"Disclaimer": I own Hikaru no Go!! (I want to clear this up right now before I get in trouble. I don't REALLY own Hikaru no Go, but if you're smart, you should have been able to figure that out for yourself. I just think disclaimers are pointless and unnecessary in fanfiction.)

The Camping Trip of DOOM!!
By Umeko
Chapter One: "Canoeing and the Big City"

Fortunately, as soon as he calmed down, Akira figured out that it is fairly easy to open a cloth tent. So, he was able to go to bed as well, giving his goban a hug before drifting into sleep.

And everyone slept until noon the next day. (HOORAH!!)

Unfortunately, sleeping until noon was not part of Isumi's plan. (OH NO!!)

"Wake up, everyone!!" Isumi kicked Hikaru and Akira's tent over (Isumi is quite a bit out of character in this chapter, almost to the point of being violent.), making them tumble out of their sleeping bags.

"Ow, Isumi-san!" Hikaru crawled out of the capsized tent, rubbing his head. "That hurt, ya know!"

"We slept LATE!!" Scowling, Isumi pointed up. The sun was high in the sky and - GASP!! NOTHING HAD A SHADOW!!! (I was going to pretend to go ballistic because the apocalypse had come because nothing had a shadow but I thought that was a bit extreme.)

Because it was noon.

Then Hikaru noticed something. "Hey, my ramen is back!!" (Hooray!!) With a cheer, he began shimmying up the tree to where his huge bag of ramen was hanging once again.

Waya appeared (POOF!!) next to Isumi. "Okay… that was a little weird."

"Yeah…"

"Agh! Isumi-san!!" Akira rushed out of the tent, pointing an accusing finger at the older boy. "You made me lose my goban, didn't you?!"

Isumi stared at him. "…What?"

"My goban is gone! (NOOOOO!!!!) I bet it fell out of the tent when you kicked it!"

"I… I… No!!"

"I hate you, Isumi-san!!" (GASP!!!)

SHOCK!! There was… well, a shocked silence. (Because NO ONE hates Isumi. It's practically impossible.)

"You… hate me?"

"Yes!" Akira sobbed.

Hikaru, observing this ordeal from his perch in the tree, smirked. "Oi, Touya!" he called. "Are you crying over a stupid goban?!"

Akira glared up at his rival. "How can you say that, Shindo?! That was my goban!!"

"Well, jeez, I understand your passion for Go, because it's the same as mine." Hikaru laughed like a snooty rich person (Ummm… yeah.) before continuing the taunting. "But still, it's just a goban!!"

"Shin-"

"Okay, you two, let's go!" Isumi suddenly called from a river that they hadn't noticed before. (In case you can't tell, I didn't really plan the story out. The rest is planned out, though, so never fear!!) "The canoe is ready, so come on!"

The two stared. "Uh… what's going on?"

"We're going CANOEING!!!!" he replied, waaaaaayyy too enthusiastically. (I mean, really. It's ONLY canoeing!!)

Akira gaped at the river as Hikaru climbed back down to ground-level. "What about my goban?"

"Not now, we're behind schedule!" (…Yes. There is a schedule.)

"Okay!" Hikaru ran towards the canoe with his bag on his back.

Waya slapped his forehead. "Shindo, we're not taking your ramen."

"But… but… WHYYYY???"

"Because," Akira said, popping up behind Hikaru, "I can't bring my goban and it's not fair if you can bring your ramen." (Duh.)

"Um… yeah, it's also too big." (Duh… again.)

Hikaru rolled his eyes. "Touya, we can't help it if your goban spontaneously combusted."

Akira's face suddenly darkened. "It… what? YOU SET IT ON FIRE, SHINDO?!!" (Oops, Hikaru shouldn't have said that. XD)

"Um…" Hikaru dropped the ramen and held up his hands defensively. "No, I didn't! I said spontaneously…" (Meaning that it just randomly burst into flames because it FELT like it.)

"Then Isumi-san burned it…"

"No, no! Dude, Touya, your goban did not burn up!"

"But you said-"

"I was kidding, jeez!!"

