew he was coming after you? Why didn’t you get help?” This time, the frustration actually made its way into his voice, his expression. It rather twisted the knife in Hikaru’s gut. “I don’t get that at all.”
Hikaru bit back the first three instinctive half-truths that tried to bubble out of him, swallowing them down with considerable difficulty. How to answer this that was true? “A lot of people would have died if I didn’t go out. Like, a lot.” If he’d called the police, it would have been them, to start with. The demon would have clawed its way through their unprotected souls and murdered a path through however many other people it needed to, to get to Hikaru. And if he hadn’t, and had just left the city….Utagawashi would be dead. All of the foxes, too. And who knows who else.
Yashiro visibly processed that, a heavy scowl furrowing his brow. He always looked so angry when he was thinking particularly hard. “…He was threatening other people? …Did you agree to go out and meet him?”
“No, he was just going to come for me whatever I did, and I wasn’t going to stay home for that.” Hikaru exhaled, fighting back the reflex to run his fingers through his hair, because his hands were out of commission. “I…look, I can tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone else about it.”
He looked up, at that. “If it’s something that could get you killed, I’ll tell whoever I like.” He informed, without an ounce of guile or regret.
Hikaru flinched, and shook his head. “It’s not. It’s just…I had people helping me. With Kaminaga. Not just Utagawashi. They were all at the shrine. That’s why I went there.”
Yashiro straightened, surprise more evident on his soul than his face. “So the priest guy was there?” He demanded, after a moment, and then belatedly added “How many people?”
Hikaru stared down at his mangled hands. “Does it matter? We won. I’m alive. It’s fine now.”
“…If you ‘won’,” Yashiro said, and when Hikaru looked up, the boy’s eyes were very sharp. “How the hell did Kaminaga get away?”
“Uh.” Hikaru said, eloquently. He tried to say no one chased him, or they were more worried about me, but it didn’t come out.
Yashiro stared with a sort of steadily dawning horror. “Shindou,” He uttered, slowly. “Do you know where he is?”
He tried to say no, of course not. He failed. The silence was particularly telling.
“Holy shit.” Yashiro said, flatly. “Shindou, what the fuck.”
“It’s…not that bad.” He offered, weakly. “Like…it’s complicated, but he’s not dangerous anymore.”
“What, he magically saw the error of his ways?” His guest snapped, almost sarcastically. “He’s not dangerous when he killed a guy and nearly killed you?” he shook his head, as though vigorously trying to dislodge the notion.
“….Yes?” Hikaru said, and then regretted it when Yashiro’s scowl deepened and he stood up, angling himself decisively towards the door. “Where are you going?” He demanded, alarmed, rising up himself.
The boy stared at him for a very short second. “I would be a really shitty friend if I made the mistake of keeping this crap to myself a second time.” He said, and walked to the door.
Hikaru panicked. He made an abortive lunge for Yashiro, the orthoses pulling oddly at his fingers as he tried to stretch them beyond their capacity to grab- “Yashiro-“
He didn’t even turn back to look at him. Just kept going. “No, Shindou, no. You don’t get to-“
“It wasn’t his fault!” Hikaru near-shouted at him, and then the over-straining of his fingers fed back in a shooting pain that quivered strangely at his fingertips and then speared up to his wrist. “Ow, fuck.”
Yashiro had reacted to the first part of that, and then turned around fully at the expression of pain. His expression transformed dramatically as he took in the sight of Hikaru cradling his right hand inwards to his chest. “Are you alright?” He asked, immediately, stepping forward to hover anxiously. “Did you fuck up your hand?”
“I dunno.” Hikaru said, worried, and carefully twitched his fingers like he was supposed to for his exercises. It felt fine, and worked fine, but… “It seems okay?”
That concluded, he was worried Yashiro would go for the door again, but the burst of righteous action seemed to have left him. The wind had gone from his sails, so to speak. The fight was no longer in him. “…How can you say it wasn’t his fault?” He asked, finally, tall enough that he loomed a bit, looking down at such short range. “And don’t just say ‘it’s complicated’.”
Hikaru shuffled backwards a little, since Yashiro no longer seemed like an imminent flight risk. “It is complicated, though.” He muttered, uncomfortably, and avoided Yashiro’s eyes.
