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Balance	By : sailormac Category: +G to L > Hikaru no Go Views: 10858 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Hikaru no Go, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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BALANCE
A Hikaru no Go Sekkushiaru Roman Series
By Sailor Mac

PART FOUR: MENTAL (2/3)

Kyoko was coming off the elevator when she felt someone barrel into her. She gasped, whirling around.

There was a very flushed, gasping Shindou Hikaru. “I’m sorry!” he said, frantically waving his hands in front of his face.

“No harm done,” she said. “You just scared me a little. Are you off to play today?”

“Yes,” Hikaru said. “I’ve got a game.” He looked at his watch, frowning. *And at this rate, I’ll barely make it,* he thought as he stepped into the elevator.

“Oh, before you go -- do you and your friend want to come for dinner tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Hikaru said.

“All right! I’ll see you two around seven, then!” she said, waving.

The doors closed and Hikaru leaned against the back wall, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes.

He’d left the apartment a wreck. He’d managed to get the dishes in the dishwasher, but there was still furniture to dust, sheets to change, laundry to do . . .

*Maybe Touya will do some of it after school,* he thought. *No, wait, he said he has to teach today. Damn. Well, we can do it tonight, I guess, after we play -- but that’s going to be after 9, 10 o’clock! Who wants to do housework at that hour?*

The elevator pinged open, and Hikaru rushed out -- almost bumping into a burly, nearly-bald man who had grown a bushy black mustache to make up for the lack of hair on his head. His plain T-shirt and blue jeans both looked more than a bit well-worn.

“Watch where you’re going, faggot!” the man barked.

Hikaru whirled around. “Hey! What did you just call me?”

“I call ‘em as I see ‘em,” the man growled, walking into the elevator.

“You come back here,” Hikaru said, rushing after him, “and I’ll teach you . . .”

But the doors shut, and the man was gone.

Hikaru went back outside, banging the door behind him this time. On top of everything else, they still had to face people like *that*.

As he rushed off toward the subway (*thank the gods it’s only a block away,* he thought), he realized he’d accepted Kyoko’s invitation without talking to Akira about it first. And Akira had a game the next day.

*Oh, it’ll be over by then,* Hikaru thought. *It’s not like he’s playing someone like Ogata-san.*

His own opponent today was a six-dan. He knew he was going to have to collect his thoughts and get rid of this *frazzled* feeling before he settled down at the goban.

*Maybe it’ll be a fast game,* Hikaru thought. *Maybe I’ll have time to finish it, and come home, and do my chores, and . . .*

As he rushed down the subway stairs, he caught sight of a digital clock on the wall. He was even later than he thought.

“Crap!” Hikaru shouted, running toward the trains as fast as his legs could carry him.

* * *

“Where is Shindou?” Ochi asked Waya as they sat in the break room, watching other players start to make their way toward the playing room for the day.

“Like this is the first time he’s ever been late?” Waya said, finishing his can of coffee and tossing it in the trash can.

“I figured he might be more responsible now that he’s moved out of home,” Ochi replied, pushing his glasses back up on his nose.

Waya just shrugged and said, “Don’t think that would make a difference.”

But inwardly, he was wincing. It had been all over the Go world’s grapevine that Shindou Hikaru and Touya Akira were moving in together. The scandal was still fresh in people’s minds. Some just shrugged and went on with their lives. Others still whispered behind the couple’s back when they weren’t looking.

*I really hoped he would realize his mistake before it got that far,* Waya thought. It still burned him that Shindou had chosen *Touya Akira*, of all people, to have an affair with.

Isumi walked over to where the other two were sitting. “We’d better go in the other room,” he said. “It’s just about game time.”

As they headed for the anteroom, leaving their shoes in the cubbyholes, Ochi said, “You two don’t go places with him anymore, do you?”

“With who?” Isumi said.

“Shindou,” Waya said, quietly. “He knows how we feel about Touya.”

