• 1-Balance
• 2-Part 1: Spiritual 3/4
• 3-Part 1: Spiritual 4/4
• 4-Part 2: Physical 1/3
• 5-Part 2, Physical 2/3
• 6-Balance Part 2: Physical (3/3)
• 7-Part 3 Social 1/4
• 8-Balance Part 3: Emotional 2/4
• 9-Part 3 Social 3/4
• 10-Part 3 Social 4/4
• 11-Part 4: Mental 1/3
• 12-Part 4: Mental 2/3
• 13-Part 4: Mental 3/3
• 14-Part 5: Emotional 1/4
• 15-Part 5: Emotional 2/4
• 16-Part 5: Emotional 3/4
• 17-Part 5: Emotional 4/4
• 18-Part 1, Spiritual, Chapter 1
• 19-Part 1, Spiritual, Chapter 2

<i>According to authorities around the world, there are five different kinds of health that human beings strive for: Physical, Mental, Emotional, Spiritual and Social. A healthy, happy life results from keeping all these elements in balance.</i>



BALANCE

A Hikaru no Go Sekkushiaru Roman Series

By Sailor Mac



PART FOUR: MENTAL 1/3



Akira did not take kindly to being woken up by the sound of singing in the shower.



He turned over, groaned, and pulled the covers up over his head as if to block out the sound. It wasn’t doing any good. He could still hear Hikaru yelping over the running water.



*He said his cousin’s a professional musician,* Akira thought, pulling a pillow over his head. *Well, his cousin got all the musical talent in the family. Every single scrap of it.*



But he knew mornings like this were something he was going to have to face every day now -- part of the price of their living together.



Peeking out from his cocoon of bedding, he checked the alarm clock. It was set to go off in five minutes, anyway -- he might as well get up. It was a school day, and he’d taken an extra day off the week before to move in.



Akira swung around and put his feet on the floor, reaching for the yukata draped over a nearby chair -- the one Hikaru had playfully pulled off him last night. He blinked against the morning light, resisting it.



He’d never been very much of a morning person.



The shower was still going on as Akira padded into the hall, in search of tea. The apartment seemed to have gotten larger overnight -- well, it wasn’t exactly small to begin with. It had two bedrooms (one of which had been converted into a Go room), the separate toilet room and bathing room that were standard in Japanese housing, a spacious living room and a kitchen -- and crossing all of it felt like climbing Mount Everest right now.



Reaching the cabinets, he fumbled around for the can of tea. Well, they’d only been settled in a few days, he couldn’t be expected to find everything at first.



He was settling the strainer into the teapot when he felt a pair of arms grab him about the waist from behind and a kiss on his cheek -- not to mention wet hair on his face. “Good morning,” Hikaru said. “It’s your turn for the shower now.”



Akira leaned back against him and breathed in the clean scent of soap and shampoo. He’d always suspected his lover used very basic, “guy stuff” when it came to toiletries. He had his confirmation now, since he now shared closets and cabinets with him.



“Good morning,” Akira said. “I won’t be that long. We can let the tea steep in the meantime.”



Hikaru pulled away from Akira and opened the biggest cabinet, beginning to take out plates and cups. “Won’t be that long? With all that stuff you have in there?”



Akira folded his arms and frowned a bit. “What do you mean?”



“I mean you’ve got a whole shelf of hair care stuff in there!” Hikaru said, carrying the dishware to the table. “I didn’t think you were high-maintenance, Touya!”



Akira bristled, narrowing his eyes at his lover. “What’s wrong with wanting to look your best?”



“Nothing’s wrong,” Hikaru said, heading for the fridge. “It’s just that you spend as much time on your hair as you do on Go!”



“Maybe if you spent some time on *your* hair, you wouldn’t always look like you were caught in a windstorm!” Akira snapped, starting to head for the bathroom.



“Hey, I like looking casual,” Hikaru replied, carrying a carton of milk to the table and resisting the urge to drink directly from it. It had been one thing to do that in his parents’ house. In this place he now shared with Akira, it just seemed wrong. “Hey, do you want cereal or toast for breakfast?”



Akira shuddered a bit. He should have known that Hikaru had grown up in a household that had Western-style breakfasts -- meaning, whatever kind of sugary garbage one could cram down one’s throat before running out the door. He’d grown up on proper Japanese breakfasts, fish and miso soup.



So far, they’d avoided the issue by eating from-a-mix pancakes. But he knew they couldn’t do that every day.



“How about eggs?” he said. *That would at least be something substantial,* he thought.



Hikaru frowned. “I’ve never cooked eggs.”



“Neither have I,” Akira said, “but how hard can it be? You scramble them, you pour them in a pan, you stir them . . .”



“Okay, okay,” Hikaru said, going back to the cabinet for a mixing bowl. “Go take your shower, I’ll see what I can do.”



