Chapter 12
'Dream'
Monday. Nine o'clock in the morning. Attending and sitting in the meeting room wasn't really part of his weekly routine. Despite being the CEO of Seishūn Publising Inc., Ogata Seiji couldn't truly grasped the concept of managing and handling publishing stuffs. That's Inoue's job, as the man was his trusted right man behind the scene. And has more knowledge in publishing world.
He reads all the files on his tables as he prepared himself for the meeting within half an hour. It was the weekly and monthly reports from each departments that usually needed his signature since Inoue already reviewed it for him.
What he will do if one day Inoue decides to resign from his company because of his bad attitude towards the poor silver hair man?
He stayed the night at Inoue's house. And planning to grab more clothes to stay for a week. The silver haired guy obviously overworks himself. And Ogata noticed Inoue lose weight last time he met him.
As usual, Inoue skipped lunch and dinner for work and he blamed himself for that. This time, Ogata promised that he will divided his time between Go and the publishing not to burden the poor silver hair anymore.
It wasn't that he doesn't really like working Seishūn. After all, it was their father's company and inherited by his older brother and he'd never interested managing it. But his older brother died, ten years ago.
A car accident.
He closed his eyes. It was a very painful night. When they received a call about his brother dying in the hospital.
Recently, the image of his brother starts showing up in his dreams. In those dreams, it was as if his Seiki-nii saying something he doesn't recall the moment he woke up. It's been awhile since he dreamed about him. Realized how he almost forgotten his gentle face.
He and his brother are half-American, half-Japanese. Although they were born in America, they're raised in Japan by their father when their parents got divorced and their mother died shortly due to cancer.
They had almost the same physiques and heights. Though he's feature was an obvious mixed of Japanese and American with his dirty blonde hair and brown eyes, he's older brother was entirely American. He has a golden blonde hair with a cerulean eyes that made him popular with girls.
While he had an impassive personality and cold towards others, his brother was a warm and cheerful. Totally opposite of him.
And after meeting the certain Shindo Hikaru made his older brother memories more vivid than before. The teen resembles his brother in some ways when he was the same age. Perhaps if the teen can able to talk, they might also have the same personality as Shindo was an easy-going teenager.
Ogata noted to ask Touya Meijin or Akira to get the blonde bang teen's phone number because Shindo left his white board in the car last Saturday when he kindly dropped off the teen. And he planned to invite the teen for a game sometimes. To get to know Shindo a bit.
He took a deep breath as he scanned the rest of the files. He was an intelligent man and can easily memorized whatever written in the papers. He just too bored to do this job so he just left the company's future to Inoue's capable hand.
A soft knock cut off his thoughts. "Come in." He said.
"Good morning, Ogata-san." It was Inoue with their business-like mode since they agreed to avoid being informal at work. "The meeting will start soon. Is there anything we need to add for discussion?" He asked as he poured the coffee from the coffee maker. Black. No sugar.
"Why so formal? No one is here yet." He asked, taking the cup from Inoue and approached him. "So, did you call Shin-sensei?"
"I send him a message. No reply yet." Which is true. He knew that the blonde bang teen will probably reply during lunchbreak.
"Why not call him?"
"Nah. He won't talk to me anyway."
"Huh?"
"Seiji." Inoue called his given name and glared at the man. Ogata was really annoying sometimes. "Please not now. And besides didn't I promised you that I will let you meet him. Did you call Akira?" He asked instead to divert their topic to the other teen.
"No, not yet., but I'll call him to be with us tonight. I printed his game against Sai last night. I'm pretty sure Akira will show it to sensei."
"Yes." Inoue was terribly nervous. He wondered what would happen once they found out about Shindo's other two identities. Sai in NetGo and Raku Shin. He just confirmed from Shindo that he's indeed Sai in the net.
When Shindo told him about Touya Meijin being his guardian, he never had a chance to ask if he already met Akira or Ogata. He was afraid to ask rather doesn't knew how to simply ask without bothering the teen.
