Archive of Our Own ^beta

 1.

Later on, Hikaru sometimes wondered what things might've been like for him, what his life might've been like, had his father lived.

Shindo Masao died when he was too young to even remember him, sometime when he was three or four – he only knew his father from pictures and from those god awful times his mother couldn't keep herself from the bottle, and spent the night crying about how their lives had been ruined, ruined when that stupid accident had happened. Considering the things spilling out from his mother's mouth at those times – the fights his parents had had, the woman his father had been cheating on his mother with, the job which had taken all of his father's time – he might've been better off not knowing.

But he knew one thing. Things probably had been better before his father's death, and would've been better if his father had lived. His mother… Shindo Mitsuko tried her best – Hikaru knew as much. She did all she could. But she wasn't very good at that. She was just one of those women who wanted and probably needed to be taken care of, and who didn't like to or just couldn't be in charge. Being in charge of an unruly four year old, rapidly growing up to be an unruly boy and then into an extremely unruly teenager? Too much for her to handle.

So much that she had thrown herself into the arms of the first man who had come along, in the hope that she’d found a new man for the house, a new man to take care of them. Though Hikaru didn't remember what exactly had happened, he knew it couldn't have been good – that relationship had lost his mother the house, the car, and just about everything else, and forced them to move out to the outskirts of Tokyo. And that relationship was just the first of many very bad ones he’d seen his mother go through in the fourteen years since.

What if Shindo Masao had lived? Would Hikaru have grown up in the two story house with its own garage that his mother reminisced about, rather than the shabby little apartment barely big enough for two, not to mention the surplus of boyfriends going in and out? What would that have been like? To live in a safe neighbourhood, with a steady family, maybe even with a stable income from his father's work, rather than the on again off again sort of cash his mother got from her random bouts of working part-time as a cleaning lady for this or that company…

Maybe if that had happened, he would've known his grandfather too. That two story house his mother had lost had been close to where his grandparents had lived, only a lengthy walk’s distance away from the traditional estate – estate for crying out loud, with a house, garage, store house, and yard; hell there was a backyard and a koi pond and everything! Maybe, if things had been different, Hikaru might've been a regular visitor there, and had gotten to know his grandmother, before she’d died of a heart attack, and his grandfather, before he had slipped away.

And maybe, just maybe, Hikaru himself might've grown up to be a decent human being, rather than the… whatever he had grown up to be.

But, of course, none of that happened. Instead, he’d only been vaguely aware of what his father had been like, and even less sure about where his grandparents lived, or if they lived at all. He’d only learned for sure when his grandfather's attorney had come along to tell him that, beyond all logical reason, his grandfather had left everything he had to him. He only learned of the estate with its house and garage and shed and two yards with the koi pond from the attorney's paperwork, and of his grandfather's funeral in hindsight. Before that, he hadn't even known that his grandmother had died, three years previous. And the estate wasn't all of it. There was also money. Quite a bit of money.

"Why'd he leave it all to me?" Hikaru asked, suspicious. In his eighteen years of life, nothing good had really happened to him, nothing like this anyway, and everything he had he’d had to fight and bleed for. Sure, he had a sort of job – well, it gave him a bit of money; and he had a roof over his head – which he seriously wanted to get away from, eighteen years living with his mother was already too much, thank god she wasn't home right then; but this? Inheritance was stuff that happened to other people. Normal people.

"Well, you were his only living blood relative, aside from a few distant cousins who, I believe, Shindo-san did not much care for," the attorney said. "Whatever the reason, the fact stands. The estate is yours, as is the car, everything in the estate, and whatever wealth Shindo-san left behind."

"And I bet it'll be taxed through the nose, right?" Hikaru asked, still not quite believing it.

"Actually, the sums you see are after the inheritance tax, which also takes care of the taxation of the estate," the attorney said. "What you see here is precisely what you get."

Even after that, it took Hikaru a couple of days and a visit to his grandparent's graves and the house to believe what he’d been told – and given. Even after that, it felt like a dream or something out of a very unbelievable story. What truly brought the whole ordeal home was the way his mother reacted to it.

"Your grandparents’ house! Hikaru!" she exclaimed, hugging him happily. "This will change everything – everything will be so much easier after this! And the money too! I won't have to work anymore."

"It's funny how you think you're included in this," he answered, not really even thinking about it. He loved his mother, sure, and he was in a way grateful for what she had given him – he’d lived in a rough neighbourhood and seen enough people there to know how much worse it could've been. But he’d also seen her drink away all their savings, or throw them at the newest guy she had no hope of ensnaring, or something else equally idiotic. And in the last two years it had only gotten worse. When she’d lost her keys, he’d had to pay for them; when she’d crashed the car, he’d had to put it through repairs; and when she’d lost her job, he’d had to get one. And since then, for two years now, she’d made no effort whatsoever to even try to find work, not with him filling the fridge.

At her confused look, Hikaru laughed. "Mom," he said. "I'm moving out. And I sure as hell ain't taking you with me."

Maybe, if things had been better, if she had made more effort, he probably would've. But they hadn't, she hadn't, and he wasn't a decent human being.

 2.

In the first week or so after he had moved what little he owned into the grand house his grandfather had left him, Hikaru kept his cell phone turned off. Moving into the house wasn’t exactly uncomfortable or difficult, but it was strange. The house was so big, and so old fashioned, with paper screen doors everywhere, scrolls decorating the walls and tatami matted floors, and it was pretty obvious that electricity and phone lines had been added as an afterthought, probably around the time when they’d been invented. There were mice in the house, and the koi pond was full of frogs and when the night came, cicadas chirped away like mad.

For someone who’d lived most of his life on the seventh floor, it was very nearly unbearable and he could hardly sleep at night. But the sounds of the house – how it creaked in the wind and how something, a window shutter maybe, kept banging away in the attic just when he got to sleep – were nothing compared to the absolute joy of being completely alone. No more mother hanging about, complaining about the lack of this or that food and how they needed to go to the store, and if Hikaru could lend her a bit because she was going out, breathing down his neck. And no odd boyfriends coming in and out, looking down at him like he was something filthy to be crushed beneath their shoes, something that needed to get the hell out of the way or be crushed.

That alone was so unspeakably relieving that Hikaru pulled all the stops to make his grandparents a proper house shrine. Not that he had ever been particularly religious and of course he couldn't even remember meeting them, but he was so damned grateful that he would've done it a hundred times over, and it probably still wouldn't have been enough to express his gratitude.

His second week in the house, after spending a week hanging around the place in nothing but a yukata and old flip-flops, Hikaru got to work. Despite the temptation, he had no intention of being like his mother and living from hand to mouth. He had money now and a place to live, but he’d looked into things well enough to know that upkeep for an estate took money and that the money he had, though it seemed like a huge amount now, wasn't infinite. And, all in all, there was a lot of stuff in the house which he frankly didn't need.

So, he started selling his grandparents’ things. As he did, he started to figure out just how well off the old couple had been. His grandmother's collection of vinyl records got him a pretty penny, and his grandfather had cases full of trophies, some of which were so old that they were very nearly antique. Some of their older clothing were pretty good too, traditional kimono and yukata and a whole set of hakama and montsuki which turned out were made from some really posh fabric. Then there were the board games his grandfather had had – three separate Goban, one of which was worth almost two hundred thousand yen.

"Geez, grandpa, what the hell did you do for a living?" Hikaru muttered, after counting the money. And he hadn't even gotten to the shed yet, which was full of antique pottery and what, at first glance, had looked like ancient Chinese porcelain.

In the end, some of the stuff was so expensive and the numbers on his bank account took such a leap upwards that his bankers started to wonder if he might like to invest a bit, and perhaps open a savings account and stuff like that. Hikaru didn't, not at first, though he did consider it and figured that he probably would, eventually. Once he knew how investing worked and would be sure that he wouldn't get cheated out of what he had.

He was on the third week when his previous life made a lunge at him – though not in the form of his mother, who’d gone into a drinking binge and hopefully wouldn't figure out where he’d gone until the month was over. Instead, it was his not-quite-but-almost editor, who, after not having managed to contact him on the phone, barged into the estate to inform Hikaru in no kind terms that he was past his deadline.

"Oh, come on, Tsutsui-san. I've been busy!" Hikaru answered, waving a hand at the old fashioned house. "I've been sorting this crap out and it's taking me a while. And after this, I'm not sure if I even want to keep writing that garbage anymore."

"It's not about whether you want to keep on writing or not, Shindo-kun – you've got a contract," Tsutsui snapped. "Which is good for another six months, which means six stories. Or seven, considering that the magazine went to print without the last one. And the boss, by the way, is furious with you."

Grimacing, Hikaru had to concede the point. He did have a contract – a contract which he had himself demanded, because it had been safer than just going by each individual story, and that way the income had been ensured for the months ahead. Before the inheritance, the job had been pretty much the best thing that had ever happened to him. Now though…

Though on the other hand, garbage or not, he did sort of enjoy writing the stuff. Scratch that, it had been one of the highlights of his life. Especially so since his mother had known nothing about it, not really.

"Okay, okay," Hikaru sighed. Aside from sorting out the shed for stuff to sell, he didn't really have anything better to do and it would help with the whole not living from hand to mouth thing. He’d figured he'd keep writing anyway, even if he had considered trying to write something… decent for a change. But if nothing else, writing would be easier now, with him living alone and having no need to worry about his mother coming round to read the smut he wrote over his shoulder.