At that moment, the elevator opened and Hikaru rushed out, running like an Olympic sprinter toward the anteroom. He stopped suddenly when he saw who was there.

The last people he’d wanted to see. He had awkwardly avoided Waya and Isumi ever since the outing.

“Oh . . . hi, Waya-kun . . . Isumi-san . . . Ochi-kun,he she said, while quickly pulling off his shoes and stuffing them in a cubbyhole.

Isumi and Ochi said their hellos. Waya was silent.

“Um, how’s the new apartment?” Isumi said.

“Doing okay,” Hikaru said, just as the buzzer rang.

All four of them breathed a sigh of relief. It was like being saved by the bell.

*I needed that on top of everything else,* Hikaru thought as he walked into the game room. It pained him that his friendship with Waya and Isumi had fallen apart. *Why should I have to choose between them and Akira?* he thought.

He positioned himself at the goban, legs tucked under him, taking a deep breath and trying to empty his mind.

He was going to need all the help he could get today.

* * *

“You know, maybe we could ask him to have lunch with us sometime,” Isumi said as he unwrapped his Quarter Pounder.

“Maybe,” sai said without enthusiasm, pouring ketchup on his fries.

“It really does bother you that he’s with Touya, doesn’t it?” Isumi said.

“Doesn’t it bother *you*?” Waya said, pointing a French fry at his friend like a dagger. “I don’t like seeing him throw his life away on that guy!”

“Maybe if we got him to talk about something other than Touya . . .”

Isumi didn’t want to say it loudloud, but he knew that having Hikaru talk about something other than Touya was the one way they’d be able to have lunch. The relationship bothered him as well, but for a different reason than it bothered Waya.

Isumi had been raised in a rather conventional, traditional household. Things like homosexuality were never spoken of. They weren’t put down -- it was just as if they didn’t exist.

He was afraid he’d act too awkward around Shindou and betray that he wasn’t comfortable with his choice -- was it a choice? Could someone control whether they were straight or gay?

“He never talked about anything but Touya even *before* they --l, yl, you know!” Waya said, picking up his burger.

“ mis miss him sometimes,” Isumi said quietly, picking up his soda.

Waya chewed his burger. He had to admit to himself that he missed Shindou, too. Missed him terribly, in fact.

But he couldn’t be with him as a friend until Hikaru got his head back on straight, got his life back together and realized that a *rival* wasn’t the same as -- a boyfriend? A lover? What the hell did one call what Shindou and Touya were to each other?

*Okay, so I’m not a hundred percent okay with the gay part,* Waya thought. *But I wouldn’t mind it so much if he found a *decent* guy.*

“Do you think things will ever be the same again?” Isumi said.

Waya considered this question. Could they pick up where they left off if Hikaru dumped Akira tomorrow? It had been so long since they hung out . . .

He answered, truthfully, “I don’t know.”

* * *

Akira left the community center where he’d been giving a lesson. He figured he had a half hour to spend in the library before he had to be home.

Yoshida-sensei hadn sai said anything to him today about the previous day’s conversation. *I hope it stays that way,* Akira thought, as one hand slipped down into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He didn’t want to have the teacher asking him day after day if he was all right, if there were problems with his family.

He flipped the phone open and accessed his speed dial directory. Most of the numbers there were Go-related -- the Institute, various students. The first number on the list, of course, was Hikaru’s cell.

But that wasn’t the number he dialed now.

“Hello, Touya residence,” said the female voice on the other end.

“Mother,” Akira said, “it’s Akira.

“Akira!” she said. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine. We’re settled in.”

“Oh, that’s nice. Ogata-san was just asking about you this morning, he said he hasn’t seen you in a few days. How is school?”

“School is fine. Mother, can I speak to Father for a moment?”

“Your father isn’t here,” she said. “He’s out giving a lecture. I’ll tell him you called, though.”

“Thank you,” Akira said. *He won’t call back,* he thought. *He hasn’t returned any of my calls since I moved out.*

“You did give us your new number, right?”

