Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction ❯ The World Between Awake And Asleep ❯ Part II ( Chapter 2 )
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By: hostilecrayon 
Anime/Manga: Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Supernatural | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.24.2010 | Updated On: 04.24.2010 | Pages: 2 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 557 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Hikaru No Go Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Supernatural | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 04.24.2010 | Updated On: 04.24.2010 | Pages: 2 | Words: 1.9K | Visits: 557 | Status: Work In Progress
Title: The World Between Awake And Asleep
Author: hostilecrayon
Warnings: Direct quotes from the end of the manga. AU, in a weird way, lol
Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go was created by Hotta and Obata and distributed by Viz, Shogakuen and Shonen Jump.
Notes: Inspired by the final episode of Roseanne and totally dedicated to [info]bookshop. This is mostly your fault, you and your amazing Hikago posts, complete with manga scans and all. This is also dedicated to [info]svz_insanity for her helpfully being a soundboard… and completely changing the way this fic was going to be written. Also, damn my muse for not letting me end this when I had planned. Damn you muse, damn you!
Also, in a way, inspired by [info]aishuu, since reading through this makes me think of Brightly Burning. I'm not 100% sure I wrote this after reading it, but either way, it undeniably has its fair share of similarities. (But it's different, too.)
This part is a lot shorter than the first - but it's been a while since I updated this, and it has magically become my most popular piece with just one part! My muse is bouncing around, so I figure some update is better than no update. Thanks to [info]schnickledoogr2 for looking some of this over for me! My Hikago muse was feeling a little dusty and I had characterization doubts. XD
Onward!
Part II
It was intense. From the moment the first stone was laid, Hikaru was practically holding his breath. As the game developed, he could feel the familiar flow of the stones. And yet, it was different from the Waya he remembered.
This Go was raw and unrefined. He imagined that if he had known Waya in his dream before he became an Insei, his go would look much like the Go he was seeing now.
He didn't know whether to be excited or disappointed when Waya resigned.
Waya let out a long sigh. "I guess you really are a pro. Even if your taste in food is terrible."
Hikaru laughed lightly. "You're not bad yourself. Have you ever thought of becoming a pro?"
Waya laughed outright. "Me? A pro? In my dreams, maybe." Hikaru smirked, thinking that was his line. "Isumi might be able to make it, though. I'm not really sure why he hasn't tried."
If Hikaru would have been drinking something, it would have ended up all over the go board. His sputtering was enough to make Waya look at him like he'd suddenly turned into an alien.
"You know Isumi?" Waya asked, a skeptical eyebrow arched.
Hikaru looked frantically around for something to say, but nothing came. Damn, but he wished Sai was here to help him out now. "I..." His eyes locked on a rack with faded volumes of Weekly Go, and he blurted, "I thought you said something else. I tutor someone with a similar name." It was a blatant lie - he didn't have any tutoring students just then - but in a way, it made him think about lying to everyone about Sai, and that made him feel a little bit better.
"Oh, I see." Waya looked down at the Go board again, his eyes unfocusing as he stared at it. "It's strange... your Go feel so familiar." He shook his head, his eyes moving to the door. "Isumi is a good friend of mine. We met in grade school, and we play together in our spare time - in fact," the bell above the door chimed, "here he is now. You won't have such an easy time beating him," Waya grinned, raising a hand and waving wildly at Isumi.
Isumi looked a lot like he did right after his trip to China, and Hikaru was having a hard time telling himself it never happened. His fateful game with Isumi, where he found Sai in his Go and realized he was allowed to play... the emotions ran thick through him even now. He couldn't bear to think of Isumi, or any of the others, as strangers. And yet... he had no choice.
"Hey Isumi! This guy is a pro! We just played a game, and I want you to play him and get him back for me, okay?"
Isumi's eyes widened, and for a minute, Hikaru's heart stopped. Isumi recognized him. "Shindou Hikaru, 3-dan, right? I've been following you in Weekly Go. Your record is quite impressive."
It was hard to hide how his body went numb. Of course Isumi had read about him in Weekly Go. No one else seemed to have any memory of him at all. Was he the only one cursed with the pain of knowing a world that didn't exist? "Thank you, Isumi-san. It's nice to meet you."
