---------------(11)--------------

For a moment all Akira could hear was silence, then the rapid thump of footfalls on the tatami as Hikaru ran at him, and an instinct he had not known he possessed made him step to the side, just in time, so that the flying punch only glanced his cheek. He sat down suddenly on the floor as Hikaru's body brushed against his.

There was a loud crash. He turned, and saw that the momentum of the rush had made Hikaru collide with the wall. Even as he watched, Hikaru picked himself up, and turned around, facing him.

"Hikaru-"

"Shut up!" Hikaru shouted, his face reddened, the veins in his throat standing out.

Akira stood up, using the nearby chair for support--it was strange that his feet seemed to be so weak--but he had to get through to Hikaru.

Before he could say or do anything else, Hikaru was already standing before him. His eyes were red, but the expression on his face never wavered. He pulled the chair from Akira's hands, and gripped the front of his shirt. "Take it back," he said.

"Stop-" He tried to pull himself loose, but found that he couldn't move. He stared, torn by the pain in Hikaru's eyes.

"Take it back," Hikaru said again. "What you said just now."

"Hikaru-"

"Or we end it now."

Denial sprang to his lips, but the wetness in Hikaru's eyes stopped him from retracting his words. Those tears were not for him. "No. I won't," he said, hardly able to believe what he was saying. "I won't take it back. You've been playing for Sai all along, never for yourself. Admit it to yourself, even if you won't admit it to anyone else."

Hikaru's eyes widened, but it did not stop tears from rolling down his face. "What do you know!" he said. "He was my teacher, my mentor, my best friend-"

"And he's gone," Akira said, cringing at the way his words sounded so final.

Abruptly Hikaru released him, pushing him to the side, his shoulders heaving as though he had run for miles. "I have to go," he said in a softer voice. A child's voice.

Akira extended a hand towards him. "Hikaru-"

Hikaru retreated immediately. "I have to go," he said again. "G-goodbye, Touya."

Akira heard the door open, and Hikaru was gone.

-----

Akira barely stopped himself from making an exclamation. The game was still in progress. But he could not help glancing up again.

For three days Hikaru had not been available, Akira thought, remembering all the phone calls he had made, and now he chooses to turn up here, of all places? Akira had been prevented by his schedule from paying a personal visit to Hikaru's school--or perhaps his home--to find him, and now nothing surprised him more than seeing Hikaru, still in his school uniform, sitting down quietly in the the observers' corner.

Hikaru was not looking at Akira; his attention was solely on the Go board. Akira tried to take in the fact that here was Shindou Hikaru, voluntarily appearing at the Go Institute, sitting next to a couple of high-ranking pros who were also observing the game. He fought against the surge of hope that perhaps Hikaru understood, after all. Looking away, and telling himself to concentrate, Akira continued playing Go. Nonetheless, a part of him became shivery with nervousness despite himself, so that his opponent, Kurata, gave him an odd look, despite the perilous states of both their territories.

Akira reminded himself not to be distracted.

Kurata Atsushi, the newest Juudan, was a brilliant player who was well known for his superb intuition to achieve his victories, and he had just forced Akira into an impasse. Akira was on the verge of conceding his territories in the centre, but Kurata's attacks were yet too entangled with his own weak spots to disengage easily. There seemed no step that would not lead to a long, drawn-out, and possibly disastrous war for both sides. Akira forced down his excitement at seeing Hikaru, and pushed himself to focus his mind and consider the game, just as he had been taught.

It was hard to concentrate, however. His mind kept dwelling on the ties between him and Hikaru. Akira had chased the mysterious Shindou Hikaru, aged twelve, because he played a style of Go that was old, expert, and most disconcerting of all, had defeated him. But Hikaru disappointed him in the junior high tournament, and Akira thought that it all ended there.

Then he had faced a mysterious 'Sai' on the internet, and returned to the mystery of Shindou Hikaru once more. He abandoned the mystery of Sai so he could take up the friendship of Shindou Hikaru. Yet it turned out that Sai had always been ever-present within Hikaru.

