At last, it is finally here! This was a difficult chapter to write. I ended up having to split my original vision of the chapter into two parts. The second part will probably be shorter, but even more difficult.

Oh yeah, one last thing: get tissues. From now on, this story is going to start getting really sad.

Chapter 8: 秒読み Byo-Yomi "Counting the Seconds" Part 1

The matchless week passed peacefully in the Touya household. Since he was being kept out of school also, Akira took the time to focus on missed schoolwork ("What's the point?" complained Hikaru, "You don't even need to go to high school!") and especially to practice go.

They played against each other frequently (with Akira usually winning, but Hikaru was catching up handsomely) and had taken to arguing passionately about go strategy, which frequently devolved into arguing passionately about each other's semantics, and then into arguing passionately about their arguing passionately about semantics.

Sai found these shouting matches worrying at first, that their relationship might have become stained with bad blood, but in reality when the two young pros were tired of yelling they got over whatever they were arguing about as quickly as they had started, and were back to being thick as thieves. One time, Akira was so exhausted that he even dozed off into a peaceful nap in the middle of Hikaru yelling at him. Was it to relieve tension? Was it for fun? Was it just their strange way of expressing affection for each other? Sai didn't know, but it was cute to watch, albeit loud and annoying at times.

Akira also played against Sai to sharpen his skills, and Hikaru, too, occasionally made Akira place stones so Sai and Hikaru could play each other and see the stones on the board. Who would get the privilege of playing Sai became yet another topic of argument, so that Sai himself had to interject with the suggestion that they simply rock-paper-scissors for it. When Hikaru and Akira figured out how to exploit each other's' non-randomness at rock-paper-scissors, they opted to decide through nigiri. Really, these two were a handful.

In an attempt to get Akira interested in things that were not go, Hikaru badgered him to go out and buy some manga and anime. Akira was willing to give manga a try, but said that anime was out of the question since he had no idea how he would explain it if his father saw him watching Dragonball Z on the tv.

When it came to manga, Akira immediately threw down Dragonball in distaste. Both Hikaru and Akira were not comfortable revisiting the beginning of Yu Yu Hakusho due to recent events. Akira found One Piece dull, the blood and mischief in Naruto to be crude (though Akira could not resist telling Hikaru that the obnoxiousness of the titular character in this work reminded him of Hikaru, much to the latter's annoyance). He found the monsters of Inuyasha too creepy, and Yugioh too childlike for his taste. Finally, after Hikaru begged and pleaded him to look past the blood, he agreed to give Rurouni Kenshin a chance.

All of this was well and good and Sai was happy for them, but he could not escape the feeling that Hikaru was drifting away from him, paying more attention to Akira than to Sai, even though the two were always together at every moment. Often, Hikaru chatted with Akira as if Sai weren't even there, and Akira, easily drawn in by Hikaru's enthusiasm, developed the habit of doing the same.

Sai began to feel, almost as much as during those many dark, silent centuries in the goban, invisible and alone.

In the end he decided that Akira's life was Akira's, and Hikaru's afterlife was Hikaru's, and elected to not burden them with his tired feelings.

The week of cancelled matches finally passed, and Akira attended his first match in a while. Sai and Hikaru watched by Akira's side enthusiastically with clenched fists, and Hikaru blurted out some advice, to which Akira hissed at him to be quiet. Clearly in excellent spirits, the young pro departed from the hall with a clean victory under his belt.

On the way out, Hikaru's friend Waya spotted Akira and gave him a strange look. What was that child thinking now?

"Aughhhh, that Waya is really starting to piss me off!" Hikaru snarled, balling up his fists. "That's it! I'm going to make you two talk and stop hating each other because this is getting out of hand."

"But Shindou, I don't even have anything against Waya-kun," Akira pointed out—

"No buts! Tomorrow, you are talking to Waya!"

That following evening, after Akira went to sleep, Sai tried to engage Hikaru in conversation over blind go, but the boy simply glared at the empty board in deep concentration and did not register Sai talking to him.

