Had Hikaru
been younger, meeting Sai probably would’ve changed him for good.
As it was, he
hardly came out of that first meeting unscathed, but sadly he wasn’t a
impressionable kid ready to be reshaped into a passionate prodigy of Go.
Instead he
was a disillusioned twenty-something, already set in his ways, and his ways
weren’t exactly impressive.
“Torajiro
was young,” Sai lamented to him late at night, while Hikaru stared dully
at the television and did what he did every night after work – nothing.
“He was eight when he came upon me and took to Go like he was born to it.
I hardly had to explain the rules to him, and he already soared.”
“You
played most of his games for him, though,” Hikaru said, not looking at
him.
“In the
end, our styles were almost identical,” the spirit answered, nostalgic and
wistful. “He let me play, yes, but that never took away from his own
skill.”
Hikaru said
nothing to that, or the following spiel about the games they’d played, the
things they’d seen, the skills they’d achieved. Sai was passionate about Go in
a way that made Hikaru’s teeth ache and his gut clench. He didn’t even think
people could get that excited over things. It rang fake, though he knew it
wasn’t.
Sai was as
childishly honest as he was excited and sometimes it kind of hurt to watch him,
listen to him. Watching him smile and shine, larger than life even in death – a
painfully brilliant dead star, it’s glow desperately bright, going
completely unseen.
Hikaru never
been passionate about anything and Sai made him ache.
-
The first
thing Hikaru had studied had been computer programming. His father had ushered
him to it, talking about all the IT specialists at his workplace, how much work
they had and how there’d be assured employment. Hikaru hadn’t cared, but had
nothing better in mind and so went for it anyway.
That, he
realised just half a month into his studies, was a huge mistake. He made it
through the year, somehow, day by day and test by test. By then even the
teachers knew he wasn’t coming back for another.
-
Hikaru taught
Sai about the internet and together they discovered NetGo. The site was clunky
and the part of Hikaru that still recalled stuff like coding and optimisation
and how to set up a command structure just so was almost reflexively
critical of it.
Then he
caught himself and just watched Sai play. The spirit, though confused at first,
grew increasingly excited as the game went on and asked million things about
the computer. Mostly about how did people get inside the glowing box, and how
many there were and should they help them get out.
It was…
kind of endearing.
“There’s
no one inside the box. Now play the damn game before I change my
mind,” Hikaru said instead and then watched Sai flutter around like
anxious overgrown butterfly, sleeves flapping every which way.
Sai, Hikaru
soon figured out, was probably good at Go. Or rather, very good at Go.
He never lost and after the first day, people started challenging him, rather
than the other way around. Then people started watching the games in
increasingly high numbers, in actual crowds. And after the first week, there
were several threads on number of forums about Sai’s games too.
Sai was good. It probably only made sense, the
guy had been around for a thousand years. Always looking to play more Go,
judging by the sound of it.
“Oh, but
it’s so wonderful to play again!” Sai enthused. “Even if it so
strange, it is still Go. Yes, it is Go, and it’s so wonderful! Thank you
Hikaru!”
He glowed happily
and Hikaru stared at him, weirdly helpless at the face of it.
It only made his
gut twist a bit more, to know that no one could see it. Sai, the sad dead star
he was, only shone brighter, basking alone in a void, pitifully grateful for
what scraps of life – and Go – Hikaru would give him. Seen by no one but Hikaru
and the faceless anonymous masses of NetGo, who’s never know Sai’s face, or his
story.
-
The second
thing Hikaru had studied had been engineering. It had seemed like easy switch
to make from programming, when his interest in computers waned to near nothing.
And, he though then, there’d be more guys like him there. The IT crowd wasn’t
his crowd, he’d found out. They had nothing in common.
He’d had very
little in common with the engineering students either, it turned out. He lasted
less than six month, in that line.
-
Maybe this
was why people had kids, Hikaru wondered. For moments like these.
