a/n: Hmm... where did this chapter come from? Well, it's because there are two clichés very common in this fandom, upon which I felt the need to comment. Also, it is Valentine's Day. This makes me think of love; true, false and just plain unrequited.

Part 15. Good Intentions

"What exactly are your intentions with my daughter?"

Several other patrons of the go salon looked over at the sound of the man's voice, raising eyebrows while quickly attempting to conceal their interest. Touya looked up from the game he'd been studying. He'd been waiting for almost an hour, and beginning to wonder what could be keeping Shindou, when at last the man arrived. And this is all he has to say...

Pointedly refusing to dignify the question with a response, the salon owner calmly began putting away the stones. He doubted there was any way to avoid this conversation, but he was not about to have it here.

"And don't pretend there's nothing going on!" Shindou was clearly past caring about propriety. His rival quickened his pace, scooping the stones away by handfuls as the irate father continued. "First she says you're her friend. Then I start finding her hair ties in your bathroom drawers. And now her mother tells me she's been coming home late from school and matches and her friends say she's seeing an older man. If I find out it's you I swear I'm going to-" Touya put the lid on the second go ke and stood, walking past Shindou and out the front door. He heard footsteps storming along behind him, but at least he'd managed to prevent his friend from airing any more supposed dirty laundry in his place of business.

"Where do you think you're going?" Shindou had caught up to him.

"Even you couldn't want to slander your daughter in front of a room full of our fans and acquaintances, Shindou." He was actually rather pleased how steadily he managed to form the words. He was getting much better at holding to the better part of valor and not strangling his rival. Now if he could only find somewhere more appropriate to have this discussion...

"Slander? So you're denying it?"

Privacy was a rare and valuable commodity in Tokyo, so Touya opted for his car. Reaching the garage, he clicked the remote lock and followed the beep to the automobile.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Shindou grabbed his rival's arm, which in itself said a thing or five about his anger. "Are you denying that you've been seeing my daughter?" he practically yelled in the younger man's face.

"NO! But it's nothing like what you're implying, Shindou." He felt his cheeks growing warm with rage. For all that he could guess where some of his friend's assumptions might have come from, it didn't make being practically accused of pedophilia any more palatable. His mild irritation at the whole situation had become a bitterly painful anger at the thought his rival could so misunderstand him. Some part of his mind still tried to stay above it all, but the hurt won out. "How you could even think that I would ever harbor inappropriate thoughts towards a thirteen-year-old..." Words failed him and he pulled his arm away, pointedly reaching for the car door. "If you have that little respect for me, this conversation is over."

They stared at each other over the top of the half open door. Then Shindou sighed, deflating slightly. "I do respect you, Touya." He looked away. "It's just... she's my daughter." And she's a teenager and a handful and driving her mother and I up a wall was clearly outlined in the tired, irritated anxiety in Shindou's eyes.

"And it shows," agreed the mollified Akira. That earned him a glare, but the bleach-banged man made no move to deny it. "If you think you can be civil, we can discuss this in the car." His tone clearly indicated his doubt that this was possible, but it was also a bit of an old joke from their days of fighting in the salon. The olive branch hung between them.

"Fine," Hikaru agreed. Akira gestured to the passenger door, and his friend climbed in. When they'd both fastened their seatbelts, the driver started the engine and made his way into the anonymity of traffic.

"So, will you please tell me what brought all this on?" Determining exactly what Hikaru knew would help avoid any further misunderstandings. And too, his calmly rational demeanor seemed to have a pacifying effect on his rival.

"I stopped by home to check up on Akari, see how she was doing and we got to talking about Kinume." Akira wondered for the thousandth time why it was his friend still referred to that house as home when he'd been living in the Touya guest room for almost seven months. Not that the latter was entirely his fault. Touya had somehow forgotten to pass on a message from the realtor while Shindou was in China, and the apartment had fallen through. Since his return, the homeless man had been too busy to seek a new place. His host hadn't pressed.

