Disclaimer: I don't own Hikaru no Go. Otherwise, I'd know a little more about Go than I really do.
Story: Hikaru was turned to the hacker world at an early age. Haunted by Sai, she reluctantly integrates Go into her carefully crafted world. Of course, she uses multiple personalities as an excuse to everyone else, seeing as how she has the bad habit of being a con artist.
Set AU.
Spoilers: Probably.
Warnings: Age difference and anything else that comes up.
Pairings: Eventual Ogata/Hikaru, though plenty of one-sided Others/Hikaru
Split Hack
Chapter Eleven: Take Me Down to the Slammer
Ogata woke up with a bad feeling. He didn't take it as a good sign, and he most assuredly didn't like having woken like this.
"Oi, chibi! Are you awake yet?" he called out, tiredly and irritably sitting up from the couch.
If he didn't wake up fast enough, Kami knows that girl would be eating ramen already and being unhealthy again. It's been a long estimated two years since his meeting with this abnormal girl, and he still didn't understand how he ended up concerning himself with her…or why for that matter. However, the fact was (strangely and rather sad as well), she was the closest thing he had to an actual real friend.
He didn't think it said much about him or for him.
Ogata, still half asleep as he looked around for Hikaru, went around the house once before realizing it was too quiet and he hadn't seen even a single hair of the girl. More awake, he rushed through the house again and definitely was sure that he didn't see her anywhere in the house. Panicking, he rushed for his phone and agitatedly started calling hers, only to find her cell phone innocently sitting on the seat Hikaru had sat in right in front of the kotatsu.
Now he was definitely alarmed and wondered if some abductor had taken her from right underneath his nose.
Hesitantly, he slowed himself down and sat on the couch, taking deep breaths to try to calm himself down. He had just about calmed himself and was going to try to think of all the things she would probably be doing, in the instance that she might have just left the house of her own accord and hadn't warned him. There certainly didn't look to be any kind of struggle going on, and he would have woken up for sure then. And if it was one of those acquaintance kidnapping types, then Hikaru would have definitely woke him up, just for her own amusement rather than politely let him sleep on, and informed him about her plans.
There was a knock on the door and he tensed up, his head immediately snapping towards its direction suspiciously. If that was Hikaru…He bristled and stomped in that direction, sure it was her and he was just ready to, as she would probably call it, "whine" at her. Hmph, she was just impossible sometimes…
But it wasn't Hikaru, as he realized, and he just barely kept himself from visibly deflating in front of this unfamiliar newcomer.
"Hello, can I help you?" he asked dully, wishing this man would just go away and leave him be, that way Ogata could hurry and continue his search for the missing girl.
"Hello, I am looking for Shindou Hikaru?" the man asked hesitantly.
He blinked. "Chi –" Ogata cleared his throat. "Shindou-san? She isn't here…May I ask who you are?"
"I'm, um, Yun Seondo? One of her teachers from school."
"Oh. You're that Yun," the blond said flatly.
Yun sweatdropped. 'That Yun?' He had no idea what the other meant by that, or how the other knew him. His only other thought running rampant and on repeat in his head was: 'That is Ogata 9-dan at the door, that is Ogata 9-dan at the door, that is Ogata 9-dan –'
Hikaru was nowhere in sight and there was a famous and well-known Go player in her home for some reason.
"Do you…do you know when she will be back?"
Ogata looked hesitant and then frowned. "She is…missing. I'm unsure as to where she's gone. I just woke up, and I can't find her."
"Even though it's like her," Yun agreed, "It is still worrying. Can I help you search for any clues that might lead to where she went?"
Though further reluctant, Ogata agreed. He was getting extremely worried about her, though he was loathed to admit it to just himself, much less to anyone else. They started searching through the house, and Ogata decided to further search through the second floor. He'd never been up here. Ever. And it was definitely strange to be up there now, especially with Hikaru not there with him. It felt a little creepy (he felt creepy), and he felt a little self-conscious.
The feelings were expanded on exponentially once he'd reached her room and actually entered it.
