Akira Touya has had dinner at Shindou's house approximately six hundred million times, but he never feels any less awkward when he shows up on the stoop and presses the doorbell. Partially this is because the only other place Touya has ever been asked to dinner is the Go Center's annual charity fundraiser. Partially this is because everyone at Shindou's house wears t-shirts and jeans, and the closest thing Akira has to casual clothes is the pink sweater that he knows for a fact Shindou would blow to kingdom come given half a chance. Partially this because Shindou's mother treats him like a sixteen-year-old boy rather than a Go prodigy, admonishing him not to spoil his dinner while she forces fresh-baked cookies upon him, leaving a bewildered Touya with a crisis of conscience and chocolate-sticky hands.

And that was all before Shindou kissed him. Now he has no chance of stopping the raging blush when Mrs. Shindou answers the door and beams down at him, because surely this woman must know that he has been tempting her son into defiling Go salons and other unnatural acts.

"Akira, come right in!" Mrs. Shindou waves him inside.

"Thank you, Shindou-san," Akira murmurs, trailing along after her as he tries to figure out whether 'Akira' is mother-code for 'you harlot'.

"Dinner is almost ready," Mrs. Shindou says. "Would you go and get Hikaru? He's been up in his room for hours, I haven't heard a peep out of him."

"Of course." Touya is glad for the escape, and slips up the stairs while Shindou's mother returns to the kitchen.

It strikes him suddenly, as he is going down the upstairs hall, that he knows where Shindou's room is. It isn't like there's anything untoward at work, Shindou's goban is in his room, but Touya wonders whether Waya knows that posters of Honinbo Shusaku and Roy Mustang glare at each other from opposite walls, whether Ochi has ever seen the towering pile of mingled kifu collections and back issues of Shounen Jump on the desk, whether Isumi knows how the waning afternoon light streams across the bed and illuminates the dust motes drifting over the goban.

As he lifts his hand to knock on the door, Touya scowls and curses Shindou for making everything so damn confusing with his stupid 5 shirts and his messy hair and his soft lips.

The door isn't latched properly, and swings open a little when Touya's knuckles touch it.

"Shindou?" Touya asks nervously, leaning in just a little to look, and half fearing he'll find a scantily-clad Shindou beckoning wontonly from the Western-style bed. Instead, he finds Shindou sprawled on the floor, dead asleep with his face pressed into the goban. Half a dozen stones are on the board, and several more clutched in Shindou's hand, which is clenched in a fist beside his head. He is shifting a little in his sleep, and his forehead is creased.

Touya comes into the room the rest of the way and calls Shindou's name softly. Shindou's fist clenches tighter and he whimpers a little.

"Shindou," Touya says again, a little louder, coming close enough to lean over Shindou's shoulder and see that the stones on the board may have been the opening moves of a game he hasn't seen before, before Shindou fell on the board and knocked several askew. Touya kneels down beside Shindou to peer closer.

"Sorry," Shindou breathes, still asleep, but the furrow in his brow deepens. His hands flail a little, sending more stones scattering off the board. "Sorry, don't...don't...Sai..."

Touya stiffens at the name 'Sai', then reaches out and shakes Shindou's shoulder firmly. Jerking awake, Shindou sits bolt upright, eyes wide and the lines of the goban etched into his cheek. He stares at Touya uncomprehendingly for a moment before flinging arms around him and burying his face in Touya's chest.

Torn between embarrassment and shock, Touya does nothing for a moment, but when he realizes that Shindou is shaking, that he can feel the other boy's heart pounding, he brings his arms up to lie awkwardly across Shindou's shoulders. The sounds of Shindou's mother rattling around in the kitchen and the oven timer going off drift up the stairs.

His ankles are starting to go pins and needles under the combined weight of himself and Shindou, and Touya thinks that he should ask about Sai again while Shindou is unbalanced and might give an open answer, but he finds that he really doesn't want to talk about Sai right now. Over the years, Touya has envied Sai, has been amazed by Sai, been frustrated by Sai, been insanely curious about Sai, but right now Touya hates Sai with every fibre of his Go-obsessed being because, whoever Sai is, he has clearly broken Shindou's heart.

Touya's revelation is that this makes him want to find Sai even more, just so he can break Sai's skull with a goke, and then that perhaps he has been spending too much time with Shindou, who has definitely been spending too much time playing God of War in between matches.

Shindou stirs and mumbles 'sorry' again as he sits up. The lines of the goban are starting to fade from his skin, but Touya can still see a star point etched high on his cheekbone. Reaching up to brush his thumb over the mark, Touya leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of Shindou's eye. When he pulls away, his lips taste of salt.

Shindou's mouth is hanging open a little, and he is flushed from sleep and surprise, but then he puts his own hand up to his cheek and feels the impression of the goban on his skin. When his fingers drift over to the spot that Touya's lips touched, he grins a little in understanding.

"Komaku," he chuckles, and Touya nods with a slight smile. Then he leans in to kiss Shindou's mouth as well, because leaving the tengen unclaimed won't do you any good in the endgame.