Stopping to
stare at a poster someone had tacked on a street post, or to stare at the metro
as it went past them, or stopping to marvel something as simple as someone’s
discarded candy wrapping. Small every day things, painfully ordinary, were
suddenly fascinating.
It was like
the whole world was new, with Sai. Everything was suddenly shiny and exciting.
Cars were
magical and TV were mysterious and endlessly entertaining. Hikaru almost got
run over by a traffic thanks to a plane and Sai was baffled by a soda machine
almost an hour before elevator struck him completely speechless.
It was kind
of exhausting – but that didn’t stop Hikaru from wandering aimlessly around the
city for hours on end, taking Sai to any place that happened to catch the
spirit’s eye. That way they ended up in stores and clubs and once in love hotel
too, but they also saw an aquarium and a museum and an art show and couple of
theatre plays.
They saw a
little girl playing with a remote control car, shrieking with laughter every
time it bumped into something. Small, nondescript moment that had been
irritating if anything before… and suddenly it seemed magical.
Sai was
naively delighted over it all. And if Hikaru was living vicariously through a
dead man and his childish, open joy over everything… thankfully Sai was too
distracted by all neon lights to notice.
-
After third
attempt at getting a degree – this time at catering for some godforsaken reason
he doesn’t even recall – Hikaru stopped trying.
He stopped
trying at pretty much everything, really.
By that time
his old high school friends were graduating and losing touch, moving on.
Hikaru, stuck somewhere between high school and college, found he had less and less
to talk about with them, their inside jokes flying over his head. So, after one
last soccer game that failed to reach the level of excitement they remembered
from before, he stopped calling them to hang out. Eventually, so did they.
Lifelong
friendships were just that easy to break, it turned out.
-
Sai was
infinitely more into Hikaru’s job than Hikaru was. He liked watching people
pass through, wanted to know all about them and what they wore and the things
they carried, what they bought, and why. And he was forever embarrassed about
Hikaru being so rude.
Hikaru worked
at a convenience store, the closest thing he could think to actual living hell
– and Sai thought he should be more polite with the customers, should be more
friendly.
“You
realise, most of those people are drunkards, druggies and worse, right?”
Hikaru asked flatly. He did not work in the best neighbourhood ever.
“Is that
a reason to be so rude?” Sai huffed. “You could at least wish them a
good day, like the ladies at the store you shop at.”
Hikaru stared
at him flatly. “I work evening shift, you realise.”
“Wish
them good evening then,” Sai said simply. “Ask them how their day
was. It can’t be that hard to be a little nicer.”
“You’d
be surprised,” Hikaru muttered.
The next time
he was at work, he asked a customer how their day had been. The heavily pierced
punk stared at him like he was a lunatic.
Go figure.
-
Sai tried to
teach him Go. Hikaru even tried to learn it, he really did. But though he
quickly internalised the basic rules, all the more complicated stuff flew right
over his head. Influence and stuff. He just could not grasp it.
Hikaru knew
what the problem was too. It wasn’t that Sai was a bad teacher. Hikaru was a shitty
student – and he had pretty much no interest in Go. As much as he tried to
borrow Sai’s eagerness and catch onto his enthusiasm… Hikaru didn’t feel it.
Go was boring
to him. A boring old game with it’s complicated strategies and monotonous game
play. What action Sai found in the click of stones, Hikaru couldn’t even
imagine it, let alone take part in it. It just wasn’t there. He really tried,
but…
“Well…
I guess some people just aren’t Go kind of people,” Sai mused,
disheartened.
“Yeah,”
Hikaru shrugged, careless, and then reached out to poke Sai on the cheek.
“Come on, you nuisance. Let’s find an actual Go playing opponent for you
to play.”
Thankfully
Sai was easy to keep happy, even through disappointments – Hikaru took him to a
Go salon and watched him flutter about happily, and realised quietly that he
could be content with just that. He might not be able to share Sai’s world,
might not be able to join it – but he could still enjoy it, in his own way,
from the side.
Watching Sai
be happy and excited was happiness and excitement enough.
