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Chapter 2: Promising

Hikaru woke up much earlier than usual. Sai had expected him to be sulking or angry but he seemed to forget all about the are-you-disgusting-with-my-body incident. Talking and joking, everything was the same as everyday.

However, when it came to change his clothes for school, Hikaru's fingers lingered on his sleeping shirt's buttons. In the end, he didn't change in front of Sai as usual, but went to the bathroom instead. No one said a word, but Sai could tell, a gap had been formed between them.

Later, when the class was over, Hikaru decided to make it up to Sai, feeling rather guilty last night's quarrel, however, his effort managed to make things worse.

"Tomorrow is Saturday so we have a lot of free time tonight, so Sai, want to go somewhere? It may help you relax before your next match tomorrow." Hikaru said once they reached his house, trying to sound as nice as possible. On the way from school to his house, Sai had rarely initiated the conversation so he assumed the thousand-year-old ghost was still furious with him.

"Really." Sai cried excitedly. "You'll give me your time?" He hadn't dared to speak with Hikaru on the way home, fearing that annoying the boy could widen the gap between them. But it seemed he was wrong, Hikaru must have forgiven him. "How about playing Go?"

"Go again?" Hikaru shook his head and step into his room. "God know how many times you've said that. Please, I'm fed up with Go at this moment."

"Play Go. Play Go. Play Go." Sai's ghost arms wrapped around Hikaru as he whined like a puppy dog with waving tail. Unconsciously, he searched for the warmth that he couldn't feel. No, he did feel. Hikaru was light. Hikaru meant warmth. The warmth must be there. So let himself believe in it, even if it was only a deception.

Hikaru didn't answer, something was wrong. At first, he didn't know what, but eventually, he realized Hikaru had gone pale. Add to that fact, the boy was trembling.

"What is it?" Sai slowly separated himself from Hikaru.

"Nothing." The boy answered.

"I refuse to believe in such a lie." Sai yelled, frustrated and hurt. "You were smiling this second and the next, you were trembling as if my touch was disgusting. And you say it's nothing?"

"I said it's nothing." Hikaru also raised his voice. He stood on his tiptoe to bring him to Sai's eye level. "And beside, it's none of your business."

"Damn it, Hikaru." Sai's rage started to get out of his control. How could the boy treat him like this and just said it was none of his business? "Is that a payback? Are you treating me like this because I'm just a ghost? Because I'm dead and useless, unable to even hold a stone so you think you can just look down on me?"

Hikaru stumbled back a few steps, eyes wide, mouth gaping. He hugged himself as if he had just been slapped. His eyes become wet, even though no tear formed. "I... I didn't mean that." He shuttered.

"If not, do you think I deserve an explanation." Sai asked.

For a moment, sadness shadowed Hikaru's eyes, he turned away. "If you want to know that much, I'll tell you." Hikaru hugged himself tighter, his nails dug into his skin. His voice became hoarse. "I never did want to tell you this, but you're so cold. I mean literally When you come too near me, it was freezing with the coldness coming from you. It hurt. You hurt me. But you are my friend and I had thought I did hold a place inside your heart, so I keep trying to stand the ice. But..."

Sai closed his eyes, feeling so defeated. He knew exactly what Hikaru was saying. Vaguely, his wounded heart relived another similar conversation that had taken placed in a different place, at a different time, with a different person.

After two hundred years, the pain still did not stop.

"... but yesterday," Hikaru continued, the anger in his voice almost fade, replaced by faint bitterness, "you made it clear that you care nothing about me. Isn't it right, Sai?"

Sai wanted to scream. Hate Hikaru? That thought had never once entered his mind, even in the deepest of an argument. Speak something, he kept giving himself order, knowing that the lack of words will push Hikaru away from him.

The words were trapped in his throat, they never succeeded in coming out.

"Figure." Hikaru murmured under his breath, still refused to look at Sai. "I'm so tired of keep trying. I feel like I have lost the reason to. Never want to leave your side but Sai, if you insist on treating me like this, please never come too close to me again."

Hikaru approached the door. As his right hand wrapped around the knob, he hesitated. "Whatever," he shrugged, "I'll go out tonight to a Go club I've just heard. So let's go."

Sai didn't move a step. What was the point in trying to get near to Hikaru everyday and deceiving that he did feel warmth if in the end, all what he could manage was hurting both of them?

Hikaru slowly turned his head back to Sai, hand still didn't release the doorknob. Their eyes met.

It just happened in a few seconds, Sai later recalled. But at that moment, to him, and maybe to Hikaru as well, a few seconds blended into years. There was so much sadness in Hikaru's eyes that it made Sai keep wishing it to be anger instead. He never did want to hurt his only friend.

