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Round 4 - Fido, "Pucker Up", Fic (○)
Pseudonym: Fido
Title: Pucker Up
Characters/Pairings: Hikaru, Akari, Mitani, Akira; light Hikaru/Akira
Rating: PG (very mild profanity)
Summary: Hikaru has always been a prankster.
Hikaru's mom wants him to be nice and share with the girl. The girl is a new thing in Hikaru's world; she might have come into existence just the other day as far as he is concerned. She isn't really an entity to him, just an anomaly, but Hikaru's mom bends down and taps his hand. "Go on," she says.
Hikaru reluctantly thrusts his fist of candy forward. The girl, who he will later come to know to be called Akari, takes a handful of sweet chocolate. She smiles, but not at Hikaru, and shoves the pieces into her mouth.
"Say thank you, Akari," the other adult says.
"Thank you," Akari tells the ground shyly.
Hikaru swears revenge in his tiny four-and-a-half year old heart.
("Oh, please. You are so melodramatic.")
***
Akari of course becomes a semi-permanent fixture in Hikaru's life. Eventually he forgets the time before he knew her, and if asked, he would say, "I've known her all my life." (If you could get him to say anything about it at all, that is.) Point being that he never has the presence of mind to doubt her existence. She is just Akari, like his mom and the sun and concrete and clothes. He shrugs her on like a jacket in the morning walk to school, and he shucks her off like shoes when he goes home.
All good things to her, he will think in the future when he is an adult and not quite as inconsiderate. He will wish her all the best and admit like a secret to his friend that he used to be such a brat. ("Trust me, I know.")
But until then:
"Can I have some?" Akari sometimes asks him, holding out her hand already because she, too, does not yet question or glorify Hikaru's presence. Hikaru unthinkingly drops half a handful of chocolates into her hand.
"Can I have some more?" Akari asks again.
"Get your own!" Hikaru says eventually. Akari pushes at him lightly and they bicker and Hikaru hands her more sweets. That's how it's done.
But of course-- ("Of course, you couldn't leave it alone.") --Hikaru was born to shake things up. So one day Akari holds out her hands expectantly, not looking up from the little notebook in which she is doodling anime characters from her favorite shows. Hikaru drops a candy into her hand, and she automatically pops it into her mouth.
Then Akari drops her pencil-- ("Oh my god, I can't believe you." -- "Shut up!" ) --and the notebook slides out of her lap. She clasps a hand to her puckering mouth, but she can't hide the watering of her eyes.
"Hikaru, how could you!"
Hikaru points and laughs.
"What is that?" Akari demands, swiping for the bag. Hikaru doesn't let her near it. "Tell me! What just happened?"
She never figures it out, Hikaru laments later on in life. Sort of telling, that.
+++
("Not that it was difficult--"
"Obviously. The trick of a nine year old."
"It's kind of sad, but I guess it didn't bother her enough to figure it out."
"It's more sad to me that you kept on with the same trick you invented when you were nine."
"Hey!")
+++
When Hikaru is twelve, he can't help but notice that Mitani is fond of sweets. Tsutsui perches on the science table to watch their game from above. Mitani still beats him soundly most of the time-- that's why he's going to be their first.
Being friends with Mitani is sort of strange. Mitani doesn't have many friends his own age. Hikaru doesn't have many friends his own age that can beat him. (In elementary school, Hikaru could beat all his friends at dodgeball [provided there were no ghosts to distract him with airplanes].) But Mitani is not Tsutsui, who is older, and he is not Akari, who is bad at go. Mitani really is just better than Hikaru, but he doesn't rub it in all that much, so that's kind of cool.
Mitani is kind of cool.
Hikaru likes to ruffle feathers.
Mitani likes sweets. He always asks for one of Akari's cookies or for a piece of a chocolate bar. Sometimes when they hang out on weekends, rare as that is, Mitani will smell like warm morning donuts or he will ask to stop by a convenient store.
"You've got to brush your teeth a lot," Hikaru remarks thoughtlessly. It kind of irks Mitani, and that makes Hikaru grin.
It's just so easy to take advantage on one hazy evening when the club as a whole walks away from school. Hikaru draws the bag from his pocket and eats his share, then holds it out to Mitani with a small offering shake. Mitani smiles just a bit and reaches in.
Akari looks back, breaking conversation with Kumiko. She stares at them for a second, expression puzzled, before she gasps out, "Oh no! Mitani-kun, don't eat that!"
But Mitani's cat-slant eyes widen and his eyebrows raise just a second too late. Suddenly he is squeezing them shut and jerking his head and wrinkling his nose. Hikaru bites his lip. It does nothing to stop the choking giggles rising from him.