The boy frowned at him, and then shoved him lightly back into the room, guiding him over to the bed. “Sit.” He instructed, and while rather perplexed, Hikaru obeyed. Yashiro stepped back and folded his arms, but didn’t sit down. “Explain it to me, then. Is this about the mental health thing? You said he was having a psychotic break?”
Hikaru made a face. “Sort of.”
“That sort of thing doesn’t really go away, Shindou.” Yashiro said, almost gently. “If he slipped on his meds once and killed someone, it could happen again.”
“That…was kind of a metaphor.” Hikaru said, instead of responding to what had actually been spoken. “The psychotic break thing.”
Yashiro tilted his head, looking unsurprised. “Well, I did know you weren’t telling me everything.” He responded, and waited.
Hikaru took a deep, shaky breath, slumping forwards. Thinking. “There was something wrong with him and now there isn’t. He’s not going to hurt anyone.” It was a weak explanation. He knew it was a weak explanation, and Yashiro obviously thought the same. His expectant expression didn’t change at all, as though he were waiting for the real reply. Which, well…he was.
Hikaru breathed.
Then: “There’s actually an explanation for everything,” He said, a little distantly, looking away. “But it’s not really believable.”
He couldn’t see what Yashiro’s face was doing, since he wasn’t looking at it. But the soul implied anticipation. Curiosity, even. “Yeah?” He prompted, like earlier. A sort of gentle, easy-going way to prod for a response. He even sat down again, in what seemed like a calculated move to put Hikaru at ease.
It didn’t really work. Hikaru’s pulse felt uncomfortably heavy, and the stress headache of earlier had resurrected itself, pressing painfully behind his temples. He exhaled, slowly, and then did it again. Yashiro remained patiently silent for a long time, probably at least a minute, while Hikaru attempted to conceptualise the idea of telling the actual truth.
Objectively, Yashiro might be the best person to actually tell. He didn’t live nearby, so couldn’t cause too much bother by pestering him. And, on top of that, he was weirdly good at not pestering unless it was really important. And Hikaru really didn’t want him telling the things he knew to the police. “If you get me put in an asylum, I’m going to get you haunted.” He said, feeling oddly breathless and slightly hysterical with nerves.
Yashiro offered him a look that was equal parts confusion and exasperation. “An asylum?” He repeated, incredulously. “It can’t be that unbelievable.”
Immediately, without giving himself any time to back out of it, Hikaru said “A demon did it.”
The boy stared back at him uncomprehendingly, expression not really changing, as though he were still waiting for words to emerge that weren’t complete nonsense.
“The killing.” Hikaru clarified. “A demon did it. It was….demonic possession. Kaminaga literally wasn’t in control of himself.” He resolutely ignored the way his blood seemed to all making a concerted effort to rip its way, screaming, out of his body.
Yashiro waited, blank-faced, for a few more seconds. When more words failed to emerge, he said, finally, “You’re right. That’s really not believable.”
Incongruently, Hikaru laughed. It was just…really ironic, that telling the truth was the best way for him to not be believed. Very ironic, and in a kind of shitty way. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
The other boy sat there, wholly perplexed, for a seriously long time. A whole gamut of emotions ran over his soul while he did, too complex and fleeting to properly identify. The thinking-scowl returned in full force, transforming his face into a dire glower that failed to make Hikaru feel threatened. Miraculously, there still wasn’t any anger. No annoyance or anything of the sort.
“That’s….probably the least believable lie you could choose?” He said, eventually, voice exceptionally confused, brows still heavily furrowed. “Like…if you wanted me not to tell people about Kaminaga, there’s got to be better lies?”
“Yeah, probably.” Hikaru agreed. His emotions had gone so far past ‘anxious’ that now he just felt sort of giddy, limbs trembling oddly and his foot tapping frenetically on the floor. He fought back the urge to giggle hysterically
Yashiro stared. He waited, it seemed, for Hikaru to say something, but gave up after a while of that not happening. “Could you maybe elaborate on that bullshit?” He asked, almost hesitant. The affect of his soul was oddly flat, as though held tightly in place, but still quivering in quicksilver motions of intent and feeling.
Hikaru blinked. “Like how?”
“I don’t know. Just…explain?”
“Uh.” He offered, and then started producing disconnected bits of information. “Kaminaga’s demon wanted to possess me? So it was going to go through him and basically anyone else to do that. It got control of him and came after me?”
“And you went to a shrine.” Yashiro said. It wasn’t a question. There was an expression on his face that looked like a steady realisation, like he was thinking of things and finding they matched up. That Hikaru’s bullshit behaviour meshed quite well with this bullshit explanation. “And, you said that Utagawashi guy is a priest?”
