Hey everyone! I hope you all liked my last chapter and liked the story behind Hikaru. I couldn't think of any other way for a brilliant bright child like him to be erased from the history books so I hoped you all agreed it would be best if he never become famous. I also think Hikaru has a tendency to blame himself for Sai disappearing so I thought he would naturally blame himself for the death of Torajiro.

Again if anyone could help me out with the game Go it would be really appreciated!

Sorry for the long wait but here is chapter 3!

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"I have places to be. Please let me through." = talking

"Very well there are only four more papers to grade, and then we can go to a Go salon to play." = thinking/ talking to Hikaru

" I will wait patiently till then. Oh but do, hurry! I cannot keep my excitement for long!" = Hikaru talking\

You're really good! Are you a pro? = NetGo message.

Chapter 3

Akira Toya sat alone in the corner of his father's Go salon. Just a few minutes ago, he had played an arrogant boy around his age who had won the young meijin tournament and he had thought it was time to prove he was the best. Akira had hoped the boy could have been a challenge but he wasn't all that good, which lead to the young Toya defeating the arrogant boy rather quickly. The game wasn't that hard and he didn't even remember the child's name that had left not too gracefully mere minutes ago.

Rather the boy had slammed his hands by the board giving the young Toya a nasty glare as he stood before storming off without so much as an apology.

The boy's behavior might have stung if Akira wasn't already used to it. Children his age rarely played the game Go so making friends outside his obsession was difficult when all the other kids thought him weird for loving an "old man" game as much as he did, while the kids that did play Go hated him for his ability and skill. Most claimed it wasn't even his skill but rather his father's skill that beat them, (seeing as he was the son of the best player so it must have been the Go his father taught him that he had used), and a lot of them said it was unfair that he was trained since two to play.

They glared at him every time he went to a Go event with his father. Akira was a shy boy by nature so he rarely went near the glaring children, instead choose to stand quietly by his father, leading to a majority thinking him arrogant and full of himself. This lead to the glaring darkening and nasty whispers which they thought he couldn't hear.

He hated those glares the most. The ones that said he wasn't accepted because he cheated at getting his ability. None of them knew that while his father played him every day, the man only gave small barely noticeable tips to getting better. His ability was the product of hours on end of hard work, study and determination from when he first started to play.

Even though he was shunned and friendless Akira still played Go for a very simple fact.

Akira loved Go.

He loved solving death problems, he love the feeling of a stone between his finger tips but most of all he loved the challenge when playing someone new. Though someone new was starting to become scares, and the games he played against some customers at his father's Go salon weren't exactly challenging.

In all honesty most games he has been playing lately weren't challenging anymore. In fact the past week he has only been playing teaching games. The only time Akira even found himself trying was when he played against his father, Koyo Toya, and the pro students his father teaches. These games of course were played with a handicap placed on them because it wouldn't be an even game otherwise, and even though Akira hadn't beat any of them yet the handicap number have been reducing lately with many of his opponents admitting they were having a harder time beating him as well.

After each game, every student of his father would ask him why he hasn't gone Pro yet (Koyo never full out asked him but the young green hair child knew his father thought the same). When the question presented itself Akira always answered with " I will go Pro when I'm ready, but right now I need to polish my skills".

A lot of them believed his skills were good enough to at least launch his carrier but the young Toya felt like something was missing from his play.

He didn't know what that something was but he knew he couldn't go Pro until he found it. At least he had been telling himself that but the teaching games were starting to get boring. The salon was full of players true but Akira could beat them all and they knew it too. So why waste his time doing teaching games while he could be playing Pro games with his father students?

Simple. His father was at a Go convention. Meaning he was traveling.

The times when his father traveled for his job meant no study group and no one to challenge, with no friends what else could the young Toya do?

Akria placed all the stones back into the bowls with a sigh, a small part of him annoyed at the fact the boy hadn't even put away his stones before storming off. Once all the stones where placed neatly back into their respected bowls the green hair child lost himself in his thoughts once more.

He thought about what his father and his colleges said to him. Perhaps it was time to go pro? Perhaps that something he was missing could be found in much more challenging games against other also devoted their lives to the game? What did he have to lose? After all he was a great player for someone so young, and waiting for someone with his skill around his age before he launch a career for the rest of his life sounded foolish.

It was decided then. He was going Pro.

"This summer I'll take the Pro exam." Akira thought with a satisfied smile , already getting excited for the games he would be playing against other Pros. His blood started to pump with glee as he imagined different game positions in his head with each game. Different play styles to change him against, different levels of skill and most of all different Go to experience.

"I will wait for someone to be free then" A voice broke though his thoughts' drawing the twelve year old's attention to the front of the store. There stood a man in his mid twenties with ridiculously long hair tied with a white ribbon at the bottom of his neck, dressed in casual jeans and white t-shirt the man looked out of place among the regular customers who were all above the age of fifty. He was speaking to a heavily blushing Ichikawa as he signed into the roster before frowning.

