Touya groaned when the phone shrilled, waking him out of a dead sleep. He thought about ignoring it, since he was the only one in the house and it couldn't disturb his parents, but then he sat bolt upright as he realized that the only reason anybody would phone his house at this time of night—1:07, the clock read—was if there were some emergency with his parents.

He stumbled out of bed, nearly falling on his face when he got tangled up in his blankets, and hurried to the nearest phone, the one in the kitchen. He took a deep breath as he picked up the receiver, trying to force his heart to stop pounding in his ears so he could hear.

Nothing came out of his mouth on the first try; on the second he managed a hoarse, "Hello?"

"Touya!" Shindou's voice answered, and Touya straightened like a bucket of cold water had been poured down his back. "Where are your parents?"

"In CHINA, you TWIT!" Touya roared into the phone. "What the HELL do you think you're doing calling me at one in the morning!"

"I'm coming over," Shindou said, "so unlock your door," and then he hung up with a smart click.

"Are you fucking KIDDING ME?" Touya shouted at the phone anyway. Then he slammed the phone down and stomped back to his room to find his robe; he'd be damned if he was going to actually get the whole way dressed for Shindou in the middle of the night.

By the time he came back to the kitchen to put on some tea, Touya had calmed down a little. Maybe there was something actually wrong, maybe Shindou was having some kind of emergency, or crisis, or breakdown.

"Yo," Shindou said when Touya answered the door, kicking off his shoes in the genkan and following Touya to the kitchen. "You shouldn't drink tea this late, Touya, you'll be up all night."

"Shindou," Touya eyed him evenly, "if this isn't some sort of emergency, I'm going to strangle you with my bare hands."

"Of course it is." Shindou grinned. "Play a game with me."

It was only through sheer force of will that Touya refrained from throwing his scalding tea right in Shindou's stupid face.

"You can't be serious. It's one-thirty in the morning, and…" Shindou was staring at him, dark rings under his eyes and bleached bangs grown out at least an inch. Touya sighed. "One game, then I'm pulling out the spare futon and you are going to sleep, and in the morning you are calling your mother and apologizing for being the worst son ever."

"It's really her own fault," Shindou agreed. "Who lets a sixteen-year-old out at one-thirty in the morning? I told her your parents were in a horrible car accident, by the way."

"Take black and shut the hell up, please," Touya ordered, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead.

They played on Touya's father's goban, which Touya felt vaguely guilty about, and Shindou lost by five moku which might as well have been a million. When Shindou reached out to clear away his stones, Touya put a hand over his, stopping him.

"Are you going to tell me why you absolutely could not wait until morning to come over here and play the worst game of all time?"

"No." Shindou pulled his hand away and ran it through his bangs. "Can I sleep in your room?"

Touya pulled a spare futon out of the hallway closet and spread it out in his room; Shindou pushed it with his foot until it was right up against Touya's.

"Now go to sleep," Touya ordered, turning off the light and rolling onto his side away from Shindou, who looked completely ridiculous in Touya's pajamas. After a minute, Touya heard some rustling, and then Shindou's back was pressing firmly against his.

"Don't go anywhere," Shindou muttered, yawning, and just as Touya was wondering what sort of response was appropriate to this particular invasion of territory, Shindou started snoring.

He really didn't understand Shindou at all, Touya thought as he stared into the dark.

An hour later, he realized that Shindou had been completely right about the tea.