"You've really seen him in Weekly Go? You're still keeping up with it, huh?" There seemed to be some history about it between the two of them that Hikaru didn't know, but it seemed Isumi followed the Go world very closely.
Isumi set his bag down carefully, and took the seat across from Hikaru Waya was offering him. Waya plopped unceremoniously down in the next chair over. "Yes, he won an award for longest winning streak and best win/loss ratio last year." The same awards Touya had won in what Hikaru was beginning to think of as his other life.
Waya's eyes widened. "Really? That's unexpected."
"What do you mean it's unexpected?"
Isumi laughed lightly at the two of them, his fingers reaching of the goke. "May I trouble you for a game?"
"Not at all, Isumi-san. Please." People seemed so much the same, despite their different lives. It made Hikaru wonder if he could pull them into the world of the pros.
The world he was starting to think was where they belonged. Them, and most importantly, Touya Akira.
Hikaru could never believe that Touya belonged anywhere but in the world of the Pros.
---
Akira set the table as his mother, Akiko, diced carrots. The steady, rhythmic sound of the blade hitting the chopping block that was usually soothing grated on his nerves, and he sat, closing his eyes and taking a measured breath. He couldn't seem to be able to calm himself; not since the mysterious visit from Shindou Hikaru.
Touya Kouyou entered the kitchen, his scrutinizing gaze lingering on his son before he took his seat at the head of the table, the thin newspaper crinkling as it made contact with the empty plate in front of him. Akira looked up, barely acknowledging his father as his eyes took in the title of the paper his father was slowly unfolding and leafing through it at a leisurely pace.
Touya Kouyou folded a page back and, as Akiko came to serve the food while it was still hot, he set the paper aside, next to Akira. Food was completely forgotten then as Akira's attention turned to the open page of Weekly Go. Shindou Hikaru's kifu stared back at him, daring him to imagine just what thoughts went through the 3-dan's head as he placed each move.
Akira picked the paper up, his eyes narrowing as he read the small article next to the game played. It seemed 3-dan was no longer accurate. Shindou Hikaru was now a 4-dan, and it wasn't surprising with the kind of game he played. In a way, it was beautiful, but somehow, it felt like a cold strength. There was an emptiness in each move that Akira couldn't explain. How he could read the game like that was incomprehensible to him, but it felt like he'd been doing it forever. It was almost second nature to him, and yet, until Shindou's strange visit, he'd never even took the time to watch a full game.
He was at a complete loss on why he could understand how to read kifu.
"...Akira?" His mother's voice was wavering between amused and concerned, alerting him to the fact that he had been called more than once. When he looked up, he was startled to see that both of his parents were finished with their food. "Your food is getting cold." She cleared her and her husband's plates and excused herself, as if she sensed the sudden weight of the atmosphere. Kouyou's eyes pierced his son's, and the silence stretched into minutes.
Akira fidgeted lightly under his father's gaze, unsure of what to say. Then, "Would you like to play a game?" his father questioned, and Akira's eyes strayed to the newspaper again before shaking his head softly.
"I don't know what it means to play. I only know that there is something about this kifu that moves me." He looked away, apprehension plain on his face.
Kouyou weighed his son's words carefully. He had never before seen his son so flustered. Akira had always been a shy child, awkward but polite in a social setting. This, however, was something else entirely. Kouyou could see the passion warring with reason within his son, a feeling he remembered well as a young, aspiring business man. Something about this game was calling out to his son, and he wasn't sure whether to answer. "And what will you do?"
"...I don't know. I feel a familiarity with these games that I cannot explain." His fingers traced the lines in the printed board, pausing at the tengen. "How is it that I understand that this was the deciding move and that the weaker player just couldn't read deeply enough to see it for another twenty hands? Or that I have a feeling that this move was not a conventional one? This isn't possible, is it?"
"A soul does not forget its destiny, even if the brain does." Touya Kouyou stood to his full height, towering over his still seated child. "You may find what you are looking for at the Go Institute."