"Excuse me but what does it mean by level?" The man asked politely as he looked up from the paper. Ichikawa blushed harder but the man didn't seem to notice instead he wait patiently as the counter girl cleared her throat.

"I-it means the level your Go is a-at." The woman answered after a small pause. Even from across the salon Akira could feel her embarrassment at her own shuttering, the poor girl.

The man hmm softly in thought before tilting his head slightly as if he was listening to something or someone; He even let his eyes roam to the empty space to his right, considering it like one would when speaking to a person. Then he brought his eyes back to an embarrass Ichikawa and answered with a warm smile "I don't know my level but I know I'm pretty good."

That caused Akira to raise a brow, it even seemed to snap his sister figure out of whatever daze she fell into when the man flashed that dazzle smile, as she confusedly asked " You don't know your level?"

It was a reasonable question seeing how old the man seemed to be, though it might have come off a tad bit rude which the worker must have realize as she smile sheepishly as he face burned once more. The man however didn't seem to mind.

"Oh I just don't know how the level system works." The man answered with a smile. "Would it be alright if I leave it blank?"

Ichikawa nodded in a daze. She then pointed rather awkwardly to some empty tables. "I-I'll let you know when someone is looking for an opponent, um cause you know….everyone is already paired up playing…I said that already didn't I? ha ha ha." She ended her sentence in the all familiar nervous laugh that she tended to do whenever she was interested in a male.

Over the years of her employment, starting in her early teens, Akira could not remember a time where the brown hair female had been absent from his life, nor could he recall any time where she wouldn't be welcome into his house to have "girl-talk" with his mother who saw Ichikawa as a daughter. The brown hair woman herself seem to return the feeling, seeing as she was an orphan and spent many holidays with his family, at one point even lived with them. She still had a furnished room in his home even if she had moved out two years ago to go to college.

This meant he had watched the girl grew up like any other sibling would, and he had learn a few things from the many "pep-talks" (he and his father avoided them like the plague, they couldn't handle the tears) his mother gave her whenever her newest crush ended up in flames. The girl was a horrible flirt, more so then him and that was saying something coming from shunned twelve year old Go obsessed boy.

Akira couldn't bear to watch his sister figure crash and burn as bad as she was doing now (even if the man wasn't aware of it luckily,) who was trying to seem casual but coming off more like a malfunctioning robot, so before she could say anything else that might embarrass her, the green haired child left his chair making his way over to them to distract the man.

"Do you need a partner? I'm free if you'll like to play" he asked politely.

The man turned to him. His eyes sparkling in a child like wonder and a warm smile pulled at his mouth. Next to him the counter girl looked as if she swallowed her tongue, meaning Akira did good, coming to her rescue.

"I'd love to!" he answered excitedly like a child who's been asked if they would like a candy.

Akira couldn't help but smile back, feeling himself at ease with the man who almost had flowers and warmth coming surrounding him. The man radiated so much joy for a simple game that he felt the normal shyness he usually had for meeting strangers inside him disappear. Pointing behind him to the table he just left the boy made a monition to follow him saying "We can play over there then."

Just when they were about to move Ichikawa seemed to finally find her voice "W-wait! The fee! Um…it's 700 ryo for an adult and….."

Her voice died out as the man visibly deflated, his previous joy turning to gloom. The two people beside him blinked at the sudden change of behavior and both felt a peg at the hearts when the man turned back to Ichikawa. He looked like a kicked puppy and tears gathered at the corners of his eyes leaving the other two shocked still. "I see. I'm sorry; I'll have to leave."

Wait. What?

The man bowed in apology "I don't have enough for the entrance fee so I must be on my way. Forgive me for being such a bother." He said politely if chest fallen.

He was serious. The man even turns to leave.

"Wait! It's your fist time here right?" Akira asked hoping to make the man happy again, though why he wanted to do so was the mystery. Something about the man made it hard to deny him anything. At the man's nod he allowed a smile to bloom on his face, hopping to put the man at ease.

"Then you can come in for free, as my guest." The green haired boy said, noticing out of the corner of his eye how the brown hair woman grew hopeful most likely anticipating a second chance to making a better impression on the purple haired man in front of him.

Instead of taking him up on the offer like he thought he would, Akira was surprised when the man began to shack his head back and forth with gusto "No. I can't do that and abuse you kindness!"

Purple eyes shined with unshed tears as the man clasped his hands together in front of his chest "I wouldn't dream of getting in for free!"

This was accompanied with a small sniff and a slightly distressed voice as the man seemed to tremble by the mere thought of something so "rude" and "abusive" as entering a establishment without paying.

