Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ Season of Black Chrysanthemums ❯ Winter ( Chapter 1 )

Title: Season of Black Chrysanthemums: Winter
Author: corbeaun
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go belongs to Obata Takeshi and Hotta Yumi.

 

Summary: When Shindo Hikaru was fourteen years old, Touya disappeared from the go world. And then his life fell apart. Years later, he finds Touya again, but going back to the world of professional go may just prove impossible...for more than one reason. Yakuza AU

 

A/N: Written for Round 4 of blind_go on Livejournal.

 

 

 

Winter

 

* * *

 

Part 1

 

* * *

[six years before]

 

 

Akira learned his love for the game from his father, who had made a ritual of sitting in front of the goban every morning, a steaming teacup by his side and the view of the Tokyo skyline glittering before him. His underlings had long ago learned to not disturb Touya Kouyo during this time of silent contemplation, where only the soft pachi of stones upon kaya wood interrupted the morning stillness.

 

Now, in his father's absence, Akira sat in Touya Kouyo's place before the goban. The shoji paper door leading into the back garden had been pushed aside, flooding the study room with the bright, cold light of morning. All over the house, white drapery now covered the walls - only the study room was left undisturbed. Dressed in his new black kimono, the stiff cloth chaffed at Akira's still tender shoulder where the colors had been newly tattooed. He did not place any stones on the board, and only turned a smooth, crisp stone over and over in his fingers, lost in thought.

 

Somewhere in the distance, a brass bell sounded and the priest's chanting began.

 

When Akira was much younger, and a schoolmate had asked what his father did for a living, he had replied earnestly that his father played go. To him, that was the truth. His father's dedication for the game was obvious for anyone to see, and Akira emulated his father wherever he could. Though he knew his father did not play professionally, he had simply thought that there was another kind of job for go lovers separate from the jobs of the go pros who his father often called over for a game. The go pros were inevitably escorted into his father's study room by a man from the numerous 'guards' stationed at their house. As a boy, Akira never even thought unusual the group of dark-suited young men with the occasional pompadour who trailed his father like personal shadows and replied to every comment of his father's with a clear, punctuated, "Hai!" To Akira, the men were either roughly indulgent or indifferent. He assumed the presence of these 'bodyguards' were the normal state of affairs in a large household.

 

Go was the only task he ever saw his father occupied with at the sprawling mansion within the genteel Meijiro neighborhood that Touya Kouyo had shared with him and his mother. This was deliberate. Only later would a much older Akira realize to what lengths his father had gone to ensure his young son never saw him involved in any overtly questionable dealings. The occasional older men in custom-fitted Italian suits and heavy Rolexes who visited his father, and drank sake behind closed doors, brought with them their own flock of tense, suited young guards.

 

Akira knew neither his paternal or maternal grandparents - his paternal grandparents being long dead; his maternal grandparents long estranged. Touya Kouyo's wife and Akira's mother was an intelligent, sophisticated woman who was born to a social class that did not readily lend itself to intermarriage with the criminal outcasts of the country. She was the prized daughter of a doctor educated at Todai, the Japanese equivalent of Harvard. Her parents had been devastated when she dropped out of college and abruptly married a then middling-level Yakuza boss; to add insult to injury, she gave birth to Akira only six months after the wedding. Her parents never forgave her.

 

But growing up, Akira did not know his family's history; he was ensconced safely within the protection of Touya Kouyo, oyabun of a rapidly growing faction within the Sumiyoshi crime family in dazzling, metropolitan Tokyo.

 

And until the day that protection had been suddenly shattered, Touya Akira had fervently believed he would walk the path that would lead him to the hand of god, exactly like his respected father.

 

Now, in the broken aftermath of that old, happy life, Akira gently stowed the go stone in its wooden pot. The chanting of the priest was growing louder in the distance, and now it was responded to by the wailing monotone of the mourners. Slowly, Akira straightened from his kneeling position before the goban. Straightening the wide sleeves of his kimono, he slid open the shoji door and stepped out of his father's former study room.

 

The time for contemplation was over.

 

He was his father's only son, and - despite his tender years - he knew what he must do.

 

 

* * *

[the present]

 

 

Hikaru cycled away from the main road and onto one of the many winding side streets that twisted through the famous old geisha district of Kagurazuka. The streets become narrower and narrower the further he went away from the main road, the worn wooden walls of old houses crowding in on him. Rain-slick stones passed beneath the tires of his bicycle, and occasionally the raised root of a tree broke through the cobbled ground. These closely packed houses blocked out the moon and the bright over-wash of light from the more industrial part of Tokyo. Only the pale pink glow filtered through the square paper sides of the red lanterns that hung along the eaves of the houses illuminated his path.

 

Cycling through these streets that had survived the bonfires of Allied bombing, Hikaru felt an almost superstitious silence fall over him. He almost expected, as if at any moment, he would catch a glimpse of white robes and long familiar black hair. Only the ordinary aroma of ramen wafting from the boxes tied securely behind his seat kept him in the now and then. Still, Hikaru felt an irrational sense of anticipation, as if something was going to happen that evening. What, he had no idea, but he hoped it was something good.

 

His world, since the days of his boyhood, had grown increasingly small and narrow over the years.

 

Finally he saw approaching up ahead an old, traditional wooden building with windows shuttered in bamboo. A tiny, kimono-clad woman came out of the ryotei to greet him. She looked askance at Hikaru's shoddy work wear, but smiled politely and, after he had removed his shoes in the foyer, ushered him to the small, traditional kitchen in the back. He quickly unpacked the boxes of ramen. Due to two hard years of practice, not a drop of soup had been spilled on the long uneven path he'd biked and the bowls were still steaming hot. The cook of the establishment and his few assistants greedily grabbed the bowls from him and proceeded to slurp down the noodles with relish. Hikaru waited beside the kitchen door for the woman who had greeted him to finish tallying up the bill. Light laughter drifted down the corridor from the main part of the house where the guests were dining. Hikaru hoped they enjoyed their high-priced food just as much as the cook and his assistants had the much cheaper ramen.

 

When the woman finally handed him the money for the noodles, Hikaru bowed his thanks and quickly took his leave. Outside, he righted his bicycle, now much lighter without its culinary burden, and slung a leg over the seat, ready to take off, when suddenly the tilt of a familiar, long-unseen head down the street thumped his heart into his throat.

 

"Touya," he breathed.

 

The figure was rapidly walking away from him, accompanied by a throng of suited men. The light from the geisha teahouse they'd just exited from illuminated without a doubt the face of his one-time rival. He still sported that same, pageboy cut. "Touya!" Hikaru shouted, heedlessly abandoning his bicycle to the ground.

 

In the distance, the figure stopped. The men around him tensed, until he leaned over to the one beside him and said something. With what seemed like great reluctance, the suits around Touya bowed perfunctorily and continued down the street without him. The dark, winding nature of old-fashioned Kagurazuka soon hid the men from sight. Only then did Touya turn around to face him.

 

The light from the late autumn moon showed Hikaru a face he'd never thought he would again see.

 

Hikaru run up to him until he was standing only a few feet away. He felt his face split in a large, uncontrollable grin. "It really is you!" He grabbed him by the shoulder, unthinkingly, wanting to make sure the other man was real. His shoulder was warm and reassuringly solid. Until then, Hikaru had still been deathly afraid he was wrong.

 

When Touya didn't reply, his smile faltered. "Don't you - don't you know me?" he asked haltingly, feeling disappoint beginning to roil his stomach. His hand dropped from Touya's shoulder. Hikaru stopped himself in time from reaching self-consciously to his no longer bleached bangs. It was nervous gesture he had developed in the past two years. The upkeep of the bleached bangs had proven too expensive, both money and time-wise, when he'd moved out on his own. Sometimes, he barely recognized himself in the mirror. Now, Hikaru wished he'd found some way to keep it, just so Touya would have known him without a doubt.

 

But then Touya spoke:

 

"Shindo. Shindo Hikaru."

 

His voice, sure and steady, was an octave lower than Hikaru remembered it being. They had been boys the last time they met.

 

"Right." Hikaru stared at Touya, finally fully taking in his gray, tailored slacks and his elegant cashmere overcoat. The years had been generous to him in a way it had not been for Hikaru. "How've you been, Touya?"

 

"All right. And you -" The other man hesitated. "The Go Institute must be feeling expansive."

 

"What?" Hikaru couldn't follow the sudden topic shift. What did the Japanese Go Institute have anything, anymore, to do with him? He had retired from his position as a professional go player years ago. Hikaru shook his head mentally, dismissing it: It was unimportant. There was only one thing he desperately wanted to know, a question that had plagued him for the past six years.

 

"Touya," he said, "what happened to you? That day, in the dan matches, you were finally supposed to play me -"

 

The sudden grip on his arm stopped him mid-word. "Not here." Though the streets were clearly empty, Touya glanced around tightly, and pulled Hikaru with him to the lit entrance of an old, teak and bamboo house further down the street. An old woman in a gray kimono came out and bowed to them.

 

Touya dropped Hikaru's arm and turned to him. "Are you here with anyone?" he asked quietly.

 

His question was unbelievably strange. Hikaru had to bike back to the ramen shop soon. Did Hikaru look like he could afford to visit Kagurazuka as a revered customer? "What? No -"

 

Touya's short nod cut off the sarcastic comment Hikaru had been about to voice.

 

"Good," Touya said curtly. "We can talk here." And walked into the house behind the old woman before Hikaru could even blink.

 

For a moment Hikaru hesitated. He knew he was already late and needed to hurry back to the shop. But he was afraid he'd never see Touya again if he left now. And that, he could not accept. This is important, Hikaru told himself firmly, he'll take the docked pay if he had to. Thus decided, Hikaru slipped off his shoes and followed.

 

The old woman ushered them into a small, private tatami-matted room with a view of an indoor rock garden. The room was otherwise empty. At a word from Touya, she bowed and left them, quietly sliding the shoji door shut behind her. Touya sat down on the floor. He waited until her shadow had retreated from the paper wall.

 

"We're ensured of privacy here," he told Hikaru.

 

"What is with all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Touya," Hikaru looked at him warily from his seat across the tatami, "what did you get mixed up in? Does this -" He paused, then continued, "Does this have anything to do with why you disappeared that April?"