"What the hell!" Mitani yells. He waggles his tongue and spits the acid-green candy into the dirt. "You bastard, what was that?"
"Hikaru! Not again," Akari admonishes. Tsutsui visibly flounders for something to say in reprimand. He might be trying not to smile, too.
"Oops, was something wrong with that one?" Hikaru asks mock-innocently.
"I'll kill you!"
Mitani leaps forward; Hikaru tries to dodge; Mitani grabs hold of his backpack strap. Hikaru is full-out laughing by now as he and a growling Mitani swirl round and round, wrestling without malicious intent. Mitani lunges and digs his hand into Hikaru's pockets, looking for anything and finding nothing. Their tussling kicks dirt up onto Kumiko's white socks.
"Guys, come on," Tsutsui says mildly. Definitely smiling.
"You damn--!"
"Ha ha! Your face!"
***
That is how it goes. Mitani is a cool customer-- except when he's not. Hikaru knows how to rile him up; it's kind of his specialty. He sometimes thinks Mitani might be his best friend, but then he does something really irritatingly aloof, like a cat or something, and Hikaru reminds himself that Akari is his best friend.
["What about me?" Sai asked.
"Well, obviously you," Hikaru responded honestly. "But my second-best."]
("What about me?"
"We weren't friends back then, don't pretend.")
So Mitani is his friend even when Mitani is mad at him. Or at least, that's what Hikaru thinks. And as time goes on, it's more like what Hikaru hopes. Eventually, however, after Hikaru joins the insei, he must concede:
He is wrong. This is not something that will blow over. Mitani is not his friend anymore. Mitani will be mad at him forever. ("Oh, I remember him now.")
+++
Akira smiles very slowly. It's an uncharacteristic expression that Hikaru doesn't know how to handle. Something is squirming in his stomach. Did he eat something bad? he wonders briefly, turning his eyes away.
"Yeah, so, well." Hikaru finishes his story lamely.
"And you thought this prank would work on me?" Akira asks, tone flat but tinged with a warm affection amusement. (Probably.)
"Uh. Well." Hikaru pops his knuckles nervously and leans against the back of the bench they're sharing. He looks around the park because it is infinitely more neutral than staring at Akira. Akira's eyes pucker at the corners as he smiles, but his eyes remain as sharp, bright, and biting as ever.
===
"Touya, here!"
"Here what?" Akira asked without even looking up from the kifu he was studying.
"Want some?" Hikaru shook the bag.
"You know I don't like to eat at lunch."
"I can get you to eat," Hikaru pouted.
"Ugh, fine!"
Akira reached into the candy bag. The candy bag. Popped the chocolate-coated sour hard-candy into his mouth.
Kept on sucking.
"That's a weird candy," Akira said absently. He held out his hand for another. "I like it."
===
"It usually works," Hikaru mutters sullenly.
"Can you try to act like an eighteen year old?" Akira sighs as is expected.
"Never."
Akira laughs gently and gets up. Hikaru hesitates before following him out of the park. As they walk back to the institute, lunch over, Akira pauses by a vending machine. "Want anything?"
"My favorite--"
"I remember."
Hikaru shoves his hands in his pockets. He feels a little embarrassed. He'd tried the age-old trick, and it hadn't worked. Then Akira had asked if he had more candy today, and Hikaru said no, he didn't usually go through them that quickly. In lieu of candy, Akira had demanded the story. Now Hikaru looks like a dork.
He's kind of happy, though, too. How could he expect any less from his eternal rival?
"Here." Akira presses the can into Hikaru's side and smiles. Hikaru feels his belly do another flop and smiles back sheepishly. He removes his hands from his pockets to take the drink. Akira keeps looking at him. Obviously he is trying to turn Hikaru's brain into mush.
Akira pops his can. Brings it to puckered lips. Tilts his head back. Hikaru pops his own can without thinking, eyes fixed on the flexing of Akira's pale, strong throat.
Hikaru takes his own large mouthful, just to make himself stop staring.
He feels the heat, first: a heat so intense it screws Hikaru's face. His tongue feels like it's burning. His lips draw in.
"Nngh!"
The can in his hand is lemonade, not soda-- the extra sour kind.
Hikaru looks up at Akira with wide, watery, disbelieving eyes. Akira hides his bubbling laughter behind his hand.
"Oh, perfect," he manages. "So worth it."
Touya Akira always manages to flip Hikaru upside-down.