Hikaru sighed when he heard the shower room door shut. He looked at the mixing bowl in front of him the way a homeowner embarking on spring cleaning would look at a garage that had been neglected for years.



He had never done anything domestic. Well, except for one attempt at cooking dinner that had ended in catastrophe. Most Japanese boys didn’t make it a point to learn the housekeeping arts. They all figured they’d have a mother, then a wife to take care of them.



The story was substantially different when one had committed himself to another man.



Going back into the fridge, Hikaru found the carton of eggs they’d bought the day before and removed four of them -- two for each person sounded correct to him. He cracked them into the bowl, trying to remember the times he’d seen his mother doing this. He had to add a little milk, right? And salt and pepper? Or was that soy sauce? No, not soy sauce, that would make it *too* salty.



As he grabbed a fork and began beating the hell out of the mixture in the bowl -- sloshing a fair amount of it on the table in the process -- he thought about how he was going to have to get used to stuff like this. After all, the majority of the household duties were probably going to fall to him. Akira went to high school, he didn’t, which meant he was more likely to have free periods between games and lessons.



Plus, Akira had said he was going to handle their finances. And if he had half the wife’s job, it meant Hikaru was pretty much obligated to fulfill the other half.



*It’s worth it, though,* Hikaru thought, finding the big skillet on the pot rack, putting it on the stove and turning the power on high -- that was right, wasn’t it? Now, wasn’t he supposed to put something in the pan? Oil? Butter? He fumbled in the cabinets until he came up with a bottle of cooking oil, which he poured in the pan -- and promptly jumped back, yelping, when some of it splattered right out, burning him.



This wasn’t as easy as it looked. He removed the pan from the heat and snatched apapepaper towel, running it under cold water and pressing it to his burns. He scowled at the pot as if it was a group of stones that was having great difficulty staying alive.



*Okay, maybe lower heat,* he thought. *And maybe pour off a little of the oil.*



He knew he was bound and determined to learn to do this -- more determined than he’d been since he was taking the pro exam. He wanted Akira and himself to have a *good* life together. It had been fabulous so far -- kng heg he’d be coming home to his lover rather than a family that didn’t understand him (and made no effort to) made all the difference in the world.



And the sex wasn’t exactly bad, either. Having Akira there whenever he wanted him, rather than having to suppress his desires and wait until they got an evening when one or the other of them would have an empty house was bliss. They’d more than broken in their new bed.



He started pouring the eggs in the pan, listening to them sizzle and thinking of the night before -- of Akira’s moans as he ran his tongue slowly along his erection, then began to take him in and suck slowly as his hands slid up his body, caressing, feeling for . . .



An acrid smell assaulted his nostrils, bringing him back to reality with a loud “AACK!” That wasn’t *smoke* coming out of his pan, was it? He began to frantically stir the contents with a spatula.



Some time later, Akira came out of the bathroom to see Hikaru putting a dish of . . . something on the table.



“Um, I don’t know if they’re supposed to be this brown,” Hikaru said.



Akira looked at the bowl. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was a bowl of shelled walnuts, rather than scrambled eggs.



But he was too hungry, and it was too late, to argue.



With a sigh, he sat down at the table. “Let’s eat.”



* * *



“That boy just left for school,” Suzuhara Kyoko said as she reentered her apartment, newspaper in hand.



Her husband, Hiromi, looked up from his huge bowl of miso soup. “What boy?” he said, quickly wiping a spill off his face before it could splatter on his neatly pressed gray business suit.



“One of the boys that moved in next door. The one with the long hair,” she said, putting the paper down and pushing her wavy, dark red hair back off her face.



Hiromi gave out a noise that was almost, but not quite a snort and went back to his bowl. “They said a *couple* was moving in. I wasn’t expecting two *boys*.”



“They’re so young,” his wife said, pouring herself a cup of tea. “They don’t look any more than seventeen. I can’t see how they can afford to live in a place like this.”



“I don’t think I *want* to know,” Hiromi said, finishing the last of his soup and pushing the bowl aside. “I gotta go -- I’m running late.” He stood up, brushed off his jacket and checked himself one last time in the mirror, running a hand over his close-cropped blue-black hair and wiping away another spot of soup. Grabbing a briefcase, he leaned over and kissed his wife. “Don’t worry, I don’t have to stay late tonight.”



“Good,” she said. “I’ll rent a DVD while I’m out today.”



“Something light, if you can find it,” he said as he opened the door. “I’ve got a whole day of heavy drama ahead of me. I don’t need any more from a DVD.” He blew her another kiss and headed out to work.



Kyoko cupped her hands around her teacup and drank from it slowly. *How *can* twos ofs of that age afford a place like this?* she thought. *Hiromi got that bromoromotion last year, and we’re just barely able to live here.*



She got up and began to clear away the breakfast dishes. She wondered, not for the first time, whether she should go and introduce herself to the boys. After all, when they had moved into the building, Okawa-san down the hall had introduced herself to them.



