------------(10)-----------------

Akira told himself to remain calm. "That wasn't what you said the last time," he said, trying to make his voice light-hearted and unconcerned.

"Last time?" Hikaru scrunched his face up in thought. "When?"

"When I caught you by the station, after you had gone to that Children's event the first time," Akira said. He could still remember the frantic rush to the train station, pushing himself into a crowded train, and all that running, to get to that mysterious opponent who had defeated him without any prior experience in playing Go.

"When you caught-" Hikaru echoed, before he blinked in sudden comprehension. "Akira, that was years ago!" he protested. "I'm not that mercenary now, right?"

"I guess not," Akira said. Hikaru had a monthly allowance from his parents, and was constantly campaigning for increases from them. He had talked about getting a part-time job now and then, but the truth was, he played too much Go for that.

"Besides, you gave me such a scolding when I said I wanted to turn pro and win a title," Hikaru said, evidently recalling this part at last and giving him an exaggeratedly wounded look. "It really hurt me, right here," he said, thumping himself with a flattened palm.

Akira shook his head, and pulled Hikaru's palm two inches across his chest. "That's your right lung," he said, wondering why he had to keep correcting Hikaru about human anatomy. Really, who was the one who quit school at fifteen? Then he realized he was getting distracted, and that they had drifted away from the topic. "So the prize money doesn't attract you now?" he asked, and inwardly squirmed, wishing he could take the words back as soon as he said them. He had actually stooped to using money as a lure. For Go.

Luckily, Hikaru thought he was joking. "Very funny," he said. "Anyway, all I have to do is to wait for you to make it big, and I'll just live off you. Good plan, huh?"

"Very funny," he said, fighting to sound like his usual self.

They reached his home, and Hikaru, after a number of furtive looks around to be sure that no other pro was around--"pros are scary people, Akira!"--finally sat down in Akira's room and laid his head on the table with an exaggerated moan. Akira looked at him for a moment, and made his way to the kitchen.

It was quiet, with his father resting in his room, and his mother was in the kitchen. She greeted him cheerfully, but her smile dropped a little when he said that Hikaru was in his room. Unlike his father, his mother had not taken the news that he was dating Hikaru well. Though she liked Hikaru, Akira could tell she preferred not to think of her son dating another male.

She usually said nothing, however, because Akira's father seemed to be utterly nonchalant, even accepting, of Akira's relationship with Hikaru. But then it was known that his father, Touya Kouyo, one of the most famous Go players in Japan, valued Go-playing ability above everything else.

"Ask Shindou-san if he'd like to stay for dinner," she said. "I'm making curry rice."

She was trying, though.

Even if he could tell that she still hoped that it was a phase he was going through, dating Hikaru, Akira was still glad of the welcome. "I'll ask him," he said.

She smiled another polite smile; Akira forced down his discomfort and returned it, before turning towards the refrigerator.

"I'm so tired," Hikaru said, when Akira came back with a chilled can of green tea, for him. "Thanks," he opened the can and drank noisily.

Akira busied himself straightening the perfectly straight books on his shelves. "Do you want to stay for dinner?" he asked. "Mother has already cooked." Hikaru had no idea of his mother's real sentiments, and he hoped it stayed that way.

Hikaru glanced up, putting down the empty can. "Sure," he agreed, before he frowned. "Wait, your father is at home, right?"

Akira nodded.

Hikaru grimaced. "If Touya-sensei sees me, he'll want to ask me to play."

"You don't want to?"

"I don't mean to be rude, Akira, but I really don't feel like playing any more Go today." He looked at Akira, his lower lip protruding slightly, like a six-year-old waiting for an adult to supply all the answers.

Akira sat down beside him, and did not hide his sigh of exasperation. Here he was worrying about his mother, and Hikaru was worrying about nothing. "You can tell him no, Hikaru," he said.

"But..." Hikaru put the empty can on the table, though his fingers remained curled around it, squeezing it slightly to make a dent. "I don't want to make Touya-sensei angry."

Shaking his head, Akira tried to control his frustration. It had been a long day: first that scene with Kuwabara, then Hikaru's misery at missing Sai, and the scene with Waya. "You won't make him angry," he said. "You have the right to decide if you want to play, Hikaru."

"But if Touya-sensei wants to play-"

"He'll understand." Hikaru's intransigence about playing Go required more and more patience to deal with as time went on. Akira had wanted to play Go since he was young, first modeling himself after his father, and later chasing a twelve-year-old Hikaru. He later turned pro so he could play more Go. It was as simple as that. But Hikaru was different. He took a deep breath, to stop himself from shouting. "Father won't mind," he said.

Hikaru shook his head, stubborn. "I have to," he said. "S-Sa... he would be disappoint-"

"You can't keep playing for a dead man!"

There was a loud crunch, and he watched as the empty can crumpled in Hikaru's hand.

Akira could hear a loud ringing in his ears all of a sudden, and he realized it was because the room had gone utterly quiet. His words returned to his memory and he stuttered, "Hikaru, I-I-"

"Is that what you think?" Hikaru asked, sounding unlike himself. His voice was low, determined and furious. The voice of an adult.

It was a voice Akira had never heard from him.

"I asked you a question," Hikaru said, the words too measured to be coming from him. "Is that what you think?" he repeated.

Akira held his breath. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Then what way did you mean?" Hikaru demanded, standing up. The crushed drink can fell over with a clatter on the table, spilling a few drops of green tea onto the table.

Akira looked away, his gaze turning to his lap, at his hands placed there.

"I'm asking you something!" Hikaru shouted. There was a ragged tone in his voice--anger held back by nothing more than a threadbare blanket--yet thick with something that felt like anguish.

Akira studied the way his knuckles were whitened by the way he clenched his fists. "It's true, isn't it?" he said, barely recognizing his own voice. "You've been playing for Sai, all this time. Never for yourself."

"That's not-"

Akira spoke faster, drowning out the denial. "All the other things you do," he said, "the school Go club, playing in amateur Go tournaments--they're just props for you to be Sai, so that other people would not ask about your Go. Because you're playing your own Go, but only as a leftover of Sai's Go. You've never cared for your Go as much as you did Sai's."

"That's not-" Hikaru repeated. He stopped, and silence descended again, motionless in the neat little room.

As though he were waiting for him to continue, Akira thought. Hikaru wants to know more, he told himself. I mustn't disappoint him. "You're so scared of pros because you know that they're playing for themselves. They are selfish in a way that you won't let yourself be," he said. "They have ambition and they hunger for recognition, for their Go, for better Go." He thought of Waya, shouting after them, of Kuwabara persisting in the Go world for so many years, and of the way his own students worked towards their pro dreams.

"They are striving the only way they know," he continued, not looking at Hikaru. "So, I ask you this, Shindou," he said, unconsciously reverting to the way he had called Hikaru before they started dating, "the same thing I asked you that day, in front of the train station: Have you ever been serious about something in your life?"

--------to be continued--------