AN:This thing got out of hand. Like so out of hand what even. I saw this prompt and my brain went HIKARU AND AKIRA for some reason and wouldn't let me be until I had Touya's parts mostly written. Then I had the bright idea to write in Hikaru's counterpoint, and got stalled up on a few key scenes for long periods of time... So. Ace/Aro Hikaru & Touya soulmates. Looking at my writing lately, I seem to be in a Hikago swing. Hope people enjoy it while it lasts ^_^;;
For the prompt: Author's choice, author's choice, an aromantic asexual in a soulmark AU

They always said that when he found the other half of his soul mark, he'd be whole. Of course, when adults discussed soulmates, they would always reach that point where they lowered their voices and looked around to see if any of the children were around. Akira wasn't ignorant. He didn't need to be an adult to understand that when they lowered their voices, they were talking about sex.

The media wasn't nearly so circumspect about that aspect, granted they were far more likely to lean toward the romantic bond than a sexual one. It seemed like every book or movie had to have the hero or heroine find their soulmate and fall into some sort of helpless orbit where every little thing became inexplicably endearing and all they wanted was to spend time with each other.

Akira's mother laughed when Akira brought it up once when he was eight, complaining that no matter who they were, soulmates always had an iconic kiss, be it the innocent ones in children's movies or much more passionate ones in the books Akira had read (his mother's collection of romance novels on several particularly slow afternoons when he had wanted a change of pace that she probably hadn't intended him to find).

"Akira-kun," she'd said, a fond smile on her face as she tucked loose strands of hair behind his ears, "when you find your soulmate it will all make sense." She rolled her sleeve up to show him the black and white pattern on the inside of her wrist, the one that matched his father's. Akira touched the lines feeling only smooth skin. "Before I met your father, I had never been in love or felt attraction to anyone, but when I met him, it was just like the books describe."

"What about Otou-sama?" Akira asked.

"He had an omiai not long before we met. He'd planned on marrying to please his parents."

Akira frowned. "Why?"

His mother smoothed her fingertips against her wrist. "Not everyone is lucky enough to find their soulmate early in life. There are a lot of people in the world. People get married and have families, sometimes without ever meeting their soulmate."

"Oh." That left him even more baffled than the thought of suddenly feeling the sort of things the books described because why would anyone want any of that if it wasn't because of a soulmate? "Then why do all the movies always have everyone with a soulmate?"

"Because," his mother said, "there's nothing better in the world than that moment when you find the person who you can love more than anyone else and knowing they'll love you just as much. You feel complete."

"I don't feel broken," Akira said.

His mother laughed like he'd said something funny and Akira frowned at her. "You'll understand if you ever find your person," she said. "Trust me."

Akira had put the thought out of his mind for a few years. (He'd stopped reading his mother's novels though. They tended to frustrate him in a way he couldn't quite put words to.) He'd found that while there were many people who made connections and dated and married without finding their soulmate, there were plenty of people who didn't have interest in people that weren't their soulmate, so he figured he must not be that odd. Though they still seemed to want the sort of meeting that the books and movies described and want that connection for themselves.

Looking at the mark on his own wrist—a half-open fan with a plum blossom pattern—he couldn't understand why anyone would want that. What was the appeal in kissing? Why would he want to get married to anyone? Even watching his parents interact, it didn't look like anything he cared to have for himself. They became too wrapped up in each other. Akira would rather play Go and work toward getting one less stone handicap against his father. It was actually a bit terrifying to think that someone could one day distract him enough that he wouldn't be able to focus on the things he liked when they were around.

So Akira hoped that he never found his soulmate. He was happy with how his life was now.

o0o0o0o

Shindou Hikaru, like most seven year olds, did not like sitting still. He preferred gym to learning kanji, and would much rather try to emulate his latest soccer hero than listen to story time. Not that story time was bad, it was just boring. He'd rather be living a story or watching it on TV than hearing his teacher read it aloud. But Akari liked story time, and Akari was his best friend, so Hikaru sat still because if he made noise and the teacher stopped reading, Akari would sneak bugs down his pants again.

He fiddled with the loose threads on the bottom of his shirt as the teacher read a fairytale. There were pictures, and the pictures were okay. Fancy dresses were boring, but the dragon was cool, and there was a knight with a sword. Hikaru didn't care about the princess in the tower though, or how the knight wanted to marry her. It'd be cooler if the princess was awake or if she was fighting the dragon too, but Akari liked it. She was leaning forward next to Hikaru, eyes wide and mouth slack with anticipation as the teacher showed the knight leaving the dragon behind and going up the winding tower steps.

"And the first thing he saw at the top of the stairs was the princess sleeping," the teacher said. "Her hair pooled on the pillow and her hands folded across her stomach. So the knight went to her—" She flipped the page and Akari gasped. "—and woke her with a kiss. As the princess woke, she raised her hand and the knight saw that the mark on her wrist had the same red rose as his own."

Half the class touched their wrists. The other half, like Hikaru, wrinkled their noses or kept poking at loose bits of carpet.

"And through their bond, the spell was broken," the teacher said, flipping to the last pages of the book, "and the kingdom was free. The knight married the princess, and they both lived happily ever after."

Akari sighed, smiling happily at the image of the knight hand in hand with the princess. Hikaru made faces at the back of her head, making Kenta-kun giggle and Akari turn around to frown in Hikaru's direction. Hikaru stuck his tongue out at her and she pinched him, and the teacher sent everyone back to their desks before they could start fighting. And then it was lunch and recess and Akari was dragging Hikaru off to the tree they played under ever since last year when they started school and Hikaru proved that he could too climb that tree.

"You be the knight," Akari said seriously as they reached the tree instead of searching for sticks to poke each other with or digging for worms like usual. "I'll be the princess."

"What?" Hikaru wrinkled his nose. "Why do you wanna play that? And why be the princess? She just sits in her tower the whole thing."

"Yeah, but then you could save me from the dragon and we can match our soul marks and be happily ever after," Akari said spinning like she had a fancy dress on. She grabbed Hikaru's wrist and turned it over, holding her own next to his. Her mark was eight stars clumped in some sort of pattern. Hikaru's half open fan looked weird next to it. "Aww, yours isn't even close to mine."

Hikaru pulled his wrist back. "It's just a stupid mark," Hikaru said, rubbing his wrist. Everyone had them so who cared what was on it? "How about you be the knight and I be the dragon and try to eat you?" That would be a lot more fun than playing by himself while Akari pretended to be asleep.

Akari thought about it, head tipped to one side before she shrugged. "Okay." She grabbed one of the thin sticks littering the ground around the tree. "Don't cry if I beat you though."

Hikaru laughed and started backing away. "Well you don't cry if I eat you!" He roared and Akari shrieked back, waving her stick.