*Are they a gay couple, I wonder,* she thought, starting to stock the dishwasher. *I’ve never known anyone who was that way before. Or at least not anyone who talked about it openly.*



She wondered if she would be awkward around them. She certainly didn’t want to treat them any differently, but . . .



She closed the dishwasher and turned it *Ma *Maybe later,* she thought.



* * *



Hikaru was also clearing away the breakfast dishes. He glanced over at the clock -- he still had plenty of time before he had to be somewhere. His schedule consisted of a private lesson at 1 p.m.a coa college student with hopes of taking the pro exam getting Go tutoring between classes -- followed by a group class with a high school’s Go club. Tomorrow, he had a game.



*Why does Touya do all this *and* go to school when he doesn’t *have* to?* Hikaru thought. To him, one of the best things about being a pro was not having to face the grind of tests, tests and more tests anymore.



He was about to start the dishwasher when the phone rang. *I hope that’s not my student canceling out,* he thought, grabbing at the receiver. “Hello, Shindou and Touya residence,” he said.



“Hikaru?” said an all-too-familiar voice on the other end. Hikaru groaned inwardly.



“Hello, Mom,” he said, pulling out one of the chairs and plopping down. This could take awhile.



“I just want to see how you’re doing.”



Hikaru rolled his eyes as he leaned back in the seat. “I’m doing fine, Mom. We’re settled in.”



“And are you happy?”



He smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand. *Not *this* again,* he thought. “Yes, Mom. This is the *right* t for for me.”



“I just want to know if you’re *sure* about this. About . . . about Touya Akira.”



Hikaru took a deep breath, fighting the urge to yell. “Mom, we’ve been through this over and over . . .”



“It’s just . . . I wonder sometimes if it was a good idea to let you get so involved in Go. This is why this happened, isn’t it? You never had a chance to meet any girls.”



“What’s that got to do with anything?” Hikaru snapped.



“You were just with boys all day, in your Go club and that class you went to and . . .”



“Mom, I don’t know where you got the idea that all Go players are guys, because they *aren’t*. Plenty of girls and women play. Half my Go club was girls. I even played a woman pro yesterday!”



“Then why couldn’t you have found one of *them* to be with? Why did it have to be . . . him?”



Hikaru gripped the phone so tightly he thought it was going to break. “There’s no reason. It just *happened*. We fell in love with each other and we’re *happy.*”



There was a long pause.



Then, his mother said, “If you ever change your mind, we’ve kept your room as it was. You can come home anytime.”



“I’ m not *going* to come home!” Hikaru said, his voice raising in volume again.



“Yes, you say that now, but later on . . .”



“I have to be at the Go Institute in a few minutes,” Hikaru lied. “Goodbye, Mom.” He pushed the disconnect button and slammed it back into its base so hard that the plastic nearly splintered. He threw himself back into the seat, his head in his hands.



It wasn’t the first conversation of that type since they had moved in. She’d called at least once a day. It was always the same -- concern about his well-being followed by veiled predictions of doom for his relationship with Akira.



*Dammit, straight couples’ parents just let them be!* he thought. *Why can’t she? Why doesn’t she realize I’m with him because I *want* to be with him? Well, she never understood me when I was living at home, why should she start now?*



He got up and kicked at the leg of their kitchen table in frustration. He imagined Akira would yell at him if he could see him do that -- they’d spent a long time in Ikea picking out just the right one. He didn’t care.



Finally, he took a deep breath and fought to calm himself . *Housework,* he thought. *I have to start doing the housework -- that should get my mind off it.



The first thing that had to be done was vacuuming the living room rug. And, of course, they’d forgotten to buy a vacuum.



*Well, I can borrow one from that old lady down the hall,* he thought, grabbing his keys off the small table near the door and shoving them in his pocket.



He went out into the hall and made a right. There was one apartment to the left of them and two to the right, and the old lady was two doors down. He knocked on the door.



It was opened by a gnarled little woman, barely five feet high, wearing a shocking pink sweatsuit, her head covered with a bushy clump of snow-white curls, tiny, oval-shaped glasses sliding down her nose. “Oh, hello, Touya-kun!”



“Um, I’m Shindou, Okawa-san.”



“Oh, yes, Shindou-kun. Come in, come in.”



Hikaru stepped into a living room so crammed with knickknacks -- templinkeinkets, ceramic figures of children and animals, a big wooden boat containing carvings of the Seven Gods of Luck, all of whom looked like they needed to go on a serious diet -- that he wondered how the woman moved around at all.



“Okawa-san, I was wondering if . . .”



She walked into her kitchen and emerged with a platter in her hands. “Care for some cookies? I baked them yesterday.”



