Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go was written by Yumi Hotta and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. I do not, in any way, profit from this story.

Go, Soccer Player, Go!

Chapter 29: Spring Junior High Go Tournament IV.

...

Hikaru felt his left eyebrow twitch as he looked up at the building ahead. He wasn't sure if he should even try to calculate how much this place would cost. He might end up depressed.

"Gah! These Kaio guys like expensive places too much! Do you remember if I did anything to cut my allowance this week, Sai?"

"Hikaru, I think you already spent all your pocket money on ramen this week." Sai pointed out.

"Ahh! I forgot!" Hikaru scrubbed at his head, messing up all of his hair. "And I don't get any more money until Monday."

"I wonder why your parents give you money on Mondays." Sai pondered aloud. "Wouldn't it be a much better idea to give you money on the weekends?"

"Parents are weird." Hikaru grumbled.

Actually, Hikaru did know why his parents always gave him money on Monday. There had been one too many weekends in which he spent all of his allowance on manga or video games in the two days of the weekend in the past (leaving him nothing for the rest of the week).

Not that Hikaru thought that his parents were being fair. He had been a stupid kid when that had happened! He had thought that money never ran out then. He wouldn't be so dumb as to waste all of his limited, precious money now!

"Is something the matter, Shindo?"

Hikaru stopped to look back at Akira, who had been standing there politely the entire time he had been agonizing.

"Err…no!" Hikaru exclaimed, straightening up and tugging at his hoodie just as if he had always intended on doing that.

"This place is just a little more fancy than I thought." Hikaru babbled, laughing awkwardly at what hadn't even really been a joke. "I kind of feel like I should've worn something else."

Akira looked at Hikaru's soccer uniform, sneakers, and the bright blue and yellow athletic bag at his side. And looking back at the restaurant they were in front of, Akira suddenly felt very awkward about having been the one to bring Hikaru here.

"I think this establishment is used to serving Kaio students since it's so close to the school." Akira assured him. "I'm sure you're fine."

"Oh, is that right?" Hikaru tried to sound light and casual, but his voice cracked…twice.

"We could go somewhere else." Akira suggested brightly.

Though Hikaru understood why Akira would want to do that, the location of their tournament celebration/revenge was one thing Hikaru couldn't budge on.

Hikaru squared his shoulders and looked directly into the restaurant.

"Well, we won't know what they'll do until they do it."

"I really don't—"

"Come on, Touya!"

Hikaru marched straight into the building and through the door before Akira could even finish. He hurried to catch up as Hikaru approached the hostess standing at the front entrance.

"Welcome." The young, pretty woman behind the podium greeted both boys with a smile.

"Is it just the two of you today?" She asked them.

"Yes." Akira nodded.

"Umm, miss," Hikaru nervously shuffled his feet as he ran his hand through his hair in an attempt to look more presentable. "Is there a dress code or anything because…uh…"

"Oh!" She exclaimed, before immediately shaking her head. "No, there's no dress code here."

"Good." Hikaru breathed a sigh of relief.

"Don't worry," She winked down at Hikaru. "You're perfectly fine the way you are."

Hikaru managed to stutter something resembling a thank you, simultaneously wondering if she could tell that he was blushing.

"Hehe, she seems to like me, Sai." Hikaru thought goofily to the ghost. "I mean, she's doing a really good job welcoming me."

"Of course, Hikaru." Sai rolled his eyes behind Hikaru. "But I think that's her job."

"Wait!" Hikaru jolted back to his senses. "I can use that."

"Um, miss?" Hikaru put on his most charming smile. "Is the Kaio Go Club here? My friend and I heard that they won their tournament today."

The hostess looked a bit surprised by the question. And Akira frowned, wondering if what they were doing was dishonest in some way. Hikaru elbowed him painfully in his ribs before he could say anything though.

"Um, yes, they are." She didn't want to think of this suspiciously.

"One of the members of the club just told me that the entire Kaio Go Club is here celebrating today."

Akira thought it was rather impressive that he hadn't even flinched when she had said 'entire', but Hikaru caught on enough to know that Akira was bothered by it.