They played a
couple of other customers at the Go salon and got a lot of amused glances.
Hikaru had never played on actual goban before – they played only online – and
the fancy way everyone was holding the stones was completely beyond him. He
held them with thumb and forefinger instead. It seemed like safest way to go
about it – the other way he’d just make a mess of the goban.
“You
haven’t been playing for long, have you?” Sai’s first opponent asked.
“Only
about thousand years or so,” Hikaru answered and put the stone where Sai
told him to. Their opponent laughed good-naturedly and they played.
It wasn’t
long before their opponent started giving Hikaru wild eyed looks, rather than
amused ones.
“Are you
a pro?” they asked. “No wait, what am I saying – of course you’re a
pro – is this a joke or –?”
“I’m
not,” Hikaru said while Sai hovered about him curiously. “What’s a
pro?”
“You…
don’t know what a pro is?” the balding man asked.
Hikaru
shrugged, glancing at Sai and back again. “Professional something I guess.
Go professional?”
“Huh,”
their opponent said, leaning back. He looked bewildered “So you’re not a
pro? You’re this strong and you don’t have any idea…?”
That caught
the interest of not only the customers who’d been listening in, but of a blond
man in white suit who was hanging back, smoking. He stood and walked over to eye
the game Sai had played against the balding man.
“Hmm,”
the man said, looked at Hikaru, and sucked in smoke.
“Ogata-sensei?”
Sai’s opponent asked.
“You,”
the man asked, nodding at Hikaru. “Want a game?”
Hikaru shrugged.
“Sure, why not.”
-
Ogata Seiji,
Hikaru found out after the man had almost choked on his cigarette filter, was a
professional Go player. A ninth-dan professional, whatever that meant.
“He is
very good,” Sai assured Hikaru. He sounded almost sated after the game – which
had been by far the longest Sai had played yet. “The strongest I have
played here. His strategies are swift and precise and his experience shines in
every move. He must have played thousands of games, and against very strong
opponents. Oh, it was a wonderful game.”
Hikaru said
nothing to that. To him the whole thing had seemed mostly random and overall
not that interesting – just bunch of stones, slapped down here and there
aimlessly. But then, all of Go games were like that to him.
Ogata glared
at Hikaru over freshly it cigarette. “You hold stones like a beginner and
play like you’re hundred years old. What the hell are you, some sort of history
buff?”
Hikaru
shrugged carelessly. “Not really,” he said.
“Tch,”
the blond man answered, taking in Hikaru’s casual clothes, the dyed hair.
“Where did you learn – who taught you? And why haven’t they had you take
the exam yet?”
“No one
taught me. What exam?”
That made the
man’s eyes narrow in a way Hikaru would’ve called dangerous if it wasn’t over a
board game.
Ogata Seiji
had the same passion for Go as Sai did, it seemed. Only where Sai was all
childish happiness and innocent excitement, Ogata was… something else.
Something bit darker and lot more demanding.
And suddenly,
it was all aimed on Hikaru.
-
The first
time Ogata turned up at his workplace, Hikaru made the mistake of asking him
how his day had been.
“Oh it’s
much better now, I assure you,” Ogata said, smiling at him slow and treacherous.
“But since you want to know, let me tell you what a normal day at the Go
Association is like.”
And he did
tell – he stayed at the store for better part of an hour, telling Hikaru – and
unseen Sai – the ins and outs of a day as Go professional. Sai drank it all up,
his eyes shining and his sighs increasingly wistful as if Ogata was serenading
him about the paradise. Hikaru just glared, silent.
Judging by
the sound of it, day at Go Association consisted of playing Go, talking about
playing Go, talking about talking about playing Go – and occasionally events
and playing in them and staying at hotels, rubbing elbows and playing some more
Go. And then there were something called ranking games and tournaments and
prices and even more Go playing on the side. It sounded like a lot of
Go, all in all.