 

Touya laughed abruptly at that, a low, bitter sound that startled Hikaru. Hikura reached out across the mat, but then thought better of it. The aborted gesture was not lost on Touya. He cut off his laughter.

 

The sudden silence unnerved Hikaru just as much.

 

"My father is dead, Shindo." His voice was hoarse with unspoken emotion. "He died and I inherited the family business."

 

And saying that, he put a hand to his shoulder - the same one Hikaru had grabbed - and pulled down coat and shirt to expose his bare skin. Incised across his left bicep was the elaborate tattoo of burnt orange chrysanthemums - chrysanthemums for mourning and vengeance. Their entwined stems trailed along his upper arms and the feathered crest of a dragon there, before disappearing below his collarbone. Below the flowers and the winding, serpentine body, with a quarter of his torso laid bare, one could see easily the outlines of what was a spectacular full-body tattoo.

 

It was the ubiquitous emblem of the yakuza.

 

Hikaru felt his eyes widen in disbelief. When he looked back at Touya's face, Touya had drawn his lips back from his teeth in a cold, brittle smile. His voice, when he spoke, was just as cold:

 

"My father and mother were gunned down in a go parlor by a punk from a renegade faction. Six years ago, in April."

 

The news shocked Hikaru to stillness.

 

His memories recalled a large, stern rock of a man. He had bumped into him the day Hikaru took Sai to that first go tournament. Hikaru remembered how the suited men around the large, stern man had snarled at him to watch where he was going. The man himself had barely acknowledged him. At the time, Sai had blinked and stared strangely after the man as he and his bodyguards disappeared down the corridor. But when Hikaru had asked, the ghost had only shivered and said he felt like someone had walked over his grave.

 

Later, Hikaru had learned from news gleaned in less reputable go parlors that the man was Touya Kouyo, oyabun of one of the most rapidly rising factions within the Sumiyoshi of the Tokyo yakuza, and a dedicated go aficionado. Back then, Hikaru hadn't made the connection from him to Touya Akira, a rapidly rising star within the go world and rival after whom Hikaru so single-mindedly chased. The name Touya, after all, while not as common as Tanaka, was certainly not unique.

 

Now, the son was still speaking.

 

"The squabbling began over who would get what. The oyabun of the other factions in the organization - they were like dogs, fighting each other for scraps from my parents' corpses. The police," and a disgusted look crossed Touya's face, "refused to get involved - they feared a disruption in the status quo.

 

"So you see, Shindo, why I had to give up being a go pro." Touya looked down and spread out his hands on the tatami mat before him. "I had no other choice."

 

Hikaru's reply was obviously unexpected.

 

"Bullshit!"

 

Akira blinked and looked up.

 

Hikaru knew his face was still pale at the revelation, but he felt a familiar fire burning in him. All those years of wondering, all those years of bitter resignation at never finding an answer... Touya had loved go - even more than him, and he had just thrown it away for something that, apparently, he did not even want and only felt obligated for.

 

It made him careless and unafraid to say what he thought. "Bullshit," he said again, emphasizing his conviction. "What is this, the freaking Tokugawa era?" He jabbed an angry finger at the other man. "You are not living during feudalism, Touya! If this were a go game, Touya Akira, you would have resigned six hands ago. Admit it! You had a choice, and you chose - stupidly."

 

Touya glared, his spine tensing in response. "My father and mother -"

 

"Yeah, they were murdered. So now you're throwing your life away in order to - what? Find out the name of the punk that killed them. And then what, kill him? Gun him down. Make him hurt the way you hurt -"

 

"Zakennayo!" Touya growled, his hand slamming down on the mat. "Don't fuck with me! You don't know -"

 

Hikaru ignored him, and snorted in disgust. "Oh, and afterwards, you're gonna commit seppuku, right? Just stick a sword in your belly, join them in an honorable afterlife -"

 

He heard himself let loose a surprised grunt as he was slammed back onto the tatami mat. Touya glared down murderously at him. For a moment Hikaru was visibly stunned, so much so that it almost seemed to shake the other man out of his anger. But then he growled, a low vicious sound, and lunged at Touya. His strong left hook caught the other man on the jaw. A shuffle of limbs on the floor, explosions of pain, and he ducked and grabbed Touya by the arm just as he swung, momentum helping him throw Touya over his shoulder and onto the tatami mat. But Touya kicked viciously at his shins as he landed, bringing Hikaru down with him. The impact knocked the breath out of him.

 

When the sparks finally faded from his sight, he found himself immobile on the floor with Touya's arm braced against his neck. In the sudden silence, he could hear his own heavy breathing as he labored for air. His jaw ached, the skin of his knuckles stung. Touya was also breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling, warm and solid against him. Not admitting defeat, Hikaru stared up defiantly into the other man's eyes.

 

"It won't be so easy to give up your life. To give up go."

 

At his words, Touya's hold on him had loosened in surprise. But he didn't let Hikaru up from the floor. Hands braced at both sides of him, Touya stared down at Hikaru, an unreadable intensity in his eyes. His face looked drawn and taut against some unnamed pressure. For the first time, Hikaru noticed how different Touya looked. Neither of them were round-cheeked boys anymore, but the sheared planes of Touya's face now had a lean, hungry look that had not previously existed.

 

Carefully, Hikaru's hands rose and closed firmly around Touya's shoulders. In his hold, the other man was warm but unyielding. But Hikaru felt the strength of his own conviction, heady and undeniable. "I won't let you give it up." The shadows of the last few years slinked away in the brilliance of that surety. He blinked, feeling light and breathless. "I won't," he repeated, steadier than he'd been in years.

 

"It's been a long time, Shindo," Touya objected in a low voice. "As you said, I made my choice. Priorities change. People change."

 

"No, not you. I know you. Go is your life."

 

Touya only stared down at him, his eyes agonizingly dark. "It's not that simple," he whispered.

 

Hikaru felt himself burn. He yanked the other man's head down to his, pressed his forehead tight against Touya's. "Shut up," he whispered fiercely. His hands cupped the back of Touya's head, not letting him escape. "Play that game against me," he demanded feverishly. "That game we never got to play. I'll show you."

 

This close, Hikaru couldn't see Touya's expression, but he felt the tension - the preparation of a violent refusal - gathering in the body against him. He lowered his hands from the back of Touya's head, and let Touya see his face.

 

And though Hikaru hadn't touched a go stone in years, when Touya closed his eyes and relaxed against him in assent, Hikaru knew he had already won.

 

 

* * *

 

Part 2

 

* * *

 

When Hikaru was fourteen years old, Touya Akira disappeared from the go world. He left no trace, disappeared so completely, that when a similar event happened later than same year to another seemingly eternal figure in Hikaru's life, Hikaru could only stare in stupefied grief at the demolished skyline of his personal landscape.

 

He was only a boy then, and before, he had never truly understood loss. But that year, everything fell apart. His life cracked straight down the center through two distinct fault lines. For untold weeks he walked through the incomprehensively empty world, alternately dazed and bewildered, then angry and resentful - promising and threatening all kinds of things to the gods, if only they would turn his world right side up again.

 

The fateful afternoon in which he found Isumi in his room - and the brutally short game that they played - finally forced him to a bitter realization.

 

Sai was never coming back.

 

And Touya Akira, the one who he had chased so desperately and who had in turn chased after the ghost in Hikaru's go, was gone.

 

These two relentless forces that had dragged Hikaru into the world of go had, against all reason, vanished. And now he floundered in the wake of their abandonment.

 

His game against Isumi was a slaughter.

 

When he bowed his resignation to Isumi at the very end, his bitter tears splattered on the dusty board of the goban. Because he could still see the flashes of brilliance that had so typified Sai's play within his own - it was the first time he'd seen Sai again - but there was something monstrously lacking in his own go, some absence so insurmountable that it had destroyed the glittering beauty of the hands he'd inherited from Sai. His go, Hikaru realized, felt dead.

 

That very next morning, he went to the Go Institute and tendered his resignation as a professional go player.

 

Despite the reservations of his homeroom teacher, Hikaru managed to score high enough on the high school entrance test that he was accepted at a place not too far from where he lived. He took up soccer again, but playing in high school was very different from his time during grade school, and eventually the coach's unrelenting and - according to Hikaru - utterly pointless goading to win, win, win! leached away Hikaru's desire to play, so that one day he simply quit the team. If nothing else, quitting improved his grades.

 

His school also had a rather respectably sized go club. He tried not to go too often, though, because dead as his go was at a professional level, he was still good enough that he sporadically scared beginners out of playing the game. Teaching others to play was a new skill that he had to learn to enjoy.

 

Occasionally, he still spoke to Akari, but since she had been accepted to a much more competitive high school, they did not see each other as often. Which was fine by Hikaru, because lately, Akari had taken to looking at him with a pitying look in her eyes. She tried too hard to pretend everything was the same. But the silence in between her words to him was awkward and weighted down with all the questions he would not answer.

 

And so the years passed in this way, quiet and undisturbed.

 

By the time it came to choose a university, Hikaru had made the difficult but honest choice of not applying. It broke his mother's heart, but Hikaru knew with certainty that university and then the life of a salaryman was not for him. It bothered him, though, that he didn't know what else to do - the one path he truly wanted, he could not walk.

 

He looked to graduation with some trepidation.

 

In the past three years on his way back from high school, Hikaru often bypassed a small ramen shop. Through many visits over time, Hikaru and the owner had gotten to know each other quite well. Jun, the owner of the shop, was an ethnic Korean, and though she had been born in Japan same as Hikaru's mother, her identity card still designated her as a residential alien. After years of work hard, her restaurant business was finally booming, but that brought problems of its own. She needed someone with a legitimate citizenship card to smooth things over with the local police and the occasional ultra-right 'protection' racket gangs. And Hikaru needed a job.

 

One day, not long before graduation, Hikaru sat down at the counter with her and discussed both their problems. They found a solution in each other. And so without much fanfare, Shindo Hikaru became the newest all-purpose worker and sometime representative of a Chinese ramen restaurant.

 

He learned to be content in this new life.

