A/N: Ha! I'm good. It's only been a day and I got this one out. Wouldn't expect this from me all the time but I'm pretty proud of myself. I'm on a writing roll. Thanks to all those who've reviewed. Thousands of thanks to all. Hope you all like it.
Welcome Back
Chapter 2: Reappearance and Discovery
Hikaru?
It came as a whisper. It bugged Hikaru so he ignored it and continued to sleep.
Hikaru? Geeze you sleep a lot.
The nagging wouldn't go away. Hikaru swatted at whatever it was as if it were a fly. No normal human being would ever be awake this early in the morning.
Hikaruuuuu I wanna play.
The incessant whining made Hikaru wrinkle his nose in disgust.
"Go 'way Sai. I'm not re'dy to ge' up." He slurred most of his words. What could he say, he wasn't an early person.
Those words seemed to shut the person up, for which Hikaru was grateful. Those words… those words…
Hikaru bolted up in bed and would have bumped heads with the person above him if the other person had been alive. As it was, he passed right through the image. He took one long look at the person and did the only thing that was sensible in his sleep fogged brain. He screamed. Loud and hard. The apparition screamed right back. Hikaru backed a little too far and ended up falling off of the bed.
"Hikaru." His mothers' worried voice sounded from the stairs.
The door opened and she apprehensively looked around for whatever made her son scream. Hikaru looked up at his mother with wide eyes and couldn't decide who was scarier: a ghost who he'd thought long dead or his mother wielding a frying pan. As she swung it around dangerously, Hikaru opted for option number two. Mothers were scary creatures.
"Mom!" He yelled, getting her attention. "I'm alright now. It's ok. Calm down. Sheesh."
She huffed, clearly calmed down. "Well don't scream like that this early in the morning. I thought you were dieing."
He gave her a cheeky grin hoping it would work. "Sorry. I, uh, thought I saw a creepy spider on the ceiling." He rubbed the back of his head ruefully.
"Then you could have calmly… CALMLY mind you, come down and inform me about said spider and I would have dealt with it rationally." By then she was no longer paying attention to Hikaru or her invisible guest. "Really boys these days…" Her voice faded the further she got.
When it was evident that she wasn't returning, Hikaru slowly glanced behind him, almost afraid of what he would find. He let out a sigh of relief when he was met with violet eyes and a worried look.
"SAI!" Hikaru yelled. They both winced and waited for the signs of incoming trouble. Sensing none, Hikaru went on. "Sai, you're back!"
Hurriedly, he looked at the new goban he brought home the day before. There, on the corner, were unmistakably blood stains. The grin was quick to come.
"You're really back, Sai." His voice came out as a quiver, the tears welling up in his eyes.
Yes, Hikaru. I'm back. Sai smiled softly at him.
"Welcome back." Hikaru wiped
It's good to be back… Hikaru felt like the sappy moment was almost over ... now can we go play?
Hikaru nearly fell back onto the floor. As it was he gave Sai a very long, pained sigh.
"Don't you think about anything else other then Go?" He asked the ghost exasperatedly.
Sai chuckled. Not really. Why? He knew exactly why judging from the mischief dancing in his eyes.
"Never mind. We have a lot of catching up to do." The pained expression in Sai's eyes had Hikaru chuckling. "Then we can go play but I wanna spend as much time with you as I can. Who know when you'll disappear again."
Sai chuckled. Not for a very long time, Hikaru.
His voice soothed Hikaru but he could still remember, bitterly, the anguish he went through when he found Sai gone. He was sure the disbelief was clear in his eyes.
"Why did you leave Sai?" This was said in a whisper.
The god's had two things in mind when they took me. One was that they wanted to play me at a game of Go. The other was something about you needing to grow up a bit. I see you've changed and matured a lot.
"Really?" Hikaru asked giving one of his cheeky grins.
Sai blinked and hesitated. Er you've changed… I can feel it in your mind. His lips thinned in disapproval. Even if you don't show it outwardly.