"Do you think the bossman will let me off the hook if I try for two for the next issue?" Hikaru asked hopefully. It'd be tight, but then again, living alone he had more free time to write, too.

"I doubt it, but thankfully for you, I already talked it over with him. Since you missed last month, you’ll just do one extra month, on top of the six you still have left," Tsutsui answered, seeming to relax a bit now that he was sure Hikaru wasn't going to bail out. "Do you think you can do that?"

"Yeah, probably," Hikaru agreed. One month wouldn't matter in the long run. "What's the day today?" he asked then, realising he wasn't sure – and thus, had no idea how long he had until he needed to have a story out and ready for print.

"It's the fourth – you have three weeks, so relax," Tsutsui said and shook his head before looking around them. "So. This is the place you moved into, Shindo-kun," he said then. "It's nice."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it?" Hikaru asked, smiling. "Wanna see? I've been clearing out my grandparent's stuff a bit, so it's kinda empty right now – but it's still a really nice house."

He did show his editor around, though more to show off and maybe soothe the man's ruffled feathers than because of any friendship. He was a bit surprised to find that, despite all the space and fancy furniture and frankly excellent bathroom, Tsutsui was most interested in the remaining trophies in one of the fancier cabinets, which Hikaru had yet to figure out what to do with.

"Your grandfather played Go in tournaments?" Tsutsui asked.

"Yeah, apparently. There were some ten more, but I've already sold those," Hikaru shrugged. "And his Goban, too – he had three of them."

"Hm. I used to play Go, though I was never good enough to go to tournaments," the man murmured, an oddly wistful look about his face. Hikaru just shook his head, not really getting the fascination with Go, and led the man into the backyard to see the koi pond. Soon after that, Tsutsui left, with final orders to get back to writing and send him the draft as soon as it was done.

The next day, Hikaru headed out to get an internet connection for the house, before digging his laptop out and finding it a spot in the living room. The sorting out of the shed was pushed back by two weeks, as he settled down to first plan, then draft, and finally edit the newest story – a rather embarrassingly sappy piece of trash about a student and a teacher who ended up getting it on in the school gym. Ridiculous, but just the sort of stuff the readers wanted.

 "Do you think that after I'm done with the contract, I could try and become a real writer?" Hikaru asked in the email he sent to Tsutsui, with the finished story. Now that he had things going a bit easier, he could have a try at it. Maybe.

"Maybe, but probably not as Ito Genji, seeing that he is best known for homosexual erotica," Tsutsui answered.

"Yeah, probably not," Hikaru agreed out loud. A writer of cheap, sappy gay porn probably wouldn't be taken seriously trying to write anything actually… serious. Well, it wasn't that important, and writing sappy porn had its benefits. If nothing else, it could be rather amusing.

 3.

"Another Goban?" Hikaru asked with disbelief, when he finally got to clearing out the shed. He’d already carried some of the pottery and china down to the lawn, to be sorted out and packed and eventually carried off, and was now getting to the many trunks stacked in the back of the shed attic. Where, in one of the trunks, he found the fourth Goban.

"Man, grandpa, how many of these things does one person need?" He muttered, while hefting the Goban out of the trunk. It was bigger than even the one that had gotten him the most money, and heavier. He could instantly see why it was in the shed and why his grandfather hadn't been playing with the thing, though – the surface was stained with smears of reddish brown.

"Maybe it'll come off," Hikaru muttered, while pulling out the rag he had taken to carrying in the shed and using it to clean off the worst of the dirt. He rather doubted it, since go maniacs like Heiachi probably would've already tried cleaning the thing before storing it away. And sure enough, the stains stayed, probably having long since seeped into the wood itself. "Probably won't get much out of this thing, what with it being dirty. Oh well. There's still the china…"

"Dirty?" a faint voice asked. "Can you see the stains?"

Frowning Hikaru paused in the act of moving away. "Huh?" he asked and then glanced back towards the ladder leaning downwards. "Is there someone here?" he asked, and quickly stood up. He’d locked the gate, he was sure of that. If someone was in the yard, they would've had to break through. Damn it, he knew he ought to have done something to reinforce the gate – even if it was a quieter neighbourhood than he was used to, people could still try to break in, since there was so much expensive stuff lying about.

"Can you hear me? Can you hear my voice?" the faint voice asked.

"Yes, damn it, where are you? This is my house and if you think you can just break in, you'll have another thing coming," Hikaru snapped, and was just about to climb down the ladder when the voice spoke again, and this time he realised it was coming from behind him, from the back of the shed – from the Goban.

"You can hear me. You can hear me. All powerful gods, I thank you for your kindness," the voice whispered, sounding almost as if the speaker was crying. "I will now return, return to the world…"

As Hikaru whirled around to face the speaker, the spectre that rose from the Goban struck him speechless. He got the chance to see the outfit, the hair, the hat, before the floor seemed to jerk beneath his feet – and before he blacked out, he was damned grateful he fell forward rather than back towards the ladder – falling down that way, he probably would've broken something.

Later, after waking up with one hell of a headache, the likes of which he hadn't had since he and Mitani had gotten their fake ids and spent a whole week going from bar to bar, he soon found that he was no longer quite as alone in the house as he had gotten used to. Granted, his companion was invisible, couldn't touch anything, and might as well not have been there at all, but still, he had company.

"Fujiwara no Sai?" Hikaru repeated, after crawling his way to the kitchen to rummage through the cupboards in search of painkillers. "Like in ye old times, huh? What does that make you, a thousand years old or something?"

"Well," Sai murmured a bit embarrassedly behind his unfolded fan. "I suppose it depends on what the year is now."

It turned out that a thousand years was about right, which explained the ancient getup and the rest. Hikaru wasn't sure if he was supposed to laugh or cry about the whole thing – just when he’d gotten used to his absolutely lovely new life, it was gate crashed by a ghost that had been haunting a Goban of all things.

Though on the other hand it could've been worse. It might've been an ugly ghost, and Sai was frankly speaking goddamn gorgeous. Staring at him after getting the explanation as to why the man was haunting a Goban – he was a Go-teacher, of all things – Hikaru snorted softly. "You’re going to be starring in a lot of stories, you know," he murmured, more to himself than to the baffled spectre, who only blinked at him innocently.

Thankfully, despite the fact that the whole thing was really goddamned strange, Sai wasn't a bad house guest. He was quiet, polite to a fault and, when Hikaru figured it out, really fun to rile up. It had been a long time since Hikaru had the chance to laugh honestly and without much malice at something. But with Sai around and constantly struck dumb by modern technology and development, he found himself doing it a lot.

"No, it's not a magic carriage. It's a car, a machine," he tried to explain through tears of laughter, when he had to go to the store, and found Sai rather reluctant to get into his grandfather's old Toyota. "And no, it doesn't eat people."

Sai certainly wasn't as bad as his mother either. Well, not after the first time the ghost had decided to read over his shoulder as Hikaru wrote. The poor thing had only gotten to the part where the characters were starting to get rid of their clothing before he had had to escape the room, blushing to the roots of his hair and very nearly crying with embarrassment behind his ancient fan.

"I-I understand the enchantment in writing stories, but that sort of stories… why?" Sai later asked, when the odd bond between the two of them had forced him to return. "A-and two men! They were clearly two men!"

"Yeah, they were," Hikaru laughed, more amused by the poor ghost’s mortification than feeling all that mortified himself. This certainly beat the one time his mother almost read one of his pieces. "It sort of happened by accident, back when I was in school. This teacher I really hated had me writing a short story, because I was failing the class. I was so pissed that I decided to write porn, just to see his face when he read it," he said, and shrugged. "Turned out his brother was the chief editor of this erotica magazine. Granted, that piece was all hetero, but I'm better with the gay stuff, so that's what I write. I've got more experience with that."

"Porn? Gay? What?" Sai asked, looking so red behind his fan that Hikaru half expected him to turn into hot steam.

"Porn is erotica. You know, stories and pictures and whatever that is mostly about people doing it," Hikaru said and at the ghost's blank look, he sighed. "Having sex. Making love. Things people do to make babies. Whatever," he clarified and waved his hand at Sai, whose fan was shaking a bit from how tightly he was grasping it in front of him, holding it like a shield between them. Hikaru snorted a bit at him. "And gay means homosexual. You know, a guy who likes guys, and who likes to have sex with guys."

"A-and you –" Sai started, but couldn't get the question through.

Hikaru shrugged, wondering if they had stuff like that in the Heian era. Probably, since they had it pretty much in every era as far as he knew, but he wouldn't be too surprised if Sai had never come in contact with it. He just seemed like a guy who’d lived a really sheltered life. "Like I said, it's what I'm more experienced at," Hikaru said and stood up. "It's a bit embarrassing, but if some people like reading that stuff and are willing to pay for it. It's not exactly a million yen business, but… it kept me eating for months, before I got this place."

"I… I see," Sai muttered, still blushed fiercely red. Blinking, he turned his eyes to the floor, fidgeting a bit.

"It's not going to bite you," Hikaru laughed. "Just don't read over my shoulder and you'll be fine."

