Fujiwara-no Korechika might not have been the most influential man of his time, but he had risen high enough in ranks to marry an actual granddaughter of the current Emperor, even if her mother had been a daughter of a consort, rather than the Empress herself. Sai had been the youngest of his four sons and second youngest of his eleven children; and, as such, brought up in a remote estate among his numerous sisters, waiting for the day when a less fortunate branch of the Fujiwara clan would look into adopting a male heir or when a valuable ally of a lower birth would demand a technically Fujiwara husband for his daughter. Apart from that time when Lord Korechika dinged to stop by at the estate, found out he couldn't exactly tell apart six-year-old Sai and five year-old Michiko and off-handedly ordered his son to be taught swordplay, the boy had had no interaction with his parents, but somehow silks still found their way onto his shoulders and rice into his bowl. Later, when his two oldest sisters were made ladies-in-waiting and left for the Capital, bringing stories of Sai's extraordinary skills with them, his parents deemed it prudent to summon him to court as well. And up to a certain point Sai's career could be considered remarkable, yet his position as the Go instructor didn't last long enough for him to acquire a house of his own and his rank wasn't high enough to be paid in actual money. He had died too young to have any worries but his beloved game, and his ghostly existence had been bearable as long as he could go on playing it. His imprisonment inside the goban had taught him he could do with even less.

And then suddenly he once again had a body that demanded food and shelter, only he couldn't call himself Fujiwara-no Sai anymore, and there probably was no blood of the Emperors left in his newfound veins. He could still play, and he would like to say that it was enough, except he was all too painfully aware that everything he ever owned in this new mortal life, from the decrepit goban by his bedside to the battered cell-phone in his pocket, either used to belong to Hikaru or still technically belonged to him. He only had his court attire to wear to his shinshodan game earlier today because Hikaru had had it dry-cleaned. The soft blue 'jersey' he was currently struggling to pull on, suddenly feeling cold, had been Hikaru's Birthday present to him. The delicate little flute safely hidden in his drawer wasn't Hikaru's only because Hikaru had borrowed it from his grandfather's collection of antiques ("It's not like the old geezer's gonna miss it; he doesn't remember, let alone use most of the stuff he has in that shed!"). As the matter of fact, even Seiji-san had offered to pay for Sai's 'pro-exam' only because Hikaru had introduced them…

Sai had repeated often enough that Go was his life. But up until now he never regarded it as his means of living. He knew detachedly that it was this particular skill that had bought his fourth rank in his original lifetime, or that he had brought Torajiro fame and money; now he could play for himself again and he had no doubt that he would be back on top of the Go world in no time, gaining everything the position implied, including some sort of re-compensation. But money still was a pretty vague concept for him. He owed Seiji-san what seemed to him a truly astronomical sum, which the 'Judan' himself considered "a small price for the glorious future of Japanese Go". And he owned Hikaru so much more than money: yet he would probably never have anything but his love for the game to share in return. Somehow, he didn't think it was enough anymore…

Aunt Urumi's persistence to reinstall his connection with the outside world left Sai very little personal space, so it wasn't really unusual for him to sometimes feel overwhelmed. Hikaru was a bit surprised to see it happen now, when his friend was about to get some familiarity back into his life, but he knew what to do. So he cautiously approached the former ghost and gently put a hand on his shoulder.

"Sai! Saaaaaai! Is something wrong?"

Sai hastily pasted a smile on his face.

"That's nothing. Thank you for your concern, Hikaru, but I am perfectly fine."

"If you say so," the boy nodded, unconvinced. "Well, how was your game?"

"I lost. By half a moku."

"It that why you look so depressed? I thought you said winning under the reversed-komi-thing would be pointless."

Slowly, Sai's smile started to regain some of its customary warmth:

"Indeed. My victory would have been attributed to the handicap, but losing to a supposed novice would still make Toya-san look bad. When I beat him, I want it to be in a proper match!"

"I bet. You'll be pushing him off his throne in no time, if even half of the praises Ogata-san keeps singing you are true. What, Sai, did I say something wrong?"

Sai's black mood reappeared so suddenly and so forcefully, that he had to turn away bodily, feeling that he was about to start crying in earnest, and hiding behind his fan decorously would do little to hide it. He remembered them all too well from his first lifetime – praises and triumphs and the sensation of battle well-fought singing in his blood. But he also couldn't help remembering the wall of embarrassing awe, envy and cold politeness surrounding him as one of 'the Fujiwaras', His Majesty's personal Go instructor at not-even-twenty years of age…

"Will you leave me when you finally don't have to take care of me anymore?" he sniffed, giving up trying to bite back tears.

Hikaru threw him an incredulous look and – started laughing.

"I wouldn't worry about that while you still can't tell an ATM from a vending machine, Sai. No, seriously, is that what you're tormenting yourself about? Because that's just… I can't believe I have to explain this to you, aren't you supposed to be a genius or something? Listen to me very carefully. The reason I've been hanging out with you is because I wanted to. And I still want to take you to the arcade, and to teach you to ride a bike, and to see your face the first time you set foot on an airplane. I want to be there when you finally reach the Hand of God. Who knows, maybe one day I'll want to be the one to reach it with you! In other words, you're stuck with me, so get used to it. Come here, you idiot!"

He opened his arms, and, gladly obeying some instinct his body seemed to have acquired in his absence, Sai leaned into the embrace and closed his eyes; from the depth of his memory one of his mentor's grumpy voice informed him it was highly inappropriate, but Sai didn't care: he had hundreds of years of loneliness to compensate for, and he wasn't about to waste his chance.

And somewhere beyond this world Kami-sama was chuckling softly while leisurely rearranging the sky for the Tanabata night. Mortals! Always willing to turn the world upside-down in search of their soul-mates; when all they have to do is wait for the right time.

=END=

A/N: I would have liked to say I made you wait for a week in order to prepare some truly mind-blowing plot twist, but, unfortunately, it was all about tedious obligations I'd been successfully avoiding for months suddenly lining up screaming 'now or never!'. And what you get here, as you can see, is nothing but the final chapter. Well, your reviews have actually convinced me that the story needs some "background characters play Sai face-to-face" scenes, but I still can't think of anything that might happen besides them all betting awestruck. Nevertheless, if someone shares a good idea, I'll try really hard to do it (I have to warn you though, I write really slowly).

Also, I know Tanabata is nowhere near the shinshodan games (Kami-sama is taking his time?), and if by mentioning it I implied anything at all, it was the 'once a year' part, not the 'love story' part. Mostly it's there because I was obsessed with a song of the same name while doing an early draft of this chapter.

Once again, my thanks to everyone who read, reviewed and favourited.

Bye!