"If that's the case, that happened to it?" (Because Hikaru is supposed to know everything. I don't know what that logic is, but hey.)

"How the hell am I- Hey!" Hikaru looked around, noticing that he and the others were suddenly in the canoe, in the water. "What…?!" (I'm not very good at transitions. XD)

Akira peered over the edge of the canoe. "How very odd… How did this happen?"

Grinning, Waya pointed to Isumi and himself. "While you two were busy arguing, we carried you into the canoe and pushed off. (A good idea, really.) So just sit back and relax."

The two younger boys didn't do so, however, because they had noticed that an essential component in canoeing was missing. (Can you guess what it was?)

"Waya… where are the oars?"

Isumi and Waya looked at each other, then shrugged. "We don't need oars. We're going downstream."

"What kind of logic is that?!" Akira slapped his forehead. "Shindo, use your fan as a paddle…"

"What? No!!" Hikaru hugged his fan close. (Why WOULD he?! It's his precious fan that surprisingly doesn't show up again in this chapter! Wait… Okay, it does. But not much.)

"Touya, relax!" Waya snapped. "It's just a straight route downstream!"

So they sat quietly for a while. Finally, Hikaru announced, "I'm hungry!" ("HARAHETAAAA!!")

"So am I!" Waya agreed.

Isumi thought about this. "Well, we haven't eaten at all today… but we don't have any food on the canoe…" (Smart.)

"WHAT?!"

Just then, by some freak coincidence (Haha, yeah right.), they ran up upon land, where there was a little shack. Everyone blinked.

"Um… Isumi-san?" Waya finally spoke up. "Where are we?"

"I… don't know…" (BUT ISUMI IS SUPPOSED TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS TRIP!!!)

Akira climbed out of the boat and went to inspect a piece of posterboard that was stuck in the ground. "This sign says, 'Hot Dogs and Root Beer Floats Here!' " (Okay, this is sort of real. But not really. When I was little, like maybe… ten years ago, my family and I rode down the Delaware River in inner tubes. It was really long and boring but at one point we came across this little island that was selling hot dogs or something. And my dad got his foot pinched by a clam. And the root beer floats… my brother, who is a Boy Scout, went on some sort of whitewater rafting trip and they came across some little diner on a little island or on the riverbank or something. So my brother bought a root beer float. I'm sure that's not all that was sold at the diner, but that's all my brother bought. He actually bought… like… five.)

"HOORAH!!!" Everyone cheered and ran into the little shack.

*** (Mmm… hot chocolate… wait, what?!)

Kurata (GASP!!) looked towards the door as four boys entered. "Oh! Shindo-kun!"

Hikaru jumped. "Ku… Kurata-san!! What are you here for?!"

"Well, this is my little shack of hot dogs and root beer floats!" He laughed like Kurata, because that's who he is. (Well, yeah.)

"Uh…" Akira paused, then continued. "Why do you have a little shack in the middle of a river in the middle of nowhere?"

"It's a little shack of hot dogs and root beer floats, Touya-kun!" (Be specific or DIE!!)

"Um, right, but that still doesn't answer-"

"So! Are you boys hungry?!"

"YEAH!!!" Hikaru and Waya cheered.

So they all got hot dogs and root beer floats, but they couldn't get root beer without the ice cream because Kurata said so. (Originally there had been this really long and pointless thing where everyone individually ordered their food. But that was really long and stupid. But Isumi had gotten into an argument with Kurata because he wanted root beer without the ice cream. Kurata claimed that doing so was physically impossible.) And they didn't have to pay, either, because Kurata said that he would soon be a title holder and would get PLENTY of money then!!! (Some business.)

AND I'M A LAZY BUM!!! (Yeah, because… I just did another one of those write-everything-in-a-few-sentences-instead-of-taking-the-time-to-make-it-good paragraphs.)

Afterwards, the four pros left and went on their way down the river once again!!

***

Another half-hour down the river and the four boys were bored again. They had, quite stupidly, not taken anything on the canoe with them, after all, and had absolutely nothing to do. So they were forced to merely stare at the water, the shrubbery, or each other. (Staring at each other, though, would be rather… awkward.)