Hikaru laughed and then sobered. "So the gods wanted to play you at Go hm?" His eyes were dancing.
Yes and they said if I managed to beat them in one game then I could return here to be with you. Sai looked excited.
"Those are pretty high stakes aren't they?" He asked. "I thought you couldn't return back here." His eyes held all the sadness he'd felt in the past year.
Hikaru, when I first showed up to you, do you remember what I said? I asked if I could borrow a piece of your heart to dwell in. Once I inhabited your heart, nothing could take me away from you but death. Death took me away from Torajiou. Death will have to take me away from you. The god's just detained me for a little while.
"So I was right and you will be with me forever." His smile was one of relief.
Yes. No worries.
"NO WORRIES! You idiot, you had me worried so much that I nearly quite Go. If I could shake your right now, I would. I've missed you for these three years." Sai knew he meant only half of what he said because of the twinkle in Hikaru's eyes but he held his spread fan in front of his face in defense just in case.
I'm sorrrrrryyyy Hikaruuuuuuu.
Hikaru burst out laughing at the fake pained look on Sai's face. The ghost couldn't keep a straight face any longer and burst out laughing too.
"It's good to have you back." Hikaru smiled up at the ghost. He glanced at the clock by his bedside and let out a yelp. "Ahh, I have to go meet Touya at the salon!"
Touya? You play with him now?
Hikaru laughed. "Yeah. There's a lot I need to catch you up with. I'll fill you in as we go down to the salon."
He quickly got dressed and ran out the door. If he was late, Touya would be on his butt and wouldn't show mercy no matter the excuse he could come up with. He'd noticed that of all the people Touya hung out with, Hikaru was the only one he lost his cool with. Secretly, he was glad. It showed Hikaru that this friendship, or whatever they had, wasn't like any of the other people. He'd seen who Touya hung out with and personally thought that all those other people only saw Touya how they wanted to see him. Hikaru wanted to believe that only he saw Touya's real personality.
A worried Sai appeared in front of his face and Hikaru banished those thoughts out of his head. It was going to be hard to get used to having another person in his mind again. He worried what Sai would think if he knew what was going on in his mind. Disgusted probably because he sure was. It wasn't natural to have feelings like this about another boy.
A thousand years before, when Sai had been a living being, there had been no homosexuals. They were outright killed or outcasted. Hikaru had no reason to think Sai could be different. For all that they'd be living with each other for the rest of their lives, Hikaru was nearly certain that Sai would hate that existence if he ever found out about his little dark secret.
The arrival of the train brought him out of those dark thoughts and onto other more important ones. On the train ride, Hikaru filled Sai in about what had happened the last year. Sai was excited at the right parts, especially when it concerned Go, and was sad about the time when Hikaru nearly quite.
I didn't expect you to go through so much pain. Sai's expression clearly said that he blamed himself for Hikaru's suffering.
"No, don't blame yourself. Thanks to everything I went through, I grew up. I learned to treasure those I care about." He smiled softly at Sai. "If you hadn't left, I wouldn't have grown up. Cheer up. It's not like you to be down."
Sure Hikaru. After you play Touya, can we go play a game somewhere? I've missed being here.
"Ok. Sounds good." The train stopped and they got off. "How about if I let you play internet Go?" At Sai's happy bouncing, Hikaru grinned. "I've been thinking about a couple of things kind of off hand but I think I'll take those thoughts a bit more seriously now that you're here."
Ne, ne, Hikaru? Don't keep secrets from me. I don't like secrets! He hopped from foot to foot in his impatience.
Hikaru gave him a wicked grin. "Nope. You'll find out when I decide for sure."
Sai bit the edge of his robe and ghostly tears flowed out of his eyes. You're so mean!
"Yup and proud of it." He winked at the ghost.
That was the last sentence because they'd arrived at the Go center. The doors automatically opened and they walked into the center. Having been here quite a few times, Hikaru greeted the desk lady and veered to the table where Touya was already waiting for him. He stood up when Hikaru arrived.