"Thanks, miss!" Hikaru grinned up at her. "My friend here goes to Kaio. He just wanted to stop by to congratulate them."

"Oh, that's so sweet of you." She gushed over Akira, forgetting all of her suspicions almost immediately. "Would you like to be seated near them?"

"That's nice of you, but we don't want to get in the way of their celebration." Hikaru answered for the obviously-distressed Akira. "We'll congratulate them later. I'm starving!"

"If you're hungry, you should definitely eat first. Follow me." The hostess declared, though she was already ushering them towards the seating area.

Hikaru made sure to turn up the charm as she seated them, chatting lightly as she got them settled and poured them a couple of glasses of water. He didn't need her to be suspicious and keep checking up on them.

Hikaru scooted himself towards the center, leaving enough room for Sai to also sit at the booth while he glared at Hikaru with disapproval.

Ignoring his tutor, Hikaru scanned the overly-fancy, leather-bound menu he had been given.

"This might be all I can afford." Hikaru mentally grumbled into his water.

Akira was currently trying to look as small and inconspicuous as possible. The two of them had opted for a booth, mostly because it was on the other side of the low wall where the Kaio Go Club was currently celebrating. Also because booths were a little more private than open tables and Hikaru needed all of the secrecy he could get if he was going to be doing something sneaky.

"Shindo, why exactly did you want to come here?" Akira whispered to Hikaru, quickly opening the menu and sticking his face behind it.

"Because this is where the Kaio Go Club is celebrating." Hikaru replied obviously. "You're a part of the club. I even know that you played first board today. You deserve to be here just as much as any of them."

Akira turned to Hikaru in shock.

"How did you know I played first board?" Akira asked. "You said that you missed the whole tournament."

"I overheard one of those jerks saying it." Hikaru replied offhandedly. "Wait...who cares how I know that? Focus on our plan, Touya."

"What plan?!" Akira exclaimed.

Both Hikaru and Akira ducked behind their menus again as the Kaio Go Club suddenly quieted a bit.

"Did anyone else hear that?" One of the Kaio students asked.

"Hear what?"

"I don't know. It kind of sounded like Touya Akira."

"Touya? You must be hearing things."

Hikaru focused very hard on the 'mixed sandwich' until the noise level had returned to normal on the other side of the wall.

"Shindo…" Akira ground out through gritted teeth. He still wasn't looking out from behind his menu. "What plan?" He repeated, emphasizing the two words greatly.

"Our plan for revenge, Touya." Hikaru declared, resolutely putting his menu down. He couldn't afford anything in it anyway. "These jerks deserve it."

Akira said nothing. He was pretending to be intently perusing the menu. After all, he had no idea what, or how much, Hikaru knew.

"I say," Hikaru dropped his voice down to a conspiring whisper. "We sabotage them."

"What?" Akira hissed.

And out of good sense, the both of them glanced back over the wall and checked to make sure they hadn't been heard again.

Once clear, Akira asked,

"What are we sabotaging exactly? The tournament is over. And I wouldn't want you to sabotage the tournament anyway."

Hikaru looked back at Akira blankly.

Sai snickered behind his fan.

"Alright," Hikaru scratched out Plan A for Plan B. "We put hot sauce in their food."

"They've been here for hours already. Most are done eating by now."

"We humiliate them by challenging them to soccer!"

"There's only two of us. Only you're good at playing soccer. And they would never accept the challenge."

"Water balloons!" Hikaru snapped his fingers at his own brilliance. "Like, we want to ruin their day but we don't want to actually hurt them. It's perfect!"

"Do you have water balloons with you?" Akira asked knowingly.

Hikaru immediately slumped over in defeat.

All of his hopes dashed, Hikaru groaned and pressed his face into the tabletop.

"You know, Touya, for a smart guy, all you can point out are problems."

Akira snorted.

When Hikaru snapped his head up to look at Akira in surprise, no one could have possibly looked more surprised by his own response than Akira did at that moment.

Hikaru couldn't help himself. He snorted too. And suddenly, both boys were laughing.

Hikaru had to smash his face back into the table. And Akira was politely suppressing his laughter as much as possible behind the menu. But it was obvious that neither was very upset at their lack of revenge progress.