This was much better than princesses and rescues. Who needed that when they could have fun chasing each other?

o0o0o0o

When Akira was eleven, a boy stumbled into his life. Shindou Hikaru could barely hold a Go stone, but he played on a level that reminded Akira of his father. The world felt like a very different place after Shindou Hikaru. Suddenly his goal of becoming the best Go player he could be wasn't just filled with his father's colleagues, all older, suit-clad men, but a boy his age. A boy that was not a professional Go player. A boy that Akira knew he had to play against again because he couldn't get the incongruity of sloppily placed stones and graceful joseki out of his head.

"You seem distracted lately," his father commented over one of their teaching games.

Akira bit his lip and placed a stone in the upper right corner. "I played against someone recently," he said. "A boy around my age. He beat me in a game by two moku."

"An interesting opponent,"Touya Meijin said. His responding stone clacked against the kaya board. It was graceful and precise as a master Go player should be, his fingernail rubbed smooth and flat from setting stone after stone, decades of games. Akira felt frustrated all over again at how clumsily Shindou had held the stones. "There aren't many amateurs who can play an even game with you these days, let alone someone your age."

"I want to play him again," Akira said. "There were so many things that were unexpected." He had played shidougo, Akira was sure of it. "I want to know the true extent of his abilities."

"Then I hope you can find this mysterious Go player." His father smiled, just the edge of his lips tilting up. "If only to help your focus."

Akira blushed and shifted on his folded legs. He hadn't been giving his recent games his full attention, had he? Well, he could correct that mistake even if he couldn't guarantee finding Shindou again. He restudied the flow of the game on the board. The next stone he placed, he placed with conviction.

o0o0o0o

The weirdest thing about Sai, Hikaru decided, wasn't that he was dead or that he was obsessed with Go, or even how he got weirdly excited over the stupidest things (who cared about a traffic light or an electric fan?). No, it was that he didn't have a soul mark. Hikaru didn't even think about soul marks most of the time. Everyone had one, some bright, some dark, just that flash of something on their wrist when they walked or gestured that was so expected it faded into the background observations of the world. Sai didn't. Sai's wrist was as blank as the paper fan he carried around, and it was that that made Hikaru's hair stand on end and push home that Sai was a ghost in ways that his presence didn't in others.

"I used to have one," Sai said early on when Hikaru asked about it. "It was in the shape of a life or death problem."

Looking back, Hikaru rolled his eyes because of course Sai's soul mark had been Go related. Everything else about Sai was focused on Go, so why not his soul mark? At the time, he'd wondered why it was gone.

"I'm dead," Sai said, looking at his blank wrist. "It was gone when I woke up with Torajiro too… I suppose I don't have a mark because I am a soul. A soul doesn't need a mark to represent it."

"I guess that makes sense."

Sai hid his wrist back in his sleeve. "Marks were private things," Sai reflected. His fan flicked open and closed. "If you were lucky, you would find the person who had yours. The deepest bonds came from people who shared soul marks." Sai smiled, nostalgic. "It was surprising to see how many people flaunt their marks these days."

Hikaru shrugged. "It's just a mark…"

Sai frowned and launched into a long explanation about why soul marks were wonderful things and how beautiful a soulmate bond was. Hikaru covered his ears feeling like he was back in elementary school with Akari on one of her romantic phases.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it's magical," he grumbled. "Hey Sai," Hikaru said, grabbing for a distraction, "you want to play Go?" He didn't really want to play, but he'd take Go over some stupid tirade about soulmates.

Sai all but glowed with happiness, losing his previous train of thought entirely. "Of course!"

o0o0o0o

Another loss. Another loss and to someone who didn't even have an appreciation of Go. Shindou hadn't played shidougo. He'd gone for the kill and impressed just how big a difference there was between them, and it felt like a slap in the face.

Akira didn't understand.

Was his conviction to Go not enough? Had he missed something important? Was he not on the correct path after all?

He'd thought challenging Shindou again would clear his mind, but it was more clouded than ever. And even now he couldn't forget the inexperienced way Shindou touched the stones and how he hadn't known the rules…

For some reason his brain flickered to his mother's novels. There'd been a character who had removed his soul mark so they would never let something like a soulmate to hold back their ambition. They'd been an antagonist in the story, and Akira half wondered if this was some sort of karmic payback for not caring about soulmates and putting Go above all else.

It was a stupid thought, of course. There were plenty of people with ambitions and soulmates didn't factor into that drive for them. It was Akira's own weakness and arrogance that was at fault, nothing to do with soulmates or soul marks at all.

o0o

He lost himself for a while. Akira knew it, everyone around him knew it, even Ogata-san brought it up, and it only made Akira feel more ashamed.

In the end he knew he wouldn't be able to move on until he played Shindou again, and the only way to do that, he discovered, was to play him in a middle school tournament. Why someone with Shindou's skills was wasting them in a school tournament was beyond Akira.

His father was against Akira joining the school club. The only person that wanted him in the club was the club advisor. That didn't matter. The goal gave him a direction and something to focus on. It didn't matter that other Go club members hated him. It didn't matter that he had gone against his father's wishes. This was something he needed to do.

Of course the world would throw him for another loop.

It had been cold when they first met, but that was months ago, and it was steadily heading toward summer now. Now there were summer uniforms that left arms bare to the world and soul marks on display. Now was sitting across a Go-ban watching Shindou Hikaru's moves—placed with more skill and accuracy than before—abruptly become amateur and lackluster. Now was when his patience broke.

"Stop messing around!"

Now was when Shindou raised his left hand enough that Akira saw his wrist.

There was a half-open fan with plum blossoms against the smooth skin of his wrist and Akira had never felt more betrayed and off balance in his life. The world seemed to tilt. "You…" His lips were numb, words gone from his mind as reality rewrote itself into a new pattern. His eyes couldn't turn away from the patch of skin on Shindou's wrist, but Shindou didn't even seem to notice Akira's own wrist despite the fact that Akira had had his hands more visible the whole game.

His sensei had a hand on his shoulder, saying something, but the words didn't process through the shock. He let himself be pressed back into the chair. In front of him was a mediocre game, half played, from the hand of his soulmate, and he wondered again why anyone would believe the books when all he felt was horrible.

"Do you want to resign?" his sensei said—said again, he realized, Akira having not responded the first time.

The clock was still ticking and all his life he had wanted to be a professional Go player. A professional wouldn't leave this game half played no matter how much it disappointed him. "Damn it." He glared across the board as he placed his next stone because nothing had been right since Shindou Hikaru.

With each stone placed, the frustration simmered and condensed until Shindou resigned.

Akira had hoped to win that morning. He'd hoped that he could prove himself against the mind that had beaten him so thoroughly before. This wasn't that mind. The game they had just played, Akira couldn't even call it a proper game. It left a bitter taste in his mouth. What had the point been?

"I thought…" He clutched his wrist where the mark was. Soulmate hadn't even factored into his thoughts toward Shindou. How broken was he that he felt more distaste for the term now that he knew who had his mark than he had in the abstract? "I thought I saw the hand of god in you." It had scared him and made him want to become better all at once.