Finally, Akira broke the silence. "Hey, Isumi-san? What river is this that we're on?"

"Huh? What river?" Isumi blinked and thought for a moment. "Umm… this is the Sai River." (Saigawa!! Okay, so since they go to a city later on, I did some research on camping grounds in Japan and what cities they're near and all. I found Nagano and that looked a little promising, so I did more research on the city, and found out that there was a river called the Sai River. That settled it, of course. They're going to Nagano.)

"SAI!?!!" the other three exclaimed.

"Uh… yeah… wh- oh, that…" (Yeah, that…)

Waya flailed his arms. "You talk about it like it's nothing, Isumi-san!!" (Luigi said that it really was nothing. I'm not sure if I agree with her…)

"Well, I'm really not into that Net Go stuff, you know…"

"N- neither am I!!" Hikaru added quickly, gripping his fan. (Haha, Hikaru is suddenly a horrible liar! But he's supposed to be pretty good at lying… :P)

"Hmm…" Akira put a finger to his cheek in thought. "Sai the legendary Internet player… and the Sai River… could there be some sort of connection…?"

"Hey, yeah…" Waya paused. "Maybe Sai lives on the Sai river…!!" (MAYBE!!)

Hikaru let out a laugh ("No, Sai lived in my HEAD!!"), but looked away when they turned to him.

"So… we could be close to Sai right now!"

"Wow… that's rather eerie…"

"Oh, wait!" Waya pounded his fist into his palm. "Shindo said that he happened to pass by Sai in a Net Café (Microsoft Word automatically put the accent in there. I considered taking it out, because it sort of annoyed me, but I decided not to.), so that's probably not the case…"

Akira whipped around to look at his rival. "You passed by Sai, Shindo?!"

"Ah… ah, yeah, I guess I did… b- but I didn't see his face… or anything…" (See… Hikaru has to keep his lies consistent, or else they won't work.)

Waya and Akira peered at Hikaru suspiciously for a moment.

"Uhh… hey, what's that?!" Hikaru pointed across the river with his fan. (I think this is the last time that the fan shows up in this chapter.) The other three turned to look, to see a man walking along the bank…

"Oh dear lord!" Isumi quickly blocked the eyes of the younger pros so as not to scar them for life. (Responsible Isumi-san!!) "Don't look!"

"H- hey! Isumi-san!!" Waya tried to push Isumi away, but to no avail. "What the heck is it?!"

"DON'T… LOOK!!!"

"What the hell is it, Isumi-san?!!"

"SHH!!" Isumi leaned his face closer to the others'. "It's some fat naked man just walking around on the edge of the river. Don't look!!" (I wonder if I'll be able to write a single chapter of this without making some sort of reference to Girl Scout Camp… This didn't happen to ME, but there was a canoeing group and they went on a canoeing trip for about two days or something. One of the things that happened to them was that there was some guy [who may or may not have been fat] walking along the river completely naked. The counselors were really peeved about that because these were, like, twelve-year-old girls.)

Akira cocked an eyebrow. "You're obviously not telling the truth." (Because… how many people do THAT?!) So he pushed Isumi away and… "Oh god, my eyes!!" (Aww… not smart…)

"I told you not to look!!"

"Well, yeah, but you should KNOW that telling us that just makes us want to look more…" (It's only human nature, you know.)

Finally, the river began to be lined with shrubbery, obscuring the man from view. Sighing in relief, Isumi uncovered everyone's eyes.

Hikaru grunted. "That wasn't very fun, Isumi-san." (This trip is supposed to be FUN!!!)

"Well, sorry."

"Hey, Touya…" Waya snickered, "wouldn't it be creepy if THAT was Sai?"

"Ew, don't say that…"

"It wasn't!!" Hikaru objected, then covered his mouth. "I mean… not that I'd know…" (Hahaha…)

There was a pause.

"Hey…" Akira spoke up, "when and how are we going to get back upstream?" (I love how everyone just conveniently FORGOT what Hikaru had said.)

