Waking up in a warm futon with his eternal rival curled up tightly beside him was more or less the best way Touya Akira had ever woken up, even if his mouth tasted like fuzzy green tea pocky and, when he peeled his eyes open, his eternal rival was drooling all over the only pillow.

The light creeping in the window was pale and the gray of falling snow, meaning Touya had only slept for a few hours, but suddenly Touya's chest felt tight with happiness, and he found himself bumping his knees up against Shindou's.

"Hey," Touya said, voice coming out scratchy at first. "Hey, Shindou, wake up."

"Unf," Shindou grunted, shifting and swallowing and finally cracking an eye to glare at Touya. "Oh god, you're a morning person, aren't you?"

"Not usually," Touya shuffled closer, groping through the blankets to get his hands against Shindou's skin, "but you're really warm and I think it's snowing."

"It's worse than I thought," Shindou moaned, and tried to burrow deeper into the blankets. "You're a cuddler."

"Oh, like you weren't the one with his leg wrapped around my waist," Touya finally got his hands on Shindou's waist and scootched over to cuddle properly, "going, 'oh you feel so good, Touya you're gorgeous, mmm, I just want to'…"

"I'm not even going to comment on some of the stuff that came out of your mouth," Shindou growled, but since he was rubbing his cheek against Touya's collarbone, it didn't have the effect Shindou had most likely been shooting for. "I will just say that every time you play your father on his goban for the rest of your life, you're gonna have to think about what we did in there."

"Oh shit." Touya went stiff, and Shindou tilted his head back in surprise at the curse. Touya pushed at Shindou's shoulders, trying to snake out of his grip. "We didn't pick up anything, and you spilled your tea, and…"

"Put a cork in it," Shindou commanded, grabbing a handful of Touya's ass and yanking him close by means of it. "Your parents won't be home for four days. I'm not getting out of bed at the crack of dawn because you're a shameless Meijin's boy."

Touya covered his face with his hands. "And we have to wash those stones."

"We will." Shindou slipped his face in between Touya's elbows to press his lips against his sternum. "We'll stand next to each other at the sink. It'll be domestic. You'd look really hot in an apron."

"Quit making fun of me," Touya sighed when Shindou's fingers wrapped around his wrists and pulled, gently but steadily, until Touya let his hands be tugged out of the way to find Shindou watching him, eyes sharp green.

"You do feel good," Shindou said, and he hadn't let go of Touya's wrists. "And you are gorgeous. And I do just want to…"

"Shut up, you freak," Touya cut him off, cheeks burning, then kissed him to make sure he stayed shut up for at least a few more seconds. Shindou pressed closer immediately, dropping Touya's wrists and sliding his hands across Touya's neck and into his hair, making him shiver.

The kiss went on for much longer than Touya had originally intended, and by the time Shindou pulled away, eyes glazed and lower lip puffy, Touya had gone from pleasantly warm to ready to kick all the blankets off.

"Can I?" Shindou asked, dropping a hand to curl against Touya's hip.

"Isn't it kind of late to be asking permission?" Touya teased, even as the slide of Shindou's chest against his own was still new enough to raise goosebumps all over Touya's skin. "Maybe if this were the first time, or the second, or the…"

"Stop counting, you dweeb," Shindou ordered, and Touya had a split-second of warning before Shindou really did kick all the blankets off and Touya realized that he hadn't been asking permission to give handjob number four.

"I—" Touya flailed against his mattress, panicked, until Shindou put a firm hand against Touya's stomach, steadying him. "Shindou—"

"It won't hurt, promise." Shindou flashed a wicked grin, one that Touya had become very familiar with in the last twelve hours, and then silenced the rest of Touya's objections with a slow swipe of his tongue over the head of Touya's cock.

******

Being Shindou's boyfriend wasn't that different from being his eternal rival, Touya found out when they finally managed to struggle out of the house to their matches. In fact, Touya wasn't even sure if they were boyfriends, insomuch as his definition of the word 'boyfriend' had been mostly shaped by shoujo manga.

Shindou's definition of boyfriend, in contrast, seemed to come mostly from sports anime, and involved a lot of yelling and public displays of affection in the guise of physical assault.

"Seriously, you have to stop punching me in the shoulder," Touya muttered in between rushed kisses in the elevator. "Ashiwara thinks you're bullying me."

"Waya thinks you're a stuck-up jerk," Shindou retorted, hands sliding up Touya's back underneath his jacket. "Who cares? Damn, Touya, this shirt is uglier than Kuwabara's mother, but it sure feels good."