Alone in the kitchen, Akira pushed away his plate of food so he could spread out the paper properly. If he was going to go to the Go Institute, he'd have to glean what little about the Go world he could from this paper.
After all, he couldn't go unprepared.
---
Yashiro Kiyoharu was running late, so he didn't see the unique black-hair-with-blond-bangs hairstyle pass him on the other side of the street, but if he had, he surely would have recognized Shindou Hikaru, 4-dan from the sheer number of appearances of his face in Weekly Go. Yashiro had been following his kifu closely, and when he made the trip to Tokyo, he grinned all the way from Kansai.
If he ran into Shindou Hikaru, he would challenge him. And it would be a stunning mess of a game. And Yashiro planned to win.
But there wasn't much time for thinking about that particular aspiration, because he was late, and being late is a terrible way to kick off the Pro Exam.
Author: hostilecrayon
Warnings: Direct quotes from the end of the manga. AU, in a weird way, lol
Disclaimer: Hikaru no Go was created by Hotta and Obata and distributed by Viz, Shogakuen and Shonen Jump.
Notes: Inspired by the final episode of Roseanne and totally dedicated to [info]bookshop. This is mostly your fault, you and your amazing Hikago posts, complete with manga scans and all. This is also dedicated to [info]svz_insanity for her helpfully being a soundboard… and completely changing the way this fic was going to be written. Also, damn my muse for not letting me end this when I had planned. Damn you muse, damn you!
Also, in a way, inspired by [info]aishuu, since reading through this makes me think of Brightly Burning. I'm not 100% sure I wrote this after reading it, but either way, it undeniably has its fair share of similarities. (But it's different, too.)
This part is a lot shorter than the first - but it's been a while since I updated this, and it has magically become my most popular piece with just one part! My muse is bouncing around, so I figure some update is better than no update. Thanks to [info]schnickledoogr2 for looking some of this over for me! My Hikago muse was feeling a little dusty and I had characterization doubts. XD
Onward!
Part II
It was intense. From the moment the first stone was laid, Hikaru was practically holding his breath. As the game developed, he could feel the familiar flow of the stones. And yet, it was different from the Waya he remembered.
This Go was raw and unrefined. He imagined that if he had known Waya in his dream before he became an Insei, his go would look much like the Go he was seeing now.
He didn't know whether to be excited or disappointed when Waya resigned.
Waya let out a long sigh. "I guess you really are a pro. Even if your taste in food is terrible."
Hikaru laughed lightly. "You're not bad yourself. Have you ever thought of becoming a pro?"
Waya laughed outright. "Me? A pro? In my dreams, maybe." Hikaru smirked, thinking that was his line. "Isumi might be able to make it, though. I'm not really sure why he hasn't tried."
If Hikaru would have been drinking something, it would have ended up all over the go board. His sputtering was enough to make Waya look at him like he'd suddenly turned into an alien.
"You know Isumi?" Waya asked, a skeptical eyebrow arched.
Hikaru looked frantically around for something to say, but nothing came. Damn, but he wished Sai was here to help him out now. "I..." His eyes locked on a rack with faded volumes of Weekly Go, and he blurted, "I thought you said something else. I tutor someone with a similar name." It was a blatant lie - he didn't have any tutoring students just then - but in a way, it made him think about lying to everyone about Sai, and that made him feel a little bit better.
"Oh, I see." Waya looked down at the Go board again, his eyes unfocusing as he stared at it. "It's strange... your Go feel so familiar." He shook his head, his eyes moving to the door. "Isumi is a good friend of mine. We met in grade school, and we play together in our spare time - in fact," the bell above the door chimed, "here he is now. You won't have such an easy time beating him," Waya grinned, raising a hand and waving wildly at Isumi.
Isumi looked a lot like he did right after his trip to China, and Hikaru was having a hard time telling himself it never happened. His fateful game with Isumi, where he found Sai in his Go and realized he was allowed to play... the emotions ran thick through him even now. He couldn't bear to think of Isumi, or any of the others, as strangers. And yet... he had no choice.
"Hey Isumi! This guy is a pro! We just played a game, and I want you to play him and get him back for me, okay?"