"Ah…" Isumi opened his mouth to talk, but stopped. "I… don't know." (ISUMI-SAN! THAT'S THE SECOND TIME THAT YOU HAVEN'T KNOWN SOMETHING!! IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL, WE'LL START TO LOSE FAITH IN YOU!!!)

"You don't know?!"

"…No."

Waya laughed nervously. "Well, let's just wait until we come across land and see how it goes from there!"

So the four sat around for a while more, listening to the river gently lapping against the outside of the canoe. (In which I attempt to be poetic.)

"Isumi-san, this is really boring," Hikaru whined after a few minutes.

Isumi sighed. "Well, sorry."

"Live with it," Waya added.

There was yet another pause. "Can me and Touya sing a song?" (XD)

"Yeah, yeah!!" Akira beamed. "I wanna sing a song with Shindo!" (XDXDXD)

Waya stared at them, perplexed. (Because… WHY would they want to sing TOGETHER?) "…Go ahead…"

Grinning, Hikaru and Akira took a deep breath and then began screaming at the top of their lungs. "NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! NINETY-NINE BOTTLES OF BEER!! TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND! NINETY-EIGHT BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL!! NINETY-EIGHT BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL…" (THIS just amuses me to no end. I really want to see this happen even though it never will.)

The older two groaned and attempted to concentrate on something besides their ruptured ear drums.

***

Twenty minutes later, Waya had (somehow) fallen asleep (Truthfully, I just didn't feel like writing Waya in at that point.) and Isumi was massaging a throbbing migraine.

"SEVENTEEN BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL! SEVENTEEN BOTTLES OF BEER!! TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND! SIXTEEN BOTTLES OF BEER ON THE WALL!! SIXTEEN BOTTLES OF-"

"Okay, that's enough!" Isumi interrupted. "Do you have any idea how annoying that is?!" (NO!! IT'S FUN!!!)

"Aw, Isumi-san!!" Hikaru and Akira whined. "We were almost done!!"

"You were not almost done!"

Akira sighed. "Well, comparatively… anyway, you made us lose count, so we have to start all over again!" (YEAH!!)

"NO!" Isumi shouted urgently. "Just… please, just don't…"

"Stingy," Hikaru pouted.

"Wha…?!"

"Well… can we sing 'Five Little Ducks'?" Akira suggested. (This is more amusing than them singing 'Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.')

"…Fine. You can sing 'Five Little Ducks.' " (There are ONLY FIVE little ducks, after all!!)

"Hooray!!" the younger boys cheered before beginning their song. "Five little ducks went out one day, over the hills and far away! Mother Duck said QUACK QUACK QUACK QUACK!!!… AND NINETY-NINE OF THE LITTLE BABY DUCKS CAME BACK!!!" (Trout Fishing in America rocks my socks. :D)

"WAIT A SECOND!" Isumi quickly cut off the screaming. "What's this 'ninety-nine little ducks came back' deal?!" ("HOW can ninety-nine ducks come back when ONLY FIVE left?!)

"Well, ACTUALLY…" Hikaru started, flailing his arms, "the song is ACTUALLY called 'A Hundred Little Ducks'!! So that's what we're singing!!" (HOORAH!!)

Isumi was silent for a moment. "You can't sing that song. Sing something else."

There was a pause before Hikaru and Akira started screaming again. "THIS IS THE SONG THAT DOESN'T END!! YES IT-" (GOES ON AND ON MY FRIEND!!!)

"Different song!" (Amazingly, Waya is STILL asleep!!)

"I KNOW A SONG THAT GETS ON EVERYBODY'S NER-" (VES! EVERYBODY'S NERVES! EVERYBODY'S NERVES!!)

"No!"

"IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER-" (ALL!!!)

"Dear God, no!" (ANYTHING but THAT!!)

Akira sighed exasperatedly. "Well, what are we SUPPOSED to sing?!"

"I changed my mind!" Isumi snapped. "You two are not allowed to sing!" (Aww… but they have such lovely voices…)

Suddenly, there was a large jolt and the four boys were nearly thrown out of the canoe. Actually, Waya WAS thrown out of the canoe, because he was in a state of unconsciousness at the time. (He was asleep, remember?)

