A/N: Thus starts the intermittent 'interlude' chapters. They're short but - for the love of a coherent storyline - do not skip these interludes. Or nothing will make sense the further along this story gets. Interludes were written for a very specific reason.

Chapter 7 should be up sometime late on Thursday. It's, uh, pretty intense. XD

Disclaimer: I do not own Hikaru no Go.

Note: Hikaru and Sai meet in September 1999.


Interlude I.

July 1999

"So what did you want to show me?" Sai asked, draping his overcoat on the coat rack standing in the corner of Ogata's apartment. Unlike Sai's sparse and barely-accommodating abode, the ninth-dan's apartment looked lived-in and more than capable of supporting its bachelor inhabitant. ('Bachelor' being a loose concept; there were two used coffee mugs on the dining table that Sai was able to see before Ogata rushed away to clean it up. One of the mugs had a vibrant shade of glossy red lipstick on the spot of its rim.) The Meijin took a moment to glance over the goban, where Ogata had recreated his last game against the Honinbou. The ashtray stationed next to the board was practically full of discarded butts, to the man's amusement.

Ogata was banging around in his kitchen. Sai had yet to eat dinner so he hoped his friend would be able to procure some snacks if he planned to keep him sequestered away in his apartment. He settled himself into the plush chair, reclining as languidly as his rigid mannerisms would allow him; there was no need to act uncouth, no matter how much he regarded Ogata as a friend.

Having a friend was a new thing for Sai. He'd graduated high school at the urging of his aunt, given her belief that Go could never be an adequate career, but he'd been busy with both his coursework and Go so that socializing fell to the wayside. None had dared to bully him, given his connections, but sometimes the silence itself could be just as harmful. Now he tried to smile just for the sake of it, acted more open to conversation as the scars from his mother's death healed over into scabs that no longer bled at the first prod, tried to connect to people outside of the goban.

It was….more difficult than he'd expected. Some part of him had hoped that a shared love of Go would bridge the gap between him and other people, but that gap was a schism that none dared breach. Sai was too talented at the game, he loved it too much, he had few interests outside of it - he'd heard the rumors here and there. About how awkward he was to talk with outside of formality. A rich upbringing combined with a staggering past of isolation had made him socially inept and this is what the other pros hooked on - for if they could not find fault with him in his game, then his persona would have to do.

"You haven't eaten dinner yet, right?" Ogata called out from the bowels of the kitchen.

Sai responded in the negative, fingers trailing over one of the Go magazines on the coffeetable. The cover was written on, a personal message to the bespectacled older man about the night before and a phone number. Ogata had likely just missed it in his rush to hide evidence of last night's activities (although Sai didn't know why he'd bother; he wasn't there to judge). Ogata had friends; Sai would see him talk to people like Ashiwara, trade smokes with that reporter from Go Weekly, would scowl and growl at anyone even though people continually flocked to him. Ogata had girlfriends, had one-night-stands, knew the taste of another person's skin.

Ogata was just as vicious on the board, no matter how pragmatically he played. So why was he not as lonely as Sai?

True, the ninth-dan was more often in Sai's company than anyone else. He would even ditch his study group members in favor of Sai, cancel dates with his girlfriends to play just one more game against the Meijin. It was not that Ogata was a horrid friend, nor a fickle one; he was just not someone that Sai ever expected to associate with outside of the game. Ogata was ambitious but he never failed to drag Sai away from the goban in favor of other activities. Trying a new restaurant, hanging out at his favorite bar spots, shoving food made by those who actually knew how to cook; sometimes Sai felt as if he'd experienced more of life by being with Ogata than he ever had under his family's thumb.

"I didn't go grocery shopping," Ogata confessed, finally exiting his kitchen with two tall glasses of matcha latte. Sai eyed his proffered glass askance, wondering how all of the previous racket could have conjured something as harmless as a green tea latte.