Isumi's eyes widened, and for a minute, Hikaru's heart stopped. Isumi recognized him. "Shindou Hikaru, 3-dan, right? I've been following you in Weekly Go. Your record is quite impressive."
It was hard to hide how his body went numb. Of course Isumi had read about him in Weekly Go. No one else seemed to have any memory of him at all. Was he the only one cursed with the pain of knowing a world that didn't exist? "Thank you, Isumi-san. It's nice to meet you."
"You've really seen him in Weekly Go? You're still keeping up with it, huh?" There seemed to be some history about it between the two of them that Hikaru didn't know, but it seemed Isumi followed the Go world very closely.
Isumi set his bag down carefully, and took the seat across from Hikaru Waya was offering him. Waya plopped unceremoniously down in the next chair over. "Yes, he won an award for longest winning streak and best win/loss ratio last year." The same awards Touya had won in what Hikaru was beginning to think of as his other life.
Waya's eyes widened. "Really? That's unexpected."
"What do you mean it's unexpected?"
Isumi laughed lightly at the two of them, his fingers reaching of the goke. "May I trouble you for a game?"
"Not at all, Isumi-san. Please." People seemed so much the same, despite their different lives. It made Hikaru wonder if he could pull them into the world of the pros.
The world he was starting to think was where they belonged. Them, and most importantly, Touya Akira.
Hikaru could never believe that Touya belonged anywhere but in the world of the Pros.
---
Akira set the table as his mother, Akiko, diced carrots. The steady, rhythmic sound of the blade hitting the chopping block that was usually soothing grated on his nerves, and he sat, closing his eyes and taking a measured breath. He couldn't seem to be able to calm himself; not since the mysterious visit from Shindou Hikaru.
Touya Kouyou entered the kitchen, his scrutinizing gaze lingering on his son before he took his seat at the head of the table, the thin newspaper crinkling as it made contact with the empty plate in front of him. Akira looked up, barely acknowledging his father as his eyes took in the title of the paper his father was slowly unfolding and leafing through it at a leisurely pace.
Touya Kouyou folded a page back and, as Akiko came to serve the food while it was still hot, he set the paper aside, next to Akira. Food was completely forgotten then as Akira's attention turned to the open page of Weekly Go. Shindou Hikaru's kifu stared back at him, daring him to imagine just what thoughts went through the 3-dan's head as he placed each move.
Akira picked the paper up, his eyes narrowing as he read the small article next to the game played. It seemed 3-dan was no longer accurate. Shindou Hikaru was now a 4-dan, and it wasn't surprising with the kind of game he played. In a way, it was beautiful, but somehow, it felt like a cold strength. There was an emptiness in each move that Akira couldn't explain. How he could read the game like that was incomprehensible to him, but it felt like he'd been doing it forever. It was almost second nature to him, and yet, until Shindou's strange visit, he'd never even took the time to watch a full game.
He was at a complete loss on why he could understand how to read kifu.
"...Akira?" His mother's voice was wavering between amused and concerned, alerting him to the fact that he had been called more than once. When he looked up, he was startled to see that both of his parents were finished with their food. "Your food is getting cold." She cleared her and her husband's plates and excused herself, as if she sensed the sudden weight of the atmosphere. Kouyou's eyes pierced his son's, and the silence stretched into minutes.
Akira fidgeted lightly under his father's gaze, unsure of what to say. Then, "Would you like to play a game?" his father questioned, and Akira's eyes strayed to the newspaper again before shaking his head softly.
"I don't know what it means to play. I only know that there is something about this kifu that moves me." He looked away, apprehension plain on his face.
Kouyou weighed his son's words carefully. He had never before seen his son so flustered. Akira had always been a shy child, awkward but polite in a social setting. This, however, was something else entirely. Kouyou could see the passion warring with reason within his son, a feeling he remembered well as a young, aspiring business man. Something about this game was calling out to his son, and he wasn't sure whether to answer. "And what will you do?"
"...I don't know. I feel a familiarity with these games that I cannot explain." His fingers traced the lines in the printed board, pausing at the tengen. "How is it that I understand that this was the deciding move and that the weaker player just couldn't read deeply enough to see it for another twenty hands? Or that I have a