He'd been wrong.

Akira turned away and let his wrist go. He could hear Shindou's startled gasp—had he finally noticed?—but he didn't look back at him.

Fine. Fine, it had all been a waste of time, a waste of emotion, a waste. Fine. Shindou was his soulmate. Fine. That did not have to mean anything. Akira didn't feel any positive feelings about this. Fine. He didn't need Shindou. Shindou had derailed him from his goal with this waste of time, one Akira had sworn he wouldn't let happen if he ever found a soulmate. Akira would just have to work harder toward his goal like this whole thing had never happened. Shindou didn't have to matter. And Akira was quite sure Shindou could never matter the way everyone seemed to think about soulmates.

o0o0o0o

"You're so lucky, Hikaru! You found your soulmate already and he plays Go!"

Hikaru wished Sai would shut up. He hadn't shut up since they'd played against Touya and the more Hikaru thought about that game, the more upset he felt. He'd made Touya angry. He'd wanted to play so badly in that moment, but Touya hadn't wanted to play Hikaru at all. He'd wanted to play Sai and Hikaru's meager Go skills had only pissed him off. Hikaru wished Sai hadn't even noticed Touya wrist because the whole thing was making him feel guilty and stressed and more than a little angry at Touya. If Sai stopped rhapsodizing about good fortune for a minute, he'd realize just how stupid the whole thing was.

"Oh my god, Sai!" Hikaru growled, covering his head with a pillow. "Shut up! Touya's a creepy stalker with no life, who the hell would want him as a soulmate anyway?"

"Hikaru!" Said gasped.

"It's stupid." Hikaru peeked out from under the pillow to see Sai's cheeks puffed up with a comical scowl on his face. "Besides, I'm pretty sure Touya hates me, so it's not some sparkly fairytale bull crap that Akari buys into. Touya's just some weird guy that keeps showing up like a bad penny. He doesn't even want anything to do with me anyway. He just wants to play you."

"Hikaru…" Sai slumped, tension released in a sigh. "He hasn't seen the potential you hold yet." Sai touched Hikaru's shoulder in the nearly-intangible way that he had that left the faintest pressure against Hikaru's skin. "You're improving every day. One day you'll be able to sit as an equal across a Go board. He will have to recognize you then."

Hikaru pulled the pillow back over his head. He wasn't…he didn't think he was upset about Touya's brush off because of his skill. Hikaru knew he wasn't good at Go yet. Heck, he barely knew any of the rules still, even with going to that study group and having Sai talk his ear off every day. He wasn't even sure why it was so irritating that Touya had stormed away and apparently never looked back from the news of Touya taking the pro test. Maybe he was upset because Touya was his soulmate. All the stupid stories said that your soulmate was someone who'd be the best part of your life, and all that had happened was that they'd hurt each other's feelings and pissed each other off.

Hikaru sat up, letting the pillow fall away.

"Hikaru?" Sai asked, hovering nervously a few feet away.

"Let's play a game," Hikaru said. It would take his mind off of everything. It should have made him think about Touya more, but somehow when he was focused on the board, nothing else really existed outside of the little universe built of black and white stones.

o0o0o0o

Akira threw himself into studying for the pro exam. His parents worried, he was sure, at his sudden change, but he didn't let that worry distract him. Now that he had made the choice, he didn't let anything distract him. He pushed soulmates and soul marks out of his mind, pushed the infuriating contradiction of Shindou into a box, and played. Go had always been a large part of his life, and now he had nothing outside of it. The sharp pachi of stones against the board made his blood sing. Each win was a battle fought, each loss a lesson to dissect and grow from.

This was his element. Go was what he was meant to do and a pro was what he was meant to be.

Akira had forgotten how good determination felt and how satisfying it was to lay traps in the stones to snare victory, outthinking one opponent at a time.

Actually, yang Hai or Le Ping would be better for Isumi's soulmate, but for sake of convenience….

He wouldn't forget the feeling again.

o0o0o0o

Waya and Isumi were the first soulmate pair Hikaru had ever met. Hikaru's parents weren't soulmates. His grandparents weren't soulmates. Heck, most of the people in his life hadn't even seen their soulmate before or, in his grandparents' case, had chosen to stay in the life they had with the person they married.

Hikaru wasn't sure what he expected, but study sessions and getting burgers on a regular basis at the closest fast food chain didn't really mesh with the epic relationship Sai built up.

"You're not looking close enough," Sai complained for the hundredth time. He waved his fan at where the two were leaning over a goban together. "Don't you see the trust? Mutually building each other into better player, supporting each other to—"

"Sai, I see two friends playing a game of Go," Hikaru grumbled. "I mean, they're both good friends, and it feels weird to not see them together—" although he'd seen them separately several times "—but I'm not seeing whatever you see." It wasn't a romantic bond (at least Hikaru didn't think it was. He wasn't the best judge of that sort of thing.) No matter how Hikaru looked at it, they just felt like best friends. "And quit staring at them, it's creepy."

"But they're so fortunate," Sai said. He settled back at Hikaru's side, still casting glances across the room. "It's not often that you see two soulmates together."

Hikaru frowned. "Sai, people find their soulmates all the time. Part of what a soulmate means is that they're someone who's going to show up in your life."

"Of course," Sai said, nodding, "but even if you meet them, there's no guarantee of when or if you'll realize who they are." He tugged on the long sleeve of his robe and Hikaru had a realization.

"Hey, people used to keep their soul marks covered, right? How did anyone know who their soulmate was if they never let anyone see their mark?"

Sai smiled. "That's why finding your soulmate is so precious. It's such a small chance, and the ones that do know…" He sighed.

Hikaru inched away because he could feel another historical drama level epic coming on. He'd heard more about fated warrior brothers, destined lovers, and perfect leader-retainer relationships to last a lifetime. "Yeah, yeah, it can be the stuff legends are made of. I get it. I just don't get how Waya and Isumi's relationship works out." Or how he was supposed to fit any of those weird relationships with Touya. Epic rivalry? Definitely not warrior brother. Or lovers. Though Sai seemed pretty adamant that all soulmates felt at least some attraction to each other in a romantic or physical sense. And watching Sai delicately talk around the topic of sex was both hilarious and uncomfortable because he used really weird metaphors that made the whole thing sound so much more awkward than it already was.

"They're soulmates," Sai said, like it should be answer enough.

And maybe for Sai it was. Maybe for most people it was. For Hikaru, 'soulmates' didn't seem to be working out that great, so clearly there had to be more to it than just gravitating together.

o0o0o0o

At his father's study group, younger members whispered to themselves. "Is it true that Ogata-9-dan is soulmate to Kuwabara-honinbou?"

"Ugh, how does that even work?"

"I don't know, but they do love to take stabs at each other."

"But…aren't soulmates supposed to be all…romantic?"