Everything seems messed up and he doesn't want to ruined his good relationship with the Shindo. Hopefully not. He needed to talk to Shindo first before the meeting between Touya Meijin and Ogata.
"Hey. Something wrong?" Ogata asked, noticing that Inoue was spacing out for awhile.
Maybe his persistence were not doing any good for the man. Aside from losing weight, Inoue kinda out fo himself lately. His cheeriness slowly fade and a bit cold towards him. He needs to be more careful on how he deal with Inoue's emotions and sensistivity.
"Seiji.." He called lowly. "Please promise me...be nice to him...okay." He smiled sadly. Inoue doesn't like the idea of letting Ogata and Shindo meet this way for some reason, assuming that they didn't meet yet.
Ogata was taken aback seeing the sorrowness at Inoue's eyes. Does this Raku Shin was really important to Inoue? Somehow, he felt a sting of pain deep inside.
"Yes. I promise." He replied sadly.
Inoue caressed Ogata's cheek then took his one hand and squeezed gently. "Thank you Seiji. He's very dear to me..."
Ogata wanted to confront the man. To ask Inoue what does he meant exactly by those words, yet he preferred to keep it to himself. He's gonna found out later after he meet the mysterious Raku Shin. As for now, he needed to concentrate at the meeting to clear some issues. He has a lot of work to do anyway.
Lunchbreak was always the peaceful time for Shindo. After he refused the lunch invitations from some of his classmates, he hurriedly went to the rooftop. He wanted to be alone. And to hide.
Recently, more and more students have their own copies of his books. And its terrifies him. Some of his classmates bought copies and even brought a magnetic goban where they can reenact the games from the book.
Surprisingly, even his football coach have his own copy boasting that he's originally a go player during his middle school year. So the idea of asking his help to decline Kaga's crazy plan to starts a Go club, came out of the window. It was obviously futile seeing his coach was another Go fanatic.
He also met the principal about refusing to create a Go club and luckily the woman agreed with him. And they talked about his hair issue once more. In the end, they both settled that Shindo must turn his hair into it's natural color.
He needed to send messages to Inoue about to tonight's meeting with Touya Meijin. The silver haired man requested if he can also meet the Seishūn's owner as the man himself was interested in the book. Of course he was more than willing to meet the owner. It's a great and rare chance for him.
After he sat at the corner of the rooftop under the shade, he opened his bento box and took out his phone.
'It's okay. I will meet the owner together with Touya Meijin." He wrote a messages for the man. He ate as he waiting for the reply. It's unusual for Inoue to reply late since it's lunch break. But he remembered Inoue mentioned that they will have a meeting in the morning for the translation of his book.
Shindo sighed, suddenly felt nervous. Seriously he doesn't have any ideas how popular his book, considering it wasn't even a month when it's released. But Inoue stated on his text messages that the owner wants to translate the book into different languages before Hokuto Cup thingy, which will help them to promote and popularized his book.
Hopefully. It will.
He loved Go, but it doesn't mean he can join Go and Soccer club at the same time. He have his hands full with everything. School works, soccer and part time job. He was really thankful that Inoue never bothered him with anything regarding the book.
He needs to calm down. Shindo had hoped that his mentor won't get upset from keeping his identity as Raku Shin.
And there something else bothers him that he might discuss with Inoue.
The game he had with a certain Touya last night and his dream.
That particular game was one of the best game he had so far, but something quite familiar the way his opponent played. It was as if he already played against Touya before. And he's been thinking to ask Inoue if that Touya is Akira or his father.
And the dreams he had last night. Although he had those dreams before when he's younger, now it became quite clear.
Shindo saw a tall man again cheerfully saying he is his Daddy...and a small boy sitting across him while calling a name...Yuki? Tsuki? Ruki? -chan. The faces were still vague and hardly recognize, but he could hear their voices better than before.
He wondered if he knew those people before, yet he couldn't remember any person resembles them from his old hometown. Or maybe his memories starting to return little by little though he wasn't actually in a hurry to remember it all.
The wind blows and a dust caught his eyes. He rubbed his emerald eyes with the back of his hands and carefully removed something.