 

And if he sometimes stared overly long at the dusty, untouched goban stored next to his old magazines and thought of old games long into the night, well, there was no one to know but himself.

 

Until the night Hikaru went to a ryotei in Kagurazuka to deliver ramen, and saw Touya Akira.

 

 

* * *

 

"You found a new girlfriend, Shindo?"

 

Hikaru broke off his whistling in surprise. "W-what?" he stuttered.

 

The other dishwasher, Jun's son on break from university, raised a sly eyebrow and grinned. "I said, I hear you've been in an awfully good mood these past two months. Any reason?"

 

Hikaru looked blankly at the other man. Then he stared down at his soapy hands holding a dirty soup bowl. Slowly, he dunked the dirty bowl back into the dishwater. "There was a...co-worker from my last job that I didn't expect I'd see again. We've been catching up."

 

He and Touya had been meeting once a week at that old house in Kagurazuka to play go in the evenings. The aged proprietor of that modest ryotei kept a goban ready for them whenever they appeared. Hikaru was also eating better than he had in years.

 

"Is she pretty?"

 

Broken out of his musings, Hikaru only rolled his eyes. Jun's son was a notorious womanizer. "Yeah, he's as pretty as a girl. That hasn't changed."

 

"Oh." The other man looked disproportionately disappointed.

 

Hikaru had to laugh at that, and slapped the other man on the back, leaving a soapy imprint on his shirt. "Jeez, don't worry. You'll find a girlfriend, eventually, without having to bother me for an introduction."

 

Akari always visited Hikaru's ramen workplace whenever she came visiting home from university. On one of those visits, she had had the misfortune of bumping into Jun's son, who had immediately fallen head-over-heels in infatuation with her. The feeling was not mutual. It had gotten to the point where Akari had started to call Hikaru ahead of her visits, just to make sure the other man wouldn't be there when she was.

 

"I wouldn't have to find a new girlfriend," Jun's son needled, "if you would just help me convince Fujisaki-san..."

 

"Nope," Hikaru replied firmly. He stacked a wet dish on the side counter. "Friends don't pimp friends."

 

The young man would have turned to needle him some more, when Jun's voice boomed from the front of the shop. "Shindo! I need more help up front!"

 

Hikaru hurriedly wiped his hands on his apron. "Coming!" he shouted back, and dumped the rest of the dishes into the other man's sink. He whipped off the dirty apron and quickly tied a server's clean one around his waist, as he rushed out of the kitchen and into the dining room. He skidded to a stop at the sight of Touya Akira in an elegant three-piece suit sitting calmly at the counter.

 

"T-Touya," he stammered in astonishment. "What are you doing here?" He hadn't told Touya where he worked.

 

A cuff on the back of the head made him wince. He looked up to see Jun glaring at him. "Is that the way to greet customers?" she said, before marching into the kitchen to grab some bowls of ramen.

 

Hikaru rubbed his head sheepishly. "Heh," he grimaced. Then seeing the frown Touya was giving the doorway through which Jun had disappeared, he grinned. "Oh, don't mind her. Jun's loud but has a soft touch. So." Hikura posed expectantly with his server's pad and pencil. "What can I get ya?"

 

He flinched at the dark-eyed look Touya gave him.

 

"What I want," Touya said in a low voice, "is to know why you're working in a ramen shop."

 

Hikaru gaped at him. Finally he said faintly, "It... It's my job."

 

Touya's face turned even darker. "And why, exactly, are you not playing go professionally?"

 

Hikaru could only stare in slowly growing comprehension.

 

For Hikaru, the news that he had quit professional go was long old and buried beneath the years. He had assumed it was so as well for Touya. They never spoke to each other about their personal lives, or - after that first outburst from Touya - about the past. Occasionally he had wondered why Touya did not ask about his sudden retirement from the professional go world during the weeks they had met to play their games. It was strange, yes. But for the most part, Hikaru had put it out of his mind. The most important thing was the revived life in his go, and Touya had given that back to him. Facing Touya across the goban like that... For the first time in years, Hikaru was truly, utterly happy. He had not given a thought to his past, or what it might mean for his future.

 

Now, Hikaru swallowed uneasily. "Look," he said slowly, "let's talk later. I'm off work in an hour."

 

The next half hour was torture. Jun noticed his distraction, and after the fourth order he'd messed up that day, she finally threw up her hands in disgust and shooed him out of the restaurant thirty minutes early. "And I expect you to come in tomorrow with your brain with you," she'd said, before slamming the kitchen backdoor shut behind him.

 

Standing outside in the narrow alley behind the kitchen, Hikaru sighed, knowing he'd have to apologize to her and make up the time tomorrow. He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked glumly around to the front of the store, where Touya was waiting. That same old gas-guzzling monstrosity of a Mercedes was parked illegally beside the curb, but no policemen had come to bother it. Looking at it, Hikaru could only shake his head. Touya Akira the yakuza, he muttered to himself. Who woulda thought?

 

The door to the passenger side opened and Akira looked at him pointedly from the driver's seat. "Get in."

 

"Man, you just get off of bossing me around, dontcha," Hikaru grumbled, but obediently got into the car anyway. When he looked up from buckling his seat belt, he found Touya looking slightly flushed. "What?" he demanded.

 

But Touya only tightened his lips in a prim line. He kept his eyes on the road.

 

Seeing the roads flash by on the familiar way to that old ryotei in Kagurazuka in which they'd played their go games the past few weeks, Hikaru impulsively spoke up, "Touya, let's go to my place today."

 

Noticeably startled, the other man glanced over at him. "Why?"

 

"You don't have to feed me all the time, you know." Touya just shot him a narrow-eyed glance, not believing him. Hikaru sighed, and looked down at his lap reluctantly. "I'd feel better telling you what happened in my place," he admitted grudgingly.

 

At that, Touya blinked, then nodded. "Alright. Tell me the address."

 

It took a little longer than expected to direct Touya to his cramped old neighborhood in Okobu, since ordinarily Hikaru walked a back alley route - he and Touya began to snipe at each other in the car, over the map - but they managed to pull up in front of his place before sundown. Looking at it from a stranger's view, Hikaru felt slightly ashamed of the squat run-down buildings sitting in the shadows of Tokyo's tallest skyscrapers. Usually, he just had Touya drop him off at the local train station. The heavy rumbling as a train passed through the nearby Shin-Okobu Station set the flimsy neighborhood buildings quaking. Signs outside a few of the buildings advertised 'resting' rates of five thousand yen for a two-hour stay or twelve thousand for a full night.

 

"Will your car be okay here?" he asked anxiously. Touya had parked it close to the curb and the gleaming black Mercedes stood out glaringly from the small, battered Hondas dotting the rest of the street. Some of the local prostitutes were eyeing the car and its owner avariciously.

 

Touya looked thoughtful, then slid his business card onto the dashboard. Touya Akira's name was written in clean, concise strokes beside the title: PRESIDENT OF TOUYA-GUMI OF THE SUMIYOSHI ASSOCIATION. Incised across the top left corner was a stylized sunburst with the character for sumi inside.

 

"There," he said. "That'll take care of it."

 

Hikaru looked at him uncomfortably. "Um," he cleared his throat noisily. "Isn't that a bit...uh, blatant?"

 

"Don't worry. I know who handles this part of the neighborhood."

 

Hikaru could only nod dumbly, and quickly got out of the car. Touya Akira the yakuza, he reminded himself, mentally shaking his head. He led the way up to the front of his ground-floor apartment. Unlocking the door, he kept one hand on the worn handle, saying as he opened it, "It's a bit messy. I haven't had the chance to do laundry these few weeks."

 

The hardwood floor was piled with old jeans and dirty socks. Hikaru kicked some out of the entrance way and ushered Touya into the one all-purpose room with the tatami mat. He ducked his head sheepishly as the other man looked around his tiny apartment. "Yeah, it's not much," he admitted, "but it's mine."

 

"You're not...living with your parents?"

 

Hikaru busied himself with gathering up the dirty clothes before the television. "Nah, my dad threw me out. And my mom moved back to her parents in Nagasaki."

 

"I'm...sorry."

 

He shrugged. "Don't be. Actually, the reason I'm living on my own is because they couldn't accept my life choices. Quitting my job as a go pro and all, and then not going on to university...Well." He dumped the clothes bundle into the laundry basket with perhaps more force than was needed. "But it was for the best." He leaned down to grab more socks off the floor. "There was just no way I could play go like that or waste my life preparing to be a salaryman."

 

"Why?"

 

"What?" He shook his head warily and turned to look at Touya. "What do you mean why?"

 

Somehow, Touya had found the only empty spot in the room and was now sitting cross-legged on the tatami, not caring about wrinkling his expensive suit. His eyes held the same dark burning look that had arrested Hikaru in the restaurant. "You promised you would tell me why you quit go."

 

"Look!" Hikaru exploded, throwing down the clothes he'd been gathering. "I didn't quit go!

 

"Go left me!"

 

Touya stared at him. Hikaru knew he looked crazy, god, he felt crazy. He panted, feeling the steamroller of emotion crushing him at the thought of that one disastrous year. Touya had, with his usual ease at pricking Hikaru's composure, found his trigger words. Hikaru squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep calming breath.

 

"Look," he finally said, quieter, after a short moment. "You don't know what happened." Slowly, he walked over to where Touya was sitting and folded his legs wearily beneath him. He looked at a spot a foot above and to the right of the other man's head.

 

"It - it drove me nuts, you know, when you disappeared. The day you were supposed to play me, and you didn't come... I didn't know why. No one did. You were just. Gone.

 

"And then other things happened."

 

Sai, he thought wretchedly, and looked down at his clenched fists in his lap. He didn't say anything for a while, and Touya didn't interrupt.

 

"Anyway," he finally continued, voice rough, "I didn't know why I was playing anymore, and apparently it showed in my go. I tried, but." He paused. "When Isumi - another former insei - came and challenged me to a game, I finally realized how useless it was. Even though I wanted to play, it wasn't the same."

 

Touya's quiet voice startled him.

 

"Then why me?"

 

He looked up to see Touya staring intently at him.

 

"Why me, Shindo? You fought so hard to play that game with me when I met you again. Why, if go is no longer what you're after in your life?"