"It's silk." Touya leaned forward to brush lips against Shindou's ear. "And if you think it feels good against your hands…"

By the time the elevator doors slid open, Shindou was clearing his throat and loosening his collar.

"It's about time you—" Waya cut off, looking Shindou over. "Shindou, you don't look so good."

"It's just match nerves," Shindou grumbled, shoulder past Waya. "I'm gonna go splash some water on my face."

"Want any help in case you collapse?" Touya called casually after him, and Shindou shot a black look over his shoulder before stomping around the corner. Touya smoothed the smirk off his face and turned to Waya, who was doing a very poor job of hiding his disdain. "So, Waya-kun, I hear you think I'm a stuck-up jerk?"

Shindou glared at Touya when Waya escaped to lunch without him, but Touya shrugged and casually rubbed fingertips against the shoulder of his silk shirt until Shindou looked away.

******

Touya blinked when Shindou refused to go out to dinner after their matches.

"Oh, don't look so stricken." Shindou casually stretched his arms over his head, the corners of his mouth curling when he caught Touya watching. "Let's go to your place and I'll make you dinner."

"You…cook?" Touya failed miserably to keep the amusement out of his voice, and Shindou gave him a dirty look, then dragged him off to a nearby market for ingredients.

It turned out that Shindou also looked really hot in an apron.

"No, really," Touya said, more to distract himself than anything else as he leaned against the kitchen counter and watched Shindou. "Where did you learn to cook?"

"Where did you learn to be such an ungrateful ass?" Shindou shot back with a pointed look, and Touya immediately blushed and muttered an "I'm sorry." "For your information, my mother taught me."

Touya couldn't help smile at the idea of Shindou's mother trying to keep her son still long enough to boil water. "That's sweet."

"You bet your hot Go ass it is." Shindou held out the spoon with a few grains of the fried rice stuck to it. "Here, taste."

Touya cautiously nibbled the rice off the spoon; it was excellent, but he mimed gagging and Shindou thwapped his nose with the spoon.

"It's very good," Touya admitted once he'd swallowed, chuckling. Shindou's superior expression didn't quite mask his pleasure at the compliment, and when Touya darted a hand in to steal a shrimp, curled crisp and sweet, Shindou even kissed his singed fingertips.

"Be more careful." Shindou darted his tongue against the pad of Touya's middle finger. "I've got important plans for these."

"It's sick that I know you're talking about Go," Touya murmured, eyes fluttering as Shindou brushed lips over his callus. "Shindou, the food."

"It needs to sit for a minute anyway," Shindou answered, shoving Touya up against the counter so that he actually ended up sitting on it, and leaving the food to sit a lot longer than a minute.

*******

"Come shower with me," Shindou said in Touya's ear, waking him up in what seemed to be the dead of night. Again.

"What?" Touya pressed deeper into the blankets. "Go yourself, m'tired."

"I don't want to stop touching you," Shindou answered, and Touya rolled over to see whether Shindou was teasing him or not.

He wasn't. "You've spent two whole days doing nothing but touch me," Touya pointed out.

"I know. Weird, huh?" Shindou was smoothing palms over Touya's chest, down his sides, over his shoulders, everywhere he could reach. Touya's skin buzzed in pleasure, making him squirm. "But the more I do it, the more I want to." Shindou's eyes were focused on nothing but Touya, keen on every inch of skin his hands bared. "I want to feel every single piece of your skin, I want to—"

"Shindou!" Touya cut him off, squeezing his eyes shut and turning his face to the side, but Shindou's voice still rang in his ears, making his face heat. "How can you keep talking like that?"

Shindou's hands stilled. "Should I stop?"

Touya swallowed his knee-jerk reaction of "yes" and turned back to watching Shindou's face for a moment, the way he was letting those bleach-rough bangs of his hang in his eyes. He opened his mouth, but his voice seemed stuck.

"Touya?" Shindou started to pull back, but Touya grabbed his wrist, and since he couldn't seem to get his throat working properly, pushed Shindou's hand down to brush against his cock, half-hard again just from Shindou's voice. "Oh," Shindou breathed, exploring with his fingers, making Touya shut his eyes again.

"It's—" Touya's voice cracked when Shindou's thumb slid over his tip, "it's embarrassing, I can't. How…"

"It's really easy," Shindou assured, sliding in closer and getting a better grip on Touya. "Just say what you want."

"I…" Touya pressed into Shindou's hand, shook his head. "I want…Shindou, I can't."

"You're totally losing to me." Shindou's chuckle slid over Touya's skin, making him gasp. Then suddenly his hand stopped moving, and Touya opened his eyes in surprise to find Shindou smirking at him. "Tell me."

