#feelsfictional

sk: what i shouted at ps before was basically: shindou wakes up as torajirou and vice versa a few times (both when they're like... 20-ish years old)

and hikaru lives a day of torajirou's life (kinda thinking it's a dream) and torajirou lives a day of hikaru's life (kinda thinking it's a dream)

but after it happens a few times they start leaving each other notes and guidelines OR MESSAGES WITH SAI. but like.... the first time they switch, this is a few years after hikaru's lost sai in his own life. and he still MISSES him. so he ABSOLUTELY CANNOT HANDLE waking up and seeing sai.

but from sai's pov it's just like... torajirou wakes up one morning and stares at sai like he's (lol) seen a ghost, and then starts CRYING and THROWS HIMSELF AT HIM and it's all PRETTY SURPRISING. and then he's CRYING and babbling about WHAT KIND OF DREAM IS THIS and trying to tell him all this stuff??? about things sai has no clue about?? and how he's been playing go, and he hopes sai's proud of him.

and he would absoLUTELy wanna play sai, but this is also shuusaku-era sai, so he'd probably... learn things from shindou? (but he's still gonna beat him, i mean, i'm not THAT horrible)

and like, sai would learn new things but what caused his EXPLOSION OF GROWTH that one summer was playing constantly for weeks on end, and on these visits back, hikaru would still have to fulfill torajirou's obligations (according to a very sternly-worded message he left with sai). so sai doesn't become instantly modern and mess with the timeline.

ff:

 but now you've got me thinking about how sai was always a substantial ghost for hikaru as in hikaru could high five him and maybe he should have thought that was weird but he misses it

sk:

 ;;;; hikaru watching ghost movies and getting annoyed because that's not how it works

"they don't mess with electricity!!"

ff:

 hikaru having to teach past sai what a high five is

sk:

and hikaru acting as a proxy again for past sai, letting him play all the games, 'cause that's what torajirou did

ff:

does hikaru think of his bargain with the universe

that he would let sai play every game

sk:

OH MAN HE DOES!!!!!!!! this is the universe's way of helping him.

and then torajirou's also spending some days in hikaru's modern life, learning the ropes.

and hikaru doesn't remember these weird dreams super clearly when he wakes up, but his shuusaku obsession is kicking up into high gear again (so think the ppl around him)

BUT TORAJIROU WASN'T AS GOOD A PLAYER AS SAI. SO ON DAYS WHEN THEY'RE SWITCHED, TORAJIROU KINDA... FUCKS UP SOME GAMES

but he's obvi very influenced by sai's play so people see THAT as also being like "shindou-5-dan doing some weird risky old-fashioned play again"

he'd been kinda getting over his reputation as a weird unpredictable player, but now there are days when he looks like a deer in the headlights, and speaks pretty formally to people, and plays super strangely (for him), and misses some commitments (because hikaru's schedule-keeping abilities are prolly pretty reliant on just mental notes of like... "turn up at x's house for tutoring on monday nights" but his calendar is not organized)

there are all these rumours that it's the stress of the honinbou title matches (or w/e)

ff:

yeah like if this were a theater company or similar people would just be like… man that shindou… he's so method. did you hear about that time he acted like he'd never seen an electrical scoreboard before? classic shindou

sk:

YES. i want shindou to be living with touya in this au.... not ~in a relationship~ (yet, ahahaa) but roommates in a place not incredibly far from the ki-in. and so touya at least makes sure he's like... wearing the appropriate clothes and stuff. (roughly speaking).  touya cannot BELIEVE he had to remind hikaru how to use a zipper, just btw.

ff:

 touya akira's guide to appropriate outfits.....

sk:

oh yes. he is very trustworthy...

i had one last thing written out in our chat.... ok so. in the movie Your Name they cry when they wake up from their dreams sometimes, and we already know that hikaru cries when he dreams about sai ha ha h a. so at least once:

touya gets up and shindou's already out of bed! weird. he's fumbling incompetently around the kitchen, but for once he's being quiet about it. touya offers to make some breakfast for both of them because shindou's obviously not at his best. shindou thanks him very formally. it's weird.

shindou asks what they're doing that day; also weird, because he's actually usually the one who keeps track of touya's schedule too? but whatever, touya fills him in

(it's a quiet day, shindou goes for a walk in the park--also weird--and they play go later, and he's having a weird shuusaku mood and doesn't shout at touya at all--still weird)

and then the next day touya's up before shindou (AS USUAL) and as he's drinking his tea he hears a thump from shindou's room which might be shindou falling out of his bed.

and shindou emerges, bleary-eyed, still in pyjamas, hair all messed up (and touya's heart DEFINITELY FLOPS AROUND IN HIS CHEST AT THAT) and he folds into himself at the kitchen table and just drinks tea and stares at a newspaper without reading it