Summary – Life at the Goban is a sheet of black and white for Shindo Hikaru. When he meets an American Go player, he realises that sometimes, life away from the Goban isn't much different either.

Author notes – that Hikaru no Go and all other brand names or TM's mentioned do not belong to her and she does not benefit monetarily from this in anyway.

Author's notes – This is my first attempt at a multi-chaptered fic with a plotline – or something that vaguely resembles it. It's the beginnings of a ShindoXTouya fic, so if you dislike Shounen Ai or the pairing, then I suggest you do not read this. Again, this fic mentions certain aspects of American lifestyle, I am not trying to satirise the Americans not am I trying to mock them. I simply have never been to America and thus do not know what it is like in reality. If someone finds something wrong with what I have said about America then do tell me so that I can change it, any slamming of the country or Asians is not acceptable.

"Speech" in Japanese

"Speech" in English

'Thoughts'

Enjoy.

---

This felt nothing like a break to him. When Touya had suggested that they take a trip to New York for a short 'holiday period' (by holiday, he meant time away from the usual Go games), he had imagined busy streets, bookstores, starbucks and other simple pleasures of life. Sort of a change in scenery, you know, the 'great beyond!' But by change in scenery, he did not mean a change in the designs on the door behind the player opposite him from a Goban.

Touya seemed to be enjoying himself; even though his English wasn't nearly as good as Shindo's was (he allowed himself a quick gloat). But then again, Touya was always enjoying himself whenever he was in a ten-mile radius of a Goban or anything Go related. Shindo has successfully managed to put him in a perpetually happy mood when he brought back a bag full of black and white m&m's to the hotel room the week before. Touya had been extremely curious ("Shindo, what are these?" "They're M&Ms" "What are M and Ms?") and they had even attempted to play a game of Go with them…until Shindo started to eat Touya's white m&m's when he realized he was losing. Then Touya had taken his revenge by being a killjoy and suggesting that they both go down to the Go parlour (as they called them in America) to tutor stupid little kids who thought Go was easy.

Nope, it wasn't a break at ALL. Touya's Go-obsession seemed further driven by the cocky remarks of some of the American Go players. And wherever his Go-obsession took him, he brought an unwilling Shindo along. And to think he had been looking forward to relaxing at all. He realized he should have known better where Touya had been concerned.

So today he had set his plan into motion, he had schemed and plotted and formulated plan after plan, until this evil plan had been hatched. Bwahahaha! Armed with his wallet, bag and jacket, he proceeded into the unexplored regions of the streets of New York. Leaving the room at five in the morning, when even an early

riser like Touya was still in bed, he hid out in the lobby until he decided it was safe to leave. (for he had read somewhere that New York wasn't safe at dawn or dusk)

Wandering aimlessly around, he ambled along till he reached a café to grab a cup of morning coffee. Sinking down into the comfortable plush seats of the café, he tilted his head slightly to catch a view of the city. New York was somewhat similar to Japan in terms of city structure, but the amount of people on the streets at this time of the day in New York was incomparable to that of Japan. He noticed that Asians tended to be much earlier risers than their western counterparts. He lingered in the café, enjoying the quiet and bittersweet aroma of the coffee. Soon after (or perhaps not that soon, as he looked at his watch) his peaceful thinking was to be disrupted by the quick population of the café by the morning crowd, all hoping to get a shot of espresso to give their still-fuzzy minds enough horsepower to plough them through the day. Downing the rest of his coffee in one go, and giving a polite nod to the girl who had served him, he quickly exited the café.

Carefully swerving his way though the vast amounts of people who were all hoping to get a cab to get to work, Shindo kept close to the magnificently decorated glass windows of the mostly unopened shops. He wasn't even vaguely surprised at the difference. Back home, a good half of the shops would already be open by nine, here, he could see all the pieces of paper stuck to the glass doors of the store proudly proclaiming that they opened from 11am-10pm. So he had to settle for looking at the curious displays on some of the windows of the shops, hoping to occupy himself until the shops would open.

Shindo had first caught sight of the place by the faint yellow glow of the neon sign above the faded shop name. From the outside, it looked shabby at best - about-to-collapse would have been more apt. The place looked like it needed serious repairs. However, the inside provided a distinctly different ambience altogether. The fading pale blue wallpaper was peeling in one corner, shelves that told Shindo that it was a second-hand bookstore were haphazardly arranged and the mahogany wood table with mismatching chairs was placed in the middle of the room. The musky scent of the books mixed with the tell-tale smells of a recently cooked breakfast hovered in the air, and combined with the constant tic-tic-tic-tic of the whirring fan, Shindo felt like he just stepped into an old-fashioned western country house. The place practically reeked of homey-ness and begged Shindo to pick a book, sit at the table, pretend to read and then fall asleep. And he was very very tempted to. What were even more curious were the titles of the books - they ranged from "Anglo-Saxon legends for your bedtime reading" to "Wiccan, Wiccan, Ha-ha-ha".

