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 51: Shindo Hikaru vs. Touya Akira I.
...
Shindo Hikaru, regular player of the Tokyo Team, the Nationals champion of the Japan Youth Soccer League, voted last season's Most Valuable Player, prominently featured on the cover of Youth Sports! Magazine with all of his teammates (amongst other media since their bid for the Cup), tore past the gates of Yeddo High School fast enough to almost slice through the air.
"SHINDO!" Mitani roared somewhere behind him, far, far away.
Hikaru deigned to turn around then, jogging backwards as he stuck his tongue out at the extra-red redhead.
"Stuuuuuuu-pid!" Hikaru laughed aloud, ignoring more of Mitani's shouts as he effectively got away.
Hikaru didn't slow down to a trot until he had gotten halfway across the school. And the teenager was still snickering as he set his pace to a leisurely walk in the direction of the Class S classroom.
"Hikaru," Sai fretted nervously around his mortal host, eyes darting every which way out of fear that Mitani would just pop up out of nowhere. "You shouldn't provoke Mitani-kun in such a way."
"Aww! But Sai!" Hikaru pouted childishly in his head. "Mitani will get over it. It's just fun to rile him up sometimes."
"Mitani-kun takes great pride in his ability to play speed-go. You shouldn't provoke his ire by pulling such antics." Sai replied, immediately launching into lecture mode despite having been apprehensive only a few seconds earlier.
"Yeah? Well…" Hikaru pouted outright now, crossing his arms over his chest and refusing to admit any wrongdoing. "He was getting overconfident. He wasn't even trying anymore. I had to give him a challenge!"
Sai just shook his head at his wayward student.
"The moves you played were also overconfident. It was only because of your familiarity with Mitani-kun's playing style that you succeeded in executing your plan. That was a very risky strategy, Hikaru."
"Duh, Sai! Of course my plan only worked because Mitani and I play together all of the time." Hikaru looked towards his tutor with great obviousness. "That's the reason why it was a good strategy against Mitani! Geez, Sai. We've been together for years now and I still don't get you sometimes."
Rather than reply and risk becoming defensive, Sai considered Hikaru's words carefully. Perhaps he was being overly cautious in regards to Hikaru's playing. Sai was fairly certain that Hikaru wouldn't be so reckless in a game against a less-familiar opponent. After all, Hikaru had recognized that his strategy would have only worked against Mitani.
Did Sai feel the need to lecture Hikaru simply because he was Hikaru's instructor and therefore always lecturing his student? In truth, Sai hadn't even been all that aware of what he was saying. It was a light admonishment at most. Sai just enjoyed lecturing. He enjoyed teaching. And though he was well-known for often playing teaching games under his NetGo alias, Sai especially enjoyed the privileged relationship a tutor had with a single, exclusive pupil.
Sai had never really thought about having children. He had died before he had ever accepted that responsibility. Though he hadn't been so young that he couldn't have had children of his own when he was alive, so great was his passion for go that every other interest had been pushed aside without further thought or consideration.
And now that Sai was a ghost, he would never have children. But truthfully, he had never really felt a sense of loss from that. Though Sai loved children (had even enjoyed Hikaru's company when Hikaru had been but a child not so long ago), he could accept that he would never have children of his own. Teaching and mentoring Hikaru, guiding him through his growth and maturity, was a relationship akin to parentage. Sai's influence over Hikaru was strong and obvious. And though Hikaru was so greatly influenced by Sai, Hikaru always remained his own person.
Sai had always thought that that was what parenting was like.
"Perhaps you are right, Hikaru." Sai admitted freely, not at all embarrassed to have been proven wrong. (Well, maybe not wrong. He had merely not come to the most correct answer initially.)
"Huh? What?" Hikaru replied in confusion, having already forgotten what they had been talking about. Hikaru had been busy getting to his classroom and greeting all of his friends and classmates in the moments Sai had been silent.
Sai never got a chance to clarify his thoughts, as Hikaru became preoccupied with the next thing to demand his attention. But that wasn't entirely unusual when it came to conversing with Hikaru.
Touya Akira had walked into the classroom and Hikaru's attention was diverted to his friend and classmate. Sai also became distracted as Hikaru excitedly waved across the classroom, not at all noticing that his big wave flew in front of one Nakamura Daichi's face.
"Touya! Over here!"
"Hey! Watch it, Nakamura! Unlike you, I need my arm!"