"Shindoooou," Touya groaned, flexing his hips, but Shindou moved with him, not letting him get any friction.

"Tell me," he said again, his nose pressed against Touya's temple. "Please?"

"I want," Touya's voice was shaking, and he cleared his throat and tried again. "I want…your hand. On me. Tighter. A-and…Shindou, I can't…"

"Mm, you're doing fine," Shindou said, closing his fist around Touya again and going back to stroking, slow and even and driving Touya out of his mind. "What now?"

"Shindou, you pervert," Touya laughed breathlessly, and it seemed to come easier when he was insulting Shindou at the same time. "All this time you've really been a, oh, a sexual deviant, faster, please, and now it's going to turn out you have all these freak fetishes, Shindou, don't stop…"

"Just like that," Shindou groaned, and shifted so that his own cock was pressed against Touya's thigh, hard and tacky, and when he said Touya's name, Touya sank fingers into Shindou's shoulders and came all over both of them.

"Freak," Touya muttered when he had his breath back, rolling Shindou further towards him and hooking a leg over Shindou's so that Shindou was rocking up against the slick mess on Touya's stomach. "Deviant. I can't believe you're getting off on my voice. Next you'll want me to start saying things like "Oh, Shindou, I'm so hard for you," and "Shindou, let me suck your cock," and "I want to ride you like a wild stallion, Shindou'…"

"Oh my god, I hate you," Shindou gasped, fingers surely bruising Touya's hips, and Touya had no idea that somebody could laugh and come at the same time, but he knew that he wanted to see it again, over and over.

Touya was nearly back asleep when Shindou started tugging on him, saying blasphemous things about a shower again.

"Shindou, I'm going to tie you to the bed," Touya groaned, then his eyes flew open when Shindou's cock twitched against his stomach.

*******

Touya woke up first again, completely possessed by undeniable need, and woke up Shindou with a rough kiss that was all rubbing hips and roaming hands.

"Let's play, right now," he urged as soon as Shindou started kissing back, and that made Shindou's eyes snap open immediately. Or maybe that had been the handful of ass Touya had just grabbed.

They raced to the goban, Touya baring his teeth at Shindou when Shindou tried to trip him, and nigiried wrapped in nothing but Touya's quilts. Shindou lost and made a barbed comment about Touya having to play his father on this board; Touya smirked and let the quilt slip off one shoulder, then took black.

It was mid-morning when they finally looked up, breathing hard and with Touya up by two moku. A thrill of panic ran through him when he noticed the light, then he relaxed again when he remembered it was Sunday, so neither of them had a morning match.

"No fair!" Shindou whined, collapsing on his back. "You liquefied my brain with orgasms!"

Touya assured him that it had been an easy task, then placated him by pulling Shindou's head into his lap for the post-game discussion.

By the time they had come to a consensus about whether Touya's upper right corner had been genius or a dirty, dirty trick, Shindou had shifted just enough to press a kiss against his thigh, making Touya cut off mid-insult.

He was more than ready to pick up where he left off when Shindou started laughing suddenly.

"And just what is so funny?" Touya demanded, leaning back on his hands to get a better look at Shindou. The quilt had long since slid to the floor. "Unless the truth about your ridiculous four-stone connection has finally struck."

"We're lying here naked," Shindou tilted his head back to watch Touya, still laughing, "and I can't decide whether I want to play you again or make you come all over yourself again."

"Get off me." Touya shoved at Shindou, despite the twitch of interest Shindou's blunt statement had inspired in him. "You're going to develop some twisted psychological link between sex and Go and have to retire because you can't play in public anymore."

"Going to develop?" Shindou asked, raising an eyebrow, and when Touya yanked his hair hard, Shindou sat up suddenly and climbed into Touya's lap, knees on either side of Touya's thighs. "Come on, be honest: right now, Go or sex? I'm all yours, either way."

Touya leaned up to kiss Shindou, applying everything Shindou had taught him about teeth in the last forty-eight hours, until Shindou was pressed tight and warm against Touya's whole body. He ran a hand down the bumps of Shindou's spine, then let go to reach behind Shindou.

When the slam of a stone on the board interrupted the silence, Shindou pulled back and grinned at Touya, eyes glittering dark as the black stone that Touya hoped he had just played.

"Yes," Shindou said, "yes."

*******

"Fucking tutoring sessions," Shindou grumbled some hours later, shoving his legs in his jeans while Touya gathered up all his bedding for some much-needed laundering. He pretended not to watch as Shindou tried to straighten out his pockets, then pulled out his phone. "Eleven messages? What the hell?"

