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Inktober day 4 Cringetober: glomping

“Are we playing now, Hikaru? Are we? Yay!”

I bet you guys can tell by now that I’m a big fan of H/C an sickfic

Snippet: Hikasai (Hikaru no go)

This boy is somewhere around Akira’s age, perhaps a little bit younger, and the quick view of his face that Kouyo manages to capture is twisted in pain and terror. Kouyo swallows, and carefully pulls the boy into a sitting position, leaning him half against himself and partially against the wall.

“-t’now, not now,” Kouyo hears the boy muttering under his breath through clenched teeth, eyes squeezed shut.

He sounds like he’s trying not to cry. Kouyo’s heart twinges sharply.

“What is happening to you?” Kouyo murmurs, gathering the boy into his arms, just to hold him, and let him know he’s not alone.

The boy’s entire frame is trembling, and he lurches forward with what seems to be the last of his strength in order to press his face into Kouyo’s chest with a soft, strangled sob.

Kouyo sits there with that boy for what almost feels like forever, wrinkles and tears on the front of his coat and crease marks beneath the child’s hand from where he was clenching it. Even so, it isn’t too much later that brings the boy to sit up on his own, blinking blearily up at Kouyo with dazed eyes.

“Hello,” Kouyo greets him as gently as he would a wounded animal, a careful hand going up to hesitantly smooth the boy’s hair away from his face where it’s plastered with cold sweat. It’s only a few shades darker than Akira’s hair, though softer and longer. The ends are braided loosely together at the bottom and thrown over the boy’s shoulder, a faded blond at the tips that disappears into the inky blackness of hair grown out.

The boy sucks in a shuttering breath, and his eyes clear enough for Kouyo to feel like he’s aware of what’s around him now.

“What is your name?”

“... Sai,” the boy breaths out, before clenching his eyes shut and hanging his head with a slow breath.

“Sai,” Kouyo repeats, glad that he now has a name for this child that is still in his arms. “Can you stand, Sai?”

Sai is still and silent for a few moments, hands still clenching the front of Kouyo’s shirt tightly. He breathes in and out with tight control, before trying for a shaky nod.

Kouyo hovers, admittedly, as the boy raises himself up on unsteady legs. He manages to stand, but still has to rely on Kouyo’s firm hand at his elbow.

Kouyo places his other hand at the center of the boy’s back and leads him toward the room he had been heading to, which actually takes the boy back the way he’d initially come.

Kouyo wonders what he had been running from.

They enter the room, and even before Kouyo closes the door behind them, he can see that he is early. His student is the only one present so far, seated in a chair across the floor.

Ogata jumps up to his feet and strides over as soon as Kouyo steps forward. He grabs Sai’s other arm and helps angle him over to the wall with a couch set against it. The boy stands before it for a moment, swaying in place, before the two men maneuver him down onto the cushions.

“Who is he?” Ogata demands as they stand there, watching as Sai curls into a ball and begins to choke on a small coughing fit, hands pressed against his chest as if it was caving in on itself and he couldn’t handle the pain.

Kouyo’s own chest aches at the sight and sound of it.

“This is Sai,” he tells his student. “I found him in the hallway outside, like this.”

“What’s the matter,” Ogata crouches down by the couch and places a firm hand on the trembling preteen’s back. He inches forward to try and get a glimpse of Sai’s face, but the poor child’s brought an arm up to bury it into his elbow. Ogata flinches back slightly when Sai lets out a small sob. He scowls.

“Should we call an ambulance?” The blonde mutters to his teacher.

Kouyo goes to respond, but is interrupted as Sai jerks up into a sitting position and gives a tight whine as the sudden movement jars his chest somehow. The two men wince, but stay silent as Sai opens his mouth, gazing up at them with wide, bottle green eyes.

“No... hospital,” the boy gasps. He sucks in a breath, and closes his eyes, collapsing back against the cushions. “Won’t help.”

“What do you mean the hospital won’t help,” Ogata hisses. “That’s what they’re for.”

“Tried already, lots,” Sai just shakes his head. “Nothing will fix...”

Kouyo watches miserably as the boy curls inward again, pressing his head into his knees and breathing raggedly against them.

Ogata stares at him for a moment, and then glances at Kouyo before kneeling beside the couch. “Do you have any medicine to take for it?”

Sai’s fists tighten around where they’re clenching his jeans, the knuckles turning white. “Just… painkillers, when… s’bad.”

“Like now?” Kouyo asks, looking away from Ogata as the blond man shoots to his feet and stalks back to where he left his bag.

“Mmmf,” Sai groans into his knees.

Kouyo watches helplessly while the boy lightly begins to bang his forehead against them, as if that would stop whatever pain he was experiencing. For a split second his vision imposes Akira’s image over Sai, and Kouyo’s heart stings viciously at the thought of his delicate (Akira is by no means a tough boy, Kouyo isn’t one to delude himself) son going through whatever it was that cripples Sai like this. He half wonders if his son would survive a chronic pain like Sai implied this was, and he immediately feels bad for thinking it, but… it’s not a mystery as to what the answer would be.