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chineseinkThis might be my favorite of the bunch because, well, I am me and I have a ridiculous soft spot for Kaga/Tsutsui (I'm pretty sure I've been guessed in previous rounds of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
blind_go due to my tendency to write them). But I think I also liked the way this story (scene) was fit to be told in under 1000 words and I struggled with but hit on a style I liked and, yeah, I don't know. :D Sorry for the rambling and the multiple posts, this is the last of the bunch.
Originally posted here.
Run Until
Hikaru no Go, Kaga/Tsutsui, PG-13, 970 words
Tsutsui isn't waiting for Kaga to look back. Kaga is waiting for Tsutsui to realize he already is.
Run until your heart is full of your dreams
How Tsutsui ends up living with Kaga is a long story. The short version given to their friends and family involves Tsutsui's somewhat desperate search for housing after his former roommate decided to leave for America to get an LLM and a coincidental run-in with Kaga, who just happened to have an apartment too big for one person.
They don't talk about how they ran into each other at a gay bar, Tsutsui moping and tipsy, looking for a distraction from the miserable sequence of events that was his life, and Kaga walking out of the bathroom flushed and sweaty, an arm around another guy as he pulled up short when he recognized Tsutsui. They don't talk about how Tsutsui spilled his woes to someone he hadn't seen since high school, and barely even then, words stumbling over each other and head bent down, unhappy, or how Kaga nursed his beer and listened without interruption.
Time changed both of them, Tsutsui remembers thinking, made adults out of them. Kaga is still Kaga, boisterous laughter and bawdy jokes, straightforward and blunt, but he's learned to soften his words with tact and lost the edge of cruelty in his humor. He's as invasive of personal space as ever, leaning over Tsutsui in the kitchen or when he's at his desk, pushing, present. The heavy smell of smoke lingers all over his clothes, traces of soap and warm skin wafting under, and Tsutsui thinks there are a lot of things he doesn't tell his friends and family.
Sometimes it feels like they're caught in a strange balance of unsaid words and unreadable looks. Sometimes Tsutsui wonders how he's an adult now, when he's feeling the same things he felt in middle school all over again, a vicious cycle of push-and-pull without going anywhere at all. Kaga pushed him back then; Shindou pushed him back then. Tsutsui wonders if he's ended up taking two steps backwards for every step forward, leaving him here, stretched out on his back on his futon and staring at the strange shape of the water stain on the ceiling with Kaga in the next room, a length of hallway and an entire world separating them.
House rules, Kaga explained to him with a flash of teeth, are simple. They clean up after themselves and Kaga will try to keep it down when Tsutsui's studying, but sometimes Kaga's gonna bring someone home "'cause bathrooms just ain't sanitary enough for more than once in a while, y'know?" and Tsutsui's going to need to get out of the way or just be okay with that.
It's still raining outside because it's Japan in late August and Tsutsui thinks the water stain over his head looks a bit like a rabbit on its hind legs. In the next room, Kaga is having sex. It's late enough, wet enough, that Tsutsui doesn't want to just leave - but he wonders if this is okay, if this is him being okay with it, with his pulse trembling fast and hot all over, breathing so hard it feels like someone's tied his lungs into knots. The world is fuzzy at the edges, his glasses folded and perched safely on his desk beside his alarm clock.
Tsutsui doesn't know how long he's been in love with Kaga. Maybe it's another long story he will never have opportunity to tell, one that he's forgotten the words to over the years. Tsutsui remembers Kaga in middle school, cocky and brash, how he's the same now but different, more settled into his skin, more sure of what he wants. Faint grunts and rustles seep through the thin walls, a long groan that isn't Kaga's, and Tsutsui flushes hot from head to toe. He turns his head into the pillow, skin prickling and aching, feeling ill and unsettled as he digs his fingers into the futon.
In the morning the guy will be gone, an anonymous existence that Tsutsui will spend days picturing in his mind, drawing an imaginary face and body that Kaga will know intimately, an imaginary life Kaga might never know. It's not a secret that Kaga doesn't keep people around, doesn't get to know them, isn't interested in it. Tsutsui suspects it's because his parents still expect the world from him, expect him to shoulder the business and step into his polished shoes and leave behind the wild indiscretions of youth. They see him drinking tea, owning a proper car, playing shougi with officials kept in his pocket. When Tsutsui pictures this future, there's a smiling wife, maybe two kids, loud and rambunctious as Kaga ever was. He wonders if this is what Kaga wants, if this is where he will end up anyway, if this is why there's never company in the mornings, just the two of them, Kaga and Tsutsui.
Kaga will pour coffee into himself like it's lifeblood, grinning lazily at Tsutsui who talks while he prepares lunch, moving around and filling the space between them with words so that he won't slip under the weight of Kaga's eyes on him. Tsutsui spends a lot of time looking at Kaga, enough to know that Kaga spends a lot of time looking at him too, as if waiting to catch the secrets he's sure Tsutsui will one day spill.
It will be a long time coming if Tsutsui has anything to say about it. So, in the contained privacy of their morning, he will wrap up the bento and hold his breath as Kaga comes up behind him. Kaga who will be warm against his back as reaches for his lunch with a husky, "Thanks."