Sai didn't, but since then every time Hikaru went about writing something, he could feel the ghost’s thoughtful, considering eyes at the back of his neck, even if the ghost himself was at the other end of the room. Hikaru shrugged it off for the most part – it wasn't his fault if Sai was insanely prudish and got embarrassed easily, and he wasn't about to change his wicked ways – though he couldn't help but wonder what the man really thought about it. He hadn't said much one way or the other.

Well, since he wasn't about to make noise about it, neither was Hikaru.

 4.

It was probably only a matter of time before Go became an issue. Sai had stayed haunting a Goban for a reason after all, and that reason was Go, to play Go – and to achieve his mythical Hand of God, or whatever. Hikaru, however, had no interest in the game, not really, and had been happy to not think about it further after his collapse – though he’d taken the time to carry Sai's Goban into the house, where it now stood in a corner of the living room.

Sai didn't whine about it much, not at first. But he did sigh longingly and gaze soulfully at the bloodstained Goban and when, one day, they passed by a Go-Salon it took all of Hikaru's strength to drag himself away after Sai had decided to try and drag him inside. Though Hikaru was sort of happy that the ghost had loosened up after the whole porn thing, and didn't seem disgusted by him or anything, he wasn't all that thankful that it had to be Go that made the ghost grow so familiar with him.

"Hikaru, I want to play Go!" Sai would whine, following him around, nudging at him and giving him the prettiest puppy dog eyes in the history of puppy dog eyes. At first Hikaru tried his best to ignore him, but the whining got a bit more grating as time went by, until finally Hikaru was forced to relent, just for the sake of his own mental health.

"Alright, fine, I'll figure something out, just give me a damn break!" he snapped, and as he searched the internet for the easiest solution, Sai hugged him happily, blabbering about how grateful he was and how much he loved Hikaru and could they play already?

That was how Hikaru – and Sai, naturally – discovered NetGo. It was the greatest, and maybe the worst, thing that could've happened. Because on one hand, it got Sai off Hikaru's back for a change and gave them a chance to sate Sai's borderline unnatural need to play Go without having to go outside. But on the other hand, Hikaru had to play it too, sort of, since Sai couldn't exactly place the stones himself and so Hikaru was forced to sit in front of the laptop, clicking Sai's movements.

And he couldn't even write while doing it, because it was highly distracting to have Sai there, beside him, and Hikaru was always startled out of an important thought when Sai called out his hands. And of course, if he tried to write, Sai got so flustered that he would often start flailing about in an attempt to look at the screen and the small Goban there without looking at the text file window. In the end they decided on a schedule – six hours a day were Hikaru's writing time, and the rest of the free time Sai could play Go. Which Sai of course found entirely unfair, seeing that he got less time that way, but Hikaru was the one with a physical body, so he got to make the rules.

"I don't see the point in this anyway," Hikaru grumbled. To him, Go looked like nothing but a nonsensical mess of dots. And though the program announced, over and over, that Sai had won, Hikaru couldn't really see it. There had to be something interesting about the game – NetGo had literally hundreds of players – but what that something was, Hikaru had no idea. "How does this game even work?"

"Would you like me to teach you?" Sai asked hopefully, excitedly, nearly bouncing with giddiness at the idea.

"Uh…" Hikaru glanced at him, hesitating and wondering if it'd be such a good idea. "Well. Okay. But if I don't get it after a while, we'll forget it. I have better things to do."

Sadly for him, he did get it. The basic idea behind Go was pretty simple, and Hikaru got the concept of stone capturing and whatnot within the first few hours. The more complicated bits were a bit harder, but Sai was a very eager teacher now that he had a student – and he already had a good tool.

"This opponent is lower level," Sai said, once they had turned to the laptop again and gotten instantly challenged by one of the many people who seemed to have nothing better to do than challenge other people. "I will play Shidou Go, and explain the moves to you."

Which he did. It took Hikaru a moment to catch on, and at first the point of some of the moves escaped him but it soon dawned on him that Sai had been the emperor's teacher obviously for a good reason. It was a bit embarrassing to realise that Sai had figured out something about the modern times that Hikaru hadn't even known – the komi rule, the use of clocks, and the byo-yomi, all of which hadn't existed in Sai's or Shusaku's time, but which Sai had learned about from NetGo after the first few games, and which Hikaru had known nothing of.

"Well, it wasn’t that difficult. They’re all clearly displayed there, and one can see it in the way people play," Sai explained, motioning at the screen.

"You're pretty good at this, aren't you?" Hikaru murmured. "How many people have you taught how to play Go?"

"Oh, I've lost count. I taught all the nobles in the palace when I was alive and with Torajiro I taught many more," Sai murmured with a reminiscing look about his face and then frowned. "I think some of the noble women might've liked those stories you write," he added, sounding mortified anew.

Hikaru grinned, closing the NetGo window so that he could give a final glance at the latest story – he was supposed to be sending it to Tsutsui that night. "That would've been a sight, a bunch of prudes like you embarrassing themselves to death over my smut," he muttered, eying the man amusedly. The Heian era probably didn't have that big of a market for porn, written or otherwise, though. But who knew. "What was it like?" he asked. "Life back then, I mean. It couldn't have been anything like now?"

"No, not at all," Sai agreed, and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Some things are… similar, and I think deep inside the people are mostly the same. But it was a very different era from this one, with a different a culture and different values. And of course, different technology."

As Sai spoke, Hikaru found himself fascinated in spite of himself. He had never much cared for historical stories, neither about reading nor writing them, but Sai wasn't a bad story teller once he got into it. It was a bit sad to listen to him though – Sai obviously missed his life, if not for the sake of life itself, then for the world. The modern world confused him, most of the time, and even in Shusaku's era he hadn't been at home – so he missed the simplicity of the past and its ways.

While listening, Hikaru quietly sent the story he’d written to Tsutsui and then contemplated the empty computer screen. Sai's life sounded so much… nicer than his. Granted, Hikaru had running water, electricity and could buy all his food clean and safe from a store, but Sai was… well, there was no denying the fact that Sai was a much more decent person. Hikaru was, deep inside, a bit of a pervert, and he was selfish, and a bit mean, and he didn't like people, nor did he want to try to be liked by them. Sai was the only person who seemed to actually enjoy his company and he enjoyed Sai's. Except for that fact, it made him feel worthless in comparison. Inheritance aside, what had he actually done that was worthwhile? Not a damn thing. He was a bum living off his inheritance and he wrote porn, and he didn't even do that well enough to earn more than enough to buy groceries.

"Hikaru?" Sai asked, leaning closer and sounding worried.

"Hm? Oh, nothing, I'm just thinking," Hikaru said and leaned back from the computer. Smut was fun, but… well, it was smut. And he wasn't going to get anywhere with it. "Hey," he said, as a thought started forming in his head. "What if I wrote your story?"

"What?" Sai asked, blinking and then narrowing his eyes. "I was never with a man," he said, indignant.

Hikaru snorted at that, grinning at him. "Thanks for the mental image, but not what I meant," he said, grinning even wider when Sai flushed bright red. "I mean your story, your life's story. I've always wanted to write stuff other than just porn. This could be a good chance to try."

"And… it wouldn't have any…?" Sai made a little flicking motion towards the laptop with his fan.

"I swear to god, I won't write you in bed with another man," Hikaru laughed.

"Well… alright then," Sai said, straightening up a bit. "Yes, I would be honoured if you would write my story. Only, I do not know if it is a very good story to write. I was only a Go instructor."

"Add in some court intrigue and maybe some personal relationships of some of the nobles, and I think we can manage a good story out of it," Hikaru answered, and opened a clean text file.

 5.

The writing of Sai's story took Hikaru over a year, mostly because for several months he still had to write his smut for the magazine. There was also the fact that it took some sorting out to get the story into order – Sai's memory was excellent, but it came back in pieces which Hikaru had to fit together. Also, for all his brilliance, Sai hadn't been that good with the more intricate parts of court life, and what little snippets of information he had – conversations he’d heard, arguments he’d witnessed, trials he’d seen – he hadn't at the time considered all that thoroughly.

In the end, Hikaru had to make a lot of stuff up, to piece the tidbits of drama into a story line. Somehow, aside from being about Fujiwara no Sai and his journey from cradle to grave, the story also became about a plot to overthrow the emperor, and Sai's fight against a collaborator in that plot – the other Go-Instructor whose fault Sai's suicide had, eventually, been. In the end, Hikaru had been writing smut a bit too long and couldn't resist putting in a romance plot between one of the court noble women and the emperor, though Sai made him delete the juicy bits almost immediately after he’d written them.

"Well, it is not entirely untruthful," Sai murmured, afterwards. "Everyone knew that Misako-dono was completely in love with the emperor. The plot to overthrow the emperor, however, is wholly false."

"Yes, but it makes everything so much more interesting," Hikaru grinned.

Not that writing the story was all they did. Hikaru's Go-tutelage continued, Sai having taken the bit between his teeth and was now unwilling to relent. Despite how busy Hikaru might've been writing Sai's short stories about court life all day, Sai somehow always managed to lever him away from it all, and to Go. Either a break in writing had them pulling the NetGo site open, or Hikaru's frustration with some plot point not coming together like it ought to had them abandoning the computer completely and somehow, inevitably, move to an actual Goban – the one which Sai had been haunting. It didn't really seem to matter what excuse there was, Sai seemed to find one every day, several times a day, and so Hikaru found himself being instructed in Go more and more.

