Chapter 1 - Realization

"No, you shouldn't do that. See? You're all done for here." Hikaru explained while pointing to a formation on the lower left side of the board.

"Ah, I don't get it.." Akari sighed with defeat, before picking up a merrier tone.

"Oh by the way, Hikaru, do you remember Saya-chan and Souma-kun? They came to practice a few weeks ago…Anyway, they are finally dating! I mean, they look so good together and.."

"Akari! What's the point of us practicing if you keep up with your endless chit chat about people I don't even know?!" Hikaru angrily cut in, before starting to sort the stones into their respective bowls.

"Chit chat?! It's just small talk, come on, Hikaru! You said you didn't have matches or practices today, so what's the rush?" Akari rose from her chair trying to stop her the young man from leaving.

"It doesn't mean I don't have anything better to do than listen to gossip all day" He barked and moved his chair preparing to stand up.

"Okay, Okay! I might have overdone it with the talking, don't go yet? Ok?" The young woman clasped her hands before her in apology and mustered an earnest look of regret.

Hikaru rolled his eyes, muttered a "fine" and sat back to arrange the stones back to it's positions.

…

"Say, Hikaru, remember the amateur Go match next month, the one my university is hosting?" Akari said, rolling a stone between her fingers and studying the alignment on the board.

"Yeah, so?"

"You think you could participate?" She continued without looking at him.

"Err… If it's doesn't coincide with a match or a practice, I could… But wouldn't it be kind of not fair? I mean it's an amateur match."

Akari wondered if he was unaware of how arrogant his statement had sounded, before placing her stone on the board and going on with her idea.

"Amm…Say, you participated, and I won in a match against you… I thought you could free a day, so we could…I mean, you know, do something, other than practice Go, that is…"

He looked up from the board and gave her a puzzled look.

"Ah, great! Now he thinks I'm desperate..." Akari thought with defeat. However, to her greatest surprise, her practice partner didn't seem to pick up the second half of what she said.

"You? Beat me? Really? With these moves?" He pointed to the stone placed on the board by his opponent a second earlier.

"Aw, come on! Just pretend you're an amateur like everyone else. Besides, I have improved compared to last fall." She went on, ignoring his remark.

"Why would I? You can't win against me, even when I go easy on you for the sake of learning. Why would I go easy on you in an actual match? Putting aside the fact that even if I participated, it's unlikely that we would get the chance to play, unless it's the first round." Hikaru retorted leaning back in his chair and crossing hands behind his head.

"Why is that?" The auburn haired young woman demanded, starting to feel embarrassed for starting the conversation in the first place.

"Because, I doubt it that you'd make it past the first of second round, at best." The young man blunty answered. "I mean, come on, the guys that came last week were pretty good. Your problem is that you don't try to think ahead, you try to defend your current position, which makes it very easy to trick you."

Feeling the colour rising to her face, Akari sighed and looked away.

After a few minutes of uncomfortable silence, Hikaru scratched the back of his neck, rolled his eyes again and with a grunt started rearranging the stones.

"What are you doing?" Akari questioned him, the rattle gaining her attention.

"If you can get out of this" He pointed to the newly arranged formation. "I'll play along with whatever it is you wanna do."

Akari gave him a look of disbelief.

"I'll adjust myself to your level." He added and leaned with his elbow on the desk, supporting his head.

Suppressing a goofy smile, Akari stirred in her chair and racked her memory for formation on front of her, or something similar.

"I remember we went over it last month…" She thought. "Now, the catch here is obvious but what was the other tricky thing…"

Being deep in thought, Akari failed to notice her opponents slight smile, as he watched her. "I wonder where it is she wants to go…I just hope it's not another joined attempt of her and our mothers to get me to go on another family trip during the golden week...". The last part turning his wondering face into one of a displeased child.

The sound of a stone being placed on the board, however cut his ever so joyous pondering.

He looked at the stone, waiting for the usual squel and a plea to undo her move. When none followed, he took a breath, and placed his own stone on the board.

A few minutes later, avoiding meeting her gaze, Hikaru shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Come on, Akari, we went over it last month, it's not that hard!..." His eyes followed her hand when it picked a new stone from the pile "Yeah, that's right…No, no, no… Aw, man! That does it, it's so obvious, how can she…" He stopped himself before his wounded pride as a teacher made him say something he'd later regret and having fished a stone from his pile, placed it on the board.

Akari blinked in surprise. She didn't anticipate such a move. In fact, she was confident, that if she herself had initiated it, Hikaru would have had killed her on the spot.

Facing down the board, she tried to get a glimpse of his expression, but he had leaned back, his hand on his face.