Meanwhile, Sai sighed with relief. He was glad that at least Akira had enough sense not to let Hikaru enact his revenge schemes.

They managed to quiet down twice, only to look at the other and break down again. It was some time before they finally calmed down enough to talk to one another again.

"Still," Hikaru sighed as he fiddled with his drink. "I don't think it's fair, Touya. I mean, you're a part of the club too. Clubs are supposed to be fun and anyone should be able to join in on the fun."

"I know." Akira admitted with a slight sigh. "But actually, I don't regret joining the go club. Even with the bullying—"

"They bullied you!" Hikaru shouted.

Akira had to literally grab the back of Hikaru's hood and forcefully pull Hikaru back before he left the booth. Hikaru ended up losing his balance and crashing into Akira's side, but Akira could take a bruise on his shoulder or two.

"It's okay now." Akira sharply assured Hikaru.

"What? How?" Hikaru exclaimed in disbelief. "Because you beat them up, right?"

Akira briefly recounted what the three Kaio Go Club members—Ito, Kojima, and Okumura—had done to get Hidaka-sempai so mad at them for bullying him. Hikaru was fuming by the end, but somewhat placated by the fact that someone had come to Akira's defense.

"Well, I guess you kind of beat them up…" Hikaru grumbled reluctantly. "…in go."

Akira frowned at Hikaru's scrunched expression. He only hoped the expression didn't have anything to do with go and Hikaru was just disappointed that Akira hadn't actually, physically "beat them up".

"You sure you don't want to prank these jerks?" Hikaru asked Akira one more time.

When Akira nodded, Hikaru crossed his arms petulantly, but didn't push it.

"As I was saying," continued Akira calmly. "I don't regret joining the go club. I might not have made friends like I wanted, but I learned something valuable."

"If this is something about being bullied, Touya, I'm gonna go beat—"

"Not that." Akira cut in with a glare.

Hikaru huffed, and kept pouting.

Akira let him pout. He could wait Hikaru out.

"So what did you learn?" Hikaru asked curiously.

While Akira had always been reluctant to make this decision in the past, he was sure now of what he wanted.

"I learned that I'm finally ready."

Hikaru blinked.

"For what?"

"For the examination." Akira answered determinedly. "I'm going to become a professional go player."

"WHOA! Touya, that's great!" Hikaru cheered excitedly.

Akira couldn't help but relax after hearing Hikaru's positive reaction to the idea. Old insecurities died hard, he supposed.

"The examination starts in the summer." Akira went on to explain. "And since I'll be preparing for the pro exam, I'll inform Yun-sensei and President Kishimoto of my resignation from the go club."

In truth, Akira had been sure of his decision even before the tournament. He had only participated out of some lingering hope that he would actually begin to make some good club memories.

Even if that hadn't happened the way he had hoped, Akira knew that he would remember this day fondly. He hadn't told anyone, not even his father, of his plans yet. But here Akira was, having Hikaru be the first to know of his decision to go pro. He was glad that the first person he had told was a friend. And saying it aloud for the first time released some long-held tension that Akira hadn't even realized he had been holding.

"Oh, they're jerks anyway." Hikaru waved the club off. "You don't need to help them win tournaments."

"Well, not all of them are bad." Akira tried to be fair, though it was kind of true that Akira wouldn't really be missing anyone in particular from the Kaio Go Club.

"Let's go somewhere else." Akira suggested finally, sliding the menu across the table and abandoning any pretense of staying.

"Yeah! We should go celebrate!" Hikaru readily agreed, jumping up from the booth. "With ramen!"

Akira just laughed.

In the end, Akira hadn't needed any actual revenge against the Kaio Go Club. He had only wanted someone willing to take revenge for him.

Author's Notes:

If you read this chapter sometime during the year 2013 when I first put it up, you might have noticed that I've edited out the entire last part concerning a "healthy cake". Truthfully, I only wrote that part so that the Kaio Go Club members would be in the fanfiction. I realized it was completely unnessecary some five months later. And actually, I think the flow of the fanfiction is much better now that I've rewritten the end of this arc. (Though I am sorry if you enjoyed the original version.)