He didn't feel like he should be in her room, more so when she wasn't there with him –although, he was also sure he would be just as alarmed to be in her room with her too. He gingerly searched around, sweatdropping to himself as he saw his "Wanted" poster displayed on her wall, and looked more like a mug shot with his picture up, CGed into looking rather like a mug shot and a placard with his name, date of birth, weight, and age photoshopped in. He didn't know when the portrait and side-profile pictures of him were taken, but he hadn't noticed or remembered any time she had taken pictures.
Meanwhile, Yun had found her phone and was tentatively calling through her contacts to see if any of them knew where she was or had Hikaru over currently.
"Yo!" a loud, boisterous voice called out and he winced from the volume.
"Hello, is this a Kaga?"
"Yeah, who cares? This Hika's phone, ain't it? Whatcha doin' with her phone?"
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "She's missing and she left her phone behind. I was calling through her contacts to see if anyone knows where she is right now?"
"That baka. Wonder what she's up to. Or maybe Sai pulled another of his Go crazed hijacking. Oh well. When you get her, tell her I'm still a rounin, so if she wants to hang, she can come over anytime."
"O…kay."
"Good. See ya, mister!"
And then there was this Doumoto and a Kawai and an Akira –dear him, was that Touya-kun (he had noticed that Akira had recently transferred into his Advanced English class, and that Hikaru was actually helping him out a bit, but he hadn't known the two were friends or knew each other in the first place)? He called each one, and no one knew where she was. It was rather disappointing and even more worrying than before.
Sighing, he went to go find the other Go player in the house.
"Far from Folsom Prison, that's where I want to stay. And I'd let that lonesome whistle blow my blues away~" Hikaru sighed and blew her bangs in agitation.
"Hikaru, Hikaru! We've been captured by the law! They'll torture us! Sentence us to a painful death! Quickly! We must commit seppuku!" Sai wailed hysterically.
"Sing some other song that isn't so depressing," an officer on watch twitched.
"I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair. Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair~"
The officer groaned and slammed his head onto his table.
"So…"
"So…"
"She has a lot of odd friends," Yun twitched, holding up her phone.
"That she does," Ogata agreed.
"How long have you known her?" Yun asked, actually really interested.
It was strange to know and even see in person that Hikaru knew a highly renowned Go player, such as Ogata Seiji –9-dan and student of the Meijin.
It was even stranger when he heard of how Ogata and her were introduced to each other and how they came to be and stayed friends through the years, as Ogata reticently informed him. Although, something felt missing between the unfortunate run-in at that children's tournament to Ogata spotting her outside of the Meijin's Go salon and dragging her in…
"Well, I met her –"
"You met her, unofficially, at the school tournament where she faked being in Haze High and then officially met face to face in the Korean Go salon she frequents," Ogata immediately and dully cut in.
Huh. He was kept well informed about the going on's of Hikaru's life…It made Yun wonder all the more about the connection between the two, of how close were they and just what were the two to each other…
"Where are her parents?" Yun asked, looking around and finally noticing that fact. "Should we not inform them?"
It had gone beyond his notice, between the frantic searching for her whereabouts to the fact that in all the time he'd known Hikaru, her parents had never been a presence. She'd never mentioned them and they never contacted him or made any kind of distinction in making themselves concerned or present in their child's activities.
"Her father is currently abroad, working on an overseas assignment for the company he works for. Her mother is studying at Tokyo University to become a doctor," Ogata told him, scowling as he did so.
"So they're not around?" Yun frowned at that information.
"Shindou-san's parents do not reside here at this time. She's been living alone in this house," Ogata's scowl deepened.
However, that brought to mind of why was Ogata in her home alone with her, last night?
Ogata also wouldn't want to admit that he kind of only recently found that out due to, since he figured out you could actually look up a person online for whatever information that might be available, he had gone back to researching Hikaru again, with this time keeping to her name. Filtered though he was sure it was, he had found her parents' profiles on some sites, and both had listed Hikaru as family and specifically a "daughter." So he read up on them and found out what he could.
