Ch. 1

Shindo Hikaru was a normal 'cool' pre-teen boy. He played soccer, talked about the popular anime's like Naruto and Bleach, and got bad grades in school.

But Hikaru had a secret. A secret that he felt would make him uncool, un-normal, if anyone ever found out, and as such he kept it secret.

Shindo Hikaru found the Heian period absolutely fascinating. He loved the clothing, the manners, the speech, the music and even the poems.

He had first learned about the time period while being bored at his grandfather's place. His grandfather, wanting to keep Hikaru's destructive tendencies, which normally came out when he was bored, down, had put on an old movie, which took place at the curt during de Heian period.

He had been hooked since.

But due to his insistence on keeping his 'uncool' obsession secret, even from his parents and grandfather, the only way he ever learned anything about the Heian period, was through period movies and television dramas. Such was life for a popular pre-teen Japanese boy.

As all thing were wont to do, being popular costed money, and as his parents had cut out his allowance due to his exceptional bad grades, (seriously he was proud of his grades, it took real talent and work to make them so bad, I mean getting an eight percent on the social studies exam. You had to be both a retard and a recluse to score that low. It wasn't like Hikaru was a genius or anything, but he could have easily scored a 90 on that test, even without actually opening his book, which he had actually done, how else would he know what to write to get almost everything wrong. It wasn't like he liked school, or hated it, but he was bored, and had long since decided that being popular was all that school was about, and none of the smart kids were ever popular.) So now he was raiding his grandfather's shed for old, useless, unlamented, but sellable stuff, with his childhood friend Fujisaki Akari, so he could get some money to buy manga and ramen with.

…o0O0o…

It had been yesterday that he had found the old goban with the blood on it, and now he found out that that weird ass ghost who had attached itself to him was a court member from the Heian period. And he wanted to play Go, more than anything. Well, he might not be perceived as very smart, whether this was true or not didn't matter, but he knew when to spot a possibility for a good deal.

He would let the ghost, let Sai, play go through him, meanwhile he would learn everything there was to know about the Heian period from him, and as a bonus he would get to learn to play Go, or at least let Sai play go, against his grandfather, and thereby earning some money from bets. Money his grandfather wouldn't tell anyone about, or risk losing his playing partner, and thereby giving Hikaru a secret income he could use on his REAL hobby, and not using it on what popular kids used their allowances on.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he would even get enough money to buy a koto, his absolute favorite of the Heian period instruments, and maybe even somehow find some clothing like the ones Sai was using… he slowly came out of his fantasy when a wave of misery, so deep it made him feel like throwing up, came over him, and as he lifted his head, he saw that the misery had to have come from the ghost. He had been quiet for too long, and Sai must have thought that he would deny him the possibility of playing Go. For someone who died for Go, and then spent a thousand years as a ghost bound to a goban, without ever being able to play, just because of that love, being unable to play, when he finally had the chance to communicate, must absolutely break his heart.

Before the misery he was feeling through his connection to Sai would make him actually throw up, he started talking.

"I'll make you a deal!" it was yelled, and out loud, due to the utter misery he was feeling, in the middle of the class, during the test. Everyone turned and looked weirdly at him, and the sensei almost fell out of his chair, due to the shock. Akari hurriedly excused him, again with the story of him fainting and getting picked up by the ambulance. While before, when she had explained it due to his shocked exclamation upon discovering that the ghost was still there, everyone had been excited and in awe, now everyone looked worried and a little scared. They thought he was unstable. He would have a lot to do to make up for this hit to his popularity, but as of now he just waved them away, and pretended to focus on his paper, while continuing to talk with Sai, this time in his mind.

"I'll make you a deal!" he repeated. "I'll let you play Go, I even have the first player for you to play, if you do something for me…" "What-What, I'll do anything... but… what can I do, in a ghost, the only thing I can even touch is you?" Sai started excitedly, but slowly tapered off into a questioning, apprehensive tone.

Hikaru tried to explain his dilemma in a way that Sai would understand, but it was first when Sai noticed the easy with which he was writing the test, (due to being distracted with talking to Sai he didn't notice what he was doing and automatically wrote all the right answers) that he believed Hikaru's words on how he viewed the school as being a place to learn to be popular, and not to get high grades. It wasn't like the grades mattered. He would have to sit an entrance exam anyway, so it didn't matter what they thought he could do, it only mattered what he actually could do when it came to the time to go to middle school.

Finally though Sai agreed that that way at least Hikaru got something out of going to school, after all getting and nursing a social network could only be good for his future life and career as a learned man. He was only just introduced to the 20th century, and hadn't understood that the level of schooling Hikaru received was needed, even if he just wanted to be a menial worker.

Sai found it interesting that Hikaru was so interested in his, Sai's, own time period, and happily agreed to the deal, telling Hikaru, that he was a noble, and would teach Hikaru everything about how to be a noble at the courts in the Heian period, including manners. The last part was said with an uncharacteristic hard look at Hikaru.

And so started Hikaru's time of learning from Sai about the Heian period, and of course of finding partners for Sai to play, mustn't forget that, he didn't like feeling like throwing up again.