A/N: There you go, next chapter is up. :-) Rather early after the last, but I'm going on skiing holiday tomorrow, so I thought today would be a good day to post, ne:-)
Thanks to my reviewers... at spinx: Danke für deine Reviews! Ich hab mich echt gefreut mal einen Review auf Deutsch zu bekommen. :-) Ist schon irgendwie witzig... einen deutschen Review auf ein englisches Fanfic zu bekommen. Und es freut mich, dass es dir gefällt. Ich hoffe,du wirst die Geschichte auch weiterhin mögen (und reviewen ;-) )
And thanks to BlackWingedGabriel for betaing!

Enjoy reading.

Chapter 2. Part III

It was quiet in the Go salon, save the low buzz of the air-conditioner and the occasional chafing and klicking of the stones. Even Ichikawa had gone home already, leaving the two young men alone. Most of the lights were switched off; only where they played there were some lamps still on, casting the room in a gentle half-darkness that in the corners grew to a dense black obscureness.

"Let's stop," the half-bleached juvenile proposed somewhere in the middle of their game, "I won anyway."

Akira stared at the board for a moment. He was so tired that he couldn't even tell if he had really lost. The patterns of black and white stones blurred before his eyes and eluded his interpretation. He sometimes wondered why Shindou still bothered playing with him – and without shouting his ears deaf.

They resolved the game and put the stones back into their bowls. As Akira pushed the stones over the lines, his hands begin to quiver lightly. Suddenly he marvelled at the beauty of the simple forms: lines, squares, points, circles.

Some of the smooth stones slid out of his hands and fell to the floor. He bent down and picked them up.

As he straightened up and put the fallen stones into their bowl, he saw Shindou looking at him with a featherbrained expression on his face. Akira knew this look. He sighed, "What do you want to say?"

"Hm…," he answered, "Let's go eat something, ok?"

Akira sat still for a moment. "I'm not hungry."

"Touya," Shindou stared at him almost angrily, "I want to talk to you."

"Then talk to me here."

"Hey!" his rival protested, "Even if you're not hungry, I am!"

"Fine, then let's go," Akira answered. "I'm tired. I want to get home."

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Aren't you eating?" Hikaru pointed at the bowl of Ramen in front of his rival.

"I told you I'm not hungry." Hikaru had ordered for him anyway.

"Eat! You are too thin."

"The smell makes me sick."

And really, the black haired man seemed to grow paler within seconds. When he closed his eyes and drew in a sharp breath, Hikaru knew something wasn't right.

He gripped the other's bony shoulder tightly, and shook him.

"Touya!"

Eyes fluttered open, and he looked as if he needed some time to reorient himself in his situation. When his gaze met Hikaru's he instantly looked away.

"I'm sorry. I got dizzy."

"Are you sick?" Hikaru stretched to put his hand on his companion's pale forehead in his pale face. Touya slapped his hand away.

"Are you my mother now?" Anger narrowed his eyes.

"I want to know what's wrong with you - playing like a damp washrag! You fell out of pretty much every tournament in the last few weeks."

Touya didn't react, but looked down at the steaming soup as if he suddenly wondered what it was, and if it might bite him if he didn't pay attention.

"When was the last time you ate?" Hikaru asked, out of impulse.

He thought Touya wouldn't even bother to acknowledge his second question as well, much less answer it, but he was surprised when he looked up, blinking several times, as if it would help him remember.

"I… I don't know." He said, sounding earnestly confused.

"You don't know!" Hikaru's eyebrows rose.

Touya looked at him in more confusion. "What does it matter?"

"The way you look, act and play it could be days ago!"

The black haired pro shrugged, evidently neither sharing, nor even understanding, his horror. "Probably."

"How…" Hikaru's eyes were wide in awe, "How did you do that? Not eating?"

He remained silent for several moments, trying to digest the idea that someone could really consider not eating three meals a day, not even one, perhaps not even one in days.

"I wasn't hungry."

Hikaru was stunned.

"Was that all you wanted to ask me?" Touya asked, becoming impatient. "Then I'm going."

"Hey, Touya," Hikaru shouted as he ran after him, out of the Ramen shop, "Wait!"

"Leave me alone!" He stopped and stared at him. The weak light of a street light set his eyes aglitter in the dark. "I've eaten, as you told me to, and now I feel better, you were right. So now leave me!"

"I'm not leaving until you tell me what's wrong with you!" Hikaru took a threatening step near his rival whose hair had escaped the hair tie and formed dark halo around his face.

"There's nothing wrong with me."

Touya turned to go on with his way, but he caught him by his thin upper arm, and made him stop.

"You're a poor liar," Hikaru was getting angry.

"So?" the other pro violently tore his arm out of his grip, turned, and started walking again.

"Touya!" Hikaru ran again to catch up with his rival, who only halted when he threw his body in his way. Akira tried to sidestep him, but stumbled and stopped.

"Please listen to me! I want to help you!"