 "It's creepy as hell playing on this one," Hikaru complained a bit, while placing the stones onto the blood stained board. He almost wanted to buy a new one. Almost. "Really makes me regret selling all of grandpa's Goban."

"It is a good Goban, and Torajiro would've wanted it to be used," Sai answered quietly, eyeing the surface of the Goban with mixed affection and grief. In the end, Hikaru didn't bother buying a new Goban – according to Sai, he wasn't likely to find a better one than the one they had, bloodstains or no. It was a first class Goban made of the best of kaya and had been extremely expensive even in the days of its making. Now, almost a hundred and fifty years later, its worth was immeasurable. Mostly though, Hikaru was just too lazy to get another one.

The project of the story eventually turned into a full blown novel, which Sai eventually wanted to be illustrated. "The games mentioned mean nothing if the reader cannot see their progress," he complained, which started a whole new set of difficulties. Though by that time Hikaru was done with the magazine stories and had all the time in the world to work on the story, it didn't make him magically into an illustrator.

It was what, eventually, made him send an email to Tsutsui, to ask for help. He needed an editor, and he needed an illustrator – and maybe, one day, he needed a way to get the thing published. Tsutsui turned out to be a better person than Hikaru had assumed, because he took up the editing of the book himself. "Despite what you think, I don't only edit porn," the man said with a sniff, after coming to get a paper copy of the first draft. "Also, I know a young woman, about your age, who probably could do your illustrations for you. Fujisaki Akari – this is her email. Just send her a message, and see if she's interested." 

She was, though she naturally wouldn't do anything for free. After the fee had been settled upon, Hikaru went about explaining the scenes he wanted drawn with Sai leaning over his shoulder. Sai would have nothing but perfect accuracy a far as the games went, though, and in the end Hikaru was forced to buy a camera so that he could take a picture of the games he recreated on Shusaku's Goban, so that Fujisaki could immortalise them precisely as they had been played, a thousand years ago.

Then the gruelling task of editing began – and gruelling was really the only word for it. Editing a short story was nothing in comparison to editing a full book, and, unlike Hikaru had expected, it didn't take weeks. It took months, with Tsutsui going through every sentence with a magnifying glass and every plot point and subplot with a microscope. And in the meanwhile, Sai still wanted to play, to play and to play, so all in all it turned out to be more work than Hikaru had first suspected – editing, playing Go, and barely sleeping.

"Okay, that’s it, I am taking a break!" Hikaru finally decided, after a four hour Skype session with Tsutsui, arguing over certain chapters and paragraphs. "No more work. I am going out, I am getting laid and nobody is going to talk to me about books or Go!"

"Laid?" Sai asked faintly. "You're going to get… laid? What does that mean?"

"It means that I am going out and, if I'm lucky, I am going to find someone who's horny, and then I am going to have sex. It's been way, way, way too long," Hikaru said, while searching the internet for the nearest gay clubs and whatnot. After he picked one, he bounced up and went to see about getting something to wear, with a horrified Sai trailing after him wordlessly.

Sai remained wordless and more or less horrified throughout the evening, and by the time night came and Hikaru found just what he’d been looking for, horrified stopped being a word strong enough for what Sai was feeling. Hikaru had thankfully gotten used to Sai by then, and to ignoring him whenever he had to, and he did just that for the night – and part of the very pleasant morning. He did feel a bit guilty for putting the poor man though the whole ordeal, but hell. Sai had gate-crashed his life, and Hikaru wasn't about to deny himself anything just to save Sai's fragile sensibilities.

"D-did you even learn his name?!" Sai asked in horror afterwards, when Hikaru was making his way back home, enjoying the pleasant ache and the not so pleasant sting of the few bruises he had gotten somewhere along the night.

'Nope,' Hikaru answered happily, stretching and grinning at an outraged looking older woman who passed him by – apparently she didn't approve of the bruises on his neck. Or maybe it was the smell. He rather stank of sex. 'Getting to know the guy was never the point. I just wanted to get laid. And you know what; I think I might want to get laid again soon. I've almost forgotten how good –'

"Please, don't," Sai whispered, again bright red.

'Don't what, get laid again or talk about it?' Hikaru asked and laughed out loud. 'Geez, Sai. Don't tell me people didn't get laid in your time.'

"Well… No, they didn't. Certainly not like this!" the ghost objected, shaking his head. "Granted, many of my friends did enjoy their… relationships quite a bit, but there was always at least some measure of courtship – and no one ever… without knowing their names?" he asked, sounding almost terrified. "A-and do you always take all your clothes off?"

'You were watching!' Hikaru accused him, laughing again. 'You pervert. Did you enjoy the show?'

"How could I not see, when you were right there?!" Sai cried back at him, once more almost sobbing with embarrassment behind the shield of his open fan.

Hikaru snickered to himself and cheerfully waved at another outraged passer-by – this one probably thought he was nuts. That was okay though. 'What do you mean, though, about if I always take all my clothes off?' he asked then, curious. Sai had made it sound like the worst thing about the whole ordeal. 'Didn't you?'

"No!" Sai said almost accusingly. "The human body is… it is…" he trailed away, unable to say it.

'Beautiful. Magnificent. Full of sweet spots. It's a toy to be played with and a temple to be worshiped. It's an instrument of godly music and a canvas of great art and a tool for humanity's greatest masterworks,' Hikaru answered, happily reciting some of the sappier things he had once upon a time written in short stories. He couldn't help it – he liked people, he liked sex and he liked bodies. 'There is nothing wrong with the human body, Sai. Touching it half the pleasure – not to mention the other fun stuff you can do to it,' he added, rubbing at his thoroughly marked neck, grinning as the ghost stared at him in morbid fascination. 'I'm going to start thinking that you're a virgin if you keep this up,' Hikaru snorted.

"I am not," Sai muttered embarrassedly, and Hikaru laughed again.

 6.

Eventually, the book was finished – Hikaru named it Beneath Wisteria at Sai's request, despite the fact that Tsutsui didn't like the name at all. Fujisaki Akari's artwork suited the book pretty well. Though her style was a bit too manga-like to fit with some of the more serious tones of Beneath Wisteria, the pictures did show the scenes rather well and she drew some magnificent backgrounds.

It had been nearly a year and a half since Hikaru and Sai had met and gotten bounded together, when Beneath Wisteria was published. It was mostly Tsutsui's work that got the thing into print – the man knew more about getting books published than Hikaru ever had, about which Hikaru was immensely glad. All in all, it had three hundred and forty one pages, fourteen chapters, and a dedication which simply read, To Sai – plus, also at Sai's request, eight extra pages with hand drawn kifu of the games described in the text and drawn by Fujisaki.

Hikaru wasn't sure what he expected of the publication. For it to flop, mostly, and not get a single copy bought. Or, when he was feeling really stupid, he expected it to be a huge success and that he'd see it in every bookstore for the rest of his life. What happened was neither – the book didn't fail, but one couldn't call it a huge success either. What it turned into was a cult hit. It was marketed to people who liked historical stories and who liked the Tale of Genji – which Sai found particularly pleasing. It was also marketed to Go fans, and from Tsutsui Hikaru heard there was actually an article about it in the Go magazine, Go Weekly, highly recommending the book for its loyal and correct description of Go, and for its time-appropriate games.

And then the emails started coming. First one, a tentative one, asking him if the Go instructor who helped him create the games for the book might be the same person who played NetGo under the name of Sai. Then another one, not so tentatively demanding that Hikaru arrange a game between them and Sai. A third wanted to know Sai's real name and whether the book had been inspired by him. And then there were suddenly forty one messages in Hikaru's email and he was seriously regretting letting the publishing company add his email address to their website.

"And here I thought NetGo players were just nuts," he muttered, after screening through the many, many messages. Sure, Sai got swamped by play requests every time they ventured into NetGo, but he’d thought it was just the way NetGo was, that everyone got requests like that. But maybe it wasn't – maybe Sai was actually pretty damn popular. And maybe he shouldn't have turned the chatting option off early on, when he hadn't wanted to bother talking with Sai's many opponents. If he hadn't, he might've figured this out earlier.

"Is this a bad thing?" Sai asked worriedly, reading the emails over Hikaru's shoulder.

"It's annoying, is what it is," Hikaru answered. "But hell if I really care. I can just change my email if I need to," he added and then snorted. "Look at this guy, he's claiming to be a pro player," he said, pointing at the latest one. "Hm. Ogata Seiji. Actually, don't I know that name…?"

"I think it was mentioned in Go Weekly," Sai answered, glancing back and towards the table holding the magazine Hikaru had bought just to see the article about Beneath Wisteria. Frowning, Hikaru leaned back to grab the paper and leafed through it.

"Ah, here. Ogata Seiji wins the Kisei title in close battle," Hikaru read aloud, frowning and then looking at the pictures attached. There was only one actual picture, of two men shaking hands – one of them an older fat man with a receding hairline, the other a younger man with short light coloured hair and eyeglasses. "Ogata's the younger one. Hm. Not bad," Hikaru mused, holding the paper up for Sai to see.