 

Hikaru could only stare helplessly back at him. "I just wanted to play you."

 

He could see a scowl now darkening Touya's face. There was a flurry of movement as Touya scrambled upright and stalked to the front door.

 

Hikaru scrambled up after him. "Touya! Wait!" He grabbed for his arm, but Touya threw him off. Hikaru thumped back against the foyer wall, painfully. "What the hell's wrong with you?" he shouted, raising his arms defensively.

 

The other man's eyes were wild with some emotion Hikaru couldn't understand. "You nearly broke both our lives," he snarled, "for a...a whim!"

 

"What?"

 

"It hurt, you fucking bastard!"

 

Hikaru gaped.

 

"It might be a game to you, Shindo, something to pass the time, amusing yourself with me -" Hikaru began to shake his head frantically, but Touya ignored him. "But I'd almost put my old life entirely behind me. Then you came along. And you showed me how badly I've let my go fall. That first game-"

 

The look Touya speared Hikaru with made him recoil against the wall.

 

"That first game. It was like you were reaching into my belly and ripping out my insides for me to see. It hurt. I would have rather been shot in the gut!"

 

Hikaru cringed. "Touya..." he mumbled. "I-"

 

Touya cut him off sharply. "But it made me feel alive. Alive for the first time in years.

 

"Now what I have is not enough. And that's showing itself in what I do now, for a living. I've been lucky so far that my lieutenants have cleaned up my mistakes. But each time was telling the other factions in the association that I'm weakening, that I'm a fool. And that I might not have the stomach anymore for what I do.

 

"So if you'd given up...If you had no intention of playing seriously, then we would have been both better off if you'd looked for those old insei friends of yours - and left me alone!" He finished, panting angrily.

 

Hikaru looked at him. "But Touya," he said helplessly, "you're the one I want."

 

The other man's eyes widened.

 

Hikaru realized suddenly what he'd said and blushed bright red. "Th-that's not what I meant," he stammered, flapping a hand at Touya. "I meant..." He drew in a deep breath, stopping himself from hyperventilating. He exhaled. "I mean," he continued steadier, "I've been chasing you for so long, Touya. Sheesh!" he exhaled, running a hand through his bangs, "During puberty, other boys were chasing girls but all I could think of was how close my go could get to yours. Um." He winced as Touya's eyes grew even wider. "Ah, uh, I'm making this worse. But it's just...well," he sighed, gave up, "go was important, you know." Then he smiled crookedly, and shrugged, "Akari was always telling me how weird that was. But I didn't mind. When you left -" Hikaru felt his voice break slightly, and he looked down at his feet and swallowed. "You," and Sai, he thought to himself - "were the one who convinced me to be serious about go. Without you," either of you, "it felt...dead."

 

There was a strained silence above him. Then he heard Touya say in a strange, tight voice, "Well, your go is fine now. But you've never said anything about returning to the pros - which you would, if this was not just a game to you."

 

Hikaru looked up. "I honestly didn't think about it, Touya," he told him quietly. "I was just happy to play you."

 

That dark, intense look was back in the other man's eyes. "Then think about it," Touya insisted vehemently. Hikaru flashed back to a rainy day in the past, when a much younger Touya had stared at him just like that and asked him about his future.

 

"What about you?" Hikaru asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

 

"What about me?" A small, bitter smile turned Touya's mouth. "I have other obligations now. The schedule of a go pro would never work." There was a pained look on his face. "But I'll be content if you would come around to give me the occasional game."

 

Hikaru began to shake his head fervently, feeling the wrongness of that suggestion reverberate to the very marrow of his bones. "No, no, no." He shuddered, thinking of how futilely he'd chased after...something, those few weeks after Touya had disappeared from the go world. "I can't - not without you!"

 

Touya looked impatient at his refusal. "Your go is brilliant, Shindo," he snapped. "I don't understand what you meant by it being dead all those years, but I do know that you deserve more than the casual game against me." His mouth twisted. "...Sometimes I feel as if I barely remember how to hold the stones."

 

"That's a lie," Hikaru almost shouted. "So what if you feel out of practice? So am I! If you think I can do it -"

 

Touya face had gone very cold and still. "Maybe you haven't been paying attention, Shindo," he said very slowly and quietly, "but there are slightly more strings tying me down than you do. Dangerous ones, which if I let go, could discharge a few bullets into my back and anyone I care for." He stopped, then added softer, "You're the only one who can go back."

 

Desperate, Hikaru tried one last appeal. "Touya, I'd quit. They're not going to let me in that easily. It won't work."

 

But Touya wouldn't hear of it. "I'll make it work," he said. Then with a wave, he opened the door. "You have my personal number. Call me when you've decided." He paused, gave Hikaru a cool look. "Don't bother before then."

 

The door clicked shut behind him.

 

Hikaru slid down along the wall until his forehead touched his knees. He felt utterly and inexplicably drained.

 

"Sheesh," he muttered into his knees, "He's still the same." Facing down Touya was like beating his head against a rock - it hurt the head, and only made the rock seem harder. Hikaru had almost forgotten. "Stupid, pigheaded..."

 

A few tentative knocks sounded against the door. Hikaru scrambled to his feet and threw open the door. But the face that greeted him was not the one he wanted to see.

 

"Oh," he muttered, deflated. "It's you."

 

The scantily clad 'woman' narrowed 'her' eyes. "What do you mean, 'it's you'? Think you're all high and mighty now, just because you had some big honcho over?"

 

Hikaru rubbed a hand over his eyes tiredly. "Yuki, what are you going on about now?"

 

Yuki was waiting for the money to get the operation that would give 'her' the gender she should have been born with. Since he'd known, Hikaru had made an effort to think of her by the right feminine pronoun. Even when she deliberately provoked him.

 

She leaned against the doorjamb, flashing her white thigh. "Aren't you gonna let me in?"

 

Hikaru rolled his eyes at the familiar attempt and resolutely blocked the doorway. "No. I've had a long day, so if you'd just tell me what you want."

 

Her eyes shifted from his. Then she looked coyly up at him from her lashes. "Look, Shindo," she smiled coaxingly, stroking her faux-schoolgirl pigtails. "I need some money."

 

"NO." He moved to shut the door.

 

She quickly stuck her foot in the doorway. "Come on. I just need a few thousand - for the rent."

 

Hikaru glanced at her short sailor-uniform. The tracks were painfully visible on her arms. "Yuki, it's always the rent."

 

He'd given some money to her the first few times she'd asked - the very first time being the day he'd moved into the building - but he'd quickly learned not to. These days, he tried to 'lend' whatever extra money he had to her roommate, who actually took care of the rent and was working hard to get Yuki off the streets.

 

Yuki looked at him accusingly. "Well, this time it's true. Come on, Shindo, have a heart. My roommate's sick, so he can't work. What's a girl to do? Look - " She put her hands on her hips, "I'll do you. The whole night even. Just give me six thousand yen, cash."

 

"I told you, Yuki: No means no. Also," Hikaru sighed, "I don't get my paycheck until another few weeks. So sorry, but no money." He moved to close the door again, trying to nudge her foot from the doorway.

 

She refused to budge. "What about the money he gave you?"

 

"Who?"

 

"That boss from the Sumiyoshi. Lean, page-boy cut, dressed like a big spender." She glowered at him. "I saw him leave just now."

 

Hikaru was honestly bewildered. "Why would he give me money?" he demanded of her.

 

"Why would he be visiting you," she shot back.

 

He closed his eyes against the raging headache he could feel coming. "Yuki," he said with great patience, "I don't know what you think he was doing here -" He quickly held up a hand. "- and I don't want to know. But he did not leave any money. At all. So you can just look for some other sucker to scam." He pushed her foot forcefully out of the doorway. "Good night!" The door slammed shut with a gratifying bang.

 

The pounding continued for a couple minutes afterwards as Hikaru got ready for sleep. Muffled through the thick wood of the door, he could hear her swearing - something about him not being man enough, and a few creative suggestions for what he could do with himself (Hikaru was impressed, and promptly stored some of those for future use) - but eventually the racket stopped.

 

Hikaru breathed a sigh of relief from beneath his pillow. Then he moved the pillow from his face and stared at the cracked ceiling above him. Lying there, flat on his back, on the tatami of his one-room apartment, he tried to think back to the days when he'd been a go pro. He'd felt like another person. That boy who had just passed the pro exams...He had never had to wash his own socks, never cooked, never had to worry about the water cutting off if he couldn't pay. Did he ever imagine he would be here in six years, living next door to a crack addict, where just across the street there was a 'love' motel charging by the hour? Hikaru sighed.

 

Sai, he knew, would have been appalled.

 

...Sai.

 

After all this time, he still couldn't understand. Sai was supposed to have been with him for years. But instead, he was barely with him for two.

 

Touya would have liked to play Sai again. Hikaru knew Sai was in his go, but he wasn't sure if that was enough. Maybe, if it had been Sai playing...

 

If it had been Sai playing, maybe Touya would have tried harder to go back with him to the Go Institute and be a professional go player again.

 

Hikaru clutched the pillow to his chest. Sai, he asked silently, why did you have to leave?

 

But the cracked ceiling held no answers.

 

 

* * *

 

Part 3

 

* * *

 

Akari was looking forward to seeing Hikaru again.

 

On the phone the last time they'd talked, he had sounded so much happier. "Akari!" he'd told her, "I'm playing go again." She had been shocked at first, and only stammered back some inane comment on how 'nice' that was. Then she'd had to hang up because Hikaru said he had to leave - something about meeting someone for a match. She told him she would see him as soon as she got home from college and calmly said goodbye. Inside, her head was whirring: she remembered clearly how upset Hikaru had been that last year in middle school, the terribly final way in which he'd stated that he had quit go. She remembered also a few years later, how often he had escaped next door to her house after he'd announced to his parents the decision to not apply to college. "That life, it would be a lie," he'd insisted. And Akari, knowing the particularly uncompromising bent of Hikaru's character, could only agree.

 

Her parents began to encourage her not to associate with him anymore. They tried to be subtle about it, but Akari knew the blunt truth of what they meant:

 

There was no future for a man without a college degree. For those who dropped out of Japan's competitive education system, there were only the menial jobs - often fulfilled by low wage-earning foreigners - or, far more likely, the ranks of organized crime.