"It's quite the interesting shop, isn't it?" Shindo jumped at the sudden sound and turned around. He wasn't sure when the old American man had occupied the chair at the corner of the room. He nodded hesitantly and as if sensing his nervousness the other man laughed (though that served nothing more than make him even more wary).

"Yes, it is."

"You have an accent? You Asian?" Shindo was surprised that the man picked up on his accent that quickly, his English was near perfect and his accent not at all distinctive. He nodded an affirmative. "Korean?" The man continued and though he was sitting laxly in his chair with his oval-shaped spectacles threatening to drop off the bridge of his nose, Shindo could tell (by the movement of his eyes) that he was carefully scrutinizing him.

"No, Japanese." He corrected.

"Japanese huh? I've never met a Japanese before, not at this time of the year anyhow." 'Not at this time of the year?'

"I've never met an Afro-American before. Not many come to Japan."

"Japanese are strange people, have a seat." Shindo jumped once more, the day was proving to be one of firsts. Westerners usually don't speak Japanese very well, and even those that do sound funny. This guy could speak good Japanese, though his voice was gravely and made Shindo feel like clearing his own throat. He politely took at seat and set his bag down on the dusty floor beside the chair.

"So what are you in New York for?"

"It's supposed to be a holiday, unfortunately my friend is still caught up with playing Go here, if it isn't bad enough at home. And he drags me everywhere he goes." Shindo laughed apologetically, thinking about Touya and his Go obsession. The strange man was…well, strange, but he provided a comfortable and relaxed aura and Shindo felt unperturbed talking to him.

"You play Go too?" The man asked, his eyebrow arched with interest. Shindo was puzzled at the switch to English and the selection of the topic. As far as he knew, Go wasn't a widely played game in the West.

"Yes. Actually it's my profession." He admitted, half-worried that the man would laugh at him for having a profession that most considered a waste of time. On the contrary, however, the man seemed piqued with the discovery. "Do you play Go?"

"Yeah, Go is a very literary game to me, quite symbolic." The man got up from his chair and turned to open a door behind him. Shindo began to stand but the man waved him down. When the man reappeared again, he was carrying a Goban and two plastic containers which Shindo presumed contained the Go-ke.

"Symbolic?" He ventured. "That's quite an unusually way to describe Go. I've heard of 'stupid', 'confusing', 'unholy' even, but symbolic?"

"Yes, here, take a look." The man set two Go stones on the Go-Ban, each on opposite ends of the board - one black and one white. Then he rapidly started to set stones on the Goban, as if he were replaying a match. However, all the stones he placed were white – and all of them were on the opposite side of the board from the singular black stone. "This was what it used to be like. Black, white, either, or, you are either there or not. That's what society is like, some people try to complicate things, classify them or perhaps put them in the 'grey' area, but in the end, it's either 'yes' or 'no'. Humans always have opinions, they can say they are neutral, but in their minds they have their own opinions."

"Or perhaps you may want to look at it in this way." The man began rearranging the stones again, this time adding black stones in equal number to the white. Shindo watched with patience as the pattern slowly formed. In all appearances, the game bore all resemblance to a relatively normal, well-played game. Then the man suddenly put a black stone down with a firm 'pachi' that rang of finality. Shindo was surprised at the hand. It didn't seem to have any effect on the game played at all; it would seem like a very reckless thing to do, playing a stone where it had no use. "What do you make of this hand?"

"It's not the normal thing to do, certainly, it would have been best to put here instead, for the defence of this group of stones." The man set one more stone down.

"What about now?"

"Well, naturally the player would counter there, but why so? The white has the upper hand here and here, but wouldn't be setting the stone here be pointless?"

"That's what you think. Now how about this."The man started to add more stones.

"Ah…" Shindo trailed off. The hand earlier was a brilliant hand, if may have had no apparent use at first, but now its position was crucial in the game. It was very brilliant.

"Apparently, you've already thought of it. It's quite brilliant, no normal player would have thought of this hand. I surrendered after three more turns." The man set three more stones down. "What I'm saying is that, once you know what the outcome is, it is apparent what the stone was for. It's like the stone is trying to tell you something, except you don't know what it is yet and only until later do you realize it and by then it is too late. So Go is like hearing what the stones are saying and acting on it, there is no such thing as 'holding back' in Go. It's the same as before, either you do it…"

"Or you don't." Shindo finished slowly.

"Yes, it's either this or that. Maybe some things have an in-between, but most do not. It's a black and white world, Nihon-Jin, and no one can change that. If you want to do something, go do it. And right now, you want to play a game with me because you are wondering how strong an opponent I am." With that, the man began to sort out the black stone from the white and placed them back in their respective containers, handing one to Shindo.

"Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu"

The man's skill was nothing spectacular, but he had the oddest method of playing, it was haphazard yet orderly at the same time. Shindo could hardly predict his moves at all, sometimes even having to fall back on his intuition to place a move. The man didn't actually seem to know what he was doing, but he always seemed to place the stone at the right places at the right times. He didn't know whether to be surprised or not when the man countered to the left instead of the right which he expected. ('Well, it was a matter of reverse psychology, since the man did unpredictable things and I expected him to counter to the left, therefore he would counter to the right. So in actual fact I expected him to both counter to the right and the left, but not to the right or left…this is getting too confusing') He was about to lay his stone down, until he saw another place where he could set it down – a very Sai-ish place to put it down. At once he was torn between what he should do.

'Onegai Sai, tell me where I should place it…' That's right, Sai wasn't around anymore, Shindo had no one to look to for guidance, no companion to sit behind him and give him soundless support anymore – a fact he desperately wanted to forget. He moved his hand, and set his stone down elsewhere, where Sai would have put. He sighed and looked down when the other sent him a questioning look, in truth, the man had wondered why Shindo had hesitated and then changed his mind. Shindo didn't want the game to continue, but he wouldn't surrender, time and time again, he would set his stones where he felt Sai would set them. He wasn't playing as himself; he was playing as Fujiwarano Sai, probably the most excellent Go player of all time. And so, with each stone he set, the game between The Strange Man and Fujiwarano Sai continued, even as Shindo didn't want to continue. Twelve minutes, twelve hours, twelve years, it dragged on. He couldn't really tell if which one it was, but the game finally ended.

"I lose. Arimasen." It took more than two seconds for Shindo to realise that the other man had conceded and already began to pick out the black stones from the board. He began to silently keep the white stones as well, face downcast and saddened; all this did not escape the notice of the other man. He quickly kept the Goban along with the containers and returned to the table watching as Shindo just sat there, uncertain of what to do.

"Anou-" Shindo started hesitantly.

"Who are you waiting for, why do you hesitate? Why do you play Go? Who do you play Go for? Why are you still afraid? No one will wait for you, nor do you have to wait for anyone. Go and conquer your fears, go and conquer the world of Go Nihon-jin." The man interrupted, giving Shindo a mysterious half-smile. Shindo was momentarily stunned by the words, cryptic questions and equally cryptic answers, but he recognised the simple meaning behind it all.

Either YOU do it, or you don't.

"Hai, domo arigato. I'll be leaving now." Shindo smiled and nodded in understanding. He pushed his chair back, picked up his bag and took one last look at the strange man and left the shop. The man returned to his reading. Names were always important, if you forget your name, you forget who you are, names were always important, but the name itself was inconsequential. This man had many names, had lived many summers, saw many things and had many friends… and he once had a friend called Fujiwarano Sai. That day, he felt his friend sitting across him.

---

Thinking wasn't a leisure activity that Shindo chose to indulge in often, most of the thinking he did was at the Goban or in the classroom (if he felt like it) and he personally preferred spontaneity as a characteristic. But noontime – and lunch – found Shindo in a fast-food restaurant mindlessly stabbing at his uneaten fries, deep in thought and staring at the ceiling as if it would provide him with an answer. He wanted an answer to the question he didn't know. As the aimless and random chatter about him increased, he found himself unable to even grasp onto the concept that he was wasting time pondering an answer when he didn't even know the question. Shindo finally gave up and disposed of his slaughtered fries, mind casually pointing out that Touya – the ever intelligent Touya – would know what to make of the old man's words. He pause in mid-stride and grimaced, blanching at the thought of how Touya would scream when he finally found him.

'I forgot to leave him a note…shimatta, Touya's going to kill me.'

---

Most people, by nature, are impatient, they don't like to be kept waiting, nor do they like to be abandoned to their own devices if they have something planned. Despite being able keeping all pretences to having an impeccable personality, being able to remain unperturbed in the presence of people more than thrice his age and never seemed to get angry at anything (the yelling matches were more vocal training than anything else) - Touya was actually a very impatient person. Some half-brained reporter had once commented that he seemed to have endless patience when he spent four hours waiting for an opponent to show up, that had merely been courtesy. Under different circumstances, his behaviour would range from nonchalant (to things he didn't really care about) to worried/irritated (if the situation warranted it) to extremely angry (when he already knew it was bound to happen). Somehow, not to his surprise or amusement, all things related to Shindo's acquired punctuality problem ended up being categorised under the third category. Needless to say, Touya Akira wasn't exactly the happiest person on Earth right then.