Hikaru had no
idea why Ogata thought he’d be interested in any of it – it sounded pretty
boring. Except, judging by the way Sai looked, it wasn’t. And Ogata spoke of it
like it was… less a sales pitch and more a lure, really. Or attempt at
flirting.
“I get
challenged all the time, officially and unofficially both,” Ogata said,
not modest in the least, almost leering at him. “I’m never lacking…
opponents.”
Hikaru arched
his eyebrows at that. “Oh really.”
“Mm-hmm,”
Ogata agreed, smiling that dangerous smile again.
The few
customers that came by during the whole spiel were very quick – and very wide
eyed – as they paid for their purchases. Ogata ignored them all, only pausing
long enough to allow Hikaru to do his job – making it seem like he was being
gracious about it – and then continuing as if there had never been a pause at
all.
If it wasn’t
for Sai hanging onto ever word, Hikaru would’ve thrown the cash register at the
man already.
“And
that’s how my day was,” Ogata finished and smiled smugly at Hikaru as if
he’d scored some point in a game they were playing and then left without buying
anything, the bastard.
“Oh,
Hikaru, can’t we?” Sai asked wistfully. “It sounds so
wonderful!”
“And
work with that guy?” Hikaru asked with disbelief.
“Yes!”
Sai said excitedly. “It would be exciting!”
Hikaru stared
at him and then after Ogata. Then he shook his head and went back to work,
trying to ignore Sai’s numerous sighs of forlorn longing.
Thing was, he
kind of agreed. It would be exciting. Probably nerve wrecking too, and so
annoying… but definitely exciting.
His gut
clenching, Hikaru tried to concentrate onto his work. His boring, monotonous,
mind numbingly slow work.
Which he
hated.
Damn it.
-
The thought
lingered. Not of just becoming a pro player, as Ogata seemed to think they
should… but the thought of Ogata himself.
The man was a
creep but he was a vibrant creep – passionate and determined. Were all Go
professionals like that or had they just happened to stumble on Sai’s very
unlikely and very creepy soulmate? Ogata wasn’t as flamboyant about it as Sai,
Hikaru doubted very much anyone could ever be like Sai… but he was something
like him.
In a world of
greys, Sai and Ogata were both drawn in vivid colour.
“We
don’t have to think about it at all if you don’t like the idea,” Sai
commented quietly. “I’m happy just playing online.”
“Hmm,”
Hikaru answered. Happy, sure. Sai was happy when someone just mentioned Go. But
he hadn’t glowed like he had when Ogata had spoken of the Go Association, not
since the meeting at the store.
“Its not
that I don’t like it, but…” Hikaru said and then he couldn’t continue.
No, it wasn’t
that he didn’t like the idea. It was that he liked it a bit too much.
Sai would be
happy there. Ogata would be there too, in all his dramatic glory. There’s be
others like them too, probably, these glowing pinpoints of passion. And Hikaru
could pretend he was one of them, could take part in that, like he actually
belonged there. Basking in on that atmosphere like he had the right.
Was that
selfish? It was what Sai wanted and it wasn’t like Sai wouldn’t get anything
out of it… but it still felt like Hikaru would be using him, if they went
that route.
“Do you
want to become a pro, Sai?” Hikaru asked.
“Yes! Yes
I do!” Sai breathed and then quickly backtracked. “But not if you
don’t want to. Its your life, Hikaru. Not mine.”
Funny how it
didn’t really feel that way.
“I’ll
think about it,” Hikaru promised, idly tugging at his bleached bangs and
wondering when they’d stopped being yellow, and turned white instead.
-
“Do I
have to call security on you?” Hikaru asked wryly from behind the register
as Ogata lounged about by the tobacco products.
“You
don’t have security,” Ogata said calmly.
“The
fact that you know that is fucking alarming,” Hikaru muttered. “And I
can still call the cops on you.”
“And
then get charged for making false emergency calls?” Ogata asked amusedly,
picking a packet of smokes. He handed them over to Hikaru to ring up.
“I’ve registered you for the pro exam. The preliminary exam is in two
weeks.”