A car passing by illuminated Touya's pale, aristocratic face for a few seconds. He wore an impassive mask, but Hikaru saw them in his eyes, the emotions he so desperately tried to hide.

"What kind of rival would I be, if I didn't help you!" he ground out, locking dark, sharp eyes with his, "If I let your Go and you founder without even trying to do something?"

Touya stared back at him in silence, but didn't try to move on anymore.

Hikaru waited for some kind of answer, or even an acknowledgement that Touya had absorbed his words, because the dark eyes continued gazing without the owner saying anything. Hikaru wanted to shake him, but didn't dare for fear of his rival leaving again. Not today.

The soft air, it was the end of summer, caressed their bodies. Hikaru tried to take deep breaths of the warm air that was like balm on his skin. It was so late that few other people disturbed their privacy.

He tried to calm down, even managed; only his heart remained beating too fast.

"You can't leave me alone like that," he quietly told his rival, "I won't let you."

In response Touya staggered a step back, probably only in surprise, but nevertheless Hikaru put a hand on his thin shoulder to keep him from leaving. He knew now he had his full attention. A whisper of a wind caressed his face and made the hairs on his back stand up.

He waited for the breeze to pass into the night and into all the little noises a city always made.

"Touya," he gathered all his courage, "Akira…" He felt the body under his hand tensing, but he continued, subdued, "I know how difficult it is to let someone help you," hoarsely, "especially when you need it."

Touya's eyes widened for a moment, before he turned his head away, so Hikaru could only see a black, shimmering wall of hair, almost one with the night around them. Hikaru let his hand fall of the other's shoulder, respecting his need for this bit of privacy.

Several cars passed by.

"Who did you tell?" Akira's voice was soft and weak.

"Nobody, yet," he quietly admitted, not really surprised by the question. "But someday… you'll be the one know." He couldn't offer more than a promise.

Akira sighed, unable to hide his bitterness, "I didn't expect you'd tell me." He almost bit his tongue in chagrin. He had vowed to himself never to mention it again until Shindou entrusted it to him out of his own incentive.

Hikaru's voice sounded regretful. He hadn't considered that it might affect Touya, but, "Now isn't the appropriate moment."

Akira was silent for some minutes. He still didn't look at Hikaru, who only waited for his rival's next move with a patience he had learned on the Goban.

"Shindou…"

"Yeah?"

"Can you answer me one question?"

"Sure."

"'Doubt is the worst enemy of a Go player' father told me. But is it really enough playing Go?"

"What do you mean?"

"To be a whole person having only Go."

"Touya…?"

"Our world is Go, but… shouldn't there be… more to life?"

"Touya! What do you mean?"

"Shindou, please answer me."

Hikaru frowned, trying to keep despair at bay at how far Touya's moral had suffered to even think of such questions. How much Touya had suffered.

"All you are is the Go you play, and that's enough," he repeated Touya's own words, that had meant so much to him in their long ago first game. He still cherished them, and the soaring elation when Touya had finally accepted him as his rival. "You said that yourself."

"Please answer my question."

"But I… I don't understand. What answer shall I give you? How can you even think about that?"

"Answer my question."

"But Touya…"

"Please."

Hikaru winced from the urgency in his voice. Touya had taken to look at him again, with his so very own determined look, his eyes burning. It tore Hikaru apart to see his rival so desperate over something he didn't really understand. Something he didn't want to understand. Go was what they wanted, wasn't it? He had counted on Touya as the one and real security in this world that from the beginning on had been so strange to him. But now the fundament of his believes was crumbling and his whole house was swaying, threatening to fall down on him.

He took a step back, away from Touya.

His voice was low and husky, betraying his own desperation at seeing his rival like this.

"Without you, Go would be just a game to me."

He swallowed to ease the dryness in his mouth. Then he took another step, turned away, he had already said too much. "I'm sorry, but that's all I can answer you."

He went on to the metro station, hearing his steps slow and heavy on the pavement stones.

He looked up at the sky, a tear in his eye.

Sai, I'm sorry, to you too… but… that's my truth.

"Shindou, wait!" Touya's voice was so weak that Hikaru almost missed it. He stopped.

What does he want from me? Crumble the rest of my fundament?

"Please." Touya's voice was almost a whisper. Hikaru turned.

His rival was standing not far from him, only a bit more than an arms length away. He had probably followed him some steps. Touya met his gaze levelly without the fear or regret, even without the desperate defence he had displayed lately. Standing directly under a street lamp, Hikaru recognised that the expression on his face was more open that he'd ever seen, more vulnerable.

I couldn't bear to say the wrong thing now... His uncanny knack to say the worst thing at the worst time had his ghostly mentor chide him often… and in the end… This time I'll listen! But what if... ?

Touya rescued him from his uneasiness.

"I realised…" his voice was gentle and easeful, and for the first time in weeks Hikaru saw a small smile curving his lips, "that more than a rival, I need a friend right now."

A/N: If you liked it, please review. :-)