"That's when Akari told you she believes your daughter is seeing someone?" He saw the slight nod of blond bangs at the edge of his field of vision. "And you assumed it was me?"

"Well, I keep finding her stuff in the house." There was defensiveness, but also a clear demand for explanations. Akira obliged.

"Most of which she leaves during visits to her father."

"And then that one time, I caught you hugging her in the kitchen," he retorted. They'd had this argument before.

"I wasn't hugging her: I was catching her. I told you she fell off the footstool. Would you prefer it if I'd let her hit the ground? Your daughter is fatally accident prone." His voice stayed calm, but his knuckles did get a little white on the steering wheel. It was tremendously irritating having the same fight over and over again.

"Yeah, well today when I got back from Akari's I found my daughter curled up on your futon. Are you going to tell me she just tripped and wound up there?" Touya's eyes went wide and he turned to stare at Shindou. He accidentally turned the wheel as well and only his rival's quick reflexes kept them from running into a row of parking meters.

"ARE YOU TRYING TO GET US KILLED!"

"Kinume was on my futon!" The words said in unison were unintelligible.

"Geez, Touya. Pull over, if you're going to drive like that. I guess you didn't know about it." They'd reached a municipal park and Touya decided that they had gone far enough. He parked, switched off the engine and for several moments, both men sat catching their breath in the wake of near-death adrenaline. A woman pushing a pram on the sidewalk beside the car cast a curious look in their direction, as did a little boy on a skateboard a few minutes later. The car's occupants were oblivious.

"I still want to know why my daughter seems so at home at your place." But Hikaru sounded slightly more curious than upset.

"We're friends." The driver gestured to the door. His passenger shrugged and they made their way out into the little park.

"And that's it?" Hikaru never did know when to shut up. Akira sighed in exasperation and sat down at one end of a bench overlooking the park's small water garden.

"Look, your daughter is an attractive, intelligent young woman but she's twenty years younger than I am, the daughter of my rival and frankly not my type." Hikaru seemed to consider this and sat at the other end of the granite bench. Touya abruptly decided he'd had quite enough of secrets and might as well get all of the melodrama out of the way at once. Watching his rival out of the corner of his eye, he continued. "But she is an impressive go player." He noticed the familiar tension straightening his friend's spine and forged ahead. "I've been working with her in preparation for this summer's pro exams. We've been playing once or twice a week, lately." He looked to see whether his rival was listening to him. When the man finally looked at him, he finished with his trump card. "She has a very good chance of passing."

"She has a...?" For a moment he looked completely incredulous, and as if he might shout again. Then his eyes widened slightly and he looked away, the color draining from his face. "Does she win? Against you, I mean." Hikaru was staring fixedly at a rock in the middle of the artificial stream. He was suddenly quite pale and Akira wondered if Kinume's insistence on secrecy might have been more than a childish conceit. Regardless, it was too late to take it back now. He answered honestly.

"At three stones, she wins about five matches in seven. We play at two." He watched his rival closely.

"But she's never crushed you?" Shindou was serious. Touya bit back the scathing retort that the question deserved and instead simply shook his head.

"She's good, but not that good. She tends to lose patience and be more interested in capturing stones than she should." He wondered where this was headed.

"I wonder if he even asks to play..." Hikaru murmured, then shook his head, seeming to return from whatever realm the rock had occupied. He noticed his friend watching him and grinned, hiding his thoughts beneath his usual sunny demeanor. "I should take her to one of Morishita-san's study sessions some time. If she can play you at two stones she'd surprise the hell out of Waya," he paused, thinking of something. "Of course, she still has matches Friday nights, so it might be a little tricky getting her there. She'll never miss a chance to play Piotr..." He seemed to get lost in thoughts of springing his daughter on his friends and Touya relaxed a little. At least he wasn't going to go on another one of his cryptic vacations to Hiroshima. Then he saw him frown. "That still doesn't explain what she was doing on your futon." He turned a steadfast gaze on the man at the other end of the bench who in turn tried to think of any reason she might possibly have been there. Drawing a blank, he returned with a question.