Barely being able to keep the expletives out of his muttered speech, he figured out that the most logical strategy was to wait. 'Surely Shindo would not be so stupid as to forget to come back here by nightfall.' He reasoned with himself as he guessed that the best course of action at the moment would be to go down to one of the hotel restaurants to feed his increasingly disagreeable stomach. He took the elevator down (absentmindedly re-reading the advertisement on the lift wall that said that there 'will be a Go convention held on the Twelfth of December, Two thousand and four, if any Go players can attend it would be very delightful thank you very much.') to the first floor lobby which provided excess to the restaurant section of the building…and very conveniently missed seeing the very same Shindo Hikaru he had been agonizing over earlier enter the other lift.

---

Shindo jabbed at the elevator buttons, forcing himself to not hit the buttons that would send him to floor sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four and so on and so forth. A childhood passion of his had been to hit every button of the lift from the floor he had to get off at until the very top floor – ridiculous but fun. As the lift began its slow assent (something he was grateful for to buy time) he began to find possible excuses he could excrete to prevent him from being yelled at; Touya was not unknown for his explosive temper to those who have ever felt his wrath.

'I decided to get a cup of coffee and I got lost' wouldn't cut it because Touya knew that he knew perfectly well where Starbucks was. 'I needed a bit of fresh air and decided to go for a walk, but I forgot to leave you a note,' would not explain why he spent the whole morning out. He went through half a dozen excuses (even 'I was kidnapped' pranced across his mind for a moment) before settling on 'I wanted to get something nice for breakfast but I forgot the time. I'm sorry I didn't tell you.' It wasn't the best of excuses, but it was marginally passable and Shindo was really hoping that Touya would not rant and rave excessively.

Inhaling and exhaling what Shindo hoped wasn't his last breath, he slid the card key into the slot and heard the door unlock. He found it almost amusing that he could hear the classic – not to mention cheesy – horror flick music in the background as he entered the room…to realise no one was in it. After acknowledging that no one was indeed in the room that they both shared, he automatically assumed that Touya had given up on his and went to a Go parlour or convention. What he didn't realise what that Touya never went to any Go Parlour or Convention without his suit ('such a stodgy person you are' he once commented) and said suit was hanging innocently in its case on the wall.

He sighed deeply and sat down on his bed, resigning himself to an afternoon of boredom. After a few minutes of staring listlessly at the wall, he decided that a bath would be in order, if it wouldn't give him something to do, it would erase all the tension that had built up in his muscles in the morning. And it was probably about the same time he put on his clothes and exited the now-humid bathroom that Touya Akira stepped out of the elevator and onto the corridor the fifteenth floor or their hotel.

---

Touya always ate reasonably fast, especially if he had something to do, but he never forgot any of his table manners. The day he would slam his chopsticks down on the table would have to be the day that Shindo Hikaru disappeared without telling him and left him waiting for more than 'quite-a-few' hours, coincidentally, that day happened to be this day. The noise had prompted a few surprised stares from the rest of the patrons of the restaurant and one had even gone so far as to remark 'Such strange people nowadays.'

After a bout of childish stomping, he made his way back to the room to continue his anticipated long wait. He didn't really expect to have someone sitting on his bed, but he congratulated himself on not jumping in shock when he saw Shindo Hikaru poking tiredly at his pillow. When the other boy did not seem to notice the existence of the person who had just opened the door stepped in and closed it again, he forced out his words in as calm a tone he could achieve. What came out, however, was laced barely restrain anger and irritation.

"Where.have.you.been?" He allowed a small bit of amusement filter into the part of his mind which wasn't that angry with Shindo when he saw the shock-turned-wince expression on his face as the other boy's finger missed the intended target (i.e. the pillow) and hit his foot instead.

"Ahah…I wanted to get something nice for breakfast but then I forgot the time. I'm sorry I didn't tell you." Shindo laughed sheepishly, praying that he wouldn't get killed. He did, luckily, have enough sense to stop laughing when he saw the expression Touya's face darken visibly.

"Where have you been?" The taller of the two repeated. The thinly veiled anger in his words did nothing to reassured Shindo, he knew that, at that moment, Touya would cheerful murder him and invite someone to play Go on his grace.

"I told you, I was out getting a nice breakfast, but I forgot to leave you a note-"

"Don't lie to me, where have you been?" The words were barely whispered and Touya's long fringe didn't hide the fact that his eyes were narrowed dangerously.

"Damn it Touya, do you know that when you suggested coming to New York, I didn't think you were suggesting going to New York's Go Parlours or conventions, in case you haven't noticed, those are two separate things altogether! I went out today morning because I wanted to see the New York outside a Goban okay?! I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but would you have let me if I did?" Shindo was trying his best not to shout, but the exasperation at Touya was showing clearly in his words.

Touya sighed and rubbed his temples, trying to keep the on-coming headache at bay. He moved from the door to his bed and plopped down ungracefully next to his fellow Go player and friend. The words that next came out of his mouth greatly surprised the both of them.

"Did you know how worried I was?"