"Ow!!" Waya, who was roughly awakened by landing on a rocky shore, rubbed his head. "What the hell happened?!"

"Whee, we're on land!" Hikaru jumped out of the canoe and looked around. "Isumi-san, where are we?"

Isumi pulled a map (HE HAD A MAP?!) out of nowhere and inspected it carefully. "…I think we're in Nagano."

Climbing out as well, Akira looked at the sky, which had until that point been blocked out by trees and such. "Wow… it's getting pretty late. The sun is setting already."

"That's obvious, Touya!!" (That was Waya.)

"Waya, get your face out of the rocks, I can't take you seriously like that." (That was Touya. I didn't know if I made that clear enough.)

Waya pushed himself into a sitting position, grunting irritably. "Okay, so what? We're in Nagano, what are we gonna do?" (What can we possibly do in a CITY?!)

"Let's get dinner!" Hikaru declared, raising his fist in the air.

"Actually, first, we should check into a hotel," Isumi said, folding up his map that may or may not appear again. (I mean… he really didn't need it before.) "Okay, you three, let's go!!"

(Here's another one of my infamous stupid paragraphs!!) The four Go pros marched off into the city and spent all their money renting a GRAND room at a five-star hotel! Well, it wasn't TOO grand… it was a room with two queen-sized beds that they'd have to share. And a huge color television with cable and a huge bathroom and a vending machine RIGHT OUTSIDE!! AND… there was a beautiful view of the Sai River. (I found a picture of the Sai River… but it really didn't look too beautiful. Poor Sai.)

Okay, so it WAS a grand room.

Then they decided to eat dinner, but that was when the realized that they had very little money left. So, they went to the FAVORITE food chain of ALL Insei and Go pros…

NcDonald's!!! WOO!!! (What? You CAN'T say that that's not their favorite place to eat! They're ALWAYS there!!)

Waya sighed wistfully, looking around the fast-food restaurant. "Oh, Shindo, Isumi-san, this brings back great memories of our Insei days, doesn't it?"

"Yes, indeed," Isumi answered, wiping a tear from his eye. ("I remember… when I couldn't pass the Pro Exam… because… Ochi creeped me out…")

Hikaru stared at the two for a minute before shaking his head in shame. (He wasn't an Insei for THAT long, so he really can't be as sentimental as Waya and Isumi are.) "Well, it looks like me and you are the only sane ones here, Touya…" He turned to his rival, only to notice that Akira was tugging on his sleeve, smiling brightly. (GUESS WHO?! IT'S WIMPY AKIRA!!!) "…What the hell?"

"Shindo, Shindo, look!!" Akira pointed to the Playplace (McDonald's has a Playplace. So… NcDonald's does, too!!), which was full of snot-nosed two-and-three-year-olds. "Shindo, go into the balls with me!!"

Hikaru nearly fell to the floor. "You're kidding, right?! You want to go in there?!" (I don't know where this came up, but I just thought it would be funny if Akira wanted to go into the Playplace.)

Akira nodded cheerfully. "Yup!"

"You realize that we're almost sixteen, right?" (I'm not sure when this fic takes place, really. Maybe the August after the Hokuto Cup, which would mean that Hikaru would be sixteen in a month, and Akira in four months…??)

"So?"

"Argh! Waya, Isumi-san, help me out here!!" He spun on his heel, only to see that Waya and Isumi were in line to order food, reminiscing with each other about being Insei and going to NcDonald's. (They were ignoring all the times when they were depressed because they were lowly Insei that couldn't pass the Pro Exam.) "Agh!!"

"Come on, Shindo!!" Akira dragged Hikaru into the Playplace area, knocking down a few screaming kids on the way. But he didn't care, and neither did the little kids. They were too preoccupied with screaming their lungs out. (I talk about these kids like they're robots or something. Like those creepy toy dogs that just walk around and bark.)

"Uh-uh, no way, Touya!" Hikaru wrenched his arm from the other boy's grasp and glared at the tiny children, for they offended him so. "I am NOT going into that… that… THING with you!"