Shindo stared down at the contact lenses in his palms. "Perhaps it's time to stop using this thing." He said to no one. "And this is the last pair I had from grandpa anyway." He wrapped the contact lenses with the clean piece of paper he had on his pocket. "Or maybe I wil use them a bit more..."
He took a deep breath and gazed up in the sky. He watched the pure white clouds moving with the deep blue skies reflecting the true colors of his eyes.
Touya Meijin hands were both trembling as he put the letter back inside the white envelope after he read it. He felt his chest tightening and heaving for lack of air.
There were so many things confuses and upsetting him now, wondering how such things could be possibly happen. He'll never blamed the man for his desperation to save his grandson's life. But the way he done it was totally gone wrong in so many ways, that even took someone else's life.
He took a very deep breath to calm down himself. Touya Meijin's head was extremely painful and feels like it's gonna explode soon.
He hid the letter inside the same package from Heihachi Shindo before leaving his study room to breath some fresh air. He's definitely need it.
He sat in the other room, the place where he teaches Go and faced the wooden board to have some game. It was another way for him to relax as he still felt his heart beating faster than the usual and his breathing still hard.
He heard the doorbell rang, announcing the arrival of his expecting visitors. Touya Meijin could felt his emotions jumbled with anxiety, hatred and at the same time excitement. He have no idea who is this Raku Shin. Hoping that the author was none other than the Sai in the NetGo, or at least can play a decent Go. It may at least cool down his anxiousness for a bit.
The sliding door opened, revealing his son Akira and his student Ogata. He's surprised and quite confused because he was expecting Inoue and the author to came in, not them. But he acknowledged them anyway.
After the two silently greeted him back and sat down at the opposite side, the doorbell rang once again and he heard Inoue's calm voice as the man politely greeted the Meijin's wife.
Touya Meijin looked at Akira then Ogata with a silent understanding, and mentally noted to talk to the blonde pro in private after the meeting. Evidently, Inoue contacted the blonde pro for this meeting since he's the owner of the company who published Raku Shin's work. With the additional of his son's presence.
He was certainly glad that Ogata didn't bothered him about his secret meeting with the silver hair man. As he doesn't have any explanation for that matter unless Ogata already confronts Inoue. And there's so many things they have to talk soon.
The anticipation of meeting the mysterious author was extemely thrilling. He's been thinking of challenging the author after the confirmation of his identity without offending Raku Shin.
Touya Meijin secretly watched and observed the two younger male across him. Just like him, this moments was truly important as they all had the same intention of knowing the author's real identity. Hoping that Raku Shin was exactly as the same person as they all thought.
Haru. And Sai in the NetGo.
The sliding door opened once again, this time it's Inoue Hanashiro with the least person they expected to see.
Shindo Hikaru stood right behind Inoue wearing his casual clothes as always, then entered the room together with a humble bow.
The air became stilled and felt uncomfortable as Inoue dreadfully seated next to Touya Meijin and Shindo across Akira.
Touya Meijin took another long and deeper breath. And this time, he clenched his kimono tightly with his heart beating in irregular rhythm. His breath became labored and desperately gasping for air.
Everyone was shocked and frozen on their seats, as they witnessed the older man suddenly fell over the goban with a very loud thud followed by the agonizing scream from his son, Akira.
"Father!"
A/N: Yo guys! Thanks for the wonderful reviews as always. Sorry if I don't mention you all on my notes. I'll probably do it once I finish this story...very soon. Just kidding. There's still a lot of things need to reveal...and we all want to read a dialogue from Hikaru-chan, ne? (Spoiler xd)
Just let me warned you guys that this is not actually focus on romance. TeeHee. So forgive me if you don't find any other Shounen Ai chapter in the future. And I actually try my best to update today. I'll be very busy for the following weeks and months.
For those who reads Through Another Lifetime. Please hang on a bit. I will definetely update it, I'm just not that good in Man/Woman Romance ...
Thanks Guys . Mwaahh.
Kei