The group jumped as Ogata arrived and cut into the conversation. "Save the world from sentimental romantics," he muttered. "One, it is impolite to spread rumors, especially about people you know personally. Two, romantic movies are bullshit and only a small percentage of soulmates are even born to the same generation let alone end up in romantic entanglements. Not everyone is interested in their soulmate the same way, and plenty have a family by the time they finally meet their soulmate. Three, who the hell would want to be romantic toward Kuwabara?" Ogata scowled and the gossipers ducked their heads guiltily.

Ogata sniffed and continued to his usual place at the study group.

Akira kept his face carefully neutral as he had every time soulmates had come up since he learned who Shindou was.

"The younger members of this study group need to learn some respect," Ogata said to Akira's father as he took his place. "If they put as much effort into their Go as they did to their gossip, they might actually improve their ranking."

"You are being too harsh," Touya Meijin said, with a trace of humor that only those who knew him would catch. "They've been improving a good deal lately."

Ogata snorted. "Then imagine the leaps and bounds they could achieve if they put their whole self into their Go." He waved a hand. "You never have to worry about that sort of rumors following you around. You have a fairytale marriage."

Akira's father tipped his head to the side and nodded, conceding the point. He had the soulmate relationship that the media built up to mythic proportions. Ogata's was about as far from that mythic standard as could be. There were parallels that Akira wanted to make, parallels that could be made between Ogata's soulmate relationship and Akira's own. But at the same time, Akira knew Ogata's situation was nothing like his own. Ogata, for all that he talked about putting the whole self into Go, had female companionship whenever he desired it. Kuwabara Honinbou was happily married with grandchildren, but from some of Ogata and Kuwabara's conversations in the past, Akira had to wonder if Kuwabara wouldn't make a pass at Ogata if he wasn't married. Or if Ogata wasn't so very clearly uninterested in men.

No, no matter that Ogata and Kuwabara's rivalry was something he wouldn't have minded having in his soulmate—Shindou couldn't be that. He was too big a frustration and distraction and not worth Akira's thoughts. Despite how often he told himself this, Shindou was never truly gone from Akira's mind—Akira didn't see himself finding companionship outside his soulmate or in. Marriage was a distasteful thought but one he would likely have to consider due to being an only son. Finding a casual romantic or sexual partner was even more alien and distasteful a thought than an arranged marriage.

Thankfully, the conversation turned to Go at last. That was what they were there for, Akira half wanted to remind the earlier gossipers.

Replaying the last game of two eight-dan and offering suggestions to how the outcome could have shifted to the loser's favor was almost enough to erase soulmates from Akira's mind. Almost.

o0o

Shindou remained a distraction no matter how Akira tried not to let him be. Maybe it was because he was Akria's soulmate, but Akira had to admit that he was also a puzzle. Shindou didn't make sense. His change in skills or how the mysterious NetGo player sai resembled his playing style. Plenty of people were rabidly interested in sai so Akira could excuse at least some of his distraction to the mystery of Shindou.

It seemed that Shindou was following his steps, chasing Akira into the professional world only now that Akira had turned his back. It was almost funny because from the outside it looked a lot like something that would show up in his mother's novels. Misunderstandings driving soulmates together and apart again, each chasing after the other.

That made it all the more frustrating then that Akira didn't feel at all like those novels. If anything he hated Shindou a bit for taking up so much of his mind even as he couldn't help but look into how Shindou was improving.

o0o0o0o

"You know," Waya said, opening his can of vending machine coffee. "If you have something to say, you can just say it."

Hikaru hunched his shoulders, taking his time in choosing a drink. "I'm not sure what you mean."

Waya snorted. "You can't bluff for crap and you aren't subtle." He took a sip of his drink, leaning against the wall as Hikaru's hand hovered over buttons without pressing them. "It's not exactly hard to notice how you stare at Isumi and me every time we're together." He raised an eyebrow. "Is it because we're both guys? Because despite what the media portrays, it's actually only a little more than fifty percent of soulmates who are opposite sex."

"What?" Hikaru's finger landed on a can of green tea that he didn't actually want. It clanged down the chute and he stared at it for a second before picking the can up. "Why the heck would I care that you're both guys?"

Waya gave him another look, and beside Hikaru, Sai's fan flickered open and closed like it did when he was thinking about something. "Okay. So what about Isumi and I in the same room makes you go weird? Because you're not like that when it's just one of us."

"It's just…" Hikaru sighed, picking up the can of green tea—to drink it or save it to give to his mom or something later? "I don't have a problem with you two, I just don't get it."

"Get…?" Waya raised an eyebrow.

"Soulmates," Hikaru grunted. Screw it, he was thirsty. He opened the tea. It would have tasted better with a lot of sugar dumped in it. Grimacing, he waved a hand. "Just. How is it different than a regular friendship? Or…dating?" he added as an afterthought.

Now both of Waya's eyebrows were raised and Hikaru kind of wanted to hide behind Sai, not that it would do any good on Waya's end. "Well," Waya said, "for a start we're not really dating. We're not…not dating, but it's not really romantic."

"So you're friends."

"And soulmates, yeah."

"How does that differ from friends?" Hikaru burst out. No one made any sense!

"I've explained this before, Hikaru," Sai sighed. He'd chosen to observe rather than comment too much for once.

"Hey, calm down, it just does." Waya stood straight, cupping his coffee in both hands. "Even before we were friends, we were soulmates. Soulmates are…if you're around them, you can't ignore them. If they've impacted you, you can't forget them and they're on your mind a lot even if you don't talk with them much. Isumi and I hit it off and became friends before we realized we were soulmates, but it's more than a friendship, you know? You'll understand when you find your soulmate."

Hikaru glared at his green tea only feeling more frustrated. "That's just it. I don't get it and I've met my soulmate."

"You have?" Waya asked. He leaned forward. "Well, then what was your impression of them?"

"Weird, confusing, irritating…" someone I want to notice me, Hikaru thought. "Touya's such a jerk. He chased after me, so he shouldn't get so angry just because I'm not what he thought I was."

"Wait. Your soulmate is Touya Akira?!" Waya yelped.

"Shhhh!" Hikaru waved his hands, sending green tea spilling over the floor. He looked around, but there didn't seem to be anyone around. "Yeah, Touya's my soulmate."

"Wait, so are you becoming a Go pro to try and get to him?"

"No!" Hikaru protested. "Well." Okay, it was more complicated than that. "I actually like Go. I thought it was a game for old men with too much time on their hands, but then I actually liked it, and heck, I'm pretty good at it. It's not like I was that great in academics so going pro would be great." He took a breath, tried to organize his thoughts. "But I wouldn't mind passing up Touya while he's not looking back." He crossed his arms. "Show him who's playing serious," he muttered.

"Okay, there you go," Waya said. He looked both weirded out and like something Hikaru said had resonated, though Hikaru couldn't imagine what. "You want him to acknowledge you, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"And you think about him a lot."