Sai and Hikaru. Hikaru and Sai. They should have been separate, but to Hikaru they were inseparable. Impasse. Akira let his thoughts, troubled as they were, return to the game. All thought of Hikaru flowed away as he reconsidered the threat. Yes. There was a way to unknit the disputed territories, to release himself from the trap in the making. He only had to stop looking from the outside. He suddenly wondered, as he reached into the go-ke for a stone, if anyone else in the room would see it too.

Kurata did not react at first when Akira placed the stone, though he leant back a fraction moments later, as though to gain a wider vantage point. He placed another stone after long consideration, diagonal to Akira's hand. Akira responded, a challenge this time, not only to Kurata but almost as though he were playing with Hikaru, to show him what his intentions were. Kurata glanced up at him, but did not say anything, and replied.

The softest of murmurs reached his ears, but he did not hesitate, and played on.

It seemed to take no time at all.

"That was the decisive hand!" Ichiryu was exclaiming when Akira left the playing room, after the post-game discussion with an indignant Kurata, who had already gone downstairs. He caught sight of Akira. "Touya-san, I was referring to your hand at that point, when you and Black were stuck in the centre. It didn't make sense to me at first, but it turned the game around within twenty hands. Well-played!"

"Thank you," Akira said, wondering how soon he could disengage himself. Hikaru had disappeared soon after Kurata resigned, and Akira wondered if he had only come to see the game. No, Hikaru had always made excuses not to come to the Go Institute, even to see Akira play--it could not be that he would leave just like that, now.

"Good game, Touya-san," Serizawa said, approaching him. "Now you're a step closer to becoming the final challenger for the Honinbou title."

Akira bowed his head modestly. "Thank you. But I have to play with Ogata-san next," he said. "That will not be easy."

"He's also your father's student, isn't he?" Serizawa asked.

"Yes," Akira said, not caring about that at the moment. "I'm sorry, I have to go now."

"Oh, you must be looking for your friend," Serizawa said.

Ichiryu interrupted, "That high school student who came right in the middle of the game? He's a friend of Touya-san?"

Akira nodded. "Yes. Have you seen him?"

Serizawa frowned. "He must be an outsider. I don't remember seeing him around before."

"He went downstairs," Ichiryu said cheerfully. "Maybe he didn't want to interrupt your post-game discussion. But it's easy to see that he's not a pro. Fancy arriving halfway through the game!"

"Thank you," Akira said, ignoring the rest of Ichiryu's words as his nervousness returned. What was he going to say to Hikaru, he wondered, but knew he had to go and talk to him, just the same. "Please excuse me," he said to Ichiryu and Serizawa, and walked past them, smiling politely at the game officials.

He took the stairs, suddenly worried that Hikaru had left after all. Not seeing him at the lobby, his dismay grew. But he need not have worried. Barely had he entered the reception area when he heard the sound of loud squabbling.

"That was not an illogical hand!" came Hikaru's outraged voice.

An unexpected voice answered him. "I say it was, and I was playing him. All signs pointed to the need for an offensive, but he played a defensive hand instead."

Kurata? Akira thought to himself. He walked forward to see Hikaru and Kurata standing over a Go board, both with crossed arms as they looked down at the game on it.

"That's because you didn't see the potential for attack over here!" Hikaru nodded--rather vaguely, Akira thought--at the Go board. "See, your defense is weak here. And it's true, see, you got flattened..."

"But only because I conceded that group-"

"Hah! He saw through your tactic to trap him..."

"How do you know?"

"Because I always see where that person is seeing," Hikaru said, catching sight of him, and his expression becoming frozen. "Oh."

Akira swallowed. Due to his busy schedule as a pro, there were always stretches of days when Akira went without seeing seeing his boyfriend, but never had there been this disconnect between them. Now, he found that he did not know how to reach out to Hikaru, even without his surprising familiarity towards Kurata.