"Is everything about sex to you?" Sai asked exasperatedly, even while he was leaning in to look at the kifu on the other page.

"Not everything. Just… most things," Hikaru grinned and then turned to the paper again. Kisei, huh. I think my grandpa was a Kisei. Amateur Kisei, mind you, I think this Kisei's something else…"

"He is good. He is very good," Sai murmured, staring at the kifu. "I would very much like to play this man."

"I doubt the guy who sent me that email is the same as this guy – it's probably just some wacko who though that pretending to be a celebrity might get him a chance," Hikaru shrugged.

"But it might be?" the ghost asked hopefully, looking at him.

"Well. It might be, but I doubt it," Hikaru said, shrugging his shoulders and dropping the paper. "But I can arrange the match, if you want to have a try. Just don't get your hopes up too much."

While Sai wailed with happiness and wrapped himself around Hikaru's neck like some sort of overgrown octopus, Hikaru turned back to the computer. The message was easy enough to write and send, and while Sai bubbled with excitement, saying over and over how he couldn't wait, that Ogata-san seemed strong and he just couldn't wait, Hikaru rolled his eyes fondly and started idly surfing the net.

He didn't expect the answer to come as soon as it did – but apparently Ogata, if it was him, was having a free day or something. They decided upon a day and hour and room on the NetGo server – Ogata at first wanted to meet Sai face to face, but of course that wasn't happening – and so the match was scheduled. Then, with Sai moaning about how he couldn't just play right then, Hikaru decided that, seeing as it was Friday and all, he was going out, which pretty much shut Sai up right there and then.

"Again?" Sai asked plaintively. "You went just last weekend! And the weekend before that!"

"And I will probably go next weekend too," Hikaru answered calmly, while heading towards the bathroom. "I'm nineteen years old; I'm practically bound by law to fool around as much as I can."

"What kind of law is that?" Sai asked in dismay, even while trailing after him.

"The law of late teenage hormones," Hikaru grinned, and went about having a shower. Not that he actually needed to go out so often, or really even wanted to. But lately… Sai had gotten a bit freer with his glomps and hugs and borderline tackles. It probably had something to do with the book and all the NetGo they played. But the fact remained – and Sai was still, even after all the time Hikaru had spent in bars and in the beds of strange men, the most gorgeous human being Hikaru had ever seen. With each day it was getting harder and harder to just ignore it.

It was just easier to sleep around than to lust after a ghost.

 7.

The game against Ogata Seiji came and went and turned out to be the real deal – even Hikaru, much to his own surprise, could see that. He wasn't sure when he’d gotten good enough at Go to actually be able to recognise someone's playing style after having seen some kifu but apparently he did. Ogata Seiji, the one on the net, was the real deal and a very good Go player.

Sai beat him rather soundly, though.

Which turned out to be a bit of a mistake. After that, the requests for games doubled, and of course Ogata himself kept sending messages every day, asking Hikaru to arrange another game, that he wanted a rematch. Hikaru also saw other pro's in the list of emails – Waya Yoshitaka, Toya Akira, Ochi Kosuke, and so forth. In the end, Hikaru ended up deleting his email account just to get rid of the problem, and with Sai whining only a little, they returned to the way things had been before, with Sai playing whoever challenged him on NetGo, and Hikaru lazing about.

Except this time, Hikaru had nothing to do. Well, that wasn't quite right. The publishing house that had published Beneath Wisteria was asking for a sequel. Which was a bit silly, since the main character of Beneath Wisteria had died at the end of the book. There were also some people – Tsutsui among them – who were asking if he was planning any other books which would have Go in them. Hikaru had a small, but rather fanatic and dedicated following just because of the Go, and it was enough to make him almost regret ever writing the thing.

"I don't know about writing another book. What would I write about?" he asked, snorting. Beneath Wisteria was more Sai's book than his anyway – he’d only knitted the story together. His own stuff… well. He could still keep writing as Ito Genji, who also had a bit of a following, and he probably would too. His former boss was already asking if he'd consider another contract with the magazine. But…

"You did invent a lot of things that went into Beneath Wisteria," Sai pointed out. "Most of the plot was your invention. Maybe try writing something similar?"

"Nah. The historical stuff was all yours, and it's not really my thing. I don't really care for it enough to keep on writing it myself," Hikaru mused, leaning back until he was lying on the floor, his arms crossed behind his neck. "I suppose the Go parts weren't that bad. I could write another book about Go, but it would have to take place in this time. Except I don't know much about Go in this time either," he muttered, glancing at the Go Weekly paper. "Not the professional side of it anyway."

"You could learn," Sai suggested, glancing at the laptop longingly. "So many pro players wanted to challenge me. Maybe, in exchange… you could ask them to help you research the professional Go world."

Hikaru considered that for a moment and then pursed his lips. Well. It was a thought. And it would probably be a good distraction from his ever growing crush on Sai, which was never going to go anywhere and would probably only make him miserable before long. Not to mention embarrassing.

"Yeah," he said, and sat up. "That's not a bad idea. I think I'm going to have a look at the place at least. Hm, I wonder if the Go Association has a web page…"

The Association did have a website and a somewhat open policy on visitors, so long as they remained within bounds. There was a Go shop and help desk and some sort of museum and hall of fame and some other stuff that people could visit, and of course people could schedule study sessions with the pro players and, if they were lucky, actually meet the pros. It seemed all a bit happy go lucky to Hikaru, but he had to admit that in the months with Sai, with Go on the net and off of it and of course with Beneath Wisteria, he’d gotten a bit more curious about Go.

The next day, he took Sai out and braved Tokyo's public transportation system. And with the ghost marvelling at the things passing by and happening around them, they made their way to the Go Association. The building was a little less impressive than he’d expected – but then, he wasn't sure what he had been expecting – but it did have open doors and people going in and out, so…

"Oh, oh, do all these people play Go?" Sai asked, going this way and that in excitement as Hikaru made his way inside.

'Probably, though I don't know if they're all pros,' Hikaru answered, looking around curiously. He ignored the help desk and instead followed the signs pointing him to the hall of fame, sort of curious to see if there'd be anything about Shusaku there – or about Go in the Heian period. With all the things Sai had told him… well, he would've had to be dead not to get curious.

The Hall of fame and museum were both in the basement, and there was stuff about Shusaku there, behind a glass case. There were also three other people in the glass case of fame – Honinbo Sansa, Honinbo Dosaku and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

'I don't suppose you knew the other guys?' Hikaru asked curiously, while leaning in to read what was said about the supposed founding fathers of the Go Association.

"I know of them, but I never met them. They were all before Shusaku's time," Sai admitted, also looking around curiously. They spent a while in the basement, reading through the notes and marvelling at a ridiculously futuristic looking Goban, which was made from solid glass and was crystal clear.

"Hello?" a male voice eventually distracted them, while they were examining one very elaborately decorated ancient looking Goban, which Sai said looked rather similar to some of the Goban he had played on in the emperor's palace during his life. A man stepped into the museum, looking at Hikaru with part curiosity, part bafflement. "Can I help you with something?"

Hikaru blinked and straightened up. "I thought it was okay to look?" he asked, wondering if he should've paid a fee and if he was trespassing.

"Of course it is. But, uh," the man frowned a bit, his eyes flicking up to Hikaru's partially bleached hair, down to his clothing. After a moment he composed himself. "Are you interested in Go?"

"Yeah, sure, I'm sort of interested. I wanted to see what the Association was like," Hikaru shrugged. "I checked it out from the net, and it said that it was okay to come and visit – and see the museum and visit the shop, and stuff."

"Ah, well then," the man said, relaxing a bit and even smiling. "Yes, of course. Would you like to hear about the items here?"

"Sure," Hikaru said, and then endured a good twenty minutes of less than interesting stuff about the history of the association and Go in Japan and so forth. Sai seemed enthralled by it, though, so Hikaru didn't stop the man and pretended to be interested – though the most interesting thing so far had been about the glass Goban and the fact that from the side, it looked almost invisible.

He was rather relieved once they got out of the museum and the man led him towards the shop, asking if he was interested in maybe buying a Goban? They had some pretty good ones in the store, as well as tutorial books and an excellent selection of kifu, both from past masters and the current ones.

"Nah, I've got a good kaya board, I don't need another one," Hikaru answered, while Sai flailed about the shelves of kifu books. "But I might buy some books – hey," he added, as he noticed something. "I can't believe it!" he laughed, pulling out one of the half dozen copies of Beneath Wisteria that were displayed next to the kifu. "You have this here, too!"

He probably said it a bit too loudly, or with too much mirth, because the couple other customers all turned to frown at him, as did the woman behind the counter – and a man who had been reading a magazine nearby lowered his paper. "You sound like you don't like it," one of the customers, a woman with shoulder length hair, said, frowning with disapproval. "Have you even read it?"

Hikaru snorted, shaking his head. This was too much – he needed to either get out of here or into a secluded corner where he could safely burst into laughter. "I think I'll get some kifu," he said, smothering a snicker while Sai looked at him worriedly.

It seemed that the woman had gotten offended, though, because she stepped in front of him, hands at her hips and a mulish expression on her face. "You know what, I think you should buy Beneath Wisteria and actually read it, and then see if there is anything about it to laugh about," she said, scowling at him. "But then I bet you wouldn't even get it."