"He's kind of hard not to think about when everyone's going on about how awesome he is," Hikaru grunted.

Waya rolled his eyes. "So that's a soulmate thing." He leaned back against the wall again. "Though I don't think I've heard of many soulmates being pissed off at each other." Waya shook his head. "But Touya Akira. What the heck."

"It's just Touya," Hikaru said. "He's weird and he totally hunted me down for a game at a school Go tournament—" Waya choked on the last of his coffee. "—and I guess he's pretty good to make it to a pro already, but he's still just my age. He has a short temper and looks like his mom dresses him in old man clothes."

"Hikaru…" Sai said exasperated.

"He does!" Hikaru shot back, out loud, but thankfully Waya didn't seem to notice since he was still coughing.

"Ok," Waya gasped. "Touya's different. And participated in an amateur tournament, what the hell." He cleared his throat. "Why does your weird relationship with him make you stare at Isumi and me?"

"Because you're the only people I know who knows their soulmate and spends time with them."

"Look." Waya chucked his empty can into recycling. "If you want some weird rivalry with Touya, that's fine. If that leads to kissing him, that's perfectly normal too." Hikaru wrinkled his nose. Why did it always come back to kissing? "I don't really know what to tell you. Everyone has their own experience with a soulmate. You want to ignore him? Fine. You can do that." Hikaru could feel Sai's horror at the thought of ignoring a soulmate bond. "Plenty of people choose to. You want to go date a girl? That's fine too. I know Isumi likes girls and so do I and we could date and it'd be all good. What I'm saying," Waya said, seeing that he was losing Hikaru to distracted thoughts, "is that it's between you and Touya. Ok?"

"Not really?"

Waya groaned in unison with Sai. "Why do I bother?" He hooked an arm around Hikaru's neck and dragged him back down the hall toward the practice rooms. "If you can't get it, just stop thinking about it."

Hikaru let himself be dragged along, turning over the conversation in his head. Some of it did make sense, but he still felt like he was missing something that everyone else was getting. Still, thinking about it wasn't doing him any good. Maybe not thinking about it would be better for a while. He'd just think about Go and getting better. Sai couldn't fault that.

o0o0o0o

"There is a rumor going around," Akira's mother said one evening, hesitant in addressing Akira, "that an insei is your soulmate."

Akira finished his bite of rice and took a sip of tea to buy time. Both his parents were watching him closely. It was the first time they had brought up soulmates to him in years. "Did the rumors give a source for that claim?" he said after a moment.

"The insei in question was overheard saying it," Akira's mother said. Her eyes lowered to her plate.

Akira knew that his mother had Shindou's name. She was too hesitant to bring it up to not have it.

"It doesn't matter who my soulmate is," Akira said after a moment. "I'm content with how my life is right now, with or without this person."

"Are you content?" his mother asked.

"I'm much happier than I was in the months before I went pro," Akira said decisively. He felt a clarity of purpose. That alone was far better than the frustrating and desperate months chasing after Shindou. If he was still occasionally distracted by the rumors that filtered up, well they could be used to fuel his determination.

"Akira-san…" His mother was a romantic. So was his father in a much more subtle way, so Akira didn't really expect them to understand how he didn't feel any of the light, warm feelings that everyone was supposed to feel for their soulmate, or even the keen spark of attraction that was universal in all the stories regardless of whether the soulmate relationship was depicted romantically or not.

"You were quite interested in Shindou a year ago," Touya Meijin said, speaking the name his mother had carefully avoided.

Akira smiled thinly. "He isn't who I thought he was." He wasn't what Akira had hoped he'd be either, that rival who could guide him to greater heights and unlock steps toward the mythic Hand of God. Shindou was only a reminder to work harder, a reminder that Akira had wasted his time. "I have no desire to see him again."

Both his parents frowned at him and Akira's appetite vanished with the familiar choking feeling that there was something irrevocably wrong with how his mind worked. Akira set down his chopsticks.

"Thank you for the meal," he said to his mother, and left the table.

He knew this wouldn't be the end of the topic. He'd just have to show them that he didn't need his soulmate to be happy or successful. Plenty of people managed just fine without theirs already. (The traitorous part of his brain that wanted to believe the books pointed out that all those people had yet to meet their soulmate. No one completely ignored their soulmate once they'd been found.)

o0o0o0o

In the days leading up to his first professional game against Touya, Hikaru had felt a mixture of determination and resolve, because this time he would make Touya look at him and respect his game, not Sai's. He had looked forward to it. It would be everything coming full circle.

But then Touya's dad ended up in the hospital, and then there was Netgo and Sai beating Touya Meijin, and then there were more pro games, and then Sai was gone. After that Hikaru couldn't bring himself to think about Go at all, let alone his Go professional soulmate. Actually, he couldn't bring himself to do much of anything. Even just being in his bedroom staring at the ceiling made him think about Sai.

The phone was ringing again. This was the…third? Third game that he had skipped. It was probably the Go Institute calling with a warning again. Or Waya. Or maybe not Waya because Hikaru was pretty sure Waya was too mad at him to call now after the last brush off. The phone stopped ringing. Good. Whoever was calling, he didn't want to talk to them.

The worst thing about losing Sai was that no one understood. No one had even known Sai was there let alone realized he'd disappeared. There was no barrage of questions or chatter to fill the silence of his bedroom, no insistence for another game of Go, no anticipation and challenge of a game as Hikaru tried to make his loss that much smaller. There was a half-finished game of Go and a spilled goke that he didn't want to look too closely at let alone pick it up. And no one could understand why he was sad, because from Waya's perspective, Hikaru had been at an enviable position. He'd been playing well and he was a pro and people had been starting to know his name. From his parents' perspective, Hikaru had gone from strange and driven to strange and quiet. They didn't know him, and honestly, Hikaru didn't really know them very well either. Who could he talk to about Sai? Akari? Hikaru didn't even really talk to Akari anymore. The rest of his friends were tied up in Go.

It was too quiet and lonely and nothing felt quite right.

And worse, Hikaru's brain kept circling around to those stupid ballads Sai liked—had liked—where one soulmate had to carry on without the other.

It was stupid because Sai wasn't his soulmate and never would be. It was stupid because Hikaru was pretty sure he'd feel less than he did now if Touya had been the one to drop dead or vanish instead of Sai. It was stupid because Sai would have been horribly disappointed if Hikaru cared more about him than his own soulmate. And yet Sai had lived tethered to Hikaru's soul for years, so which was the greater bond?

Hikaru blinked, feeling like his eyelids weighed a ton. It was only then that he realized his eyes were stinging from not blinking too long.

Playing Go didn't bring Sai back. Searching didn't bring him back. Not playing Go didn't bring Sai back. Hikaru was pretty sure nothing would bring Sai back.

He wasn't sure how to deal with that yet.

He wasn't sure he ever would.

