AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm still slightly new to the Hikaru no Go manga as I've been reading it in Shonen Jump magazine. So a few characters are slightly alien to me. This story obviously takes place in the future.
Also, I know little to nothing about Go. Except that it's a strategy game.
If I do something wrong, a character, the history, the game, anything, please don't fail to tell me so that I might rectify it. Though if you flame me, I would appreciate if you did it with good reason.
I might get a few. I don't think I've seen this pairing before and I felt like experimenting. I've got nothing against yoai. I just can't write it.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Hikaru no Go. I'm not sure who does but I give full credit to them for a masterful manga and anime.
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She was a good person. She really was. Sure, she had a few… discrepancies… a few black marks on her record. But who didn't? (Pining after a 15 year old boy…) At least she wasn't alone in it! Come on! Its not like she was proud of herself!
Akira just did that to people. His well-behaved manners, (When not around Shindo.) His easygoing personality, (When not around Shindo.) His intelligence, (When not around Shindo…) Okay then, his feminine masculinity then…
All of said traits were something that most women adored and wanted nothing more in a man. All of said traits were also incredibly hard to find in a man. Which is why so many women pined over Akira. (Herself included.) So difficult were these traits to find in a man that, if you were to find one, that 99 percent of the time he would either be gay, or be taken.
Again, Akira for example. (Yes, Akira is gay.) He came out in public with in when he was 16. She was shocked and disappointed at first. Who wouldn't be, if you were pining over the guy? But after a day of thinking it over, she wasn't that surprised.
A lot of people could argue however, which side of Akira was the real one. There was the polite, well-behaved, well-groomed, intelligent Akira… and then there was the Akira seen with Shindo.
Looking at him in a tournament, or even playing a friendly game with him, you would think him to be the most emotionally controlled person in the world. Apathetic you could almost call him.
That idea would go out the window in the first ten seconds you saw him in the company of Hikaru Shindo. He would laugh out loud, grin, smile, shove, yell, and argue… (Mostly argue.) You could almost call it a pastime for them. Second only to playing a game of Go.
They loved to argue.
Reminding her ironically of an old married couple, she had dryly commented to the both of them that maybe the two of them should try dating.
Hikaru and inhaled the soda he was drinking at the time and began to cough uncontrollably for the next five minutes. Akira had dropped the Go stones all over the floor and looked at her with an expression that read, 'Your kidding, right?'
Neither of them would talk to her nor even look at her for a week after that, she remembered fondly. Hikaru was odd anyway. She couldn't really remember him saying that he'd had a preference. Or a love interest either.
Hikaru Shindo… now there was an enigma if there ever was one. She remembered the first time she had ever seen him. He'd come to the Go Salon looking for someone to play. He'd told her… "I've never played before. But I think I'm pretty good!"
She laughed at the time, because she remembered seeing the honest to goodness truth in his statement. But after what happened, what he'd said… was a little frightening.
He had played Akira, and he'd won.
She would see later what his capabilities were in Go. How strong he was. But what happened that first day at the Go Salon… was something else. And everyone would say so for a long time.
Hikaru never did explain that. Never even tried. He could play a perfect game one day, and the next he'd be playing at an amateur level.
If you asked him about it, about when he first started to play Go, he would sometimes get a weird little smile on his face and not say anything. His way of saying that it was his secret to be kept.
Other times he would get this sad look on his face as though he had lost something or someone very precious to him. On both counts, there was just no way to push the argument if he refused to talk.
The last look though, she had seen on the face of another before. That sad face as if all that you truly cared about had just been striped away from you. On Akira she'd seen that face. And to see on someone else, namely the cheerful Hikaru, had been one of the strangest sights. It had been one of the saddest sights as well.
Now, four years later, she felt like beating her head on the wall repeatedly. Asking herself, "Why me?"
She had it bad. And she didn't even realize when it had happened. Or how it had happened. What was worse is that she didn't have anyone to blame.
He just… did this to people. To her.
Maybe it was how his eyes could glow if someone were to turn all the lights out in a room. Or how they seemed to be able to look into your soul.
Maybe it was his toned body that she happened to see when she saw him jogging in the park one Sunday afternoon. A toned body that was usually alien to most Go players.
Maybe it was his kind and caring attitude. Even if he sometimes ignored it and you. (Not intentionally.) If something were wrong, he'd be the first person to ask you about it, 'worry' written on his face. She'd seen him kindly stop a bicycle coming down the sidewalk so he could save a Caterpillar.
Maybe it was his smile. When he smiled a true smile, and it would light up the entire room and make a person completely forget their troubles. And focus completely on what he was saying.
There she was, drifting off to la, la land. She did not need this! But she couldn't honestly say that she didn't want it. Akira was going to have a field day with this.
She, Ms. Ichikawa, Harumi, had fallen for Hikaru Shindo.