 

Her parents did not want their daughter attached to such a man.

 

Akari knew all this, but still she refused to break off contact with Hikaru. The years had smoothed off most of his rough edges, and what was left she found endearing. Sometimes she found herself missing the old, brash Shindo Hikaru; the sight of his unbleached black bangs - in mourning, she'd often thought - cast a quietness over her interactions with him. But the man he had become was someone she increasingly admired. She had grown up with Hikaru, played and fought with him, and she felt that - more than anyone else - she knew what an honest and gentle heart he had.

 

Two years of close contact with college boys had only shown her how much brighter and more decent Shindo Hikaru was. For one thing, Hikaru had always treated her as an independent thinking human being, and despite his brashness, never looked down on her or expected anything less of her simply because she was female. In fact, he had been one of her staunchest supporters when she'd decided to apply to Tokyo University to be a doctor.

 

Now, smoothing back her hair one last time, she turned away from the mirror and gathered the shopping bag containing the newly knit scarf and a box of Hikaru's favorite pastries. Running down the stairs, and past the kitchen on her way to the front door, she called out, "Mom! I'm going out for a bit. I might be late for dinner!"

 

Her mom immediately hurried after her, wringing her hands in her apron. "You just got back for vacation, sweetheart. Do you have to go out now?"

 

Slipping on her shoes, Akari leaned over and quickly kissed her mom on the cheek. "Don't worry. I'll be back before dark."

 

As she opened the door, she heard a heavy, resigned sigh behind her. Then, "Tell Hikaru hello for me."

 

Akari looked back over her shoulder in surprise. Then she smiled. "I will." Before she closed the door, she paused and added, "Thanks, Mom." The door closed, shutting on her mother's unhappy and anxious face.

 

Akari passed the time on the train thinking contentedly of the way her life was going. Her parents were not going to be a problem. And money was not an issue. At the very least, Hikaru would not be demanding she quit her career in order to raise a family. If anything, Hikaru would be the one staying at home with the kids. Akari pondered this thought, and found she liked it, very much so.

 

Warned by these imaginings, Akari greeted Hikaru's wide welcoming grin with a great, unrestrained smile.

 

"Akari!" he shouted from across the restaurant.

 

The shop was unusually empty, now being the time between lunch and dinner. The few customers seated at the counter only chuckled at Hikaru's exuberance, and went back to slurping their noodles. A wink sent her way by a friendly old grandfather made Akari blush slightly in happy embarrassment.

 

"Jun!" Hikaru called into the kitchen, eagerly untying his apron, "I'm taking a break!"

 

"Is that Akari-chan?" The older woman stuck her head out of the kitchen. She smiled, seeing Akari bow in greeting. "All right, Shindo," she waved at Hikaru. "You have the next half-hour off. Don't be late!"

 

Hikaru waved a cheerful thanks, and quickly led Akari through a door to the back of the store where an impromptu arrangement of a sofa, table and television constituted the employees' resting lounge. Akari threw off her heavy winter coat and gloves with relief. The shopping bag she placed carefully next to her on the ground.

 

"So, Hikaru," she smiled, sitting down on the sofa, "tell me what happened. How did you suddenly decide to take up go again?"

 

A few informative minutes later, a cold, empty pit was forming deep in her belly.

 

Touya, Touya, Touya.

 

It was like middle school all over again.

 

Back then, he'd been like that too. Every other word out of his mouth would be 'go' or 'Touya,' so that she hadn't known how to talk to him anymore. The only time she could get him to spend with her had been the few free afternoons he had used to play shidougo with her in order to 'relax' himself before a big game. In the beginning, she had briefly wished Hikaru would give up go - just for a while, and go play soccer again or something else that was more his age. But seeing his dedication to the game, she knew she couldn't really wish it of him. His enthusiasm had dragged her in instead. And Touya, she remembered from that memorable tournament battle between the third-boards, had been just as dedicated as Hikaru - if not more.

 

She had thought it weird, the unbelievable passion the boys put into a board game and each other. At the time she'd dismissed it as unworthy of her. Then Hikaru had quit go, and didn't speak to her about it for years. She had almost entirely forgotten.

 

But now the past was back. The feeling from back then...

 

Akari interrupted the beginning of another of Hikaru's tirade on how utterly frustrating Touya Akira was, and how he was being absolutely impossible, because there was just no way, no way at all, Hikaru was going back as a go pro without him. The worst part of it was - the absolute pits, Hikaru emphasized - was how Touya refused to meet with him until he agreed.

 

"Hikaru," she said slowly. "How do you think of me?"

 

The man looked startled at her out-of-the-blue question. He snapped his mouth shut mid-word. "What?" He shook his head, "Akari, what do you mean?"

 

"When you think of the future, Hikaru," she stressed, "what do you see for you and me?"

 

He smiled easily, and replied, "You're my friend, Akari."

 

Disappointment was heavy and bitter. "And nothing else?"

 

Hikaru looked clearly confused. "What else is there?" he asked.

 

"I'm a girl."

 

Hikaru stared at her as if she'd lost her mind, speaking something so obvious. "Yeah?"

 

"I'm a girl," she stressed, "and you're a guy. And most guys would have noticed if a pretty girl was visiting their workplace, giving them food, and calling them whenever she had the chance."

 

Hikaru's eyes had grown very wide. "...oh," he said, in a very small voice.

 

Akari's shoulder had drawn up defensively. "Well?" she demanded. She had just as well confessed her feelings. "Is that all you can say?"

 

"But Akari," Hikaru pleaded weakly, "I've known you forever."

 

For a moment, she stared uncomprehendingly at him. Then she clenched her hands, and looked down at the bag beside her feet containing the pastries that she'd looked all over for Shibuya for because it was Hikaru's favorite.

 

"I've known you forever, too," she said quietly. "But it's only let me like you more."

 

There was a long, and awkward pause. Then she heard Hikaru say her name softly. His knees shifted over to hers on the sofa. "Akari," he repeated, louder, when she didn't respond. She looked up when he touched her gingerly on the hand. "I like you too," he said seriously; her heart skipped a beat - "...But I don't think it's like that."

 

She grabbed onto his hand. "Can't you -" she swallowed hard, "can't you try?"

 

Looking much older than his years, Hikaru only regarded her gently. He did not move to pull his hand away. "It doesn't work that way, Akari," he said quietly.

 

She dropped his hand.

 

"How do you think it works?" she asked harshly. She truly wanted to know Hikaru's mind on this.

 

Sheepishly, Hikaru put a hand to the back of his head. "I'm not sure." He hesitated. "I don't believe in fireworks and stuff like that, but something, maybe? A spark? Something that makes a person stand out from everyone else." He shrugged. "Honestly, it's not something I think about. Working here takes up enough of my time as it is. That and now, go." He laughed a little, forcefully, "Hey, it's a good thing you're not going to be wasting your time on me anymore. You deserve some guy whose life isn't one big mess."

 

Silently, Akari stood up and gathered her coat and gloves from the sofa.

 

"Here." She shoved the shopping bag with his Christmas presents, including the pastry box, into his arms; she did not make contact with his eyes. "This is for you. Make sure you eat enough - you forget sometimes." She quickly pulled on her coat and buttoned herself up. On her way past Hikaru, she told him, "Call me anytime. Like you said, we're friends. Just," she hesitated, then continued unsteadily, still not meeting his eyes, "just maybe not in the next few weeks."

 

There was a strained silence, then: "Thanks, Akari." Hikaru's voice was low and grateful.

 

At the doorway, she paused.

 

"I'm glad you found him," she said suddenly. "Despite everything," she glanced over her shoulder at Hikaru, "...you seem like yourself again."

 

Akari smiled sadly at the bemused look on Hikaru's face, but left before he could demand what she meant. He'll figure it out soon enough.

 

 

* * *

 

Part 4

 

* * *

 

He flipped the cell phone over and over again in his hand.

 

It had been one of the first things Touya gave him. At the time, he had protested loudly against any form of charity. But Touya had just given him this look that said he couldn't believe how stupid Hikaru was being. "And how, exactly," he'd snipped, "will I contact you without a phone?" An expensive cell phone service had been one of the first things Hikaru had decided he could do without when he'd moved out on his own. And the landline at his apartment was more often than not the last bill paid when his finances cut too close. And Hikaru's finances always cut too close.

 

Akari had taken to calling him at the ramen shop.

 

When Hikaru mentioned this and suggested Touya do the same thing, the other man had given him another look - this time, one Hikaru couldn't quite read - and Touya had replied curtly, "Security."

 

So here he was in bed, flipping over and over in his hand the cell phone that Touya had given him nearly a month ago, when he hadn't seen Touya himself in nearly two weeks. He didn't realize how insular he'd become until he found his evenings suddenly and inexplicably empty after Touya made his worrisome little ultimatum.

 

He couldn't meet up with Akari either, since she'd gone back to her college. And anyway, he'd promised he wouldn't bother her for a while.

 

Her confession was still a bit of a shock.

 

Hikaru sighed, and flopped back onto his futon, tossing the cell phone onto the floor beside him. The ceiling crack above him was a familiar and reassuring sight. He needed a bit of reassurance after the tumultuous events the last few days. It was as if suddenly he'd looked around and realized none of his friends were what they seemed. Take Akari for instance. He had thought they were just really good friends. Granted, sometimes, he thought of her as a nice, somewhat domineering younger sister who gave him food. But never did she hint that she harbored more than platonic feelings for him.

 

"Sheesh, Akari," he grumbled, "why'd you have to go and be such a girl." But then he immediately felt guilty.

 

Hikaru knew he was, for some reason, uncommonly oblivious to things like that. Usually, it took something quite brazen - something Yuki or a woman like her would do - to make him realize that someone was interested in him in that way. And he certainly didn't expect Akari to throw herself on him the way Yuki had the first time he met her.

 

But he had been as honest as he could when he told Akari he had never thought of her like that. In fact, Hikaru didn't think he'd thought of any girl like that, ever. There were always too many other things going on in his life. The added burden of a girlfriend he didn't need. In fact, he thought bitchedly to himself, Touya Akira was equal to the burden of at least three different girlfriends.