"Good job, Akari. You won, so what was it you wanted?" He declared and hurried to clean the board of it's contents.

"Won? What do you mean? That move just now, it was…" She couldn't say "stupid" and searched for a better phrasing.

"Strange" Was the best she could think of.

He ignored her, however, and giving his watch an apprehensive stare picked up the board and dashed of to the receptionist of the study area.

Picking up her coat from the back of the chair, Akari was struck by a thought, or rather a nasty suspition, which prompted her to fish her phone out or the backpack and type something into the search engine.

"I know it!" She hissed.

With these words she stomped towards the exit sign, and towards the entrance gate.

"Hey, Akari, wait up!" She heard, but didn't slow down till having passed the gate.

"What?" She spat angrily.

"What'dya mean by what? You won, so let's hear that plan of yours." He retorted trying to look indifferent.

"You did that on purpose! I made a mistake on my very first move. Why didn't you say anything?" She demanded.

"Because, I wanted to see if you could see it yourself, which you do, now. Besides, you tried hard enough so, you deserve a bit of…encouragement." He answered, stretching his limbs and turning away.

"Encouragement? Really? I'm that poor of a player that you give in, out of pity?!" She heard herself sneer. "No thank you! I a low-level amateur like myself does not deserve encouragement from a pro, such as yourself!"

Her words made him turn to face her, and he felt his anger building up in his stomach.

"If I didn't think much of you, why would I spend so much time all these years helping you, and your clubs?! We're friends, I was just trying to be nice for once." It took a lot of his fading self-control not to yell it and stomp away.

"Well then" She said, giving him a deadly glare, "My club, and I will manage just fine without you being nice, thank you very much!" With that she turned away and began walking towards the bus stop.

"Fine!" He yelled, addressing her back, lifted his bag and marched towards the subway.

…

It's been two and a and half weeks since she practiced with her childhood friend. Presently, Akari was sitting across Kanashima-san, a freshman and new member of the university Go club.

"It's such a shame that Shindo-sensei is so busy lately". Kanashima-san sighed, and pensively tapping her chin placed a stone on the board.

"Yeah, well, he's got matches." Akari replied dryly. She wasn't sure if that was true, but still being angry, she preferred him otherwise engaged than flashing his grins and deep-in-thought humms in her presence.

"Too bad, I mean he's the reason I joined this club in the first place. He's got an interesting style, and good looks on top if it… Don't you agree, Fujisaki-senpai?" The freshman titled her head and let out another bored sigh.

"Kanashima-san, if that's your reason for being here, maybe you should reconsider your free-time schedule."

Giving her opponent a surprised glance, Kanashima-san straightened up.

"Don't get me wrong, Fujisaki-senpai. Many members of my family, including myself, enjoy playing Go. I was just saying that having Shindo-sensei around makes it more… Exciting, I guess." With this she got up, bowed, picked up her bag and headed towards the exit.

…

That evening Akari returned to her apartment feeling even worse than after her fight with Hikaru. Upon locking the door she threw her bag on the floor and knelt back to remove her shoes.

"Is that what I have been doing all these years? Chasing him through his obsession with Go, just to make sure I could be near him? Was that the only reason...?" She questioned her own reflection in the full body mirror in front of her.

Author's random drabble corner:

Hello!

I've decided to write a short series about Akari coming to term with her feelings towards Hikaru, and how she decides to deals with them.

I'm sorry in advance, that the lack of any Go elements might make this series boring for you. It's just, that I'm not really an expert on the subject, and it would have probably

shown, had I decided to include it anyway.

If I remember correctly, I first watched "Hikaru No Go" in my early teens (putting aside the fact that I absolutely loved the soundtrack), so I could pretty much relate

to Akari, who was developing feelings for a longtime friend who has found his own path, made new friends and rivals, and thus felt a little ( in my opinion) neglected.

I think that characters like Akari and Hikaru's mom signify that every passion and devotion towards something, has it's "other" side. Meaning, that when we find something to focus on, we sometimes forget our friends, and more importantly - familly. Throughout the process of attending matches and advancing up the rank ladder, Hikaru isn't exactly apprehensive of how it must be hard for his mom (unlike Yashiro's parents, she accepted her son's choice amd tried her best of being supportive, despite how difficult it must have been).

Yeah, I know teenagers tend to act like that in general (I was one myself, not long ago), but just saying :)

This fic will center Akari's and Hikaru's relashionship, as Akari attends university and Hikaru continues his striding along his path in playing Go.

Hope that whoever happens across this fic will enjoy reading it.

Any corrections of spelling and/or style will be warmly welcomed, as will any other suggestions.

IndigoRed.