Kurata had turned to face Akira, before looking back at Hikaru. "You two know each other?" he asked.

Hikaru's face looked bland, his previous exuberance vanishing like smoke. "Yes, we do," he answered. "Hello, Touya."

Touya. Hikaru had not called him that for years, even before they started dating. Akira found that he did not know how to answer. "Hello," he finally said.

"You know," Kurata sounded curious. "I always thought you only hung around amateur players, Shindou-kun. Other than me, of course."

"Touya and I met at his father's Go salon," Hikaru said. "Isn't that right, Touya?" he asked, deliberately casual. He met Akira's gaze without reaction.

"Touya Meijin's Go salon? So you've played with Touya Kouyo then?" Kurata asked.

"A few times," Hikaru said, his eyes never leaving Akira's. "I actually played with Touya first. Do you still remember that game, Touya? It was a slaughter."

By Sai.

The words went unspoken. Kurata, oblivious, started to laugh. "I can just imagine it!" he said. "Shindou-kun, you're a decent player but Touya-kun here was born to be a pro."

He had no idea of Hikaru's true strength, Akira realized.

"Oh, I knew that," Hikaru said. "He's been training for it since he was two. Right, Touya?"

"Yes, it's always been my goal to play professional Go," Akira braced himself. "Something that Shindou-san doesn't understand."

Hikaru glared.

Kurata laughed. "I bet he thinks it's boring, huh, Shindou-kun? Still a hobby only? Not taking it seriously?"

He thought he sensed Hikaru wince, and a vengeful part of him was satisfied.

"Oh, I'm searching for the Hand of God, just like everyone else," Hikaru said, his words sounding awkward despite himself.

"A lofty goal," Kurata said, not bothering to conceal his broad grin. "Too lofty for an amateur, perhaps?"

He meant only to tease, Akira could tell, but he could see Hikaru's jaw tighten. "How did you come to know Shindou-san, Kurata-san?" he asked quickly. He didn't even stumble over 'Shindou' this time.

"Oh, that." Kurata frowned in memory. "We met at a Go event. Shindou-kun is an authority on Shuusaku's artifacts, do you know that?" he said. "We first met when he spotted someone trying to sell a Go board supposedly belonging to Shuusaku. Took one look and said it was a fake. Kicked up a big fuss, and got attention just because he won the amateur tournament that time."

Hikaru scowled. "Nobody is allowed to insult Shuusaku when I'm around!" he declared.

Kurata studied him for a moment. "You are a weird kid, you know that? Maybe I should count my lucky stars that you're an amateur," he said.

"Huh?" Hikaru said, the change of topic taking him by surprise.

"It's late," Kurata said. "I should be getting back. Shindou-kun, it was a surprise to see you. Touya, I'll be sure to avenge my loss at our next game. Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye, Kurata-san," Akira said, nodding his head in a bow, watching as Kurata's large figure disappeared through the doors at the far end.

"What did he mean, he should thank his lucky stars?" Hikaru asked beside him.

"He means that..." Akira paused, and continued in a quieter voice. "He means that you could be a pro, Shindou."

Instead of the expected denial at this suggestion, Hikaru's lips only tightened. "If I were a pro, I would be your opponent," he said.

"That's highly possible," Akira said, but he was suddenly struck by the thought that no, Hikaru would not merely be his opponent.

"It means we would be rivals," Hikaru said, turning fully so that he was facing Akira directly. "Touya Akira vs. Shindou Hikaru."

Judging by his skills, Hikaru could even pass him. He knew how good Hikaru was. "That's possible, too," Akira said, the words slipping out through suddenly dry lips. He was making a huge mistake. Hikaru was better than him. Hikaru played like Sai! If Hikaru was a pro, Akira would be left far, far behind. He fought against the sudden panicky urge to tell Hikaru to forget it.

"Oh." Hikaru was quiet for a few seconds, before he spoke again. "Then this is war."

Too late.

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