Suddenly, her phone rang and they looked at each other. Yun answered it and put it on speaker.
"Shirayuki?"
They gave another glance at each other.
"Who is this?" Ogata barely refrained from snapping at the speaker.
They heard breathing on the other side for a second before the dial tone replaced it, signaling the speaker had hung up.
"Well that was rather odd," Yun said sarcastically, eying the phone suspiciously.
"Hm," was all that Ogata replied, frowning at the phone.
He knew that name and he recognized the significance of it, could probably even guess the subject that was behind the call with that name being involved. It actually didn't bode well, if her absence had anything to do with that kind of business.
A phone rang again.
It was his phone.
10 minutes earlier in another place…
"Hey, when do I get my phone call?"
"Hey, Megane-chan!" Hikaru's voice said cheerfully.
Ogata twitched, while Yun blinked.
Megane-chan?
"Don't 'Megane-chan' me, Shindou! Where have you been? We've been looking all over for you," he growled into the phone.
"'We've?'" her voice was questioning.
"Your teacher," Ogata glowered, though she couldn't see him.
"Yun-sensei! Hi!"
"…Hello, Shindou-san," Yun sighed.
"What's with all this Shindou-san?" she huffed. "Megane-chan calls me Chibi and Hikaru, and Yun-sensei just calls me Hikaru-chan…so why are you two being so weeeeiiiiirrd?" she sounded like she was pouting.
They looked at each other and turned away quickly, turning red.
"One minute!" they heard in the background.
They turned confused gazes at each other, but before they could blurt out their questions, Hikaru was already hurriedly rushing to explain.
"Soooo…I just called to reassure you I'm alright and things are fine…and that I'm just in jail and there's nothing to worry about," she rushed through the last part.
"You're in jail?!" Ogata managed to screech, and he hadn't even known he was capable of doing such a thing.
Yun stared at the phone slack-jawed, and kind of in shock.
"You…you…idiot! How in the hell did you get in jail? Why are you in jail?" Ogata yelled into the phone, throwing any other attempt at decorum and trying to not look so close to her.
Yun broke out of his shock and started to freak out as well, slightly hyperventilating as he muttered things like 'Jail? She's in jail?' to himself.
"Long story! Actually, I'm not quite sure how I got caught – " Honestly, Ogata didn't even want to point out that she was referring to getting caught, rather than the actual deed that got her into jail in the first place. "Anyway, if you two would be dears, could you find the stash of money under my mattress and send it my way for bail? I always have cash on hand in the house."
They both wondered how one can have that kind of money just lying around in a house, considering bail money was usually not 'light.' And since Ogata knew what type of crime, he was definitely sure it wasn't.
"Time's up!"
"Ah, crap. Gotta go. Jail cell's callin'. Find my money! Ta-ta!"
And then that was it. A click and then she was gone.
"This wouldn't happen to have anything to do with her computer skills, would it?" Yun deadpanned, startling Ogata by his sudden words and what he'd asked in the first place.
"How'd you know she was good with computers?" Ogata looked at him in surprise.
"She continuously transforms my classroom into a techie's dream spot, runs the IT club that might or might not still be running illegal computer activities, even though I told them to stop after stopping them from trying to masquerade their hacking club as some anime club and just keeping it as the IT club, and then magically transforms my classroom back like nothing had happened to it."
"…She does that."
They both shared a sigh at that.
"And it's more likely a 'cracking' club," Ogata muttered, and Yun looked at him in confusion.
He mentally face palmed. "Dear God, that girl is rubbing off on me," he muttered to himself.
They looked for her supposed secret pile of cash, and were rather surprised that they'd found it rather quickly. And then proceeded to stare at the literal pile of cash.
If this was the cash she 'had on hand,' did she even leave any in the bank?
Neither of them even wanted to think about how and where she got all this money from.
Yun grabbed a garbage bag and came back into her room, where they both began to shove handfuls of the money into the bag. After filling up the bag and emptying the hiding place, they quietly got into the car and drove over to the police station.