Go to opponent's entry: Round 4 - Ash Landers, "Seki no Kosumi", Fic (●)
Go to vote: The White Suit Society vs. Kawahagi Middle School - First Board Match
Title: Pucker Up
Characters/Pairings: Hikaru, Akari, Mitani, Akira; light Hikaru/Akira
Rating: PG (very mild profanity)
Summary: Hikaru has always been a prankster.
Hikaru's mom wants him to be nice and share with the girl. The girl is a new thing in Hikaru's world; she might have come into existence just the other day as far as he is concerned. She isn't really an entity to him, just an anomaly, but Hikaru's mom bends down and taps his hand. "Go on," she says.
Hikaru reluctantly thrusts his fist of candy forward. The girl, who he will later come to know to be called Akari, takes a handful of sweet chocolate. She smiles, but not at Hikaru, and shoves the pieces into her mouth.
"Say thank you, Akari," the other adult says.
"Thank you," Akari tells the ground shyly.
Hikaru swears revenge in his tiny four-and-a-half year old heart.
("Oh, please. You are so melodramatic.")
***
Akari of course becomes a semi-permanent fixture in Hikaru's life. Eventually he forgets the time before he knew her, and if asked, he would say, "I've known her all my life." (If you could get him to say anything about it at all, that is.) Point being that he never has the presence of mind to doubt her existence. She is just Akari, like his mom and the sun and concrete and clothes. He shrugs her on like a jacket in the morning walk to school, and he shucks her off like shoes when he goes home.
All good things to her, he will think in the future when he is an adult and not quite as inconsiderate. He will wish her all the best and admit like a secret to his friend that he used to be such a brat. ("Trust me, I know.")
But until then:
"Can I have some?" Akari sometimes asks him, holding out her hand already because she, too, does not yet question or glorify Hikaru's presence. Hikaru unthinkingly drops half a handful of chocolates into her hand.
"Can I have some more?" Akari asks again.
"Get your own!" Hikaru says eventually. Akari pushes at him lightly and they bicker and Hikaru hands her more sweets. That's how it's done.
But of course-- ("Of course, you couldn't leave it alone.") --Hikaru was born to shake things up. So one day Akari holds out her hands expectantly, not looking up from the little notebook in which she is doodling anime characters from her favorite shows. Hikaru drops a candy into her hand, and she automatically pops it into her mouth.
Then Akari drops her pencil-- ("Oh my god, I can't believe you." -- "Shut up!" ) --and the notebook slides out of her lap. She clasps a hand to her puckering mouth, but she can't hide the watering of her eyes.
"Hikaru, how could you!"
Hikaru points and laughs.
"What is that?" Akari demands, swiping for the bag. Hikaru doesn't let her near it. "Tell me! What just happened?"
She never figures it out, Hikaru laments later on in life. Sort of telling, that.
+++
("Not that it was difficult--"
"Obviously. The trick of a nine year old."
"It's kind of sad, but I guess it didn't bother her enough to figure it out."
"It's more sad to me that you kept on with the same trick you invented when you were nine."
"Hey!")
+++
When Hikaru is twelve, he can't help but notice that Mitani is fond of sweets. Tsutsui perches on the science table to watch their game from above. Mitani still beats him soundly most of the time-- that's why he's going to be their first.
Being friends with Mitani is sort of strange. Mitani doesn't have many friends his own age. Hikaru doesn't have many friends his own age that can beat him. (In elementary school, Hikaru could beat all his friends at dodgeball [provided there were no ghosts to distract him with airplanes].) But Mitani is not Tsutsui, who is older, and he is not Akari, who is bad at go. Mitani really is just better than Hikaru, but he doesn't rub it in all that much, so that's kind of cool.
Mitani is kind of cool.
Hikaru likes to ruffle feathers.
Mitani likes sweets. He always asks for one of Akari's cookies or for a piece of a chocolate bar. Sometimes when they hang out on weekends, rare as that is, Mitani will smell like warm morning donuts or he will ask to stop by a convenient store.
"You've got to brush your teeth a lot," Hikaru remarks thoughtlessly. It kind of irks Mitani, and that makes Hikaru grin.
It's just so easy to take advantage on one hazy evening when the club as a whole walks away from school. Hikaru draws the bag from his pocket and eats his share, then holds it out to Mitani with a small offering shake. Mitani smiles just a bit and reaches in.
Akari looks back, breaking conversation with Kumiko. She stares at them for a second, expression puzzled, before she gasps out, "Oh no! Mitani-kun, don't eat that!"
But Mitani's cat-slant eyes widen and his eyebrows raise just a second too late. Suddenly he is squeezing them shut and jerking his head and wrinkling his nose. Hikaru bites his lip. It does nothing to stop the choking giggles rising from him.