"From your girlfriend?" Touya asked lightly, snickering when Shindou kicked at his shoulder with a bare foot.

"Waya," Shindou grunted, thumbing the delete button, "Isumi…Mom…Waya again…Mom…Mom…Mom…" Touya's snickers grew louder, and Shindou kicked at him harder.

Touya got to his feet and hefted the laundry basket, then took it to the washing machine. When he returned, Shindou was in the middle of a heated phone conversation, and seemed to think that flailing his free hand would help his case.

"If you were so worried, why didn't you just call Touya's house, where you knew I…I did so tell you! We were…do you know how long a game takes us? And we had matches and…like, maybe four…" Touya coughed, and Shindou narrowed his eyes. "No, I am not imposing on his parents…because they're in CHINA…look, I'll see you for dinner, all right? Fine, goodbye."

Shindou stabbed the 'end call' button and shoved the phone back in his pocket like it was the source of his problems. Then he looked up with a calculating expression that made Touya want to step back.

"Say, Touya," he said, very casually, "want to come over for dinner?"

*******

"You've been over to my house about a thousand times," Shindou insisted, the swaying of the train not affecting the firmness of his stare. "What's the problem?"

"It's not the same." Touya turned to look out the window and just ended up watching Shindou's reflection. "That was before we were…"

"What?" Shindou asked when Touya trailed off. "Before we were what?" Touya turned back to glare at Shindou, but was surprise to find that Shindou wasn't feigning innocence; instead, he was watching Shindou with sharp eyes, reading ahead. "What are we, Touya?"

"Stop it," Touya looked away again, "I'm not a game," but Shindou grabbed the next train handle over and swung back into Touya's view. It happened to be the same handle Touya was using.

"Then why are you playing so thick?" Shindou asked, and Touya wondered ridiculously if one could write marriage vows entirely in Go metaphors. "Quit cluttering your shapes. What are we?"

"We're on a train," Touya answered, meaning this was not the place to discuss it, but then conveniently, "and this is your stop."

Touya pulled his hand away and watched the reflection of Shindou leaving the train with a scowl and without a backwards glance.

Touya had meant to pick up a few groceries and then go home, but the thought of returning to his house, which no doubt still smelled of Shindou in every room in which Touya would care to be, made his steps heavy, and he ended up wandering aimlessly past the supermarket, glancing in the other shops.

He picked through the manga in the bookstore, but even the new Kazuma Kodaka story failed to hold his attention. At the newsstand, he flipped through a Go Weekly that he'd already read, then brushed fingers over the cover of the same issue of Shounen Jump that Shindou had had in his hand when he got off the train for their matches yesterday.

Finally he sat down at a café with a cup of coffee that he barely touched, watching people go by without really seeing any of them. Instead he thought about watching Shindou play across the room at the Go Institute, and about Shindou making plans for Touya's burnt fingers, and about Shindou with his head in Touya's lap, waving his hands wildly to defend his adorably outdated joseki.

By the time the sky was darkening, Touya stood up and headed back to the flower seller around the corner, hoping the Shindous ate late.

*******

"You really don't know what we are, do you?" Shindou asked, blocking the doorway with his arms crossed and staring at the flowers in Touya's hands.

"They're for your mother," Touya snapped. "Are you going to invite me in for dinner?"

"Talk me into it," Shindou says, arms still crossed, but mouth twitching.

Touya narrowed his eyes and leaned around Shindou to shout, "Shindou-san! Your son is making me stand in the cold!"

"SHINDOU HIKARU!" came a roar from the kitchen, and Shindou stepped aside with a scowl.

"That was low, even for you," he said.

"Just a little connection." Touya smiled as he slipped into the house and Shindou shut the door behind him. Then he looked over his shoulder as he toed off his shoes, amusement fading off his face. "We should talk."

"Not while you're holding a bunch of girly flowers." Shindou pushed Touya towards the kitchen with a hand splayed over Touya's lower back. "After dinner."

*******

"Honestly, you'd think you were a starving orphan or something," Shindou said as he closed his bedroom door behind them.

"You're just jealous she gave me the last of the curry," Touya said, sitting on Shindou's bed. Shindou flopped down beside him. "Although you could have had it, because I feel like I'm going to explode. Urg, don't jostle the bed."

"Don't bother exploding yet," Shindou stretched, baring a stripe of skin along his stomach that Touya wanted very badly to touch. "She'll be up here in ten minutes with bowls of ice cream. Talk?"

Touya remembered suddenly that he could touch whatever he wanted to now, and skimmed his fingers over Shindou's stomach, making both of them shiver.