Tsutsui will say "you're welcome" and push his glasses back up his nose, waiting for the rains to end, for another page to turn in this long unfinished story.
blind_go due to my tendency to write them). But I think I also liked the way this story (scene) was fit to be told in under 1000 words and I struggled with but hit on a style I liked and, yeah, I don't know. :D Sorry for the rambling and the multiple posts, this is the last of the bunch. Originally posted here.
Run Until
Hikaru no Go, Kaga/Tsutsui, PG-13, 970 words
Tsutsui isn't waiting for Kaga to look back. Kaga is waiting for Tsutsui to realize he already is.
Run until your heart is full of your dreams
How Tsutsui ends up living with Kaga is a long story. The short version given to their friends and family involves Tsutsui's somewhat desperate search for housing after his former roommate decided to leave for America to get an LLM and a coincidental run-in with Kaga, who just happened to have an apartment too big for one person.
They don't talk about how they ran into each other at a gay bar, Tsutsui moping and tipsy, looking for a distraction from the miserable sequence of events that was his life, and Kaga walking out of the bathroom flushed and sweaty, an arm around another guy as he pulled up short when he recognized Tsutsui. They don't talk about how Tsutsui spilled his woes to someone he hadn't seen since high school, and barely even then, words stumbling over each other and head bent down, unhappy, or how Kaga nursed his beer and listened without interruption.
Time changed both of them, Tsutsui remembers thinking, made adults out of them. Kaga is still Kaga, boisterous laughter and bawdy jokes, straightforward and blunt, but he's learned to soften his words with tact and lost the edge of cruelty in his humor. He's as invasive of personal space as ever, leaning over Tsutsui in the kitchen or when he's at his desk, pushing, present. The heavy smell of smoke lingers all over his clothes, traces of soap and warm skin wafting under, and Tsutsui thinks there are a lot of things he doesn't tell his friends and family.
Sometimes it feels like they're caught in a strange balance of unsaid words and unreadable looks. Sometimes Tsutsui wonders how he's an adult now, when he's feeling the same things he felt in middle school all over again, a vicious cycle of push-and-pull without going anywhere at all. Kaga pushed him back then; Shindou pushed him back then. Tsutsui wonders if he's ended up taking two steps backwards for every step forward, leaving him here, stretched out on his back on his futon and staring at the strange shape of the water stain on the ceiling with Kaga in the next room, a length of hallway and an entire world separating them.
House rules, Kaga explained to him with a flash of teeth, are simple. They clean up after themselves and Kaga will try to keep it down when Tsutsui's studying, but sometimes Kaga's gonna bring someone home "'cause bathrooms just ain't sanitary enough for more than once in a while, y'know?" and Tsutsui's going to need to get out of the way or just be okay with that.
It's still raining outside because it's Japan in late August and Tsutsui thinks the water stain over his head looks a bit like a rabbit on its hind legs. In the next room, Kaga is having sex. It's late enough, wet enough, that Tsutsui doesn't want to just leave - but he wonders if this is okay, if this is him being okay with it, with his pulse trembling fast and hot all over, breathing so hard it feels like someone's tied his lungs into knots. The world is fuzzy at the edges, his glasses folded and perched safely on his desk beside his alarm clock.
Tsutsui doesn't know how long he's been in love with Kaga. Maybe it's another long story he will never have opportunity to tell, one that he's forgotten the words to over the years. Tsutsui remembers Kaga in middle school, cocky and brash, how he's the same now but different, more settled into his skin, more sure of what he wants. Faint grunts and rustles seep through the thin walls, a long groan that isn't Kaga's, and Tsutsui flushes hot from head to toe. He turns his head into the pillow, skin prickling and aching, feeling ill and unsettled as he digs his fingers into the futon.
In the morning the guy will be gone, an anonymous existence that Tsutsui will spend days picturing in his mind, drawing an imaginary face and body that Kaga will know intimately, an imaginary life Kaga might never know. It's not a secret that Kaga doesn't keep people around, doesn't get to know them, isn't interested in it. Tsutsui suspects it's because his parents still expect the world from him, expect him to shoulder the business and step into his polished shoes and leave behind the wild indiscretions of youth. They see him drinking tea, owning a proper car, playing shougi with officials kept in his pocket. When Tsutsui pictures this future, there's a smiling wife, maybe two kids, loud and rambunctious as Kaga ever was. He wonders if this is what Kaga wants, if this is where he will end up anyway, if this is why there's never company in the mornings, just the two of them, Kaga and Tsutsui.
Kaga will pour coffee into himself like it's lifeblood, grinning lazily at Tsutsui who talks while he prepares lunch, moving around and filling the space between them with words so that he won't slip under the weight of Kaga's eyes on him. Tsutsui spends a lot of time looking at Kaga, enough to know that Kaga spends a lot of time looking at him too, as if waiting to catch the secrets he's sure Tsutsui will one day spill.
It will be a long time coming if Tsutsui has anything to say about it. So, in the contained privacy of their morning, he will wrap up the bento and hold his breath as Kaga comes up behind him. Kaga who will be warm against his back as reaches for his lunch with a husky, "Thanks."
Tsutsui will say "you're welcome" and push his glasses back up his nose, waiting for the rains to end, for another page to turn in this long unfinished story.
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