Hikaru blinked with surprise and then grinned while somewhere nearby, Sai sighed and hid his face behind his fan. "I wouldn't?" Hikaru asked, tilting his head, still grinning

"A stupid looking brat like you, of course not," she said, harrumphing and folding her arms.

"Oh, really?" Hikaru chuckled.

"N-Nase," the other woman said, taking the first one's arm. "You're making a scene. Maybe we should just go –"

"What is going on here?" a voice behind them demanded, and glancing behind him Hikaru saw that his guide had taken a hike and another one was striding towards them. Yes, the man was actually striding and not just that, but he was striding fiercely, with a frown about his rather handsome face and his hair almost whipping by his ears.

'Oh, that's pretty,' Hikaru thought with honest admiration, and nearby Sai groaned softly. The fierce young man – probably around Hikaru's age – wasn't quite as pretty as Sai, but he was nearly there. Very near. Admittedly, he had a bit of a girly thing going on – a lavender suit, really? – but Hikaru could forgive him just for his face.

"Nothing, Toya-san. This… man was just leaving," the woman in front of Hikaru said, glaring at him.

"No, I was just going to buy some kifu, and then you decided to get in my face," he answered, grinning. "All because of a book."

"Well, you haven't even read the book, and wouldn't understand it even if you had," the woman, Nase, said with a sniff. "There's no accounting for taste. Or intelligence."

"You know, this is kind of cute actually, this thing you're doing," Hikaru said, chuckling. "Granted I have no idea what it is actually, but still. Cute."

"Um," the pretty man in the lavender suit murmured, frowning. "Book?"

"He laughed at Beneath Wisteria," Nase said with her chin lifted, making it sound like a crime.

Hikaru snickered, unable to help himself, and had to lift a hand to cover his lips to hide his ever widening grin. Oh, god, he didn't even know he had fans, and to come face to face with one – and like this? "Oh, gods, I'm going to be giggling about this for years," he chuckled, very nearly making Nase growl at him.

The pretty man in the lavender suit cleared his throat, frowning now. "I understand that people have different preferences, and not all can be fond of the same things, but it is still rather rude to laugh in the face of someone's likes," he said, making Hikaru turn to him, not believing what he was witnessing. These people were really actually honestly defending his book against him? They were even gathering a bit of a crowd, with the people passing by stopping to see what was going on.

The man frowned, not seeming to appreciate the way Hikaru's shoulder shuddered with barely suppressed mirth. "Perhaps you should leave, sir," the man said.

"No, no, no, I haven't had this much fun in years," Hikaru snickered. "Please, go on. I beg you."

The man's frown turned to an outright scowl at that and with a bit of disappointment Hikaru realised he might've gone too far with that one. "I don't know what you think you gain from this, sir, or what the joke really is, but you really ought to leave – and preferably take whatever you have against the book with you."

"Oh for crying out loud, I have nothing against the book – I wrote the damn thing," Hikaru snorted.

"What?" the man asked, blinking.

"What?" Nase echoed, her frown fading a bit.

Hikaru grinned at them while Sai sighed, looking like he would've liked to slap himself on the forehead if it wasn't beneath his Heian mannerisms. "Shindo Hikaru, at your service. Can I buy my kifu now?"

8.

'And I was so looking forward to where this was going…' Hikaru sighed mentally, after having been dragged away from the scene of his crime by the pretty man in lavender – except it hadn't been to ravish him, it turned out, but to get him out of the crowd's hearing range just so the man could demand that Hikaru set him up with Sai. 'This sucks. Here I am in the flesh, and the pretty lavender one only cares about you. All my hopes, dashed.'

Sai just shook his head in answer, looking at the professional Go player curiously. Hikaru did the same with a mournful mental sigh – though he had to admit, there was something about the man that made him very much not Hikaru's type, pretty face or no. Possibly the way the man had just grabbed him and dragged him away – if there was something Hikaru didn't like, it was that.

"So, you're who, then?" Hikaru asked. "And why should I set you on a little NetGo play date with Sai? Hm?"

"You don't kn…?" The man started to ask and stopped, blinking at him. Looking like he wasn't sure if he ought to be insulted or embarrassed, he stepped back a bit. "Uh. I am Toya Akira – I am a sixth-dan professional player. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Toya Akira, huh? Did you by any chance send me an email at some point?" Hikaru asked, at which the man frowned and nodded. "Yeah, you people and the rest like you are the reason I had to delete my email and get another one. Do you know how annoying it is, to get fifty plus emails, all about someone else? Despite what people might think, I ain't Sai's Go pimp. I did it that once because Sai wanted to see if it was the real Ogata Seiji but –"

"Noo, Hikaru doon't! I want to play him! I want to play more pro players!" Sai cried, lunging at him and very nearly sending Hikaru into the wall next to them. "Don't tell him no, tell him yes – let me play him, please! I want to play him, I want to play strong players, please, please, please –"

Hikaru cleared his throat, doing his best to stand still while Sai nudged and pushed at him. "But anyway. If you want to play him, why don't you just challenge him when he's online?" he asked.

"I have. He ignores all my requests," Toya answered, frowning. "And everyone else's I know of who have tried."

"Yeah, that would be because he gets two dozen of them every time he logs in," Hikaru rolled his eyes and scratched at his cheek. "I won't set you up to play him; I got better things to do. But if you tell me your nick, I'll see that he knows not to reject your challenge the next time." Which he'd be doing himself, since he was the one who had to wade through the two dozen challenges every time Sai wanted to play NetGo, damn it.

"That would be… kind of you. But I was wondering if you could set a meeting so that I could play sai face to face?" Toya asked tentatively and Hikaru snorted.

"Not happening. NetGo is all you get. Take it or leave it," he said, and while Sai did his best to squeeze the breath out of him in gratitude, he considered it. "Or give me your nick or forget it, same thing," Hikaru added, shrugging his shoulders.

Toya sighed, and told his NetGo nick – which was simply akira – before giving Hikaru a curious look. "Did you really write Beneath Wisteria?" he asked, blinking. "Why were you laughing at it?"

"Wasn't expecting to see it here. I was flattered, so sue me," Hikaru shrugged.

"You react strangely to flattery," Toya said, blinking.

Hikaru shrugged. He had never really been flattered before then, so it was all a new experience to him. "So," he said. "You got some free time?" he asked hopefully.

"Why?" Toya asked, looking suspicious.

"I was just wondering if you might perhaps give me a tour," Hikaru said, blinking at the man innocently. "I came here to see the Association but so far I've only seen the basement and a fight in a shop. It's been a sort of lame experience."

Toya considered it for a moment before narrowing his eyes further. "Why do you want to see the association? Could it be…"

"People are asking for another Go related book. I'm considering it," Hikaru shrugged and lifted an eyebrow when Toya looked disappointed. "What?"

"Nothing," the man answered, shaking his head. "You want to see the building? I can show you some of it, but not all – and there are games going on, which we obviously can't disturb. But the rest…"

"Lead the way," Hikaru said, and as Toya turned to lead him deeper into the building Hikaru had to take a moment to appreciate the view. He even tilted his head a bit for a better angle.

"Hi-ka-ru!" Sai snapped at him, swatting the back of his head with his closed fan.

'What? I can't appreciate the little things in life anymore?' Hikaru asked plaintively.

Sai eyed him with narrowed eyes. "You are not thinking of… him and…" he trailed away, snapping his fan open somewhat agitatedly.

'No, I am not. Way too high strung for me. Besides, despite the unfortunate wardrobe choices, he's about as straight as a flagpole and I try to avoid lost causes,' Hikaru snorted. 'But you’ve got to admit he's pretty.'

"Well. I suppose he is handsome. But…" Sai trailed away again, looking uneasy.

'Oh, don't worry. You're still the fairest of them all, Sai, you always will be,' Hikaru assured him and hurried to follow Toya before the man started to wonder where he’d gone to.

Toya was a bit stiff through the tour around the Association – probably sensed some bad vibes from Hikaru, some straight people were sensitive like that – but he did show whatever he could and explained a few things about the professional Go world, which Hikaru had to admit were sort of interesting. He wasn't sure if he could write any sort of story about the place, or about professional Go players, but maybe… there was something there.

The tour ended sooner than Hikaru might've liked, when some other people called for Toya's attention. Seeing a few people who’d been nearby when he and the lovely lady Nase had had their little showdown, Hikaru decided that it was about time he took his leave as well, and quickly made his way outside – only to be accosted by another pro player, this one a bit more familiar than Toya Akira.

"I heard that Shindo Hikaru, the author of Beneath Wisteria, had been seen here – and that he was surprisingly young and had bleached hair," Ogata Seiji said, stopping Hikaru just at the association exit. "I suppose that would make you him."

"What, were they expecting an old man?" Hikaru asked, dismayed.

"You wrote a historical drama about Go, Heian court intrigue and romance. What were you expecting they thought of its author?" the man asked, sounding amused.

"You got a point there, I guess. What do you want?" Hikaru asked.

"Another chance to play Sai."

Of course. Hikaru rolled his eyes and sighed, even as Sai bounced happily beside him, clapping his hands together like a little girl. "I'll see what I can do," Hikaru answered. "Right now, though, I am going home. This place turned out to be way more exciting than I thought, and I need a power nap."