"Where have you been? You're late." The heat in his eyes made Hikaru grin sheepishly.
"I ran into some problems." He eyed Touya and decided to get it out right here and now. "Why do you need to know my business anyway?"
Sai was biting the edge of his robe again. Touya slammed his hands down on the table and glared at Hikaru. The people who were playing, got up and left. The muttered comments of 'young children' reach their ears but they paid no attention.
"Of course I need to know your business when it affects my business." He yelled.
"Your business won't suffer just because I'm a few minutes late Touya. Grow up!"
"You grow up! I would never be late so neither should you!"
"Ha! Normal people are late. I'm normal."
"You're not normal, Shindou. You're lazy. There's a difference."
Hikaru stamped his foot and fell into the chair. "Let's play!" he yelled, refusing to concede defeat.
Unlike Hikaru, Touya sat gracefully down into his chair. Hikaru eyed Touya out of the corner of his eye. Touya definitely looked more loosened up as he began the game. He could tell that the smaller boy was tense because of something. He needed that fight to loosen up. Hikaru was glad. Touya would never admit that he needed his fights with Hikaru to get rid of stress and Hikaru would never admit to helping. It's what made their friendship so nice.
Hikaru? What was that! I thought you two were going to kill each other. Sai's voice sounded amused.
Hikaru used mind speech to answer. Oh don't worry about that. We do it all the time. This is kinda why I said we're sort of friends. Not many people can see how we can be friends but we are.
At Sai's surprised look, Hikaru reviewed what he'd just said and nearly groaned aloud. He'd let some of his affection out in those sentences. Hikaru no baka. He mentally berated himself. Why not just go right out and tell Sai that he was in love with his friend? Hikaru stomped out that thought fast. He didn't need Sai to get a hold of any of those stray thoughts.
After a couple of minutes, Hikaru noticed that Touya kept glancing over Hikaru's left shoulder. After placing a stone, Hikaru glance over his left shoulder and only saw Sai intensely watching the game. He looked back at Touya.
"What are you looking at?"
Touya frowned. "Your friend. It's rude to fight in front of him and then not introduce him."
"What friend?" Hikaru asked, truly confused.
"Now you ignore him. That's really low Shindou-san." Touya got up and placed his hands on the goban, giving Hikaru a glare. "The friend right behind you. The one with the tall hat."
Both Hikaru and Sai jumped when Touya said that. Hikaru blinked several times just to be sure he heard what he heard.
Hikaru, if I were alive I think I would faint. Hikaru heard the amazement in Sai's voice.
You're not the only one except I AM alive.
Don't faint now Hikaru. Fainting would most definitely be a problem right now. Sai's voice was very dry and Hikaru realized that Sai was attempting dry humor in the light of a catastrophe. Hikaru was eternally thankful he had Sai back.
I'm no woman Sai so you don't have to worry about that.
"Touya…" He whispered the name. "You can see him?"
"Of course I can see him." Touya gave him a very frustrated look Touya pointed directly at Sai. "Right there. Your friend."
Hikaru did the only thing his poor, suffering shocked brain could think of doing… he ran. It must have been what Sai was thinking, too, because he was only a split second behind him. Ichikawa-san already held out his backpack thinking the two of them were fighting again. Hikaru didn't mind because it helped him get away faster. He heard his name being called but he didn't slow down at all.
Somehow, Hikaru knew that Touya was following him. He didn't ask why or how because he didn't have time to dwell on that at the moment but he just knew. In fact, Touya followed them all the way to the train station. Hikaru was desperate to get away from Touya and nearly wooped in glee when he found his train was just beginning to close. He shoved open the doors and squeezed into the train, Sai right behind him.
He turned around to see Touya banging on the glass door. Hikaru put his hands on the spot where Touya's were banging. He felt like this was the last time in a long time that he would see his friend, rival, secret love. He felt like he was tearing off a piece of himself and leaving it behind. A single tear fell from his eyes as the train began leaving the station, leaving Touya behind.
