Author's note: Two uploads this week to make up for the fact that I missed submitting any writing last week. I've neglected this fic for a while. Oopsies?

Chapter Two

If Kaga had been any other type of person, they might have driven in silence. As it was, he had to open his mouth and keep talking – if only to give directions to Hikaru, who was driving.

"This isn't really that efficient," Hikaru pointed out when they stopped at the next set of lights.

"What do you know of efficiency?" a grinning Kaga shot back at him. "You sit on your knees for hours on end to play Go. You'd think they would have invented chairs by now."

"Isn't it the same for Shogi players?" Hikaru asked irritably.

Kaga yawned and fanned himself lethargically. "Touché."

The lights changed to green at that moment and Hikaru, scowling, put his foot on the accelerator.

But when Hikaru really thought about it, what had happened to Tsutsui?

Ten years. How much could change in ten years?

So far, he had met Akari and Kaga and both of them were much like how he had remembered them in his childhood. Kaga was as charismatic as he had always been and Akari was just Akari. Hikaru remembered Tsutsui as a kind, mild-mannered boy who had had enough resolve in him to start a Go club from scratch. If Akari and Kaga were still their essential selves despite maturing with age, then what about Tsutsui? How could he have changed?

He tried to ask Kaga about it, but the former senior would only provide him with the same vague response: "Just ask him. He'll tell you."

And eventually Hikaru, stewing in his own anxiety, finally spoke, and his voice was small and oddly restrained. "He's not... you're not taking me to a cemetery, are you?"

Kaga stared at him. "You think he lives in a graveyard?"

"Er..."

"He's got a house, derpface."

"Then what... why?"

Kaga continued to peer intently at the side of Hikaru's face before he sighed.

"All right, all right, I'll tell you what happened so you don't get any funny ideas."

He took a deep breath.

"Tsutsui went to a good high school (although mine was better), and then went to a good university, and then he got a job working for some firm in Tokyo. Married a nice girl too."

"He got married?"

Kaga snorted. "Just because you're married to Go doesn't mean other people can't have human beings as lovers. Anyway, Tsutsui settled down with a wife and a 9-to-5 job. Had a kid too. A girl, by the way."

"Oh," said Hikaru, feeling stupid. "Then what's the big deal?"

"The deal is that you let me smoke in your car. I'm dying for a fag."

"Ewww no," said Hikaru. "Just tell me about Tsutsui-san. What you just said can't be all that happened."

"You're right," Kaga said simply, after a pause.

Hikaru felt something flip over in his stomach. It was an unpleasant sensation that was similar, he realised, to when Sai vanished. His mouth was suddenly dry.

"On second thought," continued Kaga, "that's not the only thing you're right about. I guess Tsutsui does live in a graveyard. Let's stop there."

The wind felt unexpectedly chilly when Hikaru stepped out of the car. Afternoon was rapidly approaching evening now and as the sun began to set, shadows crept longer across the cemetery. (Akira, Hikaru thought, would be done in his match by now and would be heading home at this very minute, maybe stopping at a Go salon on the way back.) He looked up and around him, firstly at the darkening sky and then at the tombstones around him.

Hikaru could remember visiting a cemetery only twice in his life. The first time was to look for Sai; the second was to attend the late Toya Meijin's funeral. Both times had caused his heart to constrict and tighten and then feel as if it had flooded into his mouth. He had come both times hoping against all odds that the ghosts of the past would return to him.

This time was no different from the others. He kept glancing around, his gaze fleeting and desperate and searching – all for Tsutsui. And his eyes were drawn to the names on the tombstones.

It happened at around the twentieth tombstone he encountered. He might not have seen the name at all, if he hadn't knelt down to tie his shoelaces. A small, almost baby-sized grave lay to his left, and the first thing he noticed about it was -

TSUTSUI.

- the flowers. Pale, white and freshly picked.

"Kaga..." Hikaru breathed. "Kaga, look!"

Kaga knelt down beside him. "Looks like he came here earlier today," he said as he peered at the flowers. "We just missed him."

Hikaru read the words engraved on a plaque on the stone.

IN LOVING MEMORY OF NATSUMI TSUTSUI (AGED 4). SHE WILL LIVE ON IN THE HEARTS OF HER PARENTS.

"No," Hikaru whispered hoarsely. "No!"