"I'll show that Waya who's full of himself," Hikaru grumbled as he thought about his next move. "There," he said, pointing at 14-15.

"Um, Hikaru, there is already a stone there," said Sai. As Hikaru had already played lots of blind go every night, this mistake happened much less often now, but tonight the boy was so wound up that he wasn't retaining his image of the board as well as usual.

"Really?" said Hikaru, snapping out of his train of thought. He scrounged up his face in concentration as he tried to recall the flow of moves. "3-12, then."

That move helped to make his stones live. Good, he wasn't having difficulty with remembering the board, his mind was just so preoccupied that he couldn't concentrate.

"Hikaru, do you want to stop playing? You seem distracted."

"Nope, we'll keep going until Touya wakes up," said Hikaru, not looking up from the board. "Your move, Sai."

Sai stated his move, and Hikaru pondered again.

Lately, when Akira slept, he would do nothing but play blind go, even when he was clearly tired of it. He would ignore conversation with Sai unless it was about go or Akira, and every time they ended a game, he would demand another, ad nauseam, until the sun rose. It was as if there was something on Hikaru's mind that he wanted to keep himself from thinking about. Clearly it was something Hikaru had no intention of talking about with Sai, so he decided to not pry into it and allow him to deal with it himself.

The sun rose, and Akira began to stir from his sleep. "Wake up, Touya!" Hikaru called, and Akira whined unintelligibly in response before dragging himself out of his futon.

Sai cringed with embarrassment as he recalled how he himself used to badger Hikaru to wake up in the mornings. Now that he was watching Hikaru do it to someone else, he could really see now how annoying it must be for the living person. Hikaru didn't seem to make the connection, though. He really was quite simple after all.

"No no no no, Touya!" Hikaru said after Akira had gotten ready, and the latter stopped in his tracks.

"What now, Shindou?"

"Those clothes. Take them off."

Akira tensed up with embarrassment, red in the face. "Shindou! Isn't that a little forward?"

"Don't be ecchi! I'm just saying you are not going to meet Waya wearing a yellow tie with a purple shirt."

"But I like yellow and purple…" said Akira.

"Not together! Go! Back to the wardrobe!"

Akira begrudgingly returned to his closet, and after a few minutes of each of the alternative outfits he tried picking out being vetoed by Hikaru, he threw his own clothes off himself in frustration, shouting out loud, "Fine, Shindou! You dress me, then, because clearly I don't know how to dress myself!"

"Oi, you exhibitionist, put your clothes back on!" Hikaru said, looking away.

"I am not an exhibitionist! You're just immature!"

Sai sighed and put his fingers to his temple. They were at it again. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something nice neatly folded in one of the many open drawers. "What about that hakama?" he suggested.

"No, Sai!" Hikaru responded before Akira could say anything, "His dad might be born in the wrong era, but he's exactly in the time he belongs!"

"Hmph," said Sai, resigning himself to the corner of the room, "Fine, continue bickering amongst yourselves." What was the big deal anyway? So far as he was concerned, the strange fashion of this time looked all the same!

At last, Hikaru picked out for Akira a plain pale blue shirt and allowed him to get away with a deep blue tie, though in spite of the latter's protests, he forbade a sweater vest.

On the commute into the city, Hikaru commented, "You know, Touya, your wardrobe would be fine, if only you would just learn how to coordinate colors."

Akira frowned, but didn't say anything.

"And lost all the sweater vests," Hikaru continued, "Seriously! Why do you have so many of them?"

"They're comfortable! And people keep getting them for me as gifts."

Sai swatted the both of them on the head with his fan. "Honestly, you two, If you keep bickering about clothes, I will find a way to kill you both."

Hikaru deftly dodged the fan and Akira, of course, felt nothing. "Fine, whatever," Hikaru said. "At least I was here to save you from looking like an eyesore. We're almost there to Waya's place now."

At last, they ascended the steps to Waya's apartment, and Akira pressed in the buzzer. After a moment, Waya himself opened the door and his mouth fell open at the sight. "Touya! What are you doing here?"