“Yes, I did,” Akira said. “I have to go now, I have some things to do for school -- I’ll talk to you later.”

He closed the cell phone slowly, a small ache in his heart.

*He’s never there,* he thought. *Is he avoiding talking to me? He was away from home a lot before I left, but -- I don’t remember him being away this much.*

As he walked up the path to the library, he remembered walking up this very street with his father, holding his hand, being taken to the community center to enroll in his very first Go class, the one where he’d encountered Shindou’s ex-classmate, Kaga.

*Why can’t you see how much this relationship means to me, Father?* he thought. *Why should it matter to you whether I ended up with a man or a woman, as long as I’m happy and my game is the same as it always was?*

He clutched the phone tightly, as if he could hold onto something he felt slipping away from him.

Then, he set his jaw and stood up straighter, his eyes taking on their steely, game-face look. His father was going to *have* to accept his relationship with Shindou. They’d been too close over the years, bonded by their game. They couldn’t throw it away. They just couldn’t.

*I’ll just have to be patient until he’s willing to listen to me,* Akira thought.

And he continued up the path to the library.

* * *

Hikaru was moving much slower as he came up the subway steps than he had going down.

*Gods, I still don’t believe I managed to squeak by in that game,* he thought. *I was just lucky I spotted that mistake he made toward the end, or I wouldn’t have won at all.*

He knew he’d had a hard time concentrating. The damn undone housework had been at the back of his mind the whole time.

*Why the heck am I letting something like that bother me?* he thought. *I managed to play Go through a lot worse than that!*

He fished in his pocket for his keys. He hoped that Akira had gotten home before him, that he had started dinner already, and *maybe* got some of the housework done.

And then, he saw a familiar figure waiting by the door of the apartment house, and it *wasn’t* Akira.

“Mom?” Hikaru said. “What are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to see your new apartment,” she said, following him through the front door. “You haven’t shown it to me yet.”

“That’s because we just moved in,” Hikaru said a bit testily as he went to the elevator and jabbed at the button. *Great,* he thought. *She’s the last thing I want to see today.* “And we have things to do tonight, anyway.”

“I’ll just be here a little while,” she said, stepping on the elevator after him.

“Why do you want to see the place to begin with?” Hikaru said.

“Because it’s *your* apartment, and I want to see where my own son is living!”

As they stepped off the elevator, Hikaru was hoping to see Kyoko, Okawa-san, anybody he could foist his mother off on for a few minutes. He saw nobody.

“Fine,” he said, unlocking the door. “But I don’t want to hear anything about how it looks!”

As they walked through the doorway, his mother looked around, taking in the size of the living room, then walked ovnd pnd peered in the kitchen. “Oh, my,” she said. “I had no idea it was this big!”

“Yeah, well, most of the apartments in this building are this size,” Hikaru said, going to the sink to get himself a drink of water. When he walked back into the living room, he groaned inwardly -- his mother was starting to pick up the notebooks and magazines scattered on the floor.

“Mom, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to,” she said. “Hikaru, are you *sure* you can do this? It looks like you don’t have time to clean up.”

“I’m gonna make time!” he said. “I just haven’t had time *now* because we just moved in!”

“I really don’t see how two boys who have such busy schedules would have time for . . .”

She picked something up from the table and suddenly paused. Hikaru saw what it was, and his blood turned te. Se. She was holding their tube of lubricant, left there from the night before.

His hand shot out like a lion tamer’s whip and snatched it away from her. “I *told* you that you didn’t have to do that!” he said.

His mother just stood there, looking uncomfortable, blushing slightly. The object in Hikaru’s hand had just confirmed the one fact of her son’s new life that she didn’t want to think about, that she wanted to preteidn&idn’t exist.

She dealt with this by rushing over to the bookshelves and beginning to tidy a stack of papers on the top. “How *can* you afford this place, anyway?” she said. “What are you earning from Go? Two million yen tops?”

“Mom,” Hikaru said, “together, Akira and I will earn about a hundred million yen this year.”