“No thanks. I just want . . .”



“I have mochi cakes in the fridge, too,” she said. “Green tea and strawberry. My granddaughter really loves the strawberry ones. When she came up for the Sakura Festival, she ate half a dozen of them, and then she got very energetic and started running everywhere. My son said that she does this whenever she eats sugar. Can you believe that? I think she was just being a little girl.”



Hikaru waved his hands in front of his face. “ no, no, Okawa-san, that’s all right, I don’t want any sweets. I’d just like to borrow your vacuum.”



“Oh, any time,” she said, opening her hall closet and pulling out the appliance. Hikaru was relieved that it seemed like a fairly recent model -- he was half-expecting one of those old-fashioned ones with a long hose attached to a big tank.



“It’s a pleasure to have two sweet young men like you living on our floor,” the elderly woman said. “Not like the last people who had that apartment. They stayed up playing loud music all night long. Why, I had to call the police out on them once or twice. But that’s nothing compared to the people who used to live on the *sixth* floor. Why, I was talking to Kaweda-san yesterday and *she* said . . .”



“Um, I’d love to stay,” Hikaru said, “but I need to use this and get it back to you, I have to teach a lesson.”



“Oh, yes, that’s right,” the elderly woman said. “You’re a tennis player, aren’t you?”



“No . . . Go.”



“Ah, I knew it was a game of some sort.” She shoved the vacuum toward him. “You sure you don’t want any cookies or mochi to take with you? I have some red bean buns, too, if you want any of those, they’re from the Yamanashi bakery, they’re really fresh . . .”



“No, no, that’s okay,” Hikaru said, grabbing the vacuum and pushing it hastily toward the door. He turned around and said “Thank you very much,” dipping the top half of his body a bit in an approximation of a bow.



“Oh, you’re very welcome,” Okawa-san said, rushing over to the door. “Here, let me open that for you.”



She watched Hikaru push the vacuum to his own apartment, reach in his pocket for his keys and let himself in.



“Such a lovely set of brothers,” she said aloud. “No, they don’t have the same last name -- well, that means they must be cousins. They must come from such a wonderful family.”



* * *



Akira walked toward his homeroom, not making direct eye contact with any of the other students.



He knew there would always be tabloid-crazed girls whispering behind his back about “the gay Go player.” He’d overheard enough of their conversations in the past. Some of them seemed horrified and scandalized by it. Others liked it -- a little too much.



He’d had a brief moment of regret about continuing to go to school when a girl behind him had whispered to her seat mate, “I’d love to be able to peek into their bedroom!”



But there seemed to be none of that today. All of the small knots of students he passed were whispering about one thing only -- the big soccer game that evening. It was one of the few times he was glad to be going to a sports-obsessed school.



As he approached the classroom, a petite girl with shoulder-length dark-blonde hair waved at him from one of the knots. “Good morning, Touya-kun!” she said. “How is the new apartment?”



“Good morning, Kuwata-san,” he said, bowing politely to the girl. “We’re settling in okay.”



“You are *so* lucky,” said the black-haired, muscular boy next to her. “I’d kill to move out on my own.”



“Yeah, well maybe if you did something *productive* with your life like Touya-kun here, you’d be able to do that,” the girl retorted.



“I do something productive!” the boy said. “Hey, I’m the local DDR champion, aren’t I?”



“That’s not going to get you any money,” Kuwata replied.



“I can *so* get money! Hey, they give away some *big prizes* in those contests!”



The bell to start class rang, and Akira headed into the classroom with the other students. He rather liked Kuwata Akimi and her boyfriend,unisunishi Moto -- he certainly found them more accepting of him and easier to talk to than any other students in this school. They didn’t make a big deal of him being a Go player or the subject of a lot of screaming headlines.



But when they started talking about things like DDR, or teen dance clubs, or whoever was hot on MTV Japan that week, he realized how big a gap there still was between himself and them.



Not that it bothered him. For Touya Akira, being *different* was just a part of who he was. All through his elementary and junior high years, he’d spent most of his free periods in the corner of the classroom, studying Go books while everyone around him chatted about things that had no relevance to his everyday existence.



He knew very well if Shindou Hikaru hadn’t come into his life, he probably would have spent it alone. He definitely wouldn’t have gotten together with anyone else.



Reaching into his book bag, he pulled out notebook and textbooks and stacked them neatly on the desk. First period was history -- half the reason he was in this school. He wanted to know more about the eras that Fujiwara no Sai had lived in, both his own time and his second existence as Honinbou Shuusaku.



Second period was the *other* half of the reason he was here -- finance class. The school prided itself on being “progressive” and allowing students their choice between certain courses -- art or music, cooking or computers.



And, in the case of second period, household finance or business finance. Akira was the only boy in his homeroom who had gone for the second option.



