"Sai, you're a girl." Hikaru reminded, exasperated. "This is what girls wear."

His ex-ghost, now turned domestic living partner, pouted unencoouragingly. "It's very restricting." Complained the once male ghost. "And very uncomfortable." Sai added, after a moment.

"Well I didn't make it." Hikaru grumbled stubbornly, sitting himself across the Goban with his legs crossed. "And that's one of the better things."

Considering that Sai could be in those pumps Akari favored these days, and a tight strapless dress, Hikaru thought his current get up pretty manageable. Seeing as though he'd only found the now human ghost this morning, he'd had to make do with whatever he could find—which was a pair of his old soccer shorts and a sweatshirt. He'd assumed they were pretty comfortable.

Apparently not.

"I miss my kimono…" Sai bemoaned, looking like he was still having trouble with the whole having boobs thing. "I don't like being a girl."

"You're complaining about being alive now?" Hikaru asked, a little irritated. After all, the fact he'd come back was miraculous as it was, and Hikaru wasn't about to look a gift horse in the face.

"Of course not!" Sai protested hotly. "I just…" He—…she-looked down, morbidly. "I just didn't think I would come back like this…"

Actually, Hikaru thought Sai looked more natural as a girl, anyway. He'd always been a little bit more effeminate than the usual pretty boy, and Hikaru hadn't even realized that the body Sai currently inhabited was a girls until he realized that his best friend was completely naked.

More than a little embarrassed—and annoyed—Hikaru tapped the edge of the Go board with his fan impatiently. "What does it matter, anyway? Why don't we just start playing?"

After all, it had been a long time since he'd seen his best friend, and much had changed.

For one, Hikaru was a much more skilled player than the brash irrationality he had once been known for. That, and he wasn't a measly little shodan. A good thing too, for if he wasn't making as much money as he was he surely wouldn't have been able to afford this apartment. And how would he have been able to explain Sai to his parents?

He shuddered at the very thought.

Sai flounced over, looking giddy at the very thought of Go after all these years.

He didn't begin Nigiri at first—instead, the ex-ghost carefully fingered the many glimmering stones in the go ke, holding them between his fingers like precious diamonds, simply content to feel them once more.

"It's been so long since I've held a stone with two hands…" Murmured the woman, looking over at Hikaru with piercing blue eyes.

There was a heavy puissance in those burning bright eyes, and Hikaru swallowed. "Nigiri?"

Sai nodded.

Hikaru grinned when, five hands in, Sai played his infamous Shuusaku diagonal. A brief, but tenebrous wave of nostalgia hit him square in the face, making the back of his eyes sear with an unknown pain, water welling up until he had to rub at them with his hand.

"Hikaru…?" Sai called softly, looking concerned. "Are you alright?"

'It's nothing." Hikaru answered stiffly, bringing his hands down with a watery smile. "I'm just… glad you're back."

"I am too." Sai returned his smile with a brilliant one of his own. "You've grown so much, Hikaru."

"Probably not enough to beat you." Hikaru sniffed, playing a hane in the upper left corner.

Sai countered the formation he was growing easily, looking pleased with him. "Maybe not," Conceded his master. "But soon enough you'll reach me."

And with that, he gave Hikaru another smile.

Hikaru flushed, before slapping a hand to his face.

Sai blinked, tilting his head. "Eh? What's wrong?"

"Don't—…" Hikaru groaned. "Don't do that…"

Sai looked confused—only furthering the cute pout to his lips and the wideness of his blue eyes. "What?"

HIkaru only shook his head, deciding to change tactic and defend his territory in the center. "Nevermind."

But one thing was for sure.

God definitely shouldn't have made Sai into a girl.

He'd be batting men away left and right.

.

.

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