“You
what?” Hikaru asked while Sai gasped behind him.
“I’ll
drag you there kicking and screaming if I have to,” Ogata said and smiled.
“My purchase?”
Hikaru stared
at him wordlessly.
Then he rang
the man’s purchase.
-
Ogata didn’t
drag them to the exam kicking and screaming, but he did show up in gleaming red
sports car and drove them over to the Go Association – and then he walked them
to the examination room door.
“Are you
going to kiss me good luck too?” Hikaru asked in embarrassment as everyone
in the exam room stared at them.
He really
should’ve known better than to tempt it.
Smiling
widely, Ogata leaned over and pressed a kiss on his cheek. “Good
luck,” he said, his voice low and teasing and right in Hikaru’s ear. And then
he walked away, leaving Hikaru staring after him with a flailing Sai and
everyone in the exam room staring at him.
“T-that
was Ogata-sensei, wasn’t it?” a shocked looking kid with a bowl cut asked.
“He’s a
pain in the ass, is what he is,” Hikaru muttered in irritation. The kid
went bright red and he wasn’t the only one – and in the back of the room,
someone smothered giggles.
… damn it.
“Um,”
Sai said, he too blushed bright red. “We – we should go inside, maybe?
Yes?”
Hikaru sighed
and marched in, trying not to look as embarrassed as he felt. He probably
failed, and the whispers going on around him didn’t help him much.
“…by
Ogata-ninth-dan, so he must be good, right?”
“Dunno.
Doesn’t Ogata fool around a lot? Might be just humouring the guy
something…”
“…
could be making a fool of him too – I mean come on, does he look like a Go
player to you?”
“…
disgusting, isn’t it? I really thought better of Ogata-ninth-dan…”
Hikaru’s eyes
narrowed. There had been a moment where he’d felt a bit sorry for these people,
for setting them against Sai all of sudden, no warning or anything. That moment
had definitely passed.
Beside him,
Sai let out an affronted huff. “How rude,” he said, his eyes bright
with righteous fury. “Don’t worry, Hikaru. I’ll show them. They’ll be
swallowing their words and their losses by the time I’m through with them.”
Hikaru
glanced at him with surprise and then looked away, feeling warm. Even more
embarrassed, he sat in the corner and together they waited for the match ups to
be announced. Thankfully it didn’t take long.
The first opponent
they had laughed at Hikaru holding the stones like a beginner.
“Oh my
god, I can’t believe I was actually worried about you,” the younger player
said, chuckling, and played his hand with nonchalance that seemed offensive
even to Hikaru. He then kept on chuckling through the first moves few, shaking
his head derisively at every hand Sai played.
Sai made him
cry by the end of the game.
-
Ogata,
apparently, heard about the whole thing from someone, because he was still
laughing about it the next time he turned up to drive Hikaru to the Association.
“You
made him cry? How cruel of you,” Ogata chuckled. “I never knew you
had it in you.”
“He had
it coming,” Hikaru said together with still huffy Sai. “And you don’t
know anything about me. Like for example – I got a car. I don’t need you to
chauffeur me around.”
“Oh, but
it’s a pleasure,” Ogata said, all smarmy and smug. Asshole. “And I
know a lot of things about you. For example – you still haven’t learned how to
hold the stones properly.”
Hikaru
shrugged, irritated, while Sai sighed in the back seat.
“You
don’t have a Goban at home, then?” Ogata asked.
“Haven’t
needed one,” Hikaru muttered.
“Hmm,”
Ogata answered, and stopped the car in front of the association.
“Not gonna
walk me to the door this time?” Hikaru asked.
“I’m sure
you can find your way inside,” Ogata answered and leaned in before Hikaru
could duck out if the car. “Good luck,” he murmured against Hikaru’s
cheek.
“You’re
creepy and you suck,” Hikaru informed him flatly and fled the car under
both Ogata’s and Sai’s laughter.
Sai was still
giggling when he caught up with Hikaru. “I think you like him, ” the
spirit said conspiratorially.