The phone started to ring again. Hikaru pulled his pillow over his head and tried to escape into the guiltless world of sleep.

o0o0o0o

Shindou was nowhere to be seen, but to Akira's left was a romance novel worthy dramatic scene of soulmates meeting for the first time in line for coffee. It was obnoxious and distracting, all happy sounds and congratulations from perfect strangers standing around them, and Akira half wanted to ask them to be quiet because after several hours of searching all the places Shindou was known to frequent, he had a headache pounding at his temples and a much shorter span of patience than usual.

There was no mythic bond to follow, no sudden inkling or gut feeling to know where Shindou was. That sort of thing only existed in fiction. So there was no way to find Shindou, really, if he wasn't somewhere Akira could think to find him.

There was no way to shake him and demand to know what the hell he was doing. It was galling enough that Akira couldn't help but look for him. How could he not take it personally? Shindou came after him, chased him after Akira chose to have nothing to do with him. Shindou became a professional and even Akira's father had admitted to seeing potential in his Go.

Akira strode away from the irritatingly happy scene a few feet away, back toward the Go Institute on the slim chance that someone would have some sort of news this time.

Shindou had kept himself irritatingly at the corner of Akira's mind for years; he had better not run off before they could play another game together. Eventually Akira would come across him, and Akira would force him to play a game if he had to.

o0o0o0o

The last thing Hikaru had expected was to see Isumi when he got back from school (school because if he wasn't going to play Go, what was he going to do with his future?). Hikaru fidgeted, uncomfortable with a guest in his room after the past two months of it being too empty. It was weird that Isumi was there at all; Hikaru had alienated Waya, so why the hell would Isumi bother? Hikaru had been better friends with Waya anyway.

"I heard you were in China."

"Yeah, I just got back." Isumi tipped his head to the side, looking Hikaru over. "What's going on with you? Waya said you haven't been showing up for games."

Of course he cut right to the point. Hikaru looked longingly toward his door. He couldn't just leave though.

"Is it because of Touya?" Isumi asked and Hikaru gave him a blank look. "Did you start feeling that it was impossible to catch him?"

"What?" He shook his head. "No, Touya has nothing to do with it."

"Hmm." Isumi didn't look or sound convinced as he pulled out a magazine. "I wouldn't blame you for feeling that way. He's been playing on another level lately."

Hikaru stared at the article. 3-dan already? That was almost unheard of. And this—! "Honinbou tournament third preliminary finals?!" For a moment he felt his heart race with excitement at how far Touya had come and how strong he would be to finally play again before his resolve caught back up.

"So you do still have passion for Go and Touya," Isumi said.

The 'and Touya' part rankled. "I don't." He set the magazine aside. "Besides if I want to quit Go it's my own business."

"…You can't be serious." Isumi frowned and looked around the room for Hikaru's Go board. "Play a game with me."

"No! Really, I'm fine, I don't want to play!" He couldn't! Not with his resolve for Sai. "Don't worry about me."

"I'm not," Isumi said, setting the Go board down between them. "I want a game for me. Our last game I resigned after cheating. I don't want the last game we play together to be a bitter memory. Play me so I can go into the pro exam this year with a clear mind."

Hikaru couldn't look away from Isumi's determination. But…he couldn't play….

"China made me want to play even more. Seeing so many players working toward the same dream." Isumi wiped dust from the wood so it looked golden again rather than dull. "Becoming a pro is just a step along that path, and I want to take it with Waya. With everyone at the Association, and you too." He sat back and pinned Hikaru with a look again. "I won't tell you how to live your life. If you want to retire, that's your business, but please, one game now for my sake. As someone I call a friend. One game, and then I'll leave you alone."

If…it was for Isumi and not for Hikaru's sake… He bit his lip. Sai…Sai would want him to play this game because he would have seen Isumi looking toward the path of Go and been happy… "One game."

Hikaru pictured Sai in his mind and his absence felt worse than ever. He faced down the Go board for Isumi's sake, and with each stone placed he felt the difference in Isumi's game. It made him think harder, play stronger hands and get sucked in until Hikaru placed a stone and thought This is where Sai would have played. This is a game could have played. But it was Hikaru's hands placing stones in patterns Sai would have chosen. It hurt like cutting into that wounded place again, but it was also cleansing because he couldn't find Sai anywhere but he could see him in his own Go. He was crying and couldn't seem to stop. All this time… Sai wasn't coming back, but he could see him, feel him, in Go and that was almost like having him back again. And he couldn't let go of that.

"Shindou…"

He wiped his tears away. "Sorry." What must Isumi think? "I think I can play Go now." Hikaru hadn't really stopped wanting to play anyway. If he played Touya now, would Touya see the Sai from their first game in Hikaru's Go? Would someone else be able to see Sai through Hikaru? He hoped so.

He firmed his resolve and returned to the game. After this… After this he'd find Touya. He'd put this off for too long.

o0o0o0o

This was the first time Akira had been face to face with Shindou in years and something in him burned. He wanted to yell at Shindou for following him into the professional world, but what he'd seen of Shindou's Go these days was too interesting to be angry about. He wanted to yell about the games Shindou missed or any number of other things, like did Shindou understand how frustrating it had been to never be able to forget about his soulmate's existence no matter how hard he tried, but Akira didn't do that either. Shindou gave him a strange, searching look before barging into Akira's personal space.

"Shindou?!" Akira sputtered, trying to take a step back even as Shindou grabbed his wrist. "What are you—" A clumsy press of lips cut him off and Akira froze for one horrible moment before he broke through shock enough to shove Shindou away, hard. "What the hell was that?" Akira asked, scrubbing at his lips.

"Ow," Shindou muttered, picking himself off the ground. He looked embarrassed. What the hell right did he have to be embarrassed when he was the one doing stupid things? "Well," Shindou scrubbed a hand through his annoying bleached bangs. "Well, we're soulmates, right?" He held out his left wrist with the fan pattern that matched Akira's. "That's…that's what soulmates do, right?" His nose wrinkled like he didn't get it either, but he was trying to fulfill the role.

"Only on TV and in romance novels!" Akira scrubbed at his mouth again, trying to remove the awkward feeling from his lips. He was glad that Amano had left right before Shindou barged in or this would be even more uncomfortable. Ugh. "Soulmates don't have to be romantic or…or even like each other!" It was one of the first times he'd actually said it out loud, certainly the only time he'd said it to someone who wasn't family, and it was like a weight being lifted from his shoulders. "You frustrate and annoy me! I don't want to be in that kind of relationship with you! I don't want to be in that kind of relationship with anyone ever!" And that was definitely the first time he'd admitted that out loud. Akira's chest rose and fell with gasping breaths. He felt like he'd run a mile.

Shindou stared. "You…" He paused, like words were stuck in his throat and swallowed. "Huh. I thought I was the only one that felt like that."

"Excuse me?" Akira frowned.