Akira blinked. "No colored balls?" (I stuck the "colored" in there because it just sounded wrong otherwise.)

"No!"

"Then how about the tubes?" He pointed to the colored plastic tube structure that reached to the SKY!!!!… but really only to the top of their heads, since they were oh-so-much too old to be in the Playplace.

Hikaru glared at the tubes, since they offended him as well. Heck, everything in the Playplace offended him! "YOU can go into the tubes by yourself if you really want to, because frankly, that would be hilarious. But there is no way in HELL that you're getting ME up there." (I seriously considered having Hikaru actually go up there just so that he could get stuck. I'm so evil.)

Akira pouted. "Aww… but…"

"Hey, you two!!" Waya called into the Playplace, obviously trying to suppress his laughter. "What are you doing in there? We have your food!!"

"Yay!!" Akira exited the Playplace and Hikaru silently thanked all the holy figures in Heaven (Including Sai, of course.) for preventing him from any further humiliation.

"So what did you order for us?" Hikaru asked as the four of them sat down at a horribly greasy table covered in crumbs. (Like all tables at fast-food restaurants.)

"We knew what you wanted, since you were an Insei with us," Isumi said, wiping away another tear. "But we didn't know what Touya wanted…"

"So we got him a kids' meal," (I didn't want to call it a "Happy Meal," because that's McDonald's, not NcDonald's.) Waya finished, grinning smugly.

Akira glared at him. "You got me a what?"

"What, you're back to normal now?" Waya asked, amusement evident on his face.

"When was I ever NOT normal?" (Hehehe…)

"Um, try two minutes ago," Hikaru answered. "You tried to drag ME into that retarded Playplace with you."

"B-but Shindo!!" Akira exclaimed, eyes shimmering. "The Playplace is such a WONDERFUL place!" (I think the Playplace is disgusting. Then again, I'm obsessive-compulsive about keeping myself sanitary.)

Groaning, Hikaru turned away from his rival. "Just shut up and eat, Touya."

So they all ate and they had a GRAND ol' time! Waya and Isumi continued to reminisce about being Insei, and Hikaru joined in every so often. Akira didn't, however, since his was so ABOVE them Insei. He just played with the cheap toy that he got with his food. (In truth, Akira actually liked his kids meal. He got a little plastic Hawkgirl toy that didn't really do anything, and a really retarded comic about Hawkgirl. Even though the Justice League toys were at Burger King… last April…)

***

"Okay, everyone, let's get to bed!" Isumi announced as soon as they returned to their room. "Shindo, Touya, you're both sharing a bed, so please try to get along. You have such a good record going for today. (They only fought… like… twice!!) And NO ONE is going to sleep until noon tomorrow!!"

"Yes, Isumi-san…" the younger three droned tonelessly. (Yes Master…)

"OKAYLIGHTSOUT!!" Isumi pounded the light switch and the room was plunged into darkness. (Isumi had too much NcDonald's, I think. Now he's hyper or something.) "Everyone to bed!!"

"Uh… Isumi-san?" Waya's voice said. "We still have to get ready for bed. Now we can't see. Turn the light back on."

"Oh, right." There was a pause (There were lots of pauses in this chapter…) before Isumi said, "Um, actually, I can't do that."

"Why not?"

"I think I broke the light switch." (He pounded it too hard!!)

"…Oh, whatever. We'll just not be hygienic tonight and go to bed with our clothes on and our teeth not brushed, then?" (Eww.)

"Yeah, that sounds good." There was a pause. "How come Shindo and Touya are so quiet?"

"Uh… I guess they fell asleep already?" (Pshh, yeah right.)

"Probably. Well, we should turn in as well, then."

And with that, they went to bed.

Little did Isumi know, however, that Hikaru and Akira were certainly NOT asleep. And the next morning he would be very surprised to find a huge bill for late-night room service and Pay-Per-View. (I thought it would be funnier if I wasn't detailed about what happened. Isumi and Waya seemed to forget that there was a lamp on the bed-side table, which had the phone, though.) (Oh, also, I don't know how Pay-Per-View OR room service work. OH, WELL!!)