When they entered the station and shoved the bag at the nearest police officer, they asked for her and demanded her release.
They were stared at weirdly.
Once everything got settled and put into the right order, they did actually manage to pay the bail and still have a lot of leftover money from the stash. However, they were put off when they were informed that she would not be able to be released until the judge in charge of her accepted the bail and had the paperwork done and everything else…and he wouldn't be available until the end of the week.
Grudgingly, they left…
"Hey, aren't you that Go player that molested that girl, the same one in jail and that you were asking for?" someone called out.
Ogata stumbled terribly, eyes wide in shock and horror.
Yun stared at him dumbly. And then he was glaring.
"I-it's not what it sounds like," Ogata stuttered. "That's not what happened."
"Explain. Now."
"Cause I'm all alone. There's no one here beside me. My problems have all gone. There's no one to deride me, but you gotta have friends..."
"Please! No more of the depressing songs!"
Hikaru pouted and instead started to clang an imaginary cup against the bars morosely.
"I'm all aloooonnnneee," Sai echoed her. "Besides you," he cut himself off, looking at her, before flopping back onto the floor.
While she clanged her imaginary cup, crouching in front of the bars of their cell, Sai lay spread-eagled on his back and had his hair fanning out on the floor behind him. Stray strands stuck out crazily and he was staring at the ceiling with a crazed look in his eyes. Hikaru glanced at him dully, before staring back out of their holding cell and clanging her imaginary cup.
"I gotta go pee."
The week passed by both quickly and yet contrarily slow. Ogata was the one to pick her up that Friday, as Yun was stuck in school. When he came in, he was both caught off guard and yet somehow expecting the scene that greeted him upon his time to collect her from her jail time. He wondered why he wasn't used to the oxymoron's he was forced to continuously face because of this girl.
"And don't forget to brush your teeth and wash yourself thoroughly! Even down there," he heard Hikaru say, and there was a loud round of raucous laughter exploding from the same direction he heard her voice in.
The officer leading him rolled his eyes, fondly smiling. "They worship her and think Sai should have been an Emperor in his time."
Ogata pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, it typically happens to the both of them. She and…Sai were born to rule the world, I should think."
The surrounding prisoners in the holding cells around hers were all greeting her goodbye, with some embarrassingly sobbing. He didn't want to ask or even know.
"Bye, favorite temporary inmate of all time!" one of them called out to her.
He really didn't want to know.
"Bai bai~" Hikaru called back, following him and the officer back out. "Wish me luck on my trial!"
"Good luck!" the others chorused.
Ogata sighed and dragged her out of there.
She'd missed a week of school and it was the weekend already. She was stuck at home, and she would be with or without having been ordered to stay there, considering there was no school. Ogata was just waiting for her to snap.
Hikaru had paced angrily, like a hungry tiger, in her living room for a very long time after arriving home. He stayed quiet, watching her. Afterwards, she stalked through her home, but didn't seem to be doing or looking for anything in particular. He watched her march through the place without purpose. And when Yun arrived, looking thoroughly harassed, he also witnessed Hikaru's odd behavior.
"Should I ask?" her teacher asked him.
"No. I wouldn't know either."
Yun frowned, but shuffled around the papers in his arms before straightening them and putting them onto a nearby table.
"Her assignments," he muttered. "I had them collected and put together, so she can work on them."
"Right now, she looks like she's ready to do anything but work on schoolwork," Ogata noted, catching a glimpse of her as she stomped through the kitchen.
"I wonder what's wrong?" Yun wondered aloud.
"Damn it! I'll find out who the hell you are and get you back for selling me out!" they heard her yell angrily.
"I'm guessing that was our answer," Ogata said dryly.
She irritably left the kitchen and finally came towards them.
"'Lo, Yun-sensei," she acknowledged him briefly. "My preliminary trial is on Monday, so I have to miss another day of school. Can you miss it too? I need someone to be there apparently, to act as some kind of guardian. My parents are out of town, and I don't want to trouble my grandpa about this or let him know what's going on."