"Let's play," Touya said, and Shindou grabbed his wrist and yanked them both down to the floor, making Touya groan. When Shindou reached for a handful of stones, Touya just pushed the white goke towards him and played the bottom left star point.

"I'm sorry about on the train," he said, then waited for Shindou's response.

"It's gonna be like that?" Shindou laughed. "Okay, then." Shindou played the opposite corner. "You weren't wrong. We were on a train."

Touya played just below the middle left star point. "I have been to your house a thousand times."

"A thousand and one," Shindou corrected, laying a keima.

The pattern of their opening moves was familiar and comforting, taking Touya's attention away from the fact that his stomach was twisting around Shindou-san's excellent curry. The price of familiarity was speed, however, and the opening sequences were more or less complete by the time Shindou's mother knocked on the door with the promised ice cream.

Shindou ate a spoonful before laying his bowl aside; Touya didn't even bother with the pretense and sat his bowl next to Shindou's.

As usual, it was Shindou who attacked first, cutting apart Touya's tenuous coverage of the left middle and bottom. "So, you going to tell me what this is all about?"

Touya didn't take the painfully obvious bait, and continued shoring up the top right corner. "You don't know?"

So Shindou took the fight to Touya. "What were you going to say we were? And what does that have to do with you coming over for dinner? And why do you say we have to talk and then ask stupid questions like that?"

"That's a lot of questions for just one stone," Touya said. He played away, on the mid-left.

Shindou narrowed his eyes and extended the cutting stone from two turns ago. "Tell me what your problem is."

"I'm not having a problem." Touya played towards the corner, but it wasn't nearly as aggressive as it could have been and he frowned as soon as it hit the board. "Things are different now."

"You think so?" Shindou's cut turned into a pole extension. Touya narrowed his eyes and cut off any further pole-extending.

"Don't be an ass," he said.

Shindou sat for a few seconds, rubbing his stone over his callus, then played the tengen. "You wish we hadn't done it?"

The crack of Touya's tsuke hitting the board made Shindou snap his eyes up, and Touya yanked back his hand, cheeks heating at his own vehemence. Shindou chuckled and laid his own contact play.

"Me neither," he said. "So…what then?"

Touya extended downwards suddenly, into the center bottom where neither of them had clear influence yet. "Am I your boyfriend? Are you just screwing around with me?"

Shindou's expression darkened and he challenged Touya's influence with a direct block. "Why, are you?"

Touya's response was a raised eyebrow and an extension to the left that was rather restrained, all things considered. "Of course not."

"Well, then." Only Shindou could possibly play such a lecherous hane, his stone curling around Touya's. There was only one proper response: extend.

"So we're boyfriends."

It was Shindou who played away this time, adding to his top left corner. "Honestly, do you have to sound like some pining virgin in a shoujo manga?"

"Until two days ago, I was some pining virgin!" Touya snapped, his play rattling the other stones. He plucked the stone he'd just captured out of the shape.

"You captured," Shindou examined the shape, then looked up at Touya. "What's that mean?"

"This," Touya said, then set his hands carefully on the edges of the board and leaned over it to kiss Shindou without disturbing the game. Shindou made a muffled noise against his mouth and reached up to grab Touya's hair, and Touya's fingers curled against the polished wood of the board.

Suddenly Shindou's hands were sliding down to curl in Touya's shirt instead, and with one solid yank he pulled Touya over the board so that he collapsed on Shindou's chest, stones scattered on all sides and in between them, and Shindou's elbow in his bowl of melted ice cream.

"You ruined our game," Touya scolded against Shindou's chapped lips.

Shindou pulled the back of Touya's shirt loose to run his palm over Touya's spine, muttering in between kisses that their game was just starting.

In the very end, Touya's head found its way into Shindou's lap while Shindou reconstructed the beginning of the game, fingers tracing the line of their argument. Shindou had stripped off his shirt because of the ice cream, and Touya was idly running his knuckles over the soft skin on the inside of Shindou's arm.

"Think it'll be a good game?" Touya asked.

"The opening moves had me a little worried." Shindou didn't look down, but his free hand curled over Touya's collarbone. "But the midgame's turning out to be interesting."

*******

~Epilogue: T-minus Two Hours Until the Touyas' Return~

"I think," Shindou said when they were collapsed bonelessly on Touya's couch with some inane dorama on, his feet on the coffee table and Touya's head in his lap, "that I might actually have had enough sex."

Touya raised an eyebrow and rolled over on to his stomach.

"Okay, I totally lied," Shindou admitted, getting a good grip on Touya's hair.

Five minutes later, Touya lifted his head with a frown, making Shindou groan desperately, and asked, "Did we ever wash those stones?"