Hikaru's hand on the doorknob tightened. It was him who broke the eye contact. Without a word, he shut the door and left.

Sai had never felt so lonely in his existence. Unable to move, he collapsed to the floor, hands covering his face. Once selfish, selfish to the end. He had hurt Hikaru without knowing it. A desperate thought formed as guilty rapidly increased. Playing go suddenly seemed so trifling in comparison to Hikaru's suffering. Maybe... maybe before any mistake could be made, he should leave Hikaru, even if it would mean a very long time before he could play go again.

Hikaru came home very late that night, which made his mother very furious. Even from the closed room of the boy, Sai could still hear the woman yelled at him. He found himself understand the woman, it was well past bedtime. Even he did nearly go mad with worry.

There was something he learnt from Hikaru's absence, though. It was how he missed his voice, his laughs, even his nonsense rambling, and it was how he was filled with joy to be able to see the boy again. Leaving Hikaru? He wasn't sure of himself anymore.

The door of the room open and Hikaru stepped in. Sai's heart jumped at the sight of his friend. It had nothing to do with lust, it was a strange sense of being whole, of someone that has leave home for so long and now coming back.

He wanted to be at Hikaru's side. Would the boy forgive him? He was uncertain, but there was one thing he knew for sure, he was willing to get to his knees and beg if it was what needed for Hikaru to take him back.

Somehow, things never happened as one thought. Hikaru greeted him with a forced smile as he hold a wrapped box protectively with both of his arms. Walking across the small room, he put the box on the bed, uncertainty painted his movement. "I have a present for you today", the dark-haired boy said hesitatedly. "It's the book of Go you liked so much at the last fair."

Sai froze, Hikaru had never bought him any Go book, seeing it as a waste of money. Why now in such a sudden, and right after their conflict.

Hikaru slowly look up, letting Sai to have a better view of his wet eyes, even not a single tear was formed. "I was wrong to say those cruel words to you. I know you're prettily angry with me but for all the time we stayed together, can you please for give me?"

"I..." Sai shuttered, didn't know what to react in this unexpected situation.

"Come back to me. Speak to me. Teach me to play Go. Stay by my side." Hikaru looked down. He clenched his right hand and placed it on his chest. "This heart hurts without you."

Overwhelmed by an unfamiliar sweet emotion, Sai kneed down to bring him to Hikaru's level. He looked straight into Hikaru's eyes. "But you said I was hurting you. I am hurting you."

"I don't care." There was a small sob escape from Hikaru's throat. "That's why I'm stupid. I waste so much time to realize the pain come from loneliness is far more greater than any physical pain."

Deeply touched, Sai said the first thing that came to his mind. "I never feel disgusted with you, body or soul." In fact the beauty of them set me on fire, he silently thought.

"Then why?"

"Don't push it." Sai warned. "I can't tell you now. Ah, but may be someday." Seeing Hikaru's expression quickly turned to suspicion and hurt, he added. His hand rose to Hikaru's face, tracing from his temple to his chin with out touching the surface of the skin, knowing it was futile.

To his surprise, Hikaru learnt into the ghost's touch. "Freezing." He murmured. "But I've got used to this sweet ice that I wouldn't bear not feeling it. Sai, promise me."

"Promise what?" Sai asked, confused at the sudden change of topic.

"Baka." Hikaru chuckled, for the first time in two days feeling light-hearted. "Promise me that you will tell me the reason someday."

You're asking me too much, Sai thought. He considered changing the topic, but an image came into his mind.

Torajiro, lying in a shadowy room, deep in disease...

As the famous go player's life was leaving him, he used the last if his strength to give Sai a thought message. The crying sounds of the patient's relatives faded, Sai could only heard two sentence, "I'm sorry, Sai. I... love you."

Such two sentences had haunted him for more than one century. Torajiro never knew that his feeling had actually been returned.

This time came Hikaru. Would it be different or the history was just repeating its self? Would he calmly watch Hikaru grow up and wither never knowing of his affection?

Maybe someday...

"Yes, I promised."

This time, Hikaru smiled. A true smile.

Warmth flooded into him. Sai did feel warmth, not with his skin but with his heart. He was an idiot not to realize it. A ghost wasn't supposed to feel warmth. For a thousand of years, he had been subconsciously searching for it but when he finally achieved it, he didn't realize and threw it away.

For Torajiro, it was already been too late, he couldn't even say sorry to the man.

However, Hikaru was living. Sai wasn't ready yet but someday, he would tell Hikaru his feeling. It was a promise he had just made not only to the boy but to himself as well.

End chapter 2