The blonde man considered him for a moment, glancing at Hikaru from top to bottom. "Do you need a ride?" he asked idly and Hikaru did a double take.

"…Do you have stalker like tendencies?" he asked suspiciously, even while looking the man up and down pretty much the same way he had been looked at. Not bad. Not Toya Akira's level of prettiness, but… Hikaru tilted his head a bit. He had never seen anyone actually wear a white suit before, and Ogata made it look very good.

The blonde man considered it, and him, for a moment. "Sometimes," he then admitted slowly, seeming to have come to the same conclusion Hikaru had.

"Oh, gods, no," Sai moaned, as Hikaru broke out into a grin.

 9.

How everything resolved into Hikaru's house suddenly becoming the local club house for pro players in distress, he wasn't sure, but it happened. First it was just Ogata, who was pretty pleasant to look at but would've made a way too awkward morning after. Then there was Toya, who found out the address from Ogata and came to demand a game once more, apparently not satisfied with anything but instant gratification. Then Hikaru found himself meeting Waya Yoshitaka who’d heard the address from who knew where and then Nase Asumi came to apologise and suddenly Hikaru found a Go discussion going on in his living room, with Ogata and Toya at the lead, and some half a dozen people scattered about, all talking about sai and Toya's latest game on the net.

'What happened to my lovely lonely life?' he bemoaned but only half-heartedly, while Sai fluttered about like an overgrown white butterfly, too excited to sit still and actually listen to the discussions going on.

"Don't you have anything to drink around here?" Waya complained, while Hikaru jumped over scattered limbs to try and get to his computer.

"You want drinks, you buy them yourselves. I am not feeding you bums," Hikaru answered, while unhooking the laptop and tucking it beneath his arm. He had no intention of leaving it – and its long internet history – alone with a bunch of Sai-hungry Go professionals, not before he got the thing password protected.

"Are you ever going to wear proper clothing?" Nase asked, looking at his somewhat ragged yukata up and down.

"My home, my pyjama party – you're overdressed and ought to get out," Hikaru answered with a wave of his hand, making her stick out her tongue at him.

"When will we get to meet Sai?" another pro, Ochi, asked.

"Probably never," Hikaru said, and determinedly carried his laptop away and to safety.

How the whole thing started aside, Hikaru had to admit that there was something… oddly nice about it. He’d never actually been particularly lonely, not in the sense of missing company – but he’d never had much company either, if one didn't include school and the stupid things he and Mitani had gotten into, and one couldn't really, since that relationship had been based on getting the other into as much trouble as possible. Sai was pretty much Hikaru's longest standing friend and probably always would be – before him the only human company Hikaru’d had was either with his mother or with a variety of one-night-stands that lasted for, well, a day at most.

This, having a living room full of people, some of whom he was actually getting to know? This was nice. Odd, a bit terrifying and really, really annoying, but… nice.

"Do you play much, Shindo-san?" Nase asked, during one of the rare breaks in the discussion, looking up from the invisibly blood stained Goban. "You have such a nice board."

"I play Sai a lot, but that's about it," Hikaru shrugged. "I'm not into Go that much, I do it mostly to humour him."

"You play sai?" Ogata asked sharply, instantly interested.

"How many times have you played sai?" Toya asked almost at the same time.

"I honestly lost count about a year ago," Hikaru said – which turned out to be a huge mistake.

"Play me," the two pros said almost in unison, and with Sai echoing with them, Hikaru's fate was sealed.

The book he’d considered writing about Go never really got started. Though Hikaru had some ideas, he never really found the time to put them properly into words. Instead, there was Go. There was Go on the internet, and in his house, filling his living room with guests and kifu. And there were games, with either the people that turned out to be his sort-of-study-group playing against Sai or him playing against them. Which made a lot of games.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Hikaru sighed, after one four hour session with the group, finally alone with Sai in his own house, staring at the stained Goban which had seen more games in the last handful of weeks than it probably had in years.

"It isn't bad, though, is it?" Sai said, nudging at him gently. "You really are quite good."

"Go, bah," Hikaru sighed, leaning back and lying down on the floor, ignoring the mess his guests had left behind. All those in the group thought that he'd have a decent chance at the pro exam, after having been taught by Sai of all people for almost two full years already. Hikaru had just laughed at the concept when they’d brought it up, and still couldn't really take it seriously, but…

But what? He had absolutely no idea. He wasn't even sure what was going on anymore. Things had been nice and simple and then he’d gone to the Go association.

Frowning a bit, Hikaru looked up at Sai, who seemed to be glowing a bit. He had been ever since the group had formed itself around Shusaku's Goban, and showed no signs of stopping. And why would he, since he was now playing pro-players pretty much daily, and then having lengthy discussions about those games twice a week, and more?

Hikaru smiled a bit. That, if nothing else, made it all worth it.

"What?" Sai asked, looking down at him first with curiosity and then with worry. "I know that look. You're not going out, are you?"

Hikaru blinked a bit at that, and then looked away embarrassedly. Yeah, he probably did stare at Sai like a love struck puppy shortly before going out to get laid – it was the reason why he did it, after all. But he hadn't realised that Sai had noticed. "Ah, no. Not today," he said, ignoring the pounding of his idiotic heart.

Falling in love with a ghost was the stupidest thing he could've done, so of course it was exactly what he did. Go figure.

"I'm going to get something to eat, and then we can play some NetGo if you want," he decided, rolling himself up and to his feet.

"Yes! Thank you Hikaru!" Sai said happily, trailing after him like he always did. The something Hikaru got ended up being a cold onigiri, which he carried to his laptop, to be eaten pretty much over the keyboard.

"I don't think anyone from our little circle will be online, so you'll have to play someone else," Hikaru mumbled through his snack, while logging in.

"Maybe someone new?" Sai asked hopefully as he settled into his usual spot, at Hikaru's right side. "Someone I haven't played before."

"I'll see if I can find someone," Hikaru agreed, and spent the next ten minutes rejecting challenges while trying to look through the list of players. "Aha, there's one. Toya Koyo – hey, maybe he's related to Toya," Hikaru said, grinning. "Want to try him?"

"Yes," Sai agreed, and Hikaru send out the challenge.

 10.

"Hikaru? What would you do if I were to vanish?" Sai asked a couple of days later.

"Vanish?" Hikaru asked, lifting his head from where he had been resting it, against the wall of the house. They were sitting in the backyard, watching the koi pond, which didn't house a single living koi anymore, and was starting to look rather overgrown. Hikaru wasn't much of a gardener – although because of Sai, he’d gotten very good at exterminating and keeping frogs away at least. "Vanish how, when? Like, right now, what would I do if you vanished right now?"

"Yes, maybe?" Sai said, sounding a little uncertain and maybe a bit lost.

Hikaru considered it, looking at the ghost seriously. Sai had been a bit strange ever since the game against Toya Koyo, who it turned out was related to Toya Akira – and was in fact Akira's father. And the retired former holder of the Meijin, Tengen, Gosei, Oza and Judan titles – and one of the best Go players of Japan. The game had been more or less an accident – but hundreds of people had popped up to watch it.

And why not? The game he and Sai played was magnificent.

But afterwards, Sai hadn't done much happy glowing.

"I'd drink myself into a stupor," Hikaru answered finally and looked away.

Sai frowned at him, opening his mouth to say something and then reconsidering. "No," he said softly.

"Yeah. It runs in the family – on my mom's side," Hikaru said with a shrug. Not only did they drink, but they usually drank themselves to death. And there was a good chance that he would too. He already drank more than he should –he wasn't even old enough to drink hard liquor yet and wouldn't be for some months, but he still had a cabinet full of the stuff, and he’d had it for two years now. Not to mention his many, many missions of getting laid – they always started with shots. If Sai vanished, he would probably go on a drinking binge… which probably wouldn't stop.

Hikaru shrugged. "That's us. We're weak, we're stupid and when we get faced with stuff we don't like we try to wash it down with booze. It never works and we know it, but it doesn't stop us from trying."

"You wouldn't," Sai objected.

"I would. Well, Ogata might stop me," Hikaru said thoughtfully. "That man knows what it's like, so he'd probably figure it out. But I'd probably still try."

Sai didn't answer for a moment, looking at him uncertainly and then turning his eyes away with a frown. "I wouldn't want you to," he said then.

"Doing or not doing something because that's what someone who's dead wants might work in fiction, but life's an unfair bitch," Hikaru answered, and turned to look at him. "If you vanished it would hurt like motherfucker, you know. And you know I'm not good with uncomfortable stuff."

Sai smiled faintly at that. "Knowing you as well as I do, I know you're very good with things some people consider uncomfortable," he answered.

"So I find it hot to be tied down, so sue me," Hikaru shrugged, but without mirth. The topic of discussion wasn't particularly joyful, after all, and he had a very bad feeling about the cause of it.

Sai's smile faded a bit and he looked away again, at the koi pond. "What would you do now, if you knew I would vanish tomorrow?" he asked then, very softly.

Hikaru didn't answer for a long while, just looking at the man, at the familiar, unspeakably beautiful face with its deep blue eyes and smooth skin, gently painted lips and long lashes. His eyes trailed down the bangs of dark hair framing Sai's face, down to his chin, his neck, and over the ancient outfit, as familiar as any of Hikaru's own clothes, and more.