The teacher, Yoshida-sensei, entered the class and looked at Akira oddly. Not that this was any different from the way he’d looked at him every other day since the class had begun.



But today, he was looking at him more frequently, and more oddly, than he usually did. He’d write something on the board, talk about it a bit, turn around and scan the class -- and then his eyes would fall on Akira.



Akira frowned a bit at that. He figured that the teacher hadn’t gotten very many boys in his class before, but he didn’t think he’d react that strongly. *Surely, I can’t be the only boy who’s taken this class in order to live in a bachelor apartment,* he thought.



He doubted that Yoshida-sensei looked like the type to read tabloids, or listen to student gossip.



He found himself frowning again when the teacher approached him at the end of the class and said, “Touya-kun, may I speak to you for a few minutes?”



“Yes, sensei,” Akira said, standing up and following Yoshida-sensei out of the room and down the hall to one of the teacher’s lounges, a long room with a low table, several chairs and a few couches, and a row of vending machines that was deserted at the moment. Yoshida sat down on an easy chair, and motioned for Akira to sit on the adjacent couch.



“Touya-kun,” the teacher said, “I have to ask why you are taking my class.”



Akira said, calmly, “Why do you ask?”



“Because I have *never* had a boy in this class before,” the teacher said.



“I don’t see why that is,” Akira said. “It’s an important subject matter.”



“How can I say this, Touya-kun -- I’m concerned about the fact that you seem to be taking on so much responsibility. You don’t *have* to, you know.”



“Sensei, I have my own income as a Go player,” Akira said. “I have utilized my money to get my own bachelor apartment. Therefore, I have to manage my own finances.”



“And why does a boy your age need a bachelor apartment?” the teacher said, leaning over and folding his hands. “You’re only a boy, Touya. You need to enjoy your adolescence. There will be plenty of time to be responsible for yourself later.”



“Sensei,” he said, “if you had had your own income when you were 17 . . . wouldn’t *you* have had your own apartment?”



“I didn’t think about such things,” the teacher replied. “I was too busy playing soccer. I know you don’t play soccer, but surely there must be other things you’re interested in at school?”



Akira shook his head. “My life is Go. And I’m afraid my level of play is much greater than the Go club here.”



The teacher looked away for a moment, as if composing his thoughts, and said, “Touya, did you leave home because of problems with your family?”



This caught Akira a bit off-guard. He knew that the teacher was concerned, and only wanted to help -- but it was help he didn’t need. He wanted to be able to work his problems with his father out by himself.



He looked the teacher straight in the eye and said, “No. It was nothing like that.”



“If you do need someone to talk to . . .”



“I know, Sensei,” Akira said, rising and bowing. “Thank you.”



“You may go back to class now,” the teacher said.



Akira bowed again and left the room, but he felt a small clutching in his chest. What the teacher said had definitely struck close to home. Would he have moved out if his father had been accepting of his relationship with Hikaru? He wasn&#t sut sure what the answer to that was.



* * *



Hikaru shut off the vacuum cleaner with a sigh of relief. One chore down. A seemingly infinite number to go.



He headed toward the kitchen. Breakfast dishes next. This was a piece of cake -- just rinse them off and stick them in the dishwasher. It was his first time running this particular machine -- they’d been eating out of disposable bowls with disposable chopsticks throughout the moving process -- but how different could it be from the one at home?



Once he had the plates and cups stacked, he examined the dials. *Guess I’ll just put it on high,* he thought, turning the knob and pushing the button.



There was a gurgle and a sloshing noise as the machine began to fill. Satisfied, Hikaru turned away and headed back for the living room. *I guess I should see if there’s enough clothes in the hamper to have to do laundry,* he thought.



And that’s when he heard a *gush* and a *splash*.



“What the HELL?” he yelled, running back toward the kitchen to see the dishwasher overflowing.



* * *



Kyoko was headed toward the elevator when she heard the cry from the apartment next door, followed by the splash of water.



*Oh, no,* she thought. *The new tenant just encountered the building’s one real flaw. Well, it happens to everyone sooner or later.*



She started to continue on her way , but heard more splashing, followed by several obscenities. She let out a deep sigh. She couldn’t just let the person who lived there struggle.



* * *



Hikaru had managed to get the thing shut off and was standing there panting, the legs of his jeans soaked around the cuffs, when he heard the knock on the door. His first impulse was to just yell “Go away!”, but he decided to answer it anyway -- and *then* tell them to go away.



He yanked open the door to see a woman in her late 20s, willowy with wavy red hair just past her shoulders, wearing gray dress pants and a light purple boat-necked blouse.



“Hello,” she said, bowing. “I couldn’t help but hear you having difficulty. I live next door -- I’m Suzuhara Kyoko.”



“No, that’s okay,” Hikaru said, waving his hands. “My dishwasher just flooded.”