Akira looked about his surroundings as he searched for words. "Um, uh.." "Shindou!" he addressed him in his mind, "What do I say?"

"Just tell him you want to be friends or something. Don't worry about what he says, his bark is worse than his bite."

"Ah, Waya-kun! I thought we'd go out and become friends!" Akira repeated.

Waya rased an eyebrow, clearly not convinced. "You? Make friends?"

Akira cringed with shame. "Shindou, what do I say now?"

"Honestly, Touya, learn how to lie! I can't keep coming up with everything you say!" Akira rolled his eyes.

Waya's eyes drifted down to the corner of the brightly colored volume poking out of Akira's bag. "Manga?" he said.

"Uh, yeah," said Akira, taking out the first tankoubon of Kenshin and showing it to him. He was about halfway through it.

"Huh, I didn't think you were the type to read manga."

"I don't. I thought… well, Shindou liked it, so I thought I'd check it out."

"Shindou…?" said Waya, an almost distant look on his face. He looked away for a moment, pondering. Then he crossed his arms and nodded. "Alright, Touya. I'll go wherever you're taking me."

Hikaru directed Akira's commute into Shinjuku, and Waya followed without a word. The air was tense between Waya and Akira, though they stood still beside each other on the train, and Sai watched with bated breath.

When the group finally approached their destination, Waya recognized the shop into which Akira was leading him. "Hey, this is my favorite sushi place! How did you know…?"

Akira tensed up. "Oh! Uh, Shindou told me," he said.

"Ugh, this is bad. He really can't lie, can he?" Hikaru said to Sai.

Sai nodded, as he had to agree. "Akira was raised by an honest man deeply concerned with honor. In all his life, Akira might not have ever had a good reason to lie, until now."

"Shindou told you!?" said Waya, his eyes wide. "You mean, you two talked about me? When?" They took their seats at the bar, and Waya gazed at Akira, eyes wide.

"Touya! Try to change the subject!" Hikaru advised from the sidelines.

"Well," Akira said, "Waya-kun, I hope you enjoy yourself, it's all on me."

"You're really okay with that? This bar isn't exactly cheap."

"It's fine!" said Akira, smiling, "Please, order as much as you want, to your heart's content!"

Waya went ahead and ordered to his heart's content, getting a plate here, a platter there, and a roll or two of each of his favorites, clearly exploiting his generosity. Akira slipped a nervous grin at Sai and Hikaru.

"Hm," Waya grunted as he stuffed himself with eel, "I guess you're really not so bad. Maybe I was wrong about you."

"Yes, I want to say sorry for whatever I might have done to give you a bad impression of me."

"Nah, that's all in the past now. Try the eel nigiri. They make the best here."

Akira gently bit on the end of eel.

"I saw you didn't go to any matches this whole week," said Waya, stopping for a moment. "It made me start to realize some things, and then I heard about you participating in the passing of the bones… I had no idea about you and Shindou. I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I saw you went to yours," Akira said, "You must be very strong to be able to do that, after what has happened. After all, he was your friend."

Waya looked away from Akira, and picked up the sculpted mound of wasabi from his plate. "No, Touya. I've been losing all my matches. Making stupid mistakes I wouldn't have made before. I wish I could be that strong, but I'm not."

Akira gazed away at Hikaru, who looked down at his hands. It must be very difficult for them both, Sai thought.

Waya continued, examining the wasabi in his fingers. It was shaped like a leaf, the veins traced in with a toothpick. "You don't realize it until he's gone, just how important he was. He was like the glue that held everything together. He took some of the tension out of go and made it fun."

Waya paused in contemplation, and Akira watched him in silence. "You know, during the pro exam, he was really intimidated by this big beardy guy, so we took him out to go salons all over the city to play old dudes. He got so into it, and made friends with this taxi driver, and it turned out the bearded guy wasn't so bad after all, and they became friends! It really was a lot of fun."

Sai could see that tears were starting to well at Waya's eyes.

