Spoiler-Warning: everything
Disclaimer: I don't own Hikago
Summary: When Hikaru has lost his game at the Hokuto Cup he feels the pain of Sai's loss resurfacing and is troubled by it afresh. Touya notices and fears what Shindou will do, so affected.
What happened before: This story starts at the end of the Hokuto-Cup, a Japan-Korea-China Jr. tournament. It is a troublesome event for Hikaru Shindou due to the Korean first board player, Ko Yong-Ha. In a mistranslated interview he allegedly says that Shusaku Honinbo were a player not worth studying. Hikaru, infuriated by this implicated insult of his mentor Sai, becomes determined to play, and beat, Ko Yongha. Due to his stubbornness the team manager Kurata allows him to be first board in the game against Korea.
Epilogue of the Hokuto Cup. Part I
Hikaru.
Accusingly the black stones stared at him from their ordered position in neat seichi squares. Half a moku. By half a moku, he had lost.
Sai… he thought as a flood of tears sprang from his eyes. He felt the reproachful stares of his team mates and of team manager Kurata in his back. He heard the satisfied murmur of the Korean group on the other side of the goban, as they had their opinion of their superior playing being confirmed. He didn't really care that everyone around him, players, organisators and reporters alike, could see his tears of disappointment. He hadn't any strength left to care.
I lost, Sai! I'm still not strong enough! Not strong enough!
He barely noticed Ko Yongha leaving, the crowd around him thinning as the sponsor announced the ceremony beginning. After ignoring discussions and whispers around him, it were finally Akira Touya's words that he felt addressed at him.
„Shindou… let's go…" the black haired pro gently said. Hikaru sensed his considerate gaze. He wasn't susceptible for any consoling words, but his rival's familiar presence after this tournament full of foreigners had if not anything else such a soothing influence that at least his bitter tears ebbed off.
Sai... what would he think now? Could he see him? Had he watched his game from some place high above, in heaven? Sai, where have you gone to?
Sai… Hikaru's desperate finger clutched the fan in a deathlike grip. In his dream Sai had passed on his fan to him. And he had smiled. But I don't deserve it! Hikaru thought bitterly. I wasn't able to defend Shusaku's name, I wasn't able to defend your name! Even giving my best, fighting with everything I had, it wasn't enough!
Touya's low, staid voice interrupted his depressed thoughts. He was waiting for him, when even Yashiro and Kurata were about to leave the room.
"This isn't the end…"
Touya… His rival hid his reproval very well. He knew he should have let Touya play. Touya could have won.
But how… Sai… how could Touya have fought for you?
He didn't know how badly Touya was blaming him for this… but could he ever look in his eyes again with his actions, his great words, and his loss, his failing strength? How would it go on? Would he, after losing Sai, lose his only true rival to his stupidity as well?
"There is no end."
Touya's soft voice numbed the raging disappointment and the desperation inside him and Hikaru finally found the strength to stand up and follow his rival out of the room.
There was no end…
Still, in the tumult of his feelings the pain of Sai's loss had resurfaced afresh.
After the frustrating result had been announced and the spectators left the public discussion room, Yoshitaka Waya stood up and told his friends that he was going home.
"But the awards ceremony is about to start!" Toshinori Honda protested.
"I'm going back to my apartment to examine the Japan vs. Korea games," he answered, already facing the exit.
"I'm going too," Shinichiro Isumi added as he stood up, "What about you?"
Kosuke Ochi got up, bearing a determined countenance. "I'm not interested in the ceremony."
"Hn." Honda added in confirmation.
Resolutely the four companions strode out of the room.
At the first possibility he withdrew from the ceremony, leaving his team-mates to deal with the reporters and their questions. He couldn't bear being reprimanded for his loss, and he certainly couldn't bear to be complimented for a good game (as Kurata-san had tried). He knew that he had failed.
At the way out of the hotel he met Suyon Hon and the young Korean Go pro finally cleared up the knotty situation about Ko Yong-Ha's words. Hikaru listened to him; but his thoughts straying far he only stored the words in his mind in order to deal with them later.
Shindou had gone! The whole time on, from when they left the game room, during the whole ceremony, Shindou had always stood close beside him. With gritted teeth Akira forced himself to be smiling politely when the reporter who had been bothering him for the last fifteen minutes continued pestering him with more endless, useless questions. And then there were the companions of the different teams, wanting a word with him, spectators coming to greet him, some with a compliment on his wins, some commenting on the loss of Japan in the tournament,… In short, it was him who got talked in several languages about the games, his team, himself, his opinion on the greatness of the foreign players and so on and so forth. Yashiro always seemed to become suspiciously invisible as soon as someone neared, Shindou who had caused the most commotion during the last two days, barely commented to anything, hiding behind Akira, who was left to do the polite talking. Where had Shindou gone to? Akira wanted, no, he needed to talk to him. He would have gone to his room, Akira decided, and as quickly as politely possible, he politely fobbed reporters and spectators alike to leave at the first polite chance, which took him more than half an hour. There were times when he hated his polite education.
When he finally stood in front of the door to his rival's room, he hesitated for the first time. What if Shindou didn't want to talk to him, if he wanted to lick his wounds alone? Wasn't that what he had signalled by his wordless retreat? But then, what did he care if Shindou wanted to talk to him.
Firmly Akira knocked his knuckles at Shindou's door. When he didn't get any response, however, he determinedly beat harder. „Shindou?"
Akira sighed and fruitlessly tried some more minutes, until he finally gave up. He could scarcely force his way into the others room, as much as he'd like to.