"Like that." He waved an arm toward Akira like it was an explanation. "Everyone was talking about soulmates and falling in love and getting married and, I don't know, having babies in some sparkly happily ever after and…" Shindou shrugged. "First there was soccer and then there was Go, and it just…never felt important?" Shindou shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Akira's eyes. "And then it turned out you were my soulmate and I still didn't want any of that and Sa—someone kept talking about how romantic and dramatic it all was, like some kind of epic drama crap and…I guess I just figured it would happen if I went along with it?"

"Why the hell would you kiss me if you didn't want to?!" Akira said in a strangled shriek.

"Because I thought that if I tried I'd be normal!"

"There's nothing abnormal about not wanting any of it!" Akira froze. "There's…nothing abnormal about it," he repeated softly. He'd been telling himself over and over that he wasn't normal. That there had to be something broken or wrong with him. And here was Shindou who was the same, and it couldn't just be them. There had to be other people out there who felt like they did. They weren't a majority. But there was nothing broken or unnatural about it. Just different. It figured that it took years, meeting his soulmate again, and an unwanted kiss for him to reach this realization. For all that he was a genius in Go, Akira would be the first to admit that he wasn't very good with people or emotions.

"Well…" Shindou shifted from foot to foot. "Well I'd hardly call us normal," he mumbled. Louder, in a forced light tone he added, "I mean c'mon, we're dedicating our lives to playing Go. It's awesome, but you got to admit that most of the world would think we're a little weird." Shindou smiled and rubbed the back of his head. "So…maybe it's sort of like that with the whole soulmate thing too?"

Akira snorted and slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. How embarrassing. Shindou flushed and Akira forced his expression neutral. "Your comparison is ridiculous, but it's not wrong."

"It was a great comparison, you just don't like me saying people find Go weird."

"To be fair, you insulted the entirety of the professional Go world early on in our acquaintance." It still annoyed him how casually Shindou had talked about getting a title like it wasn't something that required a lifetime of dedication and effort to achieve.

Shindou rolled his eyes, cheeks still a bit pink. "Cut me some slack, I was young and uninformed, and didn't realize how awesome Go was back then!" He barged into Akira's personal space again, this time aggressive rather than attempting to kiss him; Akira took a step away all the same. "Oh yeah! I came to ask, did you win your game?" His eyes shone with competitive spirit.

The same spark that Akira felt years ago, the one that had driven him to track Shindou down and challenge him repeatedly as a child, flickered to life in him. He knew without a doubt that Shindou would be a challenge the next time they played. That soon, if not already, they would be equals pushing each other further across the goban and that, more than any of the ridiculous notions of soulmates that satisfied most of the population, was all Akira had ever wanted from life. Interesting Go, challenging opponents, and striving for the Hand of God.

"I did," Akira said. "Why did you come here?" He hoped it wasn't because of the damned soulmate thing.

"Touya." Shindou stood straight and challenging. "I'm not going to quit Go. I'm going to walk this path forever." Akira couldn't look away as Shindou looked him in the eyes. "I wanted to tell you that."

This. This, more than stories or dramas or anything Akira had ever observed of soulmates, felt right. This was the first moment that Shindou had ever even remotely felt like a soulmate to him. Both of them working to the same goal felt right. "Come after me," he said.

Go was all he'd ever wanted in life. To live and play and immerse himself in it. But Go was a two person game and if Shindou could reach his level…

Maybe having a soulmate wouldn't be a distraction but a motivator for them both from here on out.

o0o0o0o

This was it. This was the day he'd play Touya. It felt like he'd been waiting forever. A tiny part of him worried that something would delay this game like Touya Meijin's heart attack had, but no, there was Touya waiting for him. Something in him relaxed and he could all but hear a memory of Sai's voice going on about soulmates. If Touya was reminded of the last time they met or Hikaru's awkward kiss, his face didn't show it. (Hikaru wishes he hadn't kissed Touya because he hadn't really felt like kissing him. He had been caught up with memories of Sai and thought for a moment that maybe he should try it, maybe the stories had some truth in them for him in that moment of reuniting. Touya was definitely right about that not being what was right for them though.)

"We can finally play!" Hikaru said feeling almost giddy with anticipation.

"Our first game since the Go club tournament," Touya said. "It's been two years and four months."

"That long…" And Touya had kept track? If Hikaru's anticipation was buoyant, Touya's was sharp and focused. Maybe in the years he'd spent trying to get Touya's attention, he'd already had it all along.

"Yeah… It's been a long time."

Hikaru followed Touya to their seat discussing Touya's recent game. He felt his excitement shift to focus as they settled with a Go board between them. "Today I'll show you my strength," he said. Touya's focus on him was absolute. No one had ever looked at him like that and he wondered if maybe this was what everyone had been trying to explain about soulmates for years. He was the only one Touya would look at that way, like Hikaru was a challenge worth facing with one's whole ability. If he was honest, he probably gave Touya the same look back across the board. "I'll show you that I haven't just been playing around those two years and four months."

Their stones clacked against the board, not a patient game but a battle of speed and wits. It must be what a sword duel was like; strike after strike meeting an opponent halfway as they both tried to read deeper than the other. Hikaru placed a stone and felt it resonate in him. This was a game Sai would be proud of. Touya paused, just for a moment, and maybe, Hikaru thought, maybe Sai resonated with Touya too.

Then Touya did mention Sai and Hikaru… Hikaru felt glad. He wasn't the only one to find Sai in his Go. Touya would remember him too, would differentiate between them.

"Ah, what am I saying," Touya said more to himself than to Hikaru. "All you are is the Go you play. That won't change. That's enough."

In the same moment of recognizing Sai, he recognized Hikaru too. That was what Hikaru had been wanting for a long time, since that Go tournament, for Touya to look at him and see his Go.

"For you," Hikaru said, "I might tell you someday." Of all the people in the world, maybe Touya would believe him and understand.

Maybe he shouldn't have said anything since Touya kept prodding him about it after that, but he'd meant it and someday….yeah someday he could probably trust Touya with the truth about Sai.

He lost the game in the end, but the loss didn't feel like a loss when he'd proven that he could challenge Touya and soon would be on his level.

o0o0o0o0o0o

Ogata was laughing at him. Akira could tell from his eyes even if he wasn't laughing out loud. Akira didn't grace his presence with a response. Instead he continued packing a box of kifu from his bookcase.

"So," Ogata said after a good minute of watching Akira shift loosely bound papers, "when are you moving in with Shindou?"

Akira twitched, resolutely pretending Ogata wasn't there. Of course it was a futile tactic with Ogata made worse by the fact that Ogata had known him since he was in diapers.

"That soon." Ogata smirked. "I hear you're practically already living there. I find it interesting considering how vehemently you dismissed him as your soulmate a few years ago."