"He really didn't know anything at all about professional go, but now that I reflect on it, I prefer it that way. He was rude, ignorant and naïve, but that made go fun for me." Darkness in his eyes, he looked Akira in the face. "Honestly? If I hadn't met Shindou, I don't know if I would have passed the exam. And If I hadn't, I would have quit."

Sai looked down at Hikaru, who still didn't move, just gazing down at his lap.

Waya crushed the wasabi in his fist, tears running down his cheeks. "I'm such an idiot, aren't I!? My strength isn't even my own, it came from one guy. Then he dies, and I can't even hold myself up in a match. It was Shindou's strength that won me the exam, and I'm disappointing him."

Sai saw that Hikaru was shaking, clenching his fists in his lap. He too, was crying.

Waya opened his fist and stared at the crushed green paste in his palm. Breaking into sobs, he closed his fist again, and Akira put an arm around his shoulder. Waya pulled him into an embrace and sobbed into his shirt.

"I'm so stupid, so weak! What if he can see me like this? I'm supposed to hate you and I can't even hold myself together! What would Shindou say, to see angry, rude Waya such a mess?"

"You're not stupid, Waya," Hikaru said, and he got up from beside Sai to approach them. Akira watched him over Waya's shoulder. Waya, of course, could not hear him.

"Shindou's watching over us right now, and he doesn't think you're stupid, Waya-kun," said Akira.

"But I made a self atari that lost me a whole third of the board! Just who does that!? I shouldn't even be a pro!"

"Me, Waya," said Akira, "I didn't go to my match because I did just the same as you."

"Waya, listen!" Hikaru cried at his ear, "If you can hear me at all, if you can feel even a little bit of my presence, I need you to know that you are not weak!"

"Why did it have to happen?" Waya continued, sniffing, and leaving streaks in Akira's shirt, "Why that way? Why now?"

"Waya, you have to stop!" Hikaru said, "Please, stop! Stop worrying about me!"

"How do you do it, Touya?" said Waya, "How do you pick yourself up again, knowing that he is gone, and that will never change?"

"WAYA! I'M RIGHT HERE!" Hikaru yelled, through tears, "I'M RIGHT HERE, PLEASE HEAR ME!" Hikaru tried to grab Waya's shoulder, but passed through it, touching nothing.

Hikaru spoke now to his shaking hands. "I'm so close to you! I'm right here and I want to say anything to help you, but I can't." He dropped to his knees, face in his hands, nothing more to say.

Akira simply held Waya tight for a moment, letting him cry it out.

Finally, Waya pulled away, wiping his face. He saw the stains on Akira's shirt. "Sorry about messing up your shirt," he said.

"It's perfectly ok, I don't mind."

Waya chuckled at himself a little bit. "It's funny, isn't it? Supposedly, I think you're some stuck-up rich snob, but here I am, crying into your shoulder. I wonder what Shindou would say." He rubbed at his eyes. "Ow, wasabi in my eye. Shouldn't have smushed it. That was dumb."

"You're not alone, Waya-kun," said Akira, "You see, it was Shindou who motivated me to take the exam. Before I met him, I was putting off taking the exam, even though I had the skill. I had no direction, no motivation, and then he appeared. He said he wanted to catch up to me in go, so I decided to lead the way."

Akira looked past Waya straight at Hikaru, who lifted his face from his hands and met his gaze. "You're not weak, Waya," he said, "Shindou was very special to all of us. He had a way of bringing out the strength in everyone. He brought it out in me, and he brought out the strength in you. I feel that he is watching over us right now, and what he wants for you is to cherish that strength, and be happy. If not for yourself, then for him."

Waya and Hikaru both gazed into Akira's face, touched by these words.

Waya took a deep breath and stood up. "Hm. Yeah, I guess you're right." He motioned to the remaining sushi on the bar before him. "Wanna take any of this home?"

"It's alright, you can have it," said Akira as he counted out the bill, and Waya had the rest of his sushi packed up.

"Hey, you know," said Waya on their way home, a bag of plastic boxes in hand, "I guess I should say thanks. I mean, not just for the sushi."