“That’s because you don’t know the secret to running it.”



Hikaru frowned. This woman thought theas aas a *secret* to operating a dishwasher? He wondered if she needed to get out more often.



“I’ll show you, if you don’t mind,” she said. “May I come in?”



Hikaru shrugged and stepped aside. The woman walked into the living room, looking around at the couch covered in wine-colored upholstery, the low glass table below it, the big-screen TV next to the shelves of DVDs and books. Above the couch was a modern art print showing multiple “5”s -- Akira’s gift to Hikaru, a reference to his seemingly infinite number of shirts bearing the number.



“This place is lovely,” she said. “Did you choose all the furniture yourself?”



“Well, me and my, um, roommate both picked the stuff out,” Hikaru said. “Except the couch. I inherited that from my cousin -- he and his roommate got a new one.”



“And is your roommate ark rrk right now?” Kyoko said, continuing toward the kitchen.



“No, he’s at school,” Hikaru said. “He decided to go to high school, I didn’t. Neither of us *has* to -- we’re professional Go players.”



“Really?” Kyoko said, finding the dishwasher. “That’s fascinating. I’ve never known anyone who did that before.”



“I’ve been a pro for about three years,” Hikaru said, leaning on the counter. “Touya -- the guy I live with -- he’s been one for four.”



“But you look so young -- can I ask how old you are?”



“Seventeen,” Hikaru said. “Most pros start when they’re in junior high.”



Kyoko pushed a couple of buttons on the dishwasher. “Now, here’s the secret. These dishwashers are this building’s one flaw. You can’t put them on high right away. You to to start with extra-low . .. like this . . . and then gradually bring the level up.” She demonstrated. “And you end up with high, and the water *stays* in the dishwasher, where it’s supposed to be.”



“Thanks,” Hikaru said. “I’ve never had to be domestic before.”



“You get used to it,” Kyoko said. “I have to go now, I’m meeting my mother downtown -- but I would love to have you and your friend over for dinner sometime.”



“Um, sure,” Hikaru said, walking the woman to the door. He wondered if Akira would be willing to do something like that. He seemed to feel a bit uncomfortable around people who weren’t part of the Go world.



The woman bowed, he bowed back, and he closed the door as she headed for the elevator.



Hikaru turned back to the kitchen, groaning. Now he had to mop up the floor on top of all the other chores he had to do before his lessons.



He was beginning to wonder if being domestic required a combination of endurance and masochism.



* * *



Akira pushed the door open, dropped his book bag by the door and pulled off the blazer of his school uniform, folding it over and draping it neatly over the back of the couch. He’d put it back in the bedroom latBR>
BR>


Pushing the button on their answering machine, he headed for the kitchen. There was a message from the Go Institute asking if he could do a group tutoring session on Tuesday. He nodded silently as he took a pot from the rack, filled it part way with water and put it on the stove. He was relieved to see the number of assignments starting to pick up again.



Tonight was his night to cook dinner. That was one of the agreements they had made -- whoever got home first, cooked.



He’d spent an hour in the library on his way home doing homework. He always found that atmosphere easier to work in than this apartment. It somehow seemed not quite right to be doing *homework* in an adult setting.



The rice was easy enough. He measured it out and put it in the pot. Now came the harder part . . .



Reaching up to the shelf, he pulled down a book entitled “Homemaker’s Helper,” flipping through the pages until he found what he was looking for.



He hated having to rely on a cookbook, but he had no choice. He never thought he’d have to be domestic.



Pulling out a package of meat they’d bought on their shopping trhe bhe began to cut it up, looking back at the recipe every now and then. Cooking was detelytely a tricky art. You had to keep one eye on the recipe and one on your pots and pans at all times.



*It’s so ironic*, Akira thought, *that I can think more than 10 moves ahead in Go, but when it comes to something like this -- I’m lost, I’m clueless.*



But he was determined to do this successfully. Almost as determined as he was to reach the Hand of God>



As he washed carrots and celery, he wondered how long he’d be able to keep up this three-way juggling act -- school, Go, home life. Most people would consider any one of those a full-time job.



*I’ll drop school after this year if it gets to be too much,* he thought, beginning to chop the vegetables. *That’s the lowest priority right now.*



But he knew he *had* to finish that household finance course. *That* was vital to their life together. Thinking of that brought up the teacher’s question again -- “Did you move out because you were having problems at home?”



He quickly pushed those thoughts away. He didn’t need to feel depressed over the situation with his father right now.



Akira consulted the cookbook again, dropping his meat and vegetables into another pot.



*I can do this,* he thought.



And then, he noticed that the water for the rice was boiling. To the point where it was starting to overflow the pot and spill over to the stove. With a cry, he reached for the mitts, grabbing it and yanking it off the stove.



He could do it -- but sometimes, it was a lot harder than it looked.