She nearly dropped Akira’s old junior high Go tournament award on the floor. “What are they paying you the extra for?” she said. “Cleaning the tournament rooms afterward?”

Hikaru was going to answer when Akira walked in the door -- and stopped short, eyes widening with surprise. “Oh, hello, Shindou-san,” he said, bowing politely.

“Hello, Touya-kun,” she said, putting the award back on the shelf and bowing back. “I was just telling Hikaru how lovely your place is.”

“We like it, also,” Akira said. “Excuse me, I’ll be right back.” He headed for the kitchen, and Hikaru followed.

As soon as they were through the door, Akira whispered, loudly, “You didn’t tell me your mother was coming over tonight!”

“I didn’t *know* she was coming!” Hikaru whispered back. “I came home and she was right there on the doorstep!”

“Is she staying for dinner?”

“How should I know?” Hikaru replied. “For all I know, she’s planning on moving in with us!”

Just then, his mother appeared in the doorway. “Hikaru? Are you boys starting dinner?”

“Not yet,” Hikaru said, thinking, *Please don’t say you’re staying, please don’t say you’re staying, please don’t say you’re staying . . .*

“Well, in that case, why don’t I cook a dinner for you boys?” she said.

“No, no, that’s all right, Shindou-san,” Akira said, waving his hands dismissively. “Hikaru and I can do it on our own.”

“I insist,” she said. “I’m here anyway.” And she breezed past them, taking a pot down from the pot rack.

“Mom, he *said* you don’t have to,” Hikaru said.

“It won’t take long,” his mother replied. “I’m going to do the ramen that you like.”

“Fine,” Hikaru said, leaving the kitchen and going back into the living room, where he flung himself onto the couch, lying flat on his back with his arms folded behind his head.

*I moved out to get away from this kind of thing, and to be with Akira,* he thought. *Why is she insisting on barging in here and trying to run my life?*

Akira walked quietly into the living room, glanced over at Hikaru and then sat in the chair, reaching into his book bag and pulling out a sheaf of kifu -- the last five games played by the opponent he would be facing the next day. He started to study them, but paused when he heard Hikaru’s mother banging around in the kitchen.

*Shindou can’t get rid of his mother,* he thought. *And my father has vanished from sight.*

Akira looked at the stack of kifu in his hands again. *I need to win this game, and all the games after,* he thought. *Not by small margins, by big ones. I have to make my father see that being with Shindou hasn’t changed me at all, as a person or as a player.*

He began studying again, trying to recreate the game in front of him in his mind, get a feel for the other player -- his style of play, his typical attacks and counterattacks, which part of the game he was strongest in.

Akira needed a battle plan, not just a strategy.

*I hope she leaves after dinner,* he thought. *I *need* to play against Shindou tonight. I need the warmup.*

The room remained in silence until Shindou Mitsuko stuck her head out of the kitchen, saying, “All right, boys, it’s ready!”

The two of them walked into the room, sitting down at the table. Hikaru’s mother was dishing out three bowls of the soup. “You’re eating with us?” Hikaru said.

“Of course,” his mother replied, setting bowls in front of the boys. “Your father isn’t going to be home until late tonight. I’ll just take some home to him.”

*Great,* Hikaru thought. *That means she’s going to hang around *after* dinner as well.* He looked over at Akira, who had his jaw set, eyes expressionless.

“You know, I was talking to Akari yesterday,” Hikaru’s mother said, picking up some noodles. “She was asking about you, Hikaru.”

Hikaru looked up from his own food. “She was?” He felt a small pang of guilt -- he hadn’t spoken to Akari in quite some time, definitely not since they were outed.

“She’s doing very well in school,” Shindou Mitsuko said.

“Did she say anything about the Go club?” Hikaru said.

“No, she didn’t.” Hikaru’s mother picked up a piece of pork and nibbled at it delicately.