"What the hell!" Mitani yells. He waggles his tongue and spits the acid-green candy into the dirt. "You bastard, what was that?"
"Hikaru! Not again," Akari admonishes. Tsutsui visibly flounders for something to say in reprimand. He might be trying not to smile, too.
"Oops, was something wrong with that one?" Hikaru asks mock-innocently.
"I'll kill you!"
Mitani leaps forward; Hikaru tries to dodge; Mitani grabs hold of his backpack strap. Hikaru is full-out laughing by now as he and a growling Mitani swirl round and round, wrestling without malicious intent. Mitani lunges and digs his hand into Hikaru's pockets, looking for anything and finding nothing. Their tussling kicks dirt up onto Kumiko's white socks.
"Guys, come on," Tsutsui says mildly. Definitely smiling.
"You damn--!"
"Ha ha! Your face!"
***
That is how it goes. Mitani is a cool customer-- except when he's not. Hikaru knows how to rile him up; it's kind of his specialty. He sometimes thinks Mitani might be his best friend, but then he does something really irritatingly aloof, like a cat or something, and Hikaru reminds himself that Akari is his best friend.
["What about me?" Sai asked.
"Well, obviously you," Hikaru responded honestly. "But my second-best."]
("What about me?"
"We weren't friends back then, don't pretend.")
So Mitani is his friend even when Mitani is mad at him. Or at least, that's what Hikaru thinks. And as time goes on, it's more like what Hikaru hopes. Eventually, however, after Hikaru joins the insei, he must concede:
He is wrong. This is not something that will blow over. Mitani is not his friend anymore. Mitani will be mad at him forever. ("Oh, I remember him now.")
+++
Akira smiles very slowly. It's an uncharacteristic expression that Hikaru doesn't know how to handle. Something is squirming in his stomach. Did he eat something bad? he wonders briefly, turning his eyes away.
"Yeah, so, well." Hikaru finishes his story lamely.
"And you thought this prank would work on me?" Akira asks, tone flat but tinged with a warm affection amusement. (Probably.)
"Uh. Well." Hikaru pops his knuckles nervously and leans against the back of the bench they're sharing. He looks around the park because it is infinitely more neutral than staring at Akira. Akira's eyes pucker at the corners as he smiles, but his eyes remain as sharp, bright, and biting as ever.
===
"Touya, here!"
"Here what?" Akira asked without even looking up from the kifu he was studying.
"Want some?" Hikaru shook the bag.
"You know I don't like to eat at lunch."
"I can get you to eat," Hikaru pouted.
"Ugh, fine!"
Akira reached into the candy bag. The candy bag. Popped the chocolate-coated sour hard-candy into his mouth.
Kept on sucking.
"That's a weird candy," Akira said absently. He held out his hand for another. "I like it."
===
"It usually works," Hikaru mutters sullenly.
"Can you try to act like an eighteen year old?" Akira sighs as is expected.
"Never."
Akira laughs gently and gets up. Hikaru hesitates before following him out of the park. As they walk back to the institute, lunch over, Akira pauses by a vending machine. "Want anything?"
"My favorite--"
"I remember."
Hikaru shoves his hands in his pockets. He feels a little embarrassed. He'd tried the age-old trick, and it hadn't worked. Then Akira had asked if he had more candy today, and Hikaru said no, he didn't usually go through them that quickly. In lieu of candy, Akira had demanded the story. Now Hikaru looks like a dork.
He's kind of happy, though, too. How could he expect any less from his eternal rival?
"Here." Akira presses the can into Hikaru's side and smiles. Hikaru feels his belly do another flop and smiles back sheepishly. He removes his hands from his pockets to take the drink. Akira keeps looking at him. Obviously he is trying to turn Hikaru's brain into mush.
Akira pops his can. Brings it to puckered lips. Tilts his head back. Hikaru pops his own can without thinking, eyes fixed on the flexing of Akira's pale, strong throat.
Hikaru takes his own large mouthful, just to make himself stop staring.
He feels the heat, first: a heat so intense it screws Hikaru's face. His tongue feels like it's burning. His lips draw in.
"Nngh!"
The can in his hand is lemonade, not soda-- the extra sour kind.
Hikaru looks up at Akira with wide, watery, disbelieving eyes. Akira hides his bubbling laughter behind his hand.
"Oh, perfect," he manages. "So worth it."
Touya Akira always manages to flip Hikaru upside-down.
Go to opponent's entry: Round 4 - Ash Landers, "Seki no Kosumi", Fic (●)
Go to vote: The White Suit Society vs. Kawahagi Middle School - First Board Match