"What did she say when you asked her?" Hikaru looked somewhat chagrined as he answered.

"I didn't wake her up." At his rival's raised eyebrows, he quickly became defensive. "Well, she doesn't sleep as much as she should."

"You are insane," Touya decided, albeit not for the first time. "In any case, I am sure there is some sort of explanation. Probably not a rational one, since she is a Shindou," he casually added, allowing himself a slight internal smile at his friend's scowl. "Shall we go ask her what she was doing?" He stood, indicating the car with a tilt of his head. "If you left her sleeping, she's probably still there."

"Yeah." Shindou stood and stretched, shrugging the last of the tension from his shoulders in a gesture his rival had noticed after countless games. They made their way back to the car and were driving towards the house when the emotionally exhausted father remembered an evening tutoring appointment. "Damn. I'm gonna be late! Could you...?"

"I'll drop you off," the driver sighed. Then his eyes lit with well-disguised amusement, "provided, of course, that you trust me alone in the house with your daughter." After a split-second's poorly concealed shock, Hikaru managed a laugh.

"Sure, fine. I trust you." He grinned. "Hell, you're probably more innocent than she is." He was rewarded by his rival's blush and glare, but the silence in the car for the rest of the trip was a comfortable one.

-

The house was quiet and dark when Touya finally returned. He noticed his house guest had once again left his backpack in the front hallway, and had not put his usual empty juice can into the recycling bin. Kinume had left a game or perhaps only part of one set up on the goban in the living room, but Touya resisted the urge to analyze it. Instead he made his way back to his room.

Kinume was indeed fast asleep on his futon, but the sheets of paper scattered around her and on the floor beside made it obvious what she'd been doing. The girl liked to read kifu by spreading them out all over her reading area – he'd never quite understood why – and as such preferred futons to chairs or couches. Considering her father's was probably also covered in papers, it made a certain sense she'd chosen Touya's on which to study. Today's pages were all taken from insei matches, and he guessed she'd been researching the competition.

He flicked on the light switch and the girl grumbled in her sleep. Moving to hide her face from the light, she caused a cascade of her long, purple hair to fall aside revealing a small, leather-bound notebook. Touya froze. Of course, it was only a kifu notebook. And there was a slight chance Kinume wouldn't know what she'd found. He cleared his throat, caught somewhere between annoyance and nervousness.

"Kinume. Wake up." At first she only groaned and pulled a sheaf of papers over her head, but the second time, she made it all the way to consciousness. Sitting up and throwing back her hair, she saw who'd called and smiled brightly.

"Touya-san!" At which point she seemed to notice where she was, and an oddly appropriate blush colored her cheeks. "I must have fallen asleep. I'm sorry." She sounded contrite, but her eyes sparkled. Then she began gathering the pages. "I was studying up for the test, you know. I figured I'm going to have to be able to win every match I play, since chess might make me miss one or two."

"Wanting to win them all is a good goal, but unrealistic." He began helping her collect the sheets. "A casual attitude can be fatal, and it is furthermore unfair to your opponents. Even with your skill, you really cannot afford to miss any of the games. While your father did manage to come back from two losses, you can hardly expect to do... the... same."

Kinume had set down her stack of loose pages and was holding the notebook. She had clearly waited for him to look up, and when he did her piercing gaze seemed far older than the thirteen years she'd lived. He wondered how he could ever have hoped she'd overlook the careful notations, or god help him, the margin notes of every game her father had ever played against his rival.

"There was one thing, though." Her eyes held a depth of perception he hadn't seen since his last serious match against Shindou, and his position suddenly felt every bit as precarious. When she spoke, her voice sounded casually curious, but her eyes' intensity never eased. "What exactly are your intentions with my father?"