“Aww, you should have asked,” Hikaru grumbled, digging back into his ramen. *I have to call her,* he thought. *I want to know all all of them are doing -- whether Kaga is still trying to become a Shougi pro, if they’ve been in any tournaments, whether she ever got together with Mitani . . .*

“Well, I didn’t know she was in Go club,” his mother said.

“Yes, you did!” Hikaru said. “She came over to play Go with me! More than once!”

“Such a nice girl,” Shindou Mitsuko sighed, gazing dreamily off into space. “She’ll make someone a wonderful wife someday . . .”

Hikaru nearly choked on his noodles. He looked over at Akira, who was eating quietly, his expression as unreadable as ever.

With his mother, it was hard to tell whether she really meant that as a dig at Akira or not.

If it bothered Akira, he wasn’t showing it. He said, calmly, “Have you seen our entire apartment yet, Shindou-san?”

“Just the front room and this kitchen. I . . . I don’t really need to see the rest of it.”

*Meaning she doesn’t want to look at our bedroom,* Hikaru thought, slurping up a large quantity of noodles.

“Your son picked out a lot of the furniture,” Akira said, spooning up some of the broth.

“Oh, and he *always* hated to go shopping,* said Hikaru’s mother. “I took him and Akari to the store one time -- Akari was his oldest friend, you know, they’ve known each other since they were small kids, everyone always thought they’d get married someday . . .”

Hikaru picked up a crab leg with his chopsticks and broke it with a loud *crack*. At that moment, he was wishing that sound was something whalloping his mother over the head.

Akira just picked up his tea and sipped at it -- but Hikaru noticed Akira was avoiding looking at his mother’s face.

*That must have hurt him,* he thought.

“Well, they both ended up hiding from me because neither one wanted to go shopping. They always got up to no good, those two . . .”

“I’m sure they did,” Akira said, a bit too smoothly.

Hikaru just buried his face in his ramen, eating furiously. He knew if he said anything right now, it would result in a fight. He didn’t want to fight with his mother. He just wanted her to *go home*.

“Do you have enough groceries?” his mother was saying. “I could make a quick run down to Mitsuwa before they close . . .”

“We’re fine, Mom,” Hikaru said, his face still buried in his bowl.

“I certainly hope you’re eating something other than instant stuff.”

“We are,” Akira said, gently picking up a bunch of noodles. “I’m making sure of that.”

“Did I mention Akari said she was taking a cooking class?”

Hikaru buried his face deeper in his bowl. It was going to be a long meal.

* * *

The boys were sitting on the couch as Hikaru’s mother brought out a platter with three teacups on it.

“I could run down and get some cakes if you want dessert,” she said.

“Mom, we don’t *need* dessert,” Hikaru sighed.

“Well, if you change your mind a bit later . . .” she said, sitting down and picking up her own cup.

Hikaru groaned and sank down in his chair. *A bit later?* he thought. *She’s going to stay all night! We’re not going to get a chance to play!*

“Actually, Shindou-san, we’re going to be playing a game a bit later,” Akira said. Hikaru nearly kissed him for that on the spot -- except he knew if he did, his mother would probably have a coronary.

Shindou Mitsuko set her cup down, blinking in surprise. “I didn’t know the Go Institute had night games.”

“They don’t,” Akira said. “We play each other every night. It’s how we keep our skills up.”

Hikaru’s mother frowned. “Why do you have to play Go? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing all day?”

“This is different,” Hikaru said. “It’s, well . . .”

How could he possibly explain to her that playing Akira was different than playing anyone else? That they had a dynamic that was all their own, that they pushed each other, challenged each other, like no other person could?

“It’s a kind of teaching Go,” Akira said. “Only we’re teaching each other.”

“Teaching Go?” Shindou Mitsuko said, her cup paused halfway to her mouth, a quizzical look on her face.

“It’s a kind of game,” Hikaru said. “You’re not going all-out on the person, you’re just . . .”

“And you do this *every night?*” she said.

“Yes, we do,” Hikaru said, before taking a slurp from his cup. “No matter what.”

“Go really does mean more to you than anything, doesn’t it?” Shindou Mitsuko said, quietly.