Ogata was taken aback and frowned, feeling…irritable? He automatically assumed she would have asked him for such a thing, so he hadn't expected her to turn to someone else.
"I'm available," he kept his tone neutral.
"I thought about it," she said honestly. "But you know, you're Ogata 9-dan. It would be bad for you to be connected to me or this kind of thing, right? So I thought I'd asked Yun-sensei instead, since he's not famous and well-known. No offence," she directed to her teacher.
"None taken," he held up his hands. "I'll call in that day then."
Ogata nodded, going along with it…but he still wasn't too happy.
Started 6/12/13 – Completed 6/19/13
A/n: Sorry for this being so late! I was streamlining and updating my website, which now includes a section for this fic (along with music), updating my chapter summaries for this fic and others, and then had to deal with lots of RL stuff. Anyway, I purposely made Hikaru's scenes short XD Annnnd…I forgot what else I was going to add here. BUT, if you can guess at the songs, which should be easy, I'll give you a prize! First person only!
To Jon Irenicus: Why thank you!
To Guest 1: Thanks! And aside from Hikaru as the main character, I try to get her to interact with as many different people as possible, especially those that don't get seen as much in canon.
To Guest 2: Oh yeah, she's in trouble XD As to how she gets caught, it'll get revealed. Hikaru won't let it go. As to Ogata dealing with it and not being please, well you can see how pleased he is :)
To Blaze: Thank you! It's just priceless fun writing up Ogata's expressions. Sorry for how late this was though.
To nanashi: Thank you! And I like Ko Yeongha/Hikaru too, though Ogata/Hikaru is my fav (I'm so happy to find another fan of them!). It's always fun messing with the two and finding the different ways they can get into messy situations. Glad you're enjoying them so far. As for Ogata being an ice-cube, I don't know. I've never really seen him that way. I see him at least more caustic, or somewhat of an isolated sometimes awkward sometimes clueless at social norm (he does forcefully grab Hikaru in canon to drag him all the way to a Go salon…actually forcefully grabbed him several times, I'm sure XD) and yet very sarcastic kind of guy.
Yeah, I know Japanese culture is usually very reserved, aside from manga characters which ironically are who are being written about, but besides Hikaru's personality and what I see as Ogata's, they've actually had two years now to get close (yay for time skips!) and I usually depict them together when they're alone, rather than with others or in public. Like in here and somewhat with Ashiwara was around. Of course PDA, even hand holding, isn't really done in Japan, but you know –like that'll stop Hikaru. Her kind of thinking is jacked up, especially since she partly raised herself and formed her own rules basically. She would be dense in romance…though Ogata is shaping up to be like a tsundere with yandere leanings (which is what I wanted XD). He's already dealing with suitors and being jealous…even when they're not actual suitors, heh. As for Yeongha, he's definitely going to be one of those. As you can tell, I really love messing with all the characters with Hikaru, and he'll definitely be a victim. And he will get the tongue-lashing of a lifetime, though I think Sai would be just amused and let Hikaru go off on him.
As for landing a cute crime-doer girl…I think he's an accomplice at this point XD Unwilling, but still an accomplice. And I think he's even become attached to his nickname. Silly man will probably get jealous over silly things. And pout about it (not that he'll admit it). As for his matches, I kind of see him acting abnormal at one of them, maybe in the future, and Kuwabara picking at it and getting him even more wound up. I do have a plan for Hikaru, and she will actually be a Go player. You'll see :) I'm looking forward to that point. Although, Sai will still probably demoshi the Internet Go world. Just 'cause he can and Hikaru asked him too. Sai's brother and Ogata's family will definitely get featured more. I really meant to keep Sai's brother as that one mention and I've grown fond of him and keep putting him in.
Thank you! And yet, torture is a very perfect word. Poor Ogata-sensei.
To anon: Sorry! Please don't die. Then you can't read this and future chapters.
To anon 2: Ah, well. Anon's a popular name? Eheh. But thank you! And I'm sorry for being away for so long.
To Yuu: Thank you!