"What does that even mean, Shindo? You're a soccer player! Between the two of us, I'm the one who needs my arms!"
"Oh, really? You could have fooled me after your performance in the last volleyball match. With the way you played, your arms might as well not have been there!"
"Shindo! You are—! Who invited you to come to the match anyway?! You're not invited! I'm not inviting you!"
"The match already happened, stupid! You can't uninvite me to something that already happened!"
"I can and I did! So there!"
"No there! We're not there! I'm definitely not there! No, wait! I take that back! Because I definitely was there. Because I was at the match. Because it already happened!"
"Ano…" Touya Akira stated as he watched the heated exchange between his two athletic classmates. "Good morning, Shindo, Nakamura-kun."
"Good! Morning! Touya!" The two returned his greeting simultaneously, still glaring lightning between them.
Touya Akira decided to just ignore this and take the seat between Hikaru and Daichi, so used to their antics that he didn't even mind that they continued glaring at one another above his head.
Everyone else around them ignored them as well. Just another morning for Class 1-S.
Suddenly, without warning, Hikaru broke away from his eternal glaring contest with Daichi and immediately turned to Akira. Unnoticed by Hikaru, Daichi lost his balance from the abrupt dismissal and fell out of his chair.
"Hey, Touya!"
Akira looked up from preparing his things for the day, glancing up at Hikaru curiously.
"You busy this weekend?" Hikaru busied himself by dumping out his school things onto his own desk as he spoke with Akira. "You don't have a match or something, right?"
Akira actually did have a free weekend coming up. It was rare that he didn't have something scheduled, as the Go Association respected his decision to go to school and often scheduled events for the weekend.
"I don't." Akira answered in anticipation, wondering why Hikaru was asking him.
"Do you have any plans?" Hikaru turned to face him, face uncharacteristically serious, as if what he was asking was of the direst importance, the kind of question whose answer would determine someone's very fate.
Akira moved to answer in the negative, but then hesitated slightly. He wanted to say that he didn't have any plans at all. But, to be completely honest, he did…kind of.
"I was going to go to my family's go salon." Akira admitted. "I haven't been able to visit in the past few weeks."
His match schedule had been a little crowded because Akira was competing in two leagues right now. He was sure that the salon regulars were missing him. And Akira had promised to drop by the next time he had a free weekend.
Hikaru pulled a face. Some cross between disappointed and understanding and tricked into sucking on a lime.
"Aw, man! I was hoping we could hang out together." Hikaru threw his arms up, then buried his face into his arms across the desk.
Now that the excitement from Nationals was over, the team had been given a couple of weeks off. The coaches, of course, didn't have any time off. They were currently going through the team try-outs process, since the try-outs had been postponed when they had advanced to national competition. And Hikaru wasn't about to waste his time off by catching up on his homework or any nonsense like that. He wanted to hang out with his friends!
But of course his friends would all be busy during the time Hikaru had off!
"Perhaps you could ask Mitani-kun." Sai suggested brightly.
Hikaru cheered up at Sai's suggestion, only to remember that Mitani was very mad at him right now and blanched at the realization.
"Maybe I shouldn't have pulled that strategy on him this morning." Hikaru groaned to Sai, slumping across his desk again.
Hikaru bemoaned his fate, grabbing at the sides of his head to pull at his hair while still face down on top of his books.
"I should have saved it for Monday morning!"
Sai was unsure whether or not he could endorse the idea. And he was feeling just as disappointed as Hikaru since Hikaru was so disappointed right now. Sai wondered if there was anyone he hadn't thought of yet for Hikaru to spend some of his rare free time with.
"I'm free in the morning." Akira interrupted Hikaru's silent suffering, though a little concerned over Hikaru's seemingly-unprovoked and abrupt changes in emotion.
"And if you would like, you could come to the go salon in the afternoon with me." Akira suggested, very carefully trying not to appear too eager or excited by his idea.
Hikaru immediately popped up, turning to Akira reverently.
"Touya! Of course I want to—!"
Before he committed to it completely, Hikaru abruptly cut himself off as a very important thought came to him.
He eyed Akira scrupulously.
"Is there a fee?"
And despite Hikaru's vast seriousness concerning the matter, Akira just laughed.
"No fee." Akira answered in amusement. "You're my guest."
Hikaru pumped his fist in victory.
…
Author's Note:
Since Hikaru wasn't in the last chapter, this chapter ended up being stuffed with jokes. I have no self-control.
