[ficlet] Concrete [Hikaru no Go]

(( Ffff, whats wrong with me why am I not writing Code Geass aaahhh ))



"Never apologize for your feelings for Touya Akira," Sai once said.

Hikaru only noticed at such times of harsh morning sunlight, times when he and Sai crossed the bridge in the morning on their way to school, that Sai wasn't all there. That the sunlight was like an eraser to all his darker lines, and he was left as a light sketch against the sky.

At the time, there on the bridge where they stopped, Hikaru still hadn't liked Go, not especially, but he did like Touya Akira. Or, not like. But. Something. Touya was on his mind more than Go, which is a little silly because Go is all Touya is, even today, but it's not wrong, exactly, to look at them separately.

Sai made sure Hikaru knew it wasn't wrong.

"I think the foreign wind has changed our godly lands," Sai said, pausing as Hikaru did and looking towards the sky, as if expecting the divine wind to blow at that very moment. Sai said, "Now you don't know what words to use for Touya Akira. Back when I was alive, we knew."

"What words?" Hikaru asked, a little grumpy at the insinuation of his generation being somehow lesser than the great ancestors.

"You love him."

"I do not! Sai, you weirdo!"

And Hikaru remembers that Sai looked down at the water then and he became very distant. Hikaru felt the coldness of Sai's death in his body.

"It is important to have that person in your life," Sai whispered. "It doesn't matter if you are a painter or a musician or a Go player. Hikaru, Go isn't about Go. It's about Touya Akira."

Hikaru thought he understood at least half of that, so he nodded. Sai was often very ridiculous, but Sai was also one thousand years old. Maybe he knew what he was talking about.

Sai stared at the lazy stream below, not powerful enough to drown in, and said, "I killed myself because I thought I'd found that person, but he turned out to be a very dishonorable man. Even so, I remain because something inside didn't really want to give up. Oh," and Sai sobbed quietly, eyes dry, "if I could find that person!"

And nowadays Hikaru remembers this whenever he is passing a bridge or water or Touya's Go salon or, well, basically Hikaru always remembers how lonely ghosts are. And he remembers this as he waits for Touya Akira to come play a game, and while he waits, Touya Kouyo sips tea with him.

"How is our friend? Is he still playing fine Go?" Touya Kouyo asks, serene and smiling and hopefully not requiring a concrete answer.

And Hikaru remembers guiltily that Sai could be very selfish sometimes.