There was a long pause. Hikaru and Akira just looked at each other, not knowing what to say.

“Never mind,” his mother said. “I’ll just finish my tea, pack up the soup for your father -- you *do* have a container of some sort, right? -- and then I’ll be going.”

“I’ll get a container,” Akira said, getting up off the couch.

When he left, Hikaru suddenly felt a bit guilty -- he’d wanted her to leave, but they’d just driven her out. “Mom . . .” he said.

She waved a hand dismissively. “It’s all right, Hikaru. Your father’s going to be home soon, anyway.”

Akira brought the Tupperware container in a plastic shopping bag. “Here you are, Shindou-san,” he said.

“Thank you, Akira,” she said, finishing her tea and standing up. “Well, I was glad to see your place.” She bowed. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Akira said, bowing in return. Hikaru just said, “’Night” from his place on the couch.

Shindou Mitsuko left the apartment and headed for the elevator. She was deep in thought.

She’d come there to see if he was doing all right, if he was managing, if he was having second thoughts about his relationship with Touya Akira -- and, she admitted, looking for signs that he was ready to give it up and come home.

She found none. In fact, she was now convinced that her boy was gone from her home for good.

*Now I understand,* she thought. *Now I know why Hikaru insisted on this relationship, unnatural as it may be. Hikaru doesn’t want a *person*. He could never be married. Because he’s married to his game.*

And as another player -- as the player he’d chased for years -- being with Touya was as close to marrying his game as he could get.

She knew that Hikaru was lost to her, to their family, the day he first put a stone down on a piece of wood. She didn’t understand Go, despite the fact that her father-in-law was fascinated with it. She didn’t think she ever would. But it was Hikaru’s life now. Not just part of it -- his *whole* life.

*There’s nothing to do now,* she thought, *but accept this, and move on.*

But she still had tears on her cheeks as she walked home.

* * *

Hikaru closed the door and leaned against it, his hands clenched into fists, his jaw set.

“I ca46;t46;t believe she just invited herself over like that,” he said. “Just invited herself over! She took over the house!”

“You *did* invite her in,” Akira said, calmly.

“I didn’t think she was gonna start tearing up the living room and inviting herself to dinner!” Hikaru flopped back down on the couch.

Akira looked down into his teacup, thinking again about the differences in their situations -- one boy with a parent who was avoiding him, the other with a parent who wouldn’t leave him alone.

“Let’s just go play,” Hikaru said.

Akira nodded and finished his tea. They headed for the Go room, settling into their customary places on either side of the board.

*My mother never saw this room,* Hikaru thought. *I didn’t want her to see this any more than I wanted her to see the bedroom.* He knew that what went on between them in one room was, in a way, just as intimate as what went on between them in the other.

Akira dropped a handful of white stones onto the board, and Hikaru put up two black ones. Akira counted through the stones. “You’re black,” he said.

They took their proper go kes, bowed and gave the customary greeting, and Hikaru placed his first stone toward the bottom left. Akira considered the move for a moment, then put his own near the top right corner.

*Gods, what a day,* Hikaru thought. *The game was almost a disaster, Waya and Isumi are still uncomfortable around me, and then I come home to find my *mother* . . .*

He grabbed the next stone out of the bowl rapidly and slammed it to the board with a noise more like a *crack* than the traditional *pachi*. Akira looked up in surprise.

“Are you all right?” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“If you’d rather not play right now . . .”

“I *said* I was fine!” Hikaru snapped.

Akira picked up his next stone and placed it at the opposite side of the board from his first. He regarded his rival’s stance, the way he was scowling at the board.

Hikaru was tense. And not in a good, up-for-the-game way. The kind of tension that made you not be able to get to sleep at night.

As the game took shape, Akira was sure of it. Hikaru was playing an *angry* game, fiercely attacking Akira’s stones everywhere and every way he could, without a thought to shoring up his own.

*He’s not going to last long at this rate,* he tht.
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