Shindou. He heard the muted sound of a nearby opening door, as he was about to close his bag, finished packing. He couldn't tell which of the rooms adjoining to his had been opened; immediately he darted out into the corridor to verify. "Shin-…" he began, and as he noticed that it wasn't his rival that had opened the door. "Oh."
"Excuse me," he asked politely, "the guest of this room, has he already left?"
"Of course," The cleaning woman answered with a polite smile, "Excuse me please," she then said and disappeared with her rolling table into the room. Unwillingly he pressed his lips together, frustrated about the fact that he had let Shindou leave without noticing. "Damn!" he muttered.
"Excuse me… did Shindou Hikaru check out already?"
"Which room?" the receptionist asked.
"Threehundredandone."
"Yes, he had already given back his key. About half an hour ago."
Vexed, Akira could barely bite back a loathy growl. It was not that he really cared that Kurata had planned an after talk of the games… which wouldn't have happened anyway - Kurata had been invited by the team-managers of Korea and China, An Teson and Yang Hai to a consolation-dinner in an all-you-can-eat restaurant, and the alimentophile Go-pro hadn't been able to resist.
Shindou wouldn't dare to stop playing like he did one year ago, would he?
He couldn't!
But it was that desperate look in Shindou's eyes, that lost and lonely look that made him fear. Far too closely his eyes resembled to when he had sought him out at his school after Shindou not appearing to neither Oteai nor Young Lions Tournament.
As if something truly tragic and heartbreaking had happened.
In his heart, Akira suspected that it had something to do with Sai - like most of the inexplicabilities of Shindou's behaviours did. He had so wanted to ask him these two days long, but, when he had remembered Shindou's promise to tell him the truth, he hadn't. Now, looking back, he wasn't sure if this had been the right decision, because maybe if he knew, he could understand Shindou's behaviour.
What… what if he really would stop playing! The thought alone made his stomach clench in fear.
So… Shindou had managed to run away from Akira at that time in the school library, but he wouldn't let him do so today! Akira was determined in his unique, single-minded way. He needed his rival!
"Excuse me, can I use your phone?" he asks the receptionist.
"Yes, of course."
"Thank you very much."
Akira grips the receiver, hastily types a number.
"Hello, Touya Akira speaking. I need the telephone number of Shindou Hikaru."
'We apologize, but this office is currently not occupied. Please call later or leave a message after the signal…"
Testily Akira hung up.
"Damn!" he cursed inwardly, "Since when the Go Institute is that irresponsible!"
"Shindou-baka!" Akira agitatedly cursed. „Did you intend this to be a bad joke! How am I supposed to find you with that!" He glared at the offending little piece of paper that very innocently lay on the table beside the telephone. Once at home, he had found the sheet of paper containing his rival's address and phone number very quickly. Only a shabby small sheet, and Akira had to unfold it to get a look at the content. His fatal mistake had been that he hadn't checked the paper when Shindou had given it to him.
Akira only just bit back an irate growl, as he tried to stare down the (innocent) characters on the paper, making them responsible for something Shindou had done. They were the worst cacography he had ever seen! So abominable Shindou's writing and spelling were that poor eighty percent of the address was legible. And even worse was the half of the telephone had gone awry in his scrawl.
In his incensement Akira screwed up the piece of paper in his hand, inwardly cursing Shindou for all the suffering he unconsciously dealt him. Reigning in his feelings he smoothened the paper out and laid it beside his city map with the intent to localize Shindou's residence from the measly hints of his note.
When they stepped onto the creaking, old planks of the attic, Akira instantly perceived the goban the old man, Shindou's grandfather, had chatted about so merrily. Through a tiny window straight ahead some rays of the afternoon sun shone into the room and dust particles glittered in the air. Per contra the warmly glowing wood was clean and shining, but what immediately caught his eye was a plain white fan lying upon it. Shindou's fan.
Akira rushed there, leaving the old man with his stories of spirits and ghost behind, and quickly kneeled in front of the goban. He softly palpated the fan with his fingertips. He saw where the haft was slightly splintered and darkened from Shindou's grip and his sweat. Just as he was about to let go, and give up, he perceived some ripples in the papery upper part of the piece. Carefully he opened the fan several centimetres.
Hikaru, not knowing where to go with his pain and his disappointment, sought solace in the old goban out of which once his friend had appeared. Because somewhere, deep inside there still lived the hope to maybe see him once again. Sai… probably the ghost would be angry because he had lost, maybe he would tell him off, but maybe he would say some words of solace and encouragement, as he had done so often before. And just maybe he would stay a little longer, for a quick game… maybe…
How much he wished for it… to see him again… Sai.
But on the wood there were no hidden tears except his own, and they also fell on the fan, lying upon it, leaving wet blots, that quickly dried in the warm air of May. There were none of Torajiro's bloodstains, and no ghost with a huge hat, a kind, sometimes childish smile and a thousand year old passion for Go emerged before his eyes.
Sai… I miss you! Big tears rolled over his cheeks anew. Come back, Sai… I miss you… Come back!
Suddenly he couldn't bear it any longer in front of the goban, on which he knew he would never again see these stains… never hear that kind voice again, and out of which nevermore would emerge his friend. Agitatedly he closed the fan and left it lying there, for Sai, and still crying, fled from the loft.
Akira closed the fan and gently put it back onto the goban. After some polite valedictions to grandfather Shindou he took his leave. Where to? He didn't really know. To find Shindou he would need something akin to a miracle.
Shindou-baka… thought an angry Akira Touya. If it's really you who is chasing me, why… why it's always me who has to run after you!
Beaten, he made his way to the metro station.