"It's alright, I understand. You really needed someone to talk to," Akira said.

"Yeah, I guess I did," Waya took a deep breath, and gave a little smile. "I never thought I'd say this, but you're actually really awesome, Touya."

"Really?" Akira looked back towards Waya, a little pink in the cheeks.

"Yeah! You must be hurting more than any of us, and still you're holding yourself together so much better than me. You are incredibly strong to be able to do that."

Akira gave a weak smile. "I'm really not, but thanks."

"I really mean it! It's like Shindou's strength is within you. Even now, he's still guiding you."

Both Hikaru and Akira stopped in their tracks when they heard these words, and Sai shared their astonishment. This insightful child was so close to the truth!

"Yeah," said Waya, as he started to turn toward his own way home, "I guess I gotta find that guidance for myself, too. So if you ever feel down, Touya, remember I told you that. Anyway, I have to go this way home. Later!"

On the train back to Akira's home, Hikaru was silent again. He looked away from Akira and Sai at the passing scenery, but when Sai leaned to have a good look, he saw that his face beared only a sullen frown and tired eyes that conveyed emptiness.

Even when they returned home, Hikaru did not respond to any attempts to communicate, until finally, a concerned Akira suggested that they play go before he went to bed, and he agreed. Face still empty, he pointed at his moves, showing none of the enthusiasm that he really did.

"Here, really? That does nothing but allow me to strengthen my shape," said Akira, and Sai agreed. Akira had a clear upper hand, but Hikaru did not flinch at it. What was making him slip this time?

"Fine," said Hikaru, "Screw the ko." He pointed to his next move, making tenuki and abandoning his group to death. Sai noticed a solid threat he could have made for the ko, but Hikaru never saw it.

Akira placed the stone, and raised his face to him. "Shindou, is something wrong? You seem rather upset."

"I'm fine," said Hikaru, "Just worry about taking the ko."

Akira connected the ko. "If there is something on your mind that's bothering you, you can talk to me about it."

"I don't want you to worry about me, Touya," Hikaru said, clenching his fists in his lap.

"Well, Shindou," said Touya, glaring and getting impatient, "when you won't tell me what's going on, what do you expect me to do?"

"There is nothing you can do!" Hikaru yelled, "It's not something you can do anything about, and it's not something you'd be able to understand anyway, so stop worrying!"

Akira stared, eyes wide at Hikaru, taken aback by his outburst. Hikaru leaned back away from the goban, looking off to the side.

"I resign."

"Huh?"

"The game is over. You win. Clear the stones."

Akira dutifully cleared the stones, eyes cast downward. Hikaru's performance in this game was so poor that normally he would have resigned several moves ago, Sai noticed, but he had drawn this one out for some reason. He would just start a new one if he wanted to continue playing, so why?

Hikaru sighed. "Sorry I yelled at you, Touya. It's really not your fault."

"It's okay. Want to go again?"

"No, that's it. Go to bed."

Akira nodded and crawled into the futon, and Hikaru remained by Sai next to the goban, as was routine. He turned back towards Akira and added another thing.

"You know what I want you to do?"

Akira raised his head.

"I just want you to live. Play games, have fun, be happy. So don't worry about me, okay? Have a good night's sleep."

Akira pondered for a moment, before at last saying, "Good night, Shindou," turning out the light and going to sleep.

When they were both sure Akira was asleep, Sai softly said, "Alright, Hikaru, ready for more blind go?" wanting to be sensitive to his troubled feelings.

Hikaru shook his head. "Nah, I'm tired of blind go," he said, which, given his growing mental fatigue with the practice these past days, Sai had expected. He had gone out of his way to wear himself out on blind go, but why?

"I can tell, Hikaru," said Sai, "You have been forcing yourself to play for a while now. Is there something you're trying to get away from?"

Hikaru's downcast gaze travelled away from Sai across the floor. He took a deep breath. "Seeing Waya was a mistake."

Indeed, during the meeting with Waya Hikaru had clearly become quite destraught, and his spirits hadn't lifted since. Sai suspected that there was more to it than the one meeting. "How so, Hikaru?"