"Will you vanish tomorrow, Sai?" he asked finally, pushing himself away from the wall he’d been leaning against, and slowly standing up.

The ghost was silent for a moment before smiling sadly. "Probably. I feel the time; it's moving again," he said softly, and closed his eyes. "I feel lighter and heavier. I feel… that something's changed, that I did something, and everything I did has reached its completion. I feel finished and –"

He stopped there, what he might've said smothered beneath Hikaru's lips. As kisses went, it wasn't Hikaru's finest or the most impressive but it was beyond a doubt the one he'd always remember the best. It was also the one he was most reluctant to pull away from, even with Sai being as still as a statue.

"That is what I would do, and more," Hikaru whispered, and opened his eyes. The complete lack of shock in Sai's features was almost a surprise, but not quite. He’d never been all that subtle, after all, and he’d never managed to hide much from Sai. But thank gods, there was no revulsion either.

Hikaru smiled sadly. "God, I've wanted to kiss you ever since I laid my eyes on you," he murmured, lifting a hand and touching Sai's lips with his thumb.

"W-why didn't you?"

Hikaru laughed, a little choked. "Because I didn't want to chase you away."

"Hikaru," the ghost said, lifting one hand and touching the living man's chin, his cheek, his hair. "Hikaru," he said again, softer, and Hikaru kissed him again. This time Sai kissed him back.

In the months – the years – they’d been together, Hikaru had tried not to wonder what it could've been like, with a ghost, if Sai even could, if they could. They’d always been able to touch, Hikaru being the only physical thing Sai could affect, but… he’d never expected to find out. Even as he pulled Sai to his feet, pushed him back and inside the house and finally, finally towards the bedroom, it felt like a dream.

A beautiful, soft dream, yielding and glowing and whispering in his ear, asking and demanding and apologising. Sai was all soft elegance and smooth lines and beyond beautiful as Hikaru, bit by bit, uncovered him.

"All of it?" Sai asked almost plaintively after his hat had vanished somewhere and Hikaru had managed to get the kariginu open despite the fact that his fingers shook.

"Every last bit of it," Hikaru answered and leaned down to touch and kiss and marvel at the pale, pale skin, hidden for a thousand years beneath ghostly clothing and revealed at last only to him. Inch after inch he uncovered Sai until every last bit of those unearthly clothes were gone, and there was only Sai in what had once been his natural form, shivering in Hikaru's arms, uncertain and embarrassed but there and not going anywhere.

"I feel… strange," Sai whispered against his lips, shuddering against Hikaru, each tremor bringing them a little closer. "Hikaru, I… feel strange."

"Yeah," Hikaru agreed, shaking almost as badly, his trembling fingers sliding along the lines of Sai's back.

And then they didn't speak at all.

∞.

They were calling out names and pointing to places in the hall, setting up the matches. Hikaru sat silently on his knees while waiting for his name to be called, not sure what he was even doing here. Pro exam preliminaries… seriously. Why had he ever let Ogata and Toya convince him to do this?

'I ought to have just stuck with trying to write the book,' he mused, thinking back. Of course nothing had ever come from it, he’d been too busy and hadn't had a plot, still really didn't – how did you write about Go anyway? Beneath Wisteria was Sai's story, with more than Go in it, and really… Hikaru wasn't much of a writer in the end. Sighing, he bent his head down a bit, closing his eyes. 'I suppose I ought to consider myself lucky that I got to be a part of Beneath Wisteria at all. Huh?'

There was no answer to his thoughts, of course, but he wasn't expecting one anymore. It had been months now, and he’d almost gotten used to being completely alone with his thoughts. Almost. Which was a bit weird – he’d never minded Sai having open access to his thoughts, but he had always still taken some pains to hide bits and pieces of them. Like the doomed crush on the ghost, which he of course hadn't managed to hide, but still. And yet now? Now he wouldn't have minded if Sai went through every inch of his worst thoughts and embarrassing memories. It was lonely, being all alone in his head.

'Pro exam, huh?' he thought with a sigh while another name was called, and another applicant went to draw their ticket and thus their opponent. 'What am I doing here, seriously?' He wasn't that serious about Go. It was fun, sure, but… he wasn't like Toya, or Ogata or Waya or any of them. He wasn't a child genius who’d taken the test at the tender age of twelve and younger, and he didn't really care about the titles and tournaments. Though, it would be sweet to beat someone in the study group just once but…

'Well, I'll probably fail anyway,' he thought and looked up as his name was called. With a soft grunt he stood up and walked to the front, to draw his ticket. "Forty seven," he said, and he was pointed to a Goban across the room. 'Well, it'll be an experience. And maybe I can write about some poor sod who tried to take the exam and failed? Though who would read that…'

Hikaru rubbed his neck while waiting for the rest of the tickets to be drawn and all the matches to be decided. How long would the game last? There was a break in between, he knew as much. 'Hm, didn't Waya say that there's a good ramen place nearby? Might try that in the interval…'

One by one the Goban were occupied, and a woman with short purple hair and about fourteen earrings in each ear sat across Hikaru's. "Yo," she said, lifting a hand and Hikaru grinned at her tank top and general punk rock appearance. At least he wasn't playing a boring looking geezer.

"Yo," Hikaru answered, and they were both hissed at to be quiet.

Then the matches were decided, all the Goban were taken, and everyone was waiting. "Alright. Set your clock at two hours of allotted time. Byo-yomi is one minute," they were told, and then the games began.

Hikaru's punk rocker opponent turned out to be a pretty decent Go player, despite her appearance – or especially because of it. Hikaru himself didn't look much like some of the stiffer and more proper people in the group, with his bleached hair and whatnot. 'I wonder if I would look good with earrings?' he wondered and then imagined Sai's ruby studs on himself. 'Yeeaah, no. Definitely not.'

Hand by hand the game began to take shape in front of him, and looking at it thoughtfully Hikaru had to admit that maybe the study group hadn't been way off with their estimation. 'If this is how all here play, I might actually be able to pass,' he thought. The punk rocker was good, but Hikaru had definitely played stronger. Well, naturally, he’d only ever played against Sai and a bunch of pro players, but…

The punk-rocker frowned at him a bit before leaning back to think, spending a good ten minutes at it. Hikaru just waited, shifting a bit where he sat. He wasn't used to seiza and his legs were tingling. 'It'll be pretty funny once they go to sleep and I have to crawl my way out of here,' he mused, and the game continued.

It seemed like forever and no time at all when they were told that it was time for the break. While the punk rocker sighed and eased herself to her feet, Hikaru had to lean back and stretch his legs out to try and get feeling back to them, not wanting to try standing just then – he'd only end up falling flat on his face.

"Wanna get lunch?" the punk rocker asked.

"Already got a date, sorry," Hikaru answered with a smile, and waving a hand she headed off, stretching her bare arms as she went.

"Hmm," a voice as familiar as Hikaru's own spoke from behind him. "You're ahead."

Grinning, Hikaru tilted his head back and looked at Sai upside down. "Despite all evidence to the contrary, it seems I know how to play Go."

Sai sighed, twiddling a bit with the loose sleeves of his shirt before taking out his fan. He still looked odd in modern clothing, and probably felt even odder in them, having worn kariginu for the better part of a millennium. But there was no helping it, since the kariginu had pretty much vanished the moment Hikaru had gotten it off him, and anyway, one couldn't go around the modern world dressed like a Shinto priest, not unless they actually were.

Hikaru tilted his head a bit, and looked up and down Sai's form. He certainly didn't complain, though. Sai could fill a pair of jeans like nobody else.

"Stop it," the former ghost snapped, hitting Hikaru on the forehead with the folded fan.

"I wasn't doing anything!" Hikaru objected.

"You were thinking about it," Sai said and huffed at him and with a grin Hikaru stood up. Because Ogata and Akira and the rest had given him a rather long and arduous talk about proper behaviour at the Go Association, he didn't so much as take Sai's hand, but he did take a moment to nonchalantly run a hand up Sai's spine, enjoying the feel of his solidness and warmth.

"Lunch?" he asked and with a nod Sai fell into step with him, trailing after him like usual. They gathered some curious looks as they left the Association, Sai's looks and long hair probably the cause of most of it. But then, most of those who frequented the association knew that Hikaru was the author of Beneath Wisteria, so that might've had something to do with it too.

"How is your game going?" Hikaru asked, winding an arm around Sai's waist once they were at a safe distance from the building.

"About as well as can be expected. I suspect my opponent will resign soon," Sai answered thoughtfully.

"Yeah, I suppose there's no asking who's winning. Unlike with my game. What am I doing, taking the exam, anyway?" Hikaru asked. "You're the Go player, not me."

"You're taking it because I want you to," Sai answered. "And so that you will stop writing smut," he added under his breath.

"I haven't written any in over a year! Way over a year," Hikaru objected, pouting a bit. Not that he would mind writing some, with Sai around as his muse he certainly had more than enough material to go with. Giving Sai a considering look, Hikaru squeezed the taller man's waist a bit and smiled. Lots and lots of material.

"Stop that," Sai said with a sigh, half fond and half exasperated.

"I wasn't doing anything!"

"You were thinking it."