 

He glared at the cell phone lying beside him, but it still resolutely refused to ring.

 

The past two weeks, Hikaru had left an untold number of messages on Touya's phone. Touya had, after the first few calls, simply taken to not answering. Hikaru was still refusing to consider going back as a go pro if Touya wasn't going to go back with him. Leaving him behind was out of the question.

 

But now, alone in his one-room apartment, without have faced Touya across the goban in weeks, Hikaru wondered if he was going at it the wrong way. He glanced at the windup clock and groaned at the realization it was only nine, and it was the night of New Year's Eve. He never went to bed that early before Touya messed with his life.

 

Hikaru wondered what Touya was doing.

 

Impulsively, he thumbed open the cell phone and pressed speed-dial one. To his happy surprise, the phone only rang once, then was picked up. He could hear music tinkling in the background.

 

"Touya? It's Shindo."

 

The voice from the speaker was overly cool. "Yes?"

 

"Look," he said quickly before the other man could hang up, "can we talk?"

 

The long, considering silence before Touya said anything made him nervous. Then Touya answered, "The car will be in front of your building in fifteen minutes." He cut the call before Hikaru could agree or disagree, leaving Hikaru staring down in disbelief at the cell phone in his hands.

 

"Geez, his manners sure got worse over the years," Hikaru muttered.

 

The car actually arrived five minutes early. Hikaru had barely finished pulling on a jacket when a heavy pounding sounded through the front door, rattling the foyer walls. Irritated, Hikaru wrenched open the door. "What the hell, Touya -" He cut himself off. Standing at the entrance was a hulking figure of man he had never seen before.

 

"The boss sent me," the man said gruffly.

 

Hikaru swallowed. "Oh, you mean..."

 

The man grunted curtly and raised his left hand. The pinky was missing a segment.

 

Hikaru tried hard not to stare at this traditional yakuza self-mutilation. "Right."

 

The car waiting outside on the curb was the same one Touya had driven. It made Hikaru feel a little more comfortable seeing it. However, the driver Touya had sent pointedly opened the backdoor instead of the customary passenger side that Hikaru had grown accustomed to; Hikaru obediently got in.

 

As the unfamiliar roads flashed past in the window, however, Hikaru became increasingly uneasy. "Um, excuse me," he raised his voice, "aren't we going to the Kagurazuka district?"

 

The man driving the car only grunted a negative.

 

Hikaru tried again. "Where are we going?"

 

The grunt this time sounded aggravated. "To the boss's," was all he got.

 

Hikaru settled back on the seat, resolved not to irritate the man any further. He looked like he ate people like Hikaru for breakfast; and while Touya might object after the matter, Hikaru didn't think it would help him. Then he began to wonder if this was indeed the car Touya had said he would send for him: It had been five minutes early, and he hadn't had a good look at the car in the night gloom. So far the familiar, crowded, festive-lit streets of downtown Tokyo were flashing past his window, but what if they drove straight on to some empty, cement back lot... Hikaru gripped Touya's cell phone in his hands.

 

Just as his wonderings became increasingly paranoid, the car pulled up in front of the glittering façade of the Tokyo Ritz-Carlton.

 

The hotel doorman looked surprised to see Hikaru step out of the Mercedes, but then quickly smoothed his face into a bland expression of welcome. Hikaru stopped uncertainly before him. He would have tried to ask Touya's hulk of a driver, but the car had pealed off in the direction of the parking lot. There had been a brief scuffle - resolved nonviolently, thank god - when the valet had tried to take the car keys from the man. Now Hikaru stood alone before the entrance of the grand hotel.

 

"Hey, mister," Hikaru greeted the doorman, "Can you tell me where to find Touya? Touya Akira." He raised his hand to the level of his head. "About this tall, strange hair-cut, likes to wear suits with odd colored ties."

 

The doorman had looked blandly at him throughout this short recitation. When Hikaru finished, he said nothing and waved a hand inside, toward the hotel entrance. Hikaru stared at the revolving door, then back at the doorman. "The front desk." He had the strangest feeling he was being snubbed. The doorman bowed politely. "Right. Thanks, man."

 

When he pushed past the revolving door and walked down the large, glittering hotel lobby, an elegantly dressed woman stepped out from a nearby lounge. "Shindo Hikaru?" she asked, the tone of her voice clearly stated that the question was mere courtesy.

 

Hikaru stopped and looked at her curiously. "Yeah, that's me," he replied. "Where's Touya?"

 

She smiled, her carefully glossed lips parting to reveal small, white teeth. "The gentlemen are waiting in the private room. Please follow me."

 

The private "room" turned out to be a small ballroom, easily twenty times the size of Hikaru's small one-room apartment. Hikaru couldn't help but stare at the enormous crystal chandelier dripping with strands of faceted teardrops from the middle of the vaulted ceiling. He almost missed how the black-suited guards blocked the double doors behind him. Blinking back the dazzling brilliance of the lights, Hikaru slowly realized that the ballroom was filled with tall, gorgeous women in suspiciously skimpy gowns. There were a few comfortable-looking, middle-aged men circulating like great, dark predators through the shoal of brightly colored women. He didn't see Touya anywhere.

 

The same woman who had led him inside interrupted his uncomfortable regard of the barred exit. "Excuse me, Shindo-san, this way please."

 

She led him further in, this time into a side room that was actually small enough to be called such. He spotted the back of Touya immediately. Hikaru would have called out to him, unbelievably relieved to find a familiar face, but then abruptly caught the brittle tension of the other man's spine. The exuberant greeting died in his mouth. When Touya turned to face him, Hikaru knew he had been right to wait.

 

"Hello, Shindo," Touya greeted him politely, sounding to all the world as if they were the barest of acquaintances. "I'm glad you could join us tonight."

Hikaru smiled weakly. "Hey to you too."

 

The large, balding man that Touya had been talking snapped shut the fan he was holding and also turned to Hikaru. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Hikaru's dirty, well-worn jeans and sneakers. Hikaru fidgeted under the man's small, beady gaze, only then realizing he might be slightly underdressed for the surroundings.

 

The man fingered the folded length of his fan thoughtfully. He was, Hikaru suddenly saw, missing the top two segments of his pinky. "You going to skin this one, or toss him back, eh, Akira-kun?"

 

'Akira-kun' smiled coolly. "Always a joker, Ohba-san. No, this is my choice for the game tonight."

 

Hikaru began to feel his palms clam up with sweat. He didn't like the sound of whatever Touya was volunteering him for, but he suspected speaking up now would be the most idiotic thing to do. Not the least, he was sure Touya would never speak to him again if he did.

 

Ohba grinned widely, as if he could read Hikaru's anxiety. "Very well. I accept your choice." He waved his fan toward the center table, which Hikaru just realized held a go board. "Shall we?"

 

Touya bowed in assent. The large man and a few black-suited men proceeded to the seats surrounding the go board. Hikaru hung back with Touya.

 

"H-hey," Hikaru tugged at Touya's sleeve, "what am I doing?"

 

Touya turned at Hikaru's strained whisper. He gazed at him calmly. "Just win, Shindo." And then he turned sharply and joined the spectators around the table.

 

Left behind, Hikaru sputtered in silent outrage. At that moment, there was a slight commotion at the door. The large man, Ohba, jovially called out from his seat, "Ah, Gokiso-sensei. You're finally here."

 

A tiny man shuffled in and bowed servilely from just inside the doorway. "Oh-Ohba-san," he stammered.

 

It took Hikaru a long minute to recognize the man. When it hit him, he stared incredulously at this tiny figure of a man. He had only gotten grayer and more shriveled up with the years. The last time Hikaru had seen him, Sai had utterly dominated and humiliated him at an amateur go festival.

 

"You!" Hikaru shouted, pointing at the go pro who had tried to fake a Shuusaku goban.

 

The tiny man looked startled. "Do we...know each other?" he asked hesitantly.

 

The sudden cessation of noise in the room made Hikaru suddenly remember where he was - and who he was among. The stares from all the hard-eyed men in the room made the hairs on the nape of his neck stiffen. Hikaru shook his head mutely.

 

"If the previously discussed terms are satisfactory," Touya interjected smoothly, addressing only Ohba who was seated beside him, "we should begin the match."

 

Ohba gave a short, satisfied nod. The look he gave Touya over the edge of his languidly waving fan was cold and missed nothing. "Of course," he said, "the loser takes all."

 

"Of course," Touya murmured.

 

The tiny pro, Gokiso, had shuffled over to the head of the go board. After hesitating for a moment, Hikaru followed and sat down opposite him at the table. He tried to look to Touya for what he should do next, but the other man only had that infuriatingly polite smile on his face. Ohba with the small, cold eyes smiled languidly at him from behind his fan.

 

Seeing Hikaru keep glancing to him, Touya only said, "Do your best, please. I trust your go."

 

Ohba chuckled nastily on overhearing that comment. "And I, Akira-kun," he grinned, "trust Gokiso-sensei's 7-dan."

 

Touya returned the smile politely but Hikaru could see how the corners of his eyes tightened. He wondered if Touya was worried about him not beating the old man. Sheesh, Hikaru thought to himself, feeling a bit offended. Sai had wiped the goban with this guy with one hand tied behind his back in that come-from-behind game years ago; the least Hikaru could do was beat him bloody in an even match. He paused. This was an even match, right?

 

As Hikaru bowed to the ceremonial greeting before the game start, he decided it didn't matter. Handicap or not, he was going to dominate the board and give the old pro no choice but to resign. He found he liked the sound of that plan very much. Yoshi! Hikaru cheered on himself silently.

 

It turned out that the game wasn't half as exciting as the most causal game he'd played with Touya. In the space of half an hour, he'd staked out the most important points on the board, strengthened his territory, and encompassed Gokiso's all in one swoop. Hikaru kept waiting to hear the old pro acknowledge his defeat - Hikaru could see clearly that his advantage wasn't going to change however the other man played. But for some strange reason, Gokiso was playing long past the polite point of resignation. Gokiso's white stones kept clicking persistently on the go board. Hikaru frowned, and looked up to see Touya had noticed this as well. Touya had a bland, non-expression on his face as he turned to Ohba, who was seated beside him.