Hikaru blinked at the reminder, and straightened. “Yeah, actually, if you ask him about this he’ll tell you the same thing.” He said, almost surprised at the realisation that, actually, there was another human person who’d back him up here.
“…Okay.” Yashiro stood up, and for a moment Hikaru was worried, but he just sort of paced in a brief agitated circle. He made no move towards the door. He stopped suddenly and looked straight back at Hikaru, soul coiling with apprehension and a quick spike of intent. “So, in this story, what happened to the demon then? Is it gone?”
“…Yeah. We killed it.” He said, watching the other boy with a considering eye. Was he actually considering it? Without needing to be actively convinced?
“There was a thing on the news,” He announced abruptly, out of nowhere. “About how a lot of people in Tokyo said they saw a pillar of light near this part of the city.” The apprehension in him shifted more to something like panic, though it didn’t reach his face. His posture tightened, maybe, shoulders tensing and drawing inwards a little.
Hikaru stared. “That’s what happened when we killed it.” He explained, a sort of weird, wondering feeling poking through him like the stem of a plant through soil. “…Do you believe me?” He asked, unable to help the question.
“No.” Yashiro answered, immediately, but it sounded like a lie. And looked like one. His soul, by all appearances, was beginning a sincere and very chaotic bid to start freaking out. Possibly his worldview was in the process of being shattered.
“You do.” Hikaru observed, utterly stunned. “You actually believe this bullshit. If you tried to tell me this crap I wouldn’t believe it. Not for a second.”
“No, no, I absolutely don’t believe this shit. Of course I don’t. Of course not.” Yashiro flat-out lied, his Osaka-ben speech patterns especially pronounced in the emphatic denial. Then, apparently just to make himself less credible, he immediately followed that up with “Can I talk to that priest?”
He tilted his head at the boy who was trying very hard not to believe him, and failing. “…You know, I was going to go visit him, soon.” He said, completely uncertain of what to do. He had not prepared for any of this – not for trying to tell someone, and certainly not for being believed. “We could go tomorrow, maybe? Then you could talk to him.”
“…yeah, okay.” Yashiro agreed, faintly, looking around until his eyes fixed on a particular point on the wall. “Shit, is this what the ofuda are about?”
“I thought you didn’t believe me?” Hikaru asked almost mockingly, restraining a desperate giggle. Everything had become, very suddenly, completely hilarious.
“I don’t.” He replied firmly.
“The ofuda put a sort of ward up around the house.” Hikaru volunteered without being prompted, oddly elated at the ability to just say it. “It stops most spirits from getting in.” Or he thought, anyway.
Yashiro very determinedly did not reply to that, so of course Hikaru had to up the game.
“Spirits are real. Ghosts are real. Kami are real.” He said, delightedly. “I’ve got weird spirit powers. I can feel people coming from half a mile away if I’m paying attention. I could definitely find you blindfolded, if you wanted to try that.”
The boy made no sound, but the expression on his face was beginning to look somewhat pitifully woebegone.
“You’ve had a spirit in your apartment. It was following me to protect me from the demon.” Hikaru elaborated, almost unable to help it. “That’s what I was doing when I suddenly started talking about that Honinbou game out loud.”
Yashiro looked like a kicked puppy. Albeit a very large, confused one. “Stop?” He asked, a little helplessly.
Hikaru nodded, because he was trying to be less of a dickhead now. “Yeah, okay.” He said agreeably, and held in all of the disbelieving remarks he wanted to make. Thwarted, they attempted to stutter out of him in shaky laughter, but he held that in too.
“I’ve got the kifu for the Kisei games you missed.” Yashiro offered, in a very blatant and desperate attempt to move the conversation elsewhere. “We could look at those?”
“Sounds good.” Hikaru said, stared at the boy for several increasingly strained seconds, and then burst into hysterical giggles. He couldn’t quite stop himself. After all the bullshit, and all the secrets, he’d just told Yashiro and he’d believed him. It was ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. He laughed so hard it went silent and soundless, wheezing slightly, chest starting to hurt from the force of it.
“What are you laughing at?” Yashiro asked crossly, folding his arms.
Hikaru took one look at him, managed to restrain the laughter for a second, and then burst into giggles again.
What the hell was he meant to do with something as ridiculous as this?