“Oh shut
up,” Hikaru scoffed at that loud enough to make a nearby woman jump in
alarm. Truly, a great start for the second day of preliminaries.
“Tch,” Hikaru muttered and marched inside, Sai trailing after him
happily.
At least this
time no one laughed at the way Hikaru held the stones.
-
Hikaru went
to the last preliminary game on his own car, heading there early and making
sure Ogata had no way of cutting in between.
Ogata
retaliated by showing up at his door carrying a brand new goban, a ridiculously
huge ribbon tied around it.
“Congratulations
for making it through the preliminaries,” the man said with a smug smile.
“I’m
going to take that board and beat you to death with it,” Hikaru said,
while Sai flailed about in wordless delight. “And no one will blame me.
You’re obviously a stalker. It would be self defence.”
Ogata’s smile
just widened. “Want a game?”
“Yes!”
Sai cried and threw his arms around Hikaru. “Oh, Hikaru, he bought us a goban,
let’s play him!”
Hikaru
managed to resist him for about two seconds before sighing and opening the door
wider.
“Creep,”
Hikaru said resentfully as he stepped aside to let Ogata inside.
Ogata
radiated self satisfied smugness and stepped in.
-
Sai and Ogata
played and Hikaru wondered about being the third wheel on his own life, just
before Ogata leaned over the finished game and kissed him.
The sound Sai
made in the background was kind of hilarious and mostly the reason why Hikaru
let it go for as long as it did.
“Something
wrong?” Ogata asked, tense but still leaning in slightly, even as Hikaru
pushed him back. His chest was warm weight against Hikaru’s palm, heavy and
real and for the life of him Hikaru couldn’t pull away.
“No,
just…” Hikaru struggled to say and looked away, at Sai. The spirit was
hiding behind his sleeves, but not well enough that Hikaru couldn’t see him
blushing, couldn’t see him staring. “Just –”
“I can
leave!” Sai cried out and bounced up, weightless, floating. “I can
leave Hikaru – I’ll – I’ll go to the roof, I –”
“No,”
Hikaru said, to him and to Ogata both, and sighed. “I don’t think I’m
doing right by him.”
“Him?”
Ogata asked sharply and Hikaru shrugged, embarrassed, looking away.
How the fuck
could you explain to someone that the stuff they were attracted to, that wasn’t
even part of you? It was the Go Ogata was after. Sai’s Go. Hikaru
himself had very little to do with it. And if it wasn’t for the Go… they’d have
nothing to do with each other.
And Sai…
Hikaru’s
shoulders slumped and his head bowed. “His name is Sai and he’s dead and
I…,” he trailed away, mostly to the Goban. “I… I’m not doing right by
him.” Shit. That sounded like a confession, didn’t it?
Probably
because it was.
“Oh,”
Ogata said, sounding surprised.
“Oh,”
Sai breathed and fell back down to sit on the floor next to them. “…oh.”
“Yeah,”
Hikaru agreed. His fingers were tangled in Ogata’s dress shirt, he realised,
and went to untangle himself from the fabric. But he couldn’t.
It took him a
moment to realise it was because Ogata’s hand was covering his.
“Would
he want you to stay alone?” the man asked
Hikaru
stopped at that, staring at their hands. “I… I don't…”
Ogata waited,
but Hikaru couldn’t answer – because Sai wasn’t saying anything, just
staring at him. Finally the blond man sighed and released Hikaru’s hand.
“It’s fine,” Ogata said and stood up. “I understand.”
“I
don’t,” Hikaru muttered and ran his hand through his hair. “Fuck goddamnit.
I want –” he started to say and stopped because he wasn’t even sure what
he wanted. Sai and Ogata and Go…
Fuck, more
than this, more than anything Ogata or even Sai was offering him, Hikaru
wanted what they had. He wanted their lives, their vibrancy – their passion.
He wanted to be them. He wanted to be Sai.