* * *



When Hikaru walked in the door, the first thing he noticed was the smell of something burning.



At first, he was alarmed -- was there something he didn’t turn off that he shouldn’t have? Did they leave something unplugged? He began to rush toward the kitchen.



There was Akira, scraping burned rice off the bottom of a pot.



“Uh-oh,” Hikaru said.



Akira looked up at him, a cool glance that was just short of being a glare. “No hello? Just ‘uh-oh’?”



“Well, I thought the apartment was burning down!” Hikaru said, reaching into the fridge for a bottle of Code Red.



“At least I just burned the *rice*,” Akira said. “As I recall, the last time you tried to cook a dinner, you not only made the rice boil over all over the stove, you ruined your mother’s pan.”



“She was really mad about that, too,” Hikaru grumbled, opening the other pot Akira had cooking and peeking in. He frowned a bit to see it wasn’t ramen, although he really wasn’t surprised.



“Well, you *did* say she’d had that pot since her wedding day,” Akira said, picking up a bowl filled with the rice he’d managed to salvage and dishing its contents into two serving bowls.



“Yeah, well, it’s not like that was the *only* pan she got that day,” Hikaru said, spooning the concoction from the other pot onto the rice and putting the bowls on the table.



Akira ran some water into the pot -- perhaps it would soften up some if it soaked while they were eating -- and sat at the table. “Not the *only* pan? Shindou, if I were her, I’d be upset at losing *any* pan I got on my wedding day.”



*Not that we could ever get married,* Hikaru thought, picking up his chopsticks and digging into the food. It was some kind of concoction of pork and vegetables in a miso-based sauce. It was . . . okay. Not horribly bad, but not really good, either.



“Well?” Akira said. “How is it?”



Hikaru shrugged. “You’re getting there.
BR>
BR>


“Getting there? I should let *you* cook the dinner by yourself tomorrow!”



“Oh, I will!” Hikaru said. “I’m gonna cook all the time!”



“And ramen doesn’t count,” Akira said, picking up his own chopsticks. “*Especially* instant. Or from a mix.”



*Damn,* Hikaru thought. *There goes that idea.*



There was a long moment of silence, punctuated only by the sounds of eating. Finally, Akira said, “Well, how was your day?”



“I met the lady next door this morning,” Hikaru said. “She helped me when I flooded the dishwasher.”



* * *



“He was a very nice young man,” Kyoko told her husband as she poured tea for both of them. “He said that he and the boy he lives with are both professional Go players.”



Hiromi reached for his cup. “Go? You mean people who are less than a hundred and twenty years old play that?”



“Oh, yes, they do,” she said. “They’re making quite a good living from it. Shindou-san was going off to teach private lessons this afternoon.”



“Only people I ever knew who played Go were my grandfather and some of his friends,” Hiromi said, picking up his chopsticks and digging into his wife’s kastu don.



“I think it’s fascinating,” Kyoko said, picking up her teacup and bringing it to her mouth. “I’d like to invite the two of them over for dinner some night.”



Hiromi looked up from his bowl. “You’re going to *invite them?*”



“Well, why not? They’re new in the building, nobody’s given them a decent welcome yet.”



“You haven’t even met the other boy yet,” he said, digging into his food again.



“I’m sure he’s just as nice as Hikaru. Come on, honey . . . can’t you agree to meet them just once?”



Hiromi sighed. He could never say no to his wife. Especially when she really set her mind to something. Like now.



“Okay,” he said. “Have them over Tuesday or Thursday, those are probably my best nights next week.”



As he dug back into his food, he thought, *A couple of gay 17-year-olds who play an old man’s game? They sound about as interesting as a polka musicians’ convention.*



* * *



Hikaru studied the board in front of him, frowning at the arrangement of stones.



Akira had cut off most of his escape routes. The group of stones he was looking at was barely fighting for life. The other group at the other side of the board wasn’t doing much better.



*There’s a chance,* he thought. *One hope of getting out of it . . .*



He laid his stone and looked up at his rival, his eyes filled with challenge.



Akira glanced over the board, holding his chin, deep in thought. Then, he picked up a stone and put it down decisively, cutting off Hikaru’s planned escape route.



Hikaru groaned inwardly. *Well, that didn’t work,* he thought.



He ran though some calculations in his head, trying to figure out the cause and effect of move after move. He came up empty every time. Even if he gave his all, it wouldn’t be good enough.



*Dammit,* he thought. *He’s beaten me every night since we moved in. Every single night.*



Hikaru bowed and said, “I resign.”



Akira bowed back. “Thank you for the game.”



Hikaru rubbed the side of his head, pointing to a grouping of stones. “This is where I screwed up, I know it. I didn’t close it up fast enough here.”



“Actually, that wasn’t a bad move,” Akira said. “There were more effective things you could have done, but that’s not what cost you the game. Now, what happened over here . . .”