He had to bring up soulmates. Akira pressed his lips together and debated the consequences of pretending Ogata was a particularly odd shaped door a bit longer. It probably wasn't worth being verbally poked at until he lost his temper and reacted anyway. Ogata did hate being ignored. "I'm not moving in," Akira said folding the box flaps shut over his kifu.

"So you're sleeping over at his apartment more than once a week and packing up your belongings because..?" Ogata's smirk widened. He had a tilt to his eyebrows that was probably supposed to insinuate something salacious, but just made him look more obnoxious.

"I've stayed over because we can't seem to limit our Go to one or two games when we start playing," Akira said, "and I'm packing my kifu because if I'm studying at Shindou's apartment so often I might as well have my resources there." He lifted the box and walked pointedly toward the door. When Ogata made no effort to move, Akira shoved it into Ogata's arms instead. He took brief pleasure in how Ogata almost dropped the box on his feet. "Regardless of what you're implying, neither Shindou nor I are involved in that way, nor will we ever be."

"You packed a box of clothing the last time I drove you there," Ogata said, moving aside when Akira pushed him out of the way. "Now it's kifu and books. From where I'm standing, it looks like you're moving in."

"It's merely games of Go and post-game discussions that go on too long." And arguments that had had Shindou's neighbors complaining to the landlord about noise more than once. Akira led the way toward Ogata's car. If Ogata hadn't been the closest family friend to own a car, Akira would have found someone else to help him move things. But Ogata was the closest and the most likely to help even if he pried and teased ruthlessly.

"The clothes?"

"I refuse to wear the same clothing after sleeping in it, and I am not borrowing any of Shindou's tacky t-shirts just to avoid wearing the same clothing two days in a row." Akira slid on his shoes and held the door for Ogata to carry the box through. "Having clothing there is a practical compromise." He'd had to win the closet space he'd used from Shindou in a game, but that hadn't been too hard. Akira had been sick of not having a change of clothes.

"You could invite Shindou to your home," Ogata pointed out as they put the box in the back of his car. "Then you wouldn't have to move anything."

Akira snorted. "And have him disrupt my home? No thank you." Akira also didn't want to argue where his parents could hear him. His mother would give him a disappointed look—or worse, his father would. They seemed to think that Akira had grown out of his wild and fluctuating emotions when it came to Shindou, and Akira had no desire to prove that assumption false. Because Shindou was his soulmate though, neither of his parents found it strange for Akira to spend so much time with Shindou. He could do without his mother's hints to invite Shindou for dinner. Shindou wasn't someone he wanted to invade his family life any more than he already had. "Besides, if I brought him here, he'd start leaving his things everywhere and then I'd never have anywhere to go without his existence pressing into my subconscious."

Ogata was silent and Akira looked up to find something between a smile and a frown on Ogata's face. "Sometimes I can't tell if you hate him or are impressed by him."

"Do you hate Kuwabara-honinbou?" Akira asked.

Ogata rolled his eyes. "Hate is a strong word. Frustrated is a much better one."

"Exactly." The parallels were still there between them even if Ogata's situation was very different than Akira's. "On my better days, I like Shindou. Then he does something stupid and I would love to strangle him. I respect his Go, but he'll always be that annoying splinter that you can't seem to get out and reminds you it exists at the worst times."

Ogata huffed a laugh. "I suppose I can see where you're coming from then. Although why you would intentionally spend more time than is necessary with him…"

"It works out," Akira said. It had all worked out better than he had ever thought possible. "It helps that Shindou is equally frustrated and fascinated by my Go as I am his. Go is central to everything we do with each other, and that's the only reason it has worked out at all." And Akira wouldn't have it any other way.

"I'll tell your parents to not expect too much to come out of this then."

"They should know by now that nothing will." They'd have to be satisfied by his legacy being Go rather than a child to carry on the family name. Akira had the feeling he'd have to firmly turn down an omiai in the future once his mother realized he really wasn't romantically involved with Shindou and never would be. Convincing her that he'd never be interested in anyone would hopefully not be too difficult. After all, if his soulmate didn't inspire romantic or sexual feelings for him, it shouldn't be too difficult for her to understand that no one would.

They got into the car, and Ogata pulled away from Akira's home, heading toward the district Shindou's apartment was in.

"I'm happy though," Akira said after a while. "This is about the best I could have seen things going in my life. I'm a Go professional, I'm working toward title matches, and rather than distracting from Go, my soulmate is someone who is helping me become a better player."

Ogata smiled, still in the range of smirk, but warmer than most of his smiles were. More genuine. "That does sound nice. Don't get too confident about titles yet though. You're still too young for that."

Akira laughed. "You'd better watch your back. Don't underestimate us younger players or you'll find that title disappearing from under you."

"I'd like to see you try." He sounded like he actually meant it.

Akira smiled and leaned against the car window. He'd probably end the day with a shouting match with Shindou again, but that wasn't something that truly bothered him anymore. At this point it was almost fun to let his emotions have free reign. Yes, there would always be days when he'd get frustrated and be misunderstood by people or be at odds with what was expected, but he wasn't at odds with himself anymore. That was enough. Akira would beat any Go player who dared judge him for that. His younger self would be happy with where his life was heading and Akira was happy now. It was enough.

Further AN:

*How this world is operating: Every person in the world is born with a soul mark on their left wrist. It could be a picture, words, anything. There will be one other person in the world with a corresponding mark. Soulmates are someone you will come across in the course of your life. There is no guarantee that you will realize when you meet your soulmate. Soulmates will impact each other in some way. This could be as small as someone offering a homeless person a meal or as big as saving each other's lives. An infant could be soulmates to a 50 year old police officer who found the child when it was kidnapped or something if it had an effect on both of them. Conversely, it could be someone who has traumatized someone and had their life marked in some way in return. It doesn't necessarily have to be a positive interaction. "Soulmate" doesn't mean "romantic partner," but most media romanticizes and sexualizes the concept to the point where it is difficult to accept other possibilities. Another common soulmate trope is closer-than-blood-brothers/sisters sort of thing. This appears a lot in war films and period dramas (think bond that transcends romantic ties), though romantic/sexual ideas are the current more popular trend. Soulmate bonds trump societal norms—having romantic/sexual relationships with a soulmate is understood even if it is not heteronormative. (Though it is equally common for soulmates to be married for years, then find their soulmate, or get married to someone else even if they do have romantic/sexual ties to each other just to continue a familial line.) For the record, Sai's soulmate probably would have been the man that drove him to suicide, as that was a defining moment in Sai's life, and it is unlikely that the realization that one action drove someone to kill themselves wouldn't impact the person who did it.*

Also, going by this it probably should be Le Ping, not Waya, as Isumi's soulmate, but I wanted to have a soulmate pair for Hikaru to observe since there wasn't really anyone in his life who interacted with their soulmate the way Akira had in this universe.

I feel like I've been working on this fic for ages but it's only been since December... _ ;; It's finished! It's done! It's way way too long for what was supposed to be a comment fic! I hope people enjoy this all the same.