"It's been bugging me for a while, but after I saw Waya, it really hit me. They're in a different world from me now. They will never hear me, or see me, or touch me, and there is nothing I can do for them. I can never see Waya, or Akari, or my parents or anyone else again."

Sai never had Hikaru's experience of standing before his loved ones, yet being separated from them; nor did any attachments to the people of his life a thousand years ago yet remain, especially after his exile from both the Fujiwara house and the court, leaving him alone at his moment of death.

All he could do now was place a hand on Hikaru's shoulder, to comfort him with his presence, if not his warmth. How strange it was that even after all these centuries, the habits of the living still lingered in him.

"How do you do it, Sai?" Hikaru continued.

Sai raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"This existence. This lingering. How do you tolerate it, Sai?"

Sai touched his fan to his heart and cast his eyes downward. Of course, he'd overlooked it! Being torn from life and forced into this new existence was taking its toll on him. Sai felt guilty for not paying closer attention to how Hikaru was holding out.

How did he tolerate it? That was a good question, and honestly, he didn't know the answer. It felt to him as if he didn't have to tolerate his ethereal existence. How did a living person tolerate being alive? They didn't, they just simply were alive.

"I just simply am, Hikaru," Sai said.

"What does that mean?"

Sai pondered deeply as he tried to search for the words to explain what he meant. "I've existed for a thousand years, so my memories of the past are very faint. I can only recall recollections of them, so that I am not sure what I felt in the past anymore. I've been a ghost so long that I hardly remember how it feels to be anything else."

Hikaru stared down at his hands, and tapped the tips of his fingers together. He said, "I think I'm starting to forget how it feels, myself. How it's like to sleep, to eat, to be warm, to touch the stones. It's all slipping away."

Sai cast his gaze towards the goban and goke. He had forever ago passed longing to hold the stones, and now longed to remember how it felt to hold them.

"I don't think I'm cut out for this, Sai. I know you and Touya can see me, but I still feel like I'm not really here. Like, what happens when Touya gets older? How can we be close when he's old and I just stay a kid?"

"And what happens when time is up for him?" Hikaru continued, voice wavering, "Do I just go back to the goban and wait, ten years, a hundred, ten hundred? How can I continue to exist when everything I care about is gone?"

Sai pulled Hikaru into his empty embrace and allowed him a moment of silence. "I can't do this, Sai!" Hikaru said, "I'm not like you! I can't exist without the people I know. Without Touya, without Akari, without Waya, without any of them, there is no point in playing go. I don't love go the way you do, so why? Why am I here?"

Sai sometimes wondered why for himself. Over long, lonely centuries of darkness and silence he dreamed in the limbo of the goban, waiting for something, anything, to exist. And then, finally, the voice of a small child. Torajirou from then on became his life, and then Hikaru after. He'd long believed that he lingered in the world to play the divine move, but sensed that this was no longer possible for him, and may have never been part of the plan for him in the first place. Did he really exist, then, for Torajirou and Hikaru?

"I don't want to go back there," Hikaru said, almost as if he'd read his mind, "To that nothingness in the goban. I know it was only a week, but each day felt like a century.

"You know what I felt in there, Sai? I felt Akari, and then I felt Touya. I couldn't see them or hear them, but I could feel how full of sorrow they were, how torn apart. I had never known them that way before.

"Touya was dead inside, Sai. It was the most horrible feeling I ever had. I couldn't stand it. I couldn't leave him like that."

Sai pulled him tight. "Maybe that's why you're here, Hikaru. Maybe you're here for him."

Hikaru looked up at Sai, his face red and raw.

Sai put both his hands on Hikaru's shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. "Hikaru, in order to find happiness, you must forget the past, and forget the future. You have to exist, each moment on, in the present, and enjoy it while it lasts. If not for yourself, than for Akira. Can you do that? Can you exist for Akira?"

Hikaru gave a small smile towards the sleeping figure in the futon, and wiped a tear from his eye.

"I… I think I can try. Thank you, Sai."