Ogata openly scoffed, setting both glasses down at the desk shoved into the corner of the living room. He spared a moment to feed his fish, then turned to boot up the desktop. Sai stood and idled over to him, watching in fascination as the screen flared to life. Ogata shoved his drink into his hand at the first opportunity, neglecting his own in favor of the computer.

"Heard about this site from an acquaintance," Ogata started succinctly. Ogata never acknowledged anyone as a friend, just an 'acquaintance' or a 'coworker'. It had not been lost on Sai, either, that he was the only one to be invited over to Ogata's place (without getting to know the man's bed in an intimate sense, in any case).

"What kind of site?" Sai asked politely. A long sip from the latte revealed it to be the instant-powder type but Sai was hard-pressed to find it unappealing. There was something comforting about the common quality of it.

Ogata gave him a vaguely judgmental look, "As if you'd be interested in any website not related to Go?"

Touche.

NetGo looked to be a fascinating concept. Ogata explained most of the members were nothing more than amateurs, although he had gotten to play a few of the international pros once he'd escalated in rank. Sai was more interested in the growing community; a game that appeared to be dying in popularity in Japan had more active members than the Meijin had expected.

The forum boards themselves discussed everything from how to play the game to dissecting professional ones. There was a pretty vicious and active discussion regarding the last LG Cup's preliminaries, but Sai found the discussions surprisingly substantial.

"Do you have an account?" Sai asked, leaning over to get a better look at the titles of the forum threads.

"It's 'seiji'," Ogata answered after a moment. Sai didn't really notice the faintly stiff tone.

Sai chuckled, "Well, at least you're more creative in your games…"

Ogata grumbled something unintelligible but experience told Sai it was just something offensive and was thus ignored. He thought about creating his own account; it sounded fun and the added anonymity of the internet would make it easier for him to socialize within the community's forum boards. He could even help those just learning the game!

But if he did, it wouldn't take long for the community to figure him out. He seemed to have quite the dedicated fanbase within the website, his style being likened to a 'modern Shuusaku', and just not playing any games to level up would only get his advice ignored within the boards themselves. (Who would listen to a 30-kyu when an offensive 4th-dan was making all sorts of comments?) He'd likely just get idolized and have to fend off game invitations every time he got on, trying to weed out the amateurs from the professionals…

There was no point in ruining a perfectly good website with his cry for social interaction.

Sai's head dropped with a soft sigh onto his friend's shoulder. Ogata froze instantly, uncomfortably still as Sai just mused over the injustices of life.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" That was Ogata-nese for concern, Sai was sure.

"Seiji, let's just play Go together forever~!" Sai whined into the crook of his neck.

Ogata stood abruptly, croaked out something resembling "I'll make dinner, excuse me!" as he strode over to the kitchen at mach speed. Sai was left blinking owlishly at his friend's back, barely noticing the way the swivel chair had whirled into his thighs at its inhabitant's sudden vacating.

"But I thought you said you don't have any food to cook-? Seiji! Your face is red! Are you feeling alright? Seiji!"


Ogata slammed the sake bottle back down onto the table, hitting the wooden top with a dull thump. "It's that kind of talk that makes him difficult to talk to! Who just says things like that? That didn't sound like a declaration over just Go, you know?" the ninth-dan bemoaned, throwing back another shot. He dwindled down into sulking mutters over 'obliviously-seductive assholes with their stupid, pretty hair and stupid, pretty hands and….' for about the seventh time that night.

Eleven-year-old Touya Akira, sitting across from his father's student, merely nodded mutely with the sort of casual air of someone used to dealing with this sort of situation. The restaurant owner bustling about the bar just resigned himself to making another call to the boy's home, hoping against hope that this time the mother wouldn't yell at him over her son being treated to another night of drunken rambling.

The only thing the owner was sure about was that Go players were crazy.


A/N: Well, who else could Ogata complain to without facing judgment? -innocent look-