As he proceeded with the game discussion, Hikaru couldn’t help but remember his old nightly games with Sai. It was the same thing. They’d play, he’d be defeated, they’d discuss the result . . .



And, in both cases, the discussions would end up with a fight.



“Wait a minute,” Hikaru said. “Are you trying to tell me that *this*” -- he pointed to a group of stones in the lower left hand corner -- “was a *sloppy* mistake?”



“You didn’t think it out very well,” Akira said.



“I did SO think it out!” Hikaru said. “I had this move planned ten moves back!”



“It certainly doesn’t look like it!” Akira said, his voice rising a bit, his finger jabbing toward the stones in question. “It looks like you just slapped a stone down anywhere!”



“Oh, yeah?” Hikaru said, jumping to his feet. “Then how come it blocked you from taking THAT stone THERE?”



“If you had put it down just two points over, it would have kept me from taking *three* stones later!” Akira said, leaping up as well. “You6;re6;re not thinking of the whole board!”



“What, are you going to accuse me of having no strategy next?” Hikaru said, taking a step toward Akira, his fists clenched at his sides.



“Well, it certainly didn’t look like it there!” Akira retorted, folding his arms across his chest.



“If I have no strategy, how come I was able to come back later on?” Hikaru said, pointing toward the board again.



“And you didn’t come all the way back, did you?” Akira said. “You resigned.”



Hikaru was going to reply to that, but the words weren’t coming. Akira was right on that one.



Instead, he stormed out of the room and toward the kitchen. Akira could hear the refrigerator door being wrenched open and banging on the wall.



Sighing, Akira sat back down and began to gather up the stones. They both accepted that these fights were going to happen. They’d made all kinds of ground rules to assure that they didn’t end up brawling in other areas of their lives -- who cooked when, who cleaned when, and the biggest rule, that they wouldn’t go to bed angry at each other -- but when it came to Go, there was no way around it.



He continued to put the stones into the bowls, listening to Hikaru moving around the living room. He wouldn’t be back for several minutes, he knew that. The only way they could get back to normal was to have a cooling-off period after the blowup.



When his job was complete, Akira reached for the latest issue of Weekly Go, which was folded up on one of the bookshelves. He busied himself studying kifu. The other room grew quiet -- Akira fed Hed Hikaru was probably reading a manga magazine.



Finally, Hikaru appeared in the doorway, looking much calmer. Akira folded up his paper and replaced it on the shelf.



“Do you want another game?” Akira said.



Hikaru shook his head. “Why don’t we watch TV tonight?”



This caught Akira by surprise. He couldn’t imagine Hikaru wanting do to anything but play more. “You want to . . . watch television?”



Hikaru smiled slyly. “What, you didn’t have a TV in your house?”



“We did,” Akira said, standing up. “We just didn’t use it very often.”



“Oh, so *that’s* what that black box across from your couch was,” Hikaru said. “I figured it was just a fancy stand for your plants.”



“Don’t get funny, Shindou,” Akira said, folding his arms across his chest as they walked into the living room and sitting on the couch.



Hikaru picked up the remote in one hand and the TV guide in the other. “Now, we have a sho show on one channel, some medical dorama on another . . .”



Akira waved his hand. “Whatever you want to watch.” He inwardly hoped, however, that Hikaru wouldn’t settle on one of those shows that had a gang of color-coded teenagers beating up on goofy rubber monsters. He’d seen one of them while he was tutoring at a children’s center, and had no desire to see one ever again.



Hikaru turned on the set and flipped through the channels, stopping at an anime showing a conversation between two young people in military-style uniforms. “Cool, this is the ‘Blue Wings’ movie!”



Akira frowned. “’Blue Wings?’”



“It’s a mecha show. Blue Wings are giant robots. The lead character -- Yukihiro, he’s over there -- he was tricked into becoming a pilot. But he stayed with it because the Surt -- that’s the villains of the series, they’re a race of aliens -- they killed his family, and now he wants revenge.”



Akira was only half-listening to Hikaru’s chatter at this point. He didn’t have much interest in giant robots or murderous aliens. But he had to admit this felt good, if a bit strange -- sitting there, not *doing* anything, not using his mind.



Not using his mind was *not* something Touya Akira was very used to. If he wasn’t playing Go, he was reviewing games, studying Go books, doing schoolwork -- until he started thinking about sex so much, that is.



He was quite aware of Hikaru’s nearness now. Not in a sexual way, but in a way where the idea of cuddling with him was . . . warm. Comforting.



Akira snuggled against Hikaru, putting his head on his shoulder. Hikaru responded by wrapping an arm around him and resting his cheek on Akira’s hair.



*I could get used to this,* Akira thought. *And that’s a dangerous thing. I don’t want to like this *too* much, I don’t want it to interfere with Go.*