 

Ohba looked murderous.

 

Meanwhile, Gokiso persistently placed one losing stone after another, hands shaking. He was, Hikaru suddenly realized, afraid to stop.

 

"Will you concede the match, Ohba?" Touya murmured.

 

The large man exploded from his seat. "Enough!" he shouted, his fan sweeping across the go board, scattering stones all over the floor.

 

The sudden explosion of noise caused several men around Touya to tense and reach inside their suit jacket. The men around Ohba tensed as well. For a moment, there was a strained standoff. Hikaru tried hard not to breathe.

 

Touya remained seated quietly, a still center of calm in the room. "Do we have an agreement then?" he said evenly.

 

Ohba glared into Touya's straight, clear eyes. "Yeah," he ground out after a long, strained silence, "we do."

 

Then he and his men swept out of the room in a dark, angry flurry.

 

As the last of Ohba's men stalked out the door, Touya glanced at the old washed-up go pro that had been left behind. Gokiso 7-dan was still cowering on the floor beside his chair, not moving from where he'd fallen when Ohba swept free the go board.

 

"Make yourself scarce in Tokyo for a few months," Touya advised him not unkindly. "Ohba doesn't like to lose."

 

The old man nodded his head feebly. "Y-yes," he stuttered.

 

But Touya didn't acknowledge him, like he'd already dismissed the old pro from his mind. He nodded a dismissal at the men remaining the room, and the rest of the black-suited men slipped out. Then Touya stood up from the plush seat and brushed off the creases on his pants. He smoothly straightened his necktie. From something like a daze, Hikaru noticed that he was wearing that funny, bee-striped tie. That brief piece of familiarity snapped Hikaru back to the ordinary, moving world.

 

"...Touya," Hikaru said slowly, "what -"

 

A sharp hand motion cut him off. "Not here," he said, and strode out the room. Hikaru had to hurry to catch up.

 

Outside was the same glittering, colorful, phony world that Hikaru remembered. The women were smiling just a little wider, laughing just a bit too loud. Most had latched onto the arms of one of those comfortable-looking man. Hikaru glanced down at his wristwatch; it was only an hour to midnight. A waiter passed with a tray of champagne flutes, and Hikaru shooed him away quickly, but not before Touya managed to snag a glass for himself. Ohba was nowhere in sight.

 

"He probably left by the side door...Loss of face, you see," Touya murmured, correctly interpreting Hikaru's looking around the room.

 

Hikaru frowned at the nonchalantly champagne-sipping man standing beside him. "About him," he began, "what exactly -"

 

But Touya shushed him again, this time with a hand on his mouth. Hikaru blinked at the warm, dry brush of skin against his lips. This close, he couldn't help but notice the thick, dark fall of eyelashes lying against Touya's cheek. He felt slightly flushed beneath Touya's half-lidded gaze.

 

"Not here," Touya repeated, uncomfortably close in his ear. He felt the weight of Touya's hand press down upon his arm. Then Touya turned and began striding to the exit, and Hikaru had to hurriedly follow.

 

As they detoured around the center of the ballroom where a few couples were swaying idly to music, some women made to approach him and Touya. But as soon as they drew close, their eyes fastened to the lapels of Touya's jacket, and, without making eye contact, quickly backed away. Hikaru looked too, but saw nothing but a small, innocuous, golden pin in the shape of an S. Hikaru shrugged to himself warily. It was just another strange thing in a long night of oddities.

 

More important-looking men were streaming through the door as he and Touya exited the ballroom. He caught each of them slipping long, elaborately wrapped envelopes onto a large, ornate table just past the double doors, which he'd somehow missed seeing when the woman had first ushered him in.

 

"Don't stare," Touya said quietly as they neared the table, "it's impolite."

 

Hikaru tried hard not to, especially when he thought he saw an eminently famous face pass by. "Is that the," he croaked, but couldn't get the rest of the words, 'prime minister,' out.

 

Touya didn't even look. "Most likely," he replied. "Try not to judge, Shindo, we all have our secrets."

 

By now Hikaru had realized that the party was just a polite pretense to extort money from the political and industrial giants of the nation. The tall, gorgeous and scantily clad women crowding the ballroom were probably supposed to encourage the blackmailed men into parting with even more money. From what little Hikaru had seen, the men being blackmailed seemed perfectly ready to do so.

 

As soon as he followed Touya back to the hotel lobby, Hikaru felt himself breathe a sigh of relief. Ostentatious as the lobby of the Tokyo Ritz was, it was still a degree more palatable than the drunken lechery sponsored by the yakuza.

 

"Where are you taking us, Touya?"

 

"A private suite. We can talk there." Saying so, he approached a small, elegant side-elevator and slid a gold card into the slot. The burnished brass doors of the elevator swooshed open with the tinkle of a bell. Touya stepped inside and looked at him impatiently when Hikaru didn't immediately follow. The doors of the elevators closed smoothly behind Hikaru, nearly catching him by the shirttails.

 

"Can we talk now?" Hikaru asked a little snippily, as the elevator moved up. Touya was showing an unfortunate flair for dramatics that night.

 

"Just wait."

 

The elevator ride did not last long, which was fortunate for Hikaru's state of mind, and soon the doors slid open to an impressive view of the glittering Tokyo skyline at night. In the distance, Tokyo Tower was lit with a warm, orange glow. At any other time, Hikaru would have gaped at this display, but at that point he had had enough of the show of affluence Touya had been presenting to him through the entire, wretched evening. He stormed out of the elevator before the other man, and then whirled on him just as the elevator slid shut behind him.

 

"Touya!" he jabbed a finger at him, "You owe me an explanation! What the hell was that back there?" He threw up his arms in angry bewilderment, miming the explosion of go stones when Ohba had acknowledged his loss.

 

Touya faced him evenly. "If you lost, I would have had to ferry five tons of cocaine into Nagasaki."

 

Hikaru could only stare, stupefied.

 

The other man continued on, apparently taking the silence as a demand for further elaboration. "Ohba wanted to use my shipping and import control contacts to expand his drug business," he explained. "He's been mostly doing petty dealings of shabu - that's methamphetamine - on the Tokyo streets. But shabu is sold pure. Not much profit to be earned." Hikaru only stared; he felt the top of his head want to explode. The other man didn't seem to notice. "Now, coke - that can be cut." Touya's voice was remarkably matter-of-fact as he talked. "His plan would have put two-thirds of the yuppies and clubbing crowd on a coke addiction."

 

Hikaru finally found his voice. "Are you insane?" he exploded. "How can you just leave that to me?"

 

Even in the dimness, he could see Touya looked annoyed. "But this was the quickest way to accomplish what I needed. And I'm not yet risking open warfare with Ohba's faction."

 

"And you left it all to me. Touya!" He waved his arms. "Why didn't you handle it yourself?"

 

"Protocol, Shindo. He provided an unknown opponent, and I had to do the same. Protocol," he emphasized, "stopped us from settling the matter more...violently." He paused, then added, "That and the man's love for a good bet. He was, after all, just a lowly bakuto­ originally - a gambler."

 

Hikaru collapsed back onto a richly upholstered armchair. "But it's finished, right?" he asked tiredly. Touya didn't answer. "Touya?"

 

"This time," the other man finally, quietly agreed.

 

The sudden brilliance of fireworks from outside the tall windows barely illuminated the tired set of Touya's mouth. Hikaru couldn't remember a time the other man had looked so listless before him. Whenever Touya had faced him before, especially back when they first met as boys, the intense light in his eyes had always made Hikaru feel as if he was hearing the bugle call to war. It had made him want to run and fight for...something. Now Touya's eyes only made him feel weary and wistful.

 

"Do you see now," the man asked in a soft voice. "This," he spread his hands out before him, encompassing the large, dark room and the entire Tokyo skyline before him; rainbow bursts of fireworks lit the night, "this is why I can't go back to professional go."

 

Hikaru didn't know what to say.

 

He had called Touya on the phone, somehow intending to persuade the other man to go back with him to the world of professional go. But the events of the past few hours had put into stark perspective all that Touya could lose by doing so. And both he and the tired man standing in front of him knew they were not talking about the loss of a penthouse suite with a view at the Ritz.

 

"Was he...?" Hikaru didn't quite know how to ask, "Was Ohba the man who had your parents killed?"

 

Touya's hands clenched at his sides. "Maybe. He certainly has much to gain if he takes over the Touya-gumi. But then, there are many others in the association I can say that for."

 

Hikaru stared down at his own hands. Then, quietly he said, "Touya, what do you do with your shipping and import contacts?"

 

There was a long, heavy silence. Finally, he heard the other man's strained voice. "I can't tell you. But I can promise, no drugs."

 

"...oh." Hikaru's voice sounded very small in the large, echoing penthouse suite.

 

He stood up from the armchair clumsily and hurriedly raised a hand when the other man made to move toward him. "Just- just got up too quickly...that's all." Even in the dark, he couldn't quite meet Touya's eyes. "I gotta go. Work will be just hell tomorrow." He tried to smile, gave up, and just blindly pushed his way to where he remembered the elevator to be. He fumbled for the elevator button.

 

There was a rustle of cloth and quick footsteps. From behind, an arm caught him hard about the shoulders. The brief, close press of Touya's chest against his back caught him by surprise. "I didn't intend this," Touya's voice came haltingly from behind him. "My world - I didn't want you to know."

 

Hikaru felt himself trembling. The close contact with the other man's body made him feel intensely uncomfortable, like there was a stranger inside his skin wanting to claw out. He pushed out of the other man's grasp. "I gotta go," he mumbled.

 

Touya's voice stopped his hand on the elevator button.

 

"Shindo. Will you play professional go again?"

 

It was an important question. One Hikaru knew he should answer with a resounding yes. The life in his games had returned, and now there was no one else he was waiting to drag back with him into the world of professional go. "I - I don't know."

 

The elevator door pinged open just then, and Hikaru stumbled in. His last view as the door slid shut was the sight of Touya's silhouetted figure standing unnaturally still before the glittering backdrop of celebratory, downtown Tokyo.