Akira bit the inside of his lip, because it was just painful to watch a grown man look to so adorable. He guessed Ichikawa felt the same as she let a small started gasp pass her lips, and he could understand why. It was almost like the twenty something year old, could somehow make a whiny voice sound so cute it wasn't anywhere near annoying, far from it in fact. It was like something in him needed to make the man smile again.

The man's lip trembled ever so slightly adding to his cute affect. How could anyone reuse this guy a Go game?!

Not only that but it was refreshing to meet someone else who seem to love the game as much as him. To cry just because he was denied a game showed how much devoted he was to the game if a little childish.

The man seemed to really want a game of Go but his morals were getting in the way, so perhaps there was some kind of compromise? Something he could say to make the man know he wasn't abusing his "kindness".

For a brief second Akira felt ashamed to admit it wasn't kindness that made him offer free access for the day to his family salon but rather for his secret love of math making that led him to it. Even though it wasn't exactly completely selfish of him- he just wanted to see his "older sister" happy with someone - but he felt like he was tricking the older man in front of him. Using him like a pawn. And it felt wrong.

Still it didn't the change the fact Ichikawa didn't want the man to leave, and as the saying goes, figurative-blood is thicker than water.

The man bowed again preparing to leave once more, snapping Akira out f his thoughts as he mind raced. The man's hair moved side to side in a musical motion as he turns for the door with lowered shoulders as time seemed to slow down.

Akira couldn't let him escape yet!

Giving a quick glance to the rapid panicking Ichikawa, Akira desperately searched for something that could keep the man in the salon for a bit longer or at least long enough to give the girl a chance to make a move. His eyes fell on the yet-to-be clean Go stones behind the counter, and an idea sparked in his mind as he turned back to the departing long hair.

He reached out to gasp the man's forearm efficiently stopping all his movement as purple confused, tear filled eyes meet his. Making sure his dark glee didn't show anywhere on his face as a romantic love story of two soul mates bonding over work played in his head, the young Toya pulled back his arm and allowed a polite smile to grow on his face.

"I can assure you it isn't hurting anyone but if you insist, would you rather work to play?" Akira asked as calming as possible even though his heart raced with anticipation. If this worked out, then he would one day be telling his little nephews and/or nieces how their parents meet. Yes Akira Toya was a true romantic.

The man blinked away any spare tears he had, interest edged into his face.

At the hesitant nod he gave, Akira waved his hand in the general direction of bowls of Go stones seen behind the counter . "Today is the day we clean all the stones of the salon, and we could use some help if you're interested."

The man's whole face let up with joy, eyes now sparkling as he clapped. "Really? Oh thank you! I will work hard to wash all the stones! I won't leave a single one left unclean!"

Akira chuckled, and then pointed once more at his table with a Goban and stones waiting patiently for a pair of players. "How about a game before you start helping out? You can play until its closing time then we can get to work."

The man turns his head once more to the empty space regarding it with a curious expression before smiling softly "I do believe it's been a long time since a good game. Let's have fun."

Akira smiled stretching his hand, silently telling the man to go first before falling in step with him; however the young Go genius did so after sending Ichikawa an encouraging smile. The woman sends back a sheepish but grateful smile seeing the olive branch for what it is. She even points the food menu, hinting he should order some tea or something so she would have a excuses to go near their table. He nodded in understanding as she grinned with a growing blush.

Once they reached the table, both players take seats across from each other.

The young boy pushed one of the bowls towards him "You can be black"

The man nodded happily and placed the bowl on his right.

"How much of a handicap would you like?" Akira asked knowing the man wasn't a professional meaning the green hair child would crush him if the handicap was not placed. Something he didn't want for it would mean a quick game and a possible early offer of cleaning service.

The man regarded the board for a moment before allowing his eyes to wander to his left, and then shook his head with certainty "Oh don't worry, I'm sure I won't need one."

Akira smiled almost embarrassed for him but nodded anyway wondering if the man turn out to be those prideful adults who were rude when beaten by a child. He truly hoped not otherwise that meant he wasted his time and effort trying to keep the man here. After all those men were never good enough for his sister, thus he would have to get rid of him, as politely as possible of course. Then deal with Ichikawa's melt down about never having a boyfriend before in her life. The fact she is twenty-four tended to add salt to the wound.

"My name is Akira Toya by the way." The boy said as the man picked up his stone. When the first black stone was place Akira realized the man in front of him was a complete beginner, meaning the game wouldn't be that challenging again. He knew before hand that it might have been possible but it didn't stop the disappointment from hitting him, though he hides it well. No need to offend his opponent.

He already decide on playing a teaching game, as he picks up his own stone, letting it fall onto the board with a soft pa-chi.

The man smiles warmly at him "I am Sai Fujiwara, it's nice to meet you."

Akira would never know how much that name would haunt him in the following years as the game began.