Or maybe he
wanted Sai to be him – to be alive and him and living the life Hikaru was
already living for him, but honestly.
More than
anything, Hikaru wanted to stop feeling like shadow of himself.
-
Ogata left at
some point, Hikaru wasn’t even sure when, wasn’t sure if he’d ever come back,
if he’d ever come after Hikaru the way he had before. The sort-of-a-breakdown
Hikaru had had in front of him probably scared the guy away.
“I
hardly doubt you could scare him away,” Sai commented and Hikaru
froze, because his voice was right at Hikaru’s ear. “Our Ogata is much
more resilient than that.”
Hikaru sighed
and held still as Sai’s arms came around him, his sleeves smothering Hikaru
under them. “I can’t be you,” the spirit said sadly. “You can’t
be me. These are the lives we have, or lack there of. These are the hands we’ve
played. We can’t start again, Hikaru. Trust me – I tried.”
“I’m
sorry,” Hikaru muttered.
“Hm,”
Sai answered and rested his chin on Hikaru’s shoulder. “You’re always
sorry, and I never knew why. You’ve given me so much and you’re sorry? What do
you have to be sorry for? I’m sorry. I take so much and –”
“I
didn’t exactly have anything to give before you,” Hikaru said.
“And I’ve taken more from you.”
Sai sighed.
“Can’t we just…” he trailed away and Hikaru could feel his hands
through the fabric of his sleeves, gripping at him and releasing, clutching and
relaxing. “Can’t we just share? All we have and all we are, can’t
we just share it all? I know the Go is difficult, I know you can’t understand
it, but… there are things I can’t do, either. Things you can. Don’t you think
we could be happy, with what we can have? Without guilt and without sorrow,
just happy to share it all?”
Hikaru
swallowed dryly around the ache on his throat and he kind of wanted to crawl
into Sai’s robes and hide there, just become part of Sai and fade away.
But he couldn’t. Sai was right.
“And
Ogata?” Hikaru asked, coughing embarrassedly. “He wants your
Go.”
“Yes and
he wants you,” Sai said. “And he’s right. I don’t want you to
be alone. And who knows…” he hummed wistfully. “Maybe one day… we can
tell him. Maybe one day he could understand.”
Hikaru
laughed at that, disbelieving and choked. “Yeah, right.”
“That
man is… very dramatic, and I think a bit superstitious. I wouldn’t put it past
him,” Sai hummed and nudged at his cheek. “Hey, Hikaru?”
“Yea?”
“I love
you.”
Hikaru shattered
a little at that, but it was fine.
Sai held him
together.
-
Hikaru leaned
back against the wall next to the elevator, arms folded, tapping his foot
impatiently. It seemed forever, before the elevator doors opened. Group of
people stepped out – mostly men in fancy suits, the kind of suits Hikaru had
never owned and damn, did he have to get one now?
Well, maybe
he’d have help with that.
Hikaru tilted
his head until he caught the flash of white in the sea of black and Ogata saw
him too, saw him and stopped to stare while the other pros continued along the
corridor.
“… the exam
doesn’t start for another three weeks,” the man said to him.
Hikaru
shrugged. “I heard you got some important game today.”
“Yes,”
Ogata answered slowly, glancing after the group, some of whom had turned to
glance backwards at them curiously. “Yes, and it’s about to start
so…”
Hikaru darted
in before he could finish – and then had the delight of hearing Ogata sputter
to a halt.
“Good
luck, you creep,” Hikaru said with a laugh at the man’s surprise before
turning around and walking away. Behind him, Ogata was completely silent.
“He’s
staring after you,” Sai informed him a bit gleefully. “I’d say he
looks starstruck.”
Perfect,
Hikaru thought, and reached out to take Sai’s hand in his.
- - - -
And a textual kind of extra entry for second day of Random Hikago Event because why not
I basically wrote this because I just wanted to do some Hikaru/Ogata and also because some time ago I asked “what would Hikaru be doing if he didn’t do Go?” and lot of the answers were kind of depressing.