 

That night when Hikaru got back to his apartment, he took out the dusty goban for the first time and laid down stone after stone from the games he had played with Sai all those long years ago. His memory of them was as clear and sharp as the day the ghost had disappeared from his life. In that tiny room, the sound of stone on wood continued until the sky turned gray with the light of that year's first morning.

 

But no matter how long he played, black never won.

 

 

* * *

 

Part 5

 

* * *

 

Jun's voice whipped across the kitchen.

 

"Watch it, boy!"

 

Hikaru caught himself, one hand on the counter, the other balancing the precariously teetering pile of dirty bowls. He made it to the sink this time, not a dish broken. It was a brief respite: the past two weeks had seen more broken crockery than his past two years combined. His paycheck was suffering from his clumsiness.

 

"Sorry, sorry," he muttered, hurrying past the scowling woman at the entrance of the kitchen.

 

Jun caught him by the arm as he passed. "What the hell is wrong with you, Shindo?" She looked genuinely concerned. Considering that she was taking time during a busy lunch hour just to ask him, Jun must be very worried.

 

Hikaru shrugged off her hand. "Nothing." He bent over the boxes of ramen he was supposed to deliver, busily double-checking that they were properly packed before tying them to the delivery bike. When he turned again, Jun was already gone.

 

That day, the press of customers didn't let up until early evening. By the time Hikaru was ready to hang his apron up on the peg in the kitchen, the sun had already set. As he grabbed his jacket to leave, Jun's voice stopped him.

 

"Shindo, I need to talk to you."

 

Hikaru sighed, gave himself a moment, and then turned around to face her. "Look," he said, "I'm really sorry about the last few days. But you're already taking it out of my paycheck."

 

In fact, there would be no 'loans' to Yuki's roommate this month, nor possibly any gas for his water heater. He saw a winter of cold baths ahead.

 

Jun shook her head impatiently. "No, that's not what I want to talk about. Sit down, Shindo." She gestured outside to a stool by the counter in the now empty dining room.

 

With a brief shrug, Hikaru took the stool. Jun sat down on the one next to him.

 

"I'm not getting younger, Shindo," she began unexpectedly. Hikaru looked at her in puzzlement. This was not what he thought she would say. "Shindo," Jun continued, looking very serious, "I'm thinking of retiring."

 

Hikaru stared at her, feeling as he'd just seen a roasted Peking duck fly back into the sky.

 

If there one thing anyone knew about Jun, it was that she was a terminal workaholic. She probably considered the ramen shop more her flesh-and-blood than her own son.

 

But it seemed that the woman in front of him was still Jun.

 

"Of course, not immediately," she added. "Sometime. Eventually." A look of pain crossed her face. "Soon." Then she impatiently shook her head, "Ah, excuse this old lady's ramblings. I do have a point. Shindo Hikaru," she grabbed one of his slack hands, "when I go, I want you to have my shop."

 

He felt his heart stutter and skip a beat. Hikaru swallowed. "But - your son..." he protested.

 

Jun rolled her eyes and waved an impatient hand in the air. "That young reprobate can handle himself. He'll be a fancy, big-name lawyer so long as he keeps his mouth about me being his mother." Her voice trailed off, and she squeezed his hand. "He'll be fine," she continued gently. "It's you I'm worried about."

 

Hikaru felt his chest draw up tight with emotion. "Jun," he muttered, and squeezed her hand back. He suddenly thought of his own mom, who he hadn't seen in nearly two years.

 

"So, what's your answer?"

 

He considered it seriously for the space of two minutes. The realization that he could have security, that he wouldn't have to worry about money anymore if he continued to live frugally...if he continued to live the way he was right then. Suddenly, he had a vision of himself, twenty years down the line, graying and with a lost look in his, eyes serving the same old, endless line of students and salarymen bowl after bowl of ramen.

 

He thought back to the past two years. But all he could remember was the last two months and a half, and the cold, brittle feel of stones between his fingers.

 

Slowly, Hikaru loosed his hand from Jun's clasp. "I'm sorry, Jun," he said quietly. "I can't."

 

Strangely, Jun looked unsurprised. "Well," she said, blowing a piece of hair out of her eyes, "I saw that coming."

 

He stared at her, flabbergasted.

 

"Look, dear boy," she rolled her eyes at him, "you've been restless for weeks - even before you started breaking my dishes. Anyone could have guessed you weren't going to be here for long." She smirked at him, "About time you yourself realized that."

 

Hikaru sputtered. "But I -"

 

She held up a hand. "Stop. Lying is a disgusting habit. So is denial. Speaking of which," she raised a sly eyebrow, "exactly where are you planning to go?"

 

He was becoming increasingly alarmed by Jun's perceptiveness. He'd just then decided he needed to get out of Tokyo. "I...haven't decided yet," he said slowly. "Maybe, maybe Kansai." Kansai, he knew, had its own Go Institute; it was an organization separate from the one he'd been a part of years ago.

 

Jun raised her other eyebrow. She looked at him in some astonishment. "Not Hokkaido?" she asked.

 

"Hokkaido?" Hikaru frowned at her, perplexed. Hokkaido was all the way in the north of Japan. "Why would I go there?"

 

"Surely, Akari-chan..." She let her sentence trail off delicately.

 

Akari was studying medicine right then at Hokkaido University. Todai had rejected her. Hikaru remembered because she'd come to him and cried into his shirt for nearly an hour. Then Hikaru remembered why she wasn't talking to him recently.

 

"No," he shook his head firmly, "I wouldn't go to Hokkaido for Akari."

 

"Oh." Jun stared at him now, honestly perplexed. "Then what the hell's got you so riled up about these few weeks?"

 

Hikaru stared down at the countertop. "I met someone - someone I thought I knew. But it didn't turn out the way I expected."

 

He heard a low whistle, and turned to see Jun looking at him consideringly. "You've been a busy boy," she remarked.

 

He looked away, feeling the darkening frown on his face. "It's not like that," he said harshly. Like he'd want to give Touya one more way to mess him up.

 

"Well," Jun clapped her hands on her thighs as she stood up, "I can't handle all you youngsters' relations. I'll leave it to the experts. Just be careful, whatever you do."

 

"Yeah.

 

"Jun." His call stopped the woman in the doorway of the kitchen. She turned to him curiously. "Was it just a set-up - that whole offer of your shop?"

 

An uncharacteristically wistful look came over her face then. "I meant what I said," Jun said quietly. "If you'd accepted, the shop would've been yours - and I would have no regrets."

 

Hikaru stared at her, feeling the heavy lump rise in his throat. He stepped off the stool and, before she could protest, jumped over the counter to grab her in a brief, hard hug. "Jun. Thanks." He squeezed her briefly in his arms, then quickly let go.

 

Jun frowned at him for his forwardness, patting back the few strands of hair that had escaped her chignon, but the delicate flush to her cheeks bespoke a different emotion. "Go on, now," she said roughly, "if you're leaving, I'm going to be looking for a replacement. And I'm busy enough as it is."

 

Hikaru laughed, and sketched a bow in her direction. "Aye, aye!"

 

Then he grabbed his jacket off the counter and strode out the shop without a backward glance.

 

 

* * *

 

"You're leaving?"

 

Yuki stared at him from the open doorway of the foyer. Hikaru pushed past her, then dumped the box of things he was trashing outside on the sidewalk.

 

He grunted. "Yeah, I'm getting out of this hell hole." He walked back in to grab another box. He hadn't realized how much junk he'd accumulated over the years.

 

Huddled against the foyer wall, Yuki looked miserable and uncertain. "Why?" her voice trembled, going even higher than the usual falsetto she used. "Weren't you...happy?"

 

"Happy?" Hikaru snorted, not really seeing her over the big box in his arms. He dropped the box onto the sidewalk beside all the others. "I just realized I'm worth more than all this."

 

When he turned back, he caught the tail end of Yuki's heavy, winter boots disappearing around the corner. "...shit." He dropped down on one of the boxes, and ran a heavy hand over his bangs. Yuki always acted so tough, but for some reason, it was unbelievably easy for him to hurt her feelings.

 

Well, he shrugged to himself, she'll just have to get over it. Soon, he wouldn't be around much to bother her anyway.

 

With that thought in mind, he turned determinedly back to throwing away all the useless things that were weighing him down.

 

It was dark outside by the time he finished cleaning out his apartment. Standing at the doorway, Hikaru looked at the nearly empty room where he'd spent the past two years, and felt both tired and accomplished. Only an old backpack and a duffle bag lay on the floor, with some leftover clothes strewn around them. The day of packing had taken more out of him than all but the busiest day at the ramen shop, but Hikaru was already planning for what he should do next.

 

He had called the Kansai Go Institute from a payphone. They had never heard a case like his before, but he'd gotten an invitation to go over there and make a full argument in person. With the partial refund he had managed to talk out of his landlord, he had then bought an expensive, one-way ticket on an overnight train. The train was scheduled for Osaka that very night, and Hikaru wasn't at all worried. If the Kansai Go Institute would not have him, then there were institutes in Seoul and Beijing - he would find some way around the problem of him being a Japanese national. Meanwhile, there were even professional tournaments, like the Samsung Cup, that amateurs could enter.

 

And when his money ran out, he would work whatever menial jobs there were. He had his strength; he wouldn't give up, not this time.

 

Sai, he smiled, sorry I made you worry all these years. I think - I think I'm finally ready to walk back on that path you left me.

 

His head felt clear, clearer than it had been since he was a boy...Clearest for the first time since his life had fallen disastrously apart. He had been unhappy for years, and he hadn't known it. Now, without regret, he swung the backpack and duffle bag onto his shoulders, prepared for a new start.

 

Only...

 

As he passed the bathroom counter, he hesitated. The cell phone was lying there on the tiles. It was as silent and turned off as it'd been since that evening at the Ritz, nearly a week ago now. He hadn't touched it.

 

For a moment Hikaru fought with himself, not wanting to take it but at the same time...unwilling to let it go. Then, abruptly, one part won and, with a noisy sigh, he snatched it from the countertop and stuffed it into the deepest, hidden recess of his backpack.

 

Hikaru suspected Touya Akira would always have this effect on him.

 

With no other thought, then, he put on his shoes and locked the door securely behind him.

 

 

* * *

 

end of "Winter"

 

continued in "Spring"