He turned to Kaga. The mirth was gone in the older man's face, replaced by such a such sombre expression that simply seeing it made Hikaru's heart clench even further.

"It was an accident," Kaga said slowly. "Tsutsui was driving her to kindergarten one day and then some asshole ran a red light and hit him from the side."

Pause.

"Tsutsui was fine. He was on the other side."

"But his daughter died," Hikaru supplied for him.

"Right."

More silence. It really was getting dark... and cold.

Hikaru stood up abruptly. His hands were clenched into fists beside him.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" he demanded.

"How could we?" Kaga answered irritably. He removed his cigarette from his mouth, threw it to the ground and crushed it against his shoe. "You were playing in some title championships at that time. Tsutsui said not to tell you."

"He didn't tell me anything!" Hikaru snapped. "Not even that he had a daughter in the first place!"

Kaga said nothing. At length, Hikaru could only stop frowning. He exhaled heavily, feeling the chill of approaching night roll over his skin. It left the inside of him feeling empty and yet not really that cold in comparison. It felt strangely lukewarm.

"Do you still want to see him?" Kaga asked him.

"I can't," Hikaru replied. "Not now." And he found that he was right, he really couldn't.

In response, the wind howled and scattered dead leaves around him.

"Something's bothering you, isn't it?" Akira Toya said to him that night.

Hikaru looked up. It seemed as if his head was weighted down by an invisible anchor. It was much easier to drop his head back down and stare without appetite at his dinner.

"I couldn't bring myself to meet with my old friend today," he admitted. He told Akira about Tsutsui and his daughter.

"It's not your fault, you know," Akira told him. "That had nothing to do with you."

"I know," Hikaru said quietly. "But still..."

Akira stood up and picked up his now spotless plate. "Shindo," he intoned solemnly.

"What?"

"Cheer up, you fool."

"Okay." Then Hikaru blanched. "I mean what – no! YOU cheer up, idiot!"

Akira rolled his eyes.

Before they had parted ways, Kaga had assured Hikaru of something. "I thought you at least knew about what happened," he had said with a shake of his head. "But oh well. He doesn't hate you, you know."

"I'm glad," Hikaru had said in response, but inwardly, he wasn't. He wondered how Tsutsui could even feel that way.

Now Hikaru lay awake in his bed, staring listlessly up at the ceiling. He found himself thinking, not just about Tsutsui but about Sai as well. He wondered how it must have felt for his old friend to wake up and realise that everyone he knew was gone and faded into memories.

Hikaru knew that he needed to discover more. There was no rational reason for this, except that he felt the need for it. It coursed through his being. This was something he needed to do. It had come to this stage.

The next morning, he returned to the cemetery. This time, he was prepared. He placed the flowers by Natsumi's head stone and clapped his hands together in prayer. He did not know what Natsumi looked like, but he could imagine how her father must have been. He would have been a loyal and caring father, the type of man who might have tried, in awkward yet endearing ways, to be a pillar of support to his daughter. Hikaru could imagine Tsutsui always spending time with Natsumi when he could. He could imagine him being the type of man who would produce a daughter who was a "daddy's girl". Images flashed through Hikaru's mind, of myriad possibilities and moments, all of them resonating with fondness and fatherly affection. In the best way he could, Hikaru grieved for a girl he never knew.

At length, he opened his eyes. The dead leaves had gathered around the headstone, casting a brown hue over the pathway. Hikaru's eyes flitted over them for a moment, and then he blinked.

One of the leaves had writing written on it.

It was a more solid, less cracked leaf than the usual. In fact, as Hikaru peered more closely at it, he realised it wasn't a real leaf at all. It was just a composite made of plastic. But that wasn't what caught Hikaru's eye: it was the fact that it had his name written on it.

He picked up the leaf gingerly and turned it over, reading the writing there. Hikaru's first impulse was that Kaga had written it, but why? He did not understand. What was this?

He stared, confused, at the leaf and its message for a very long time. Despite the simplicity of the message, it took many rereading for him to even begin to guess what it was about. For the first time in a very long while, he felt conscious of a presence no one else could perceive.

But it wasn't Sai. That much Hikaru knew.

Next is Mitani.

Three words. Deliberately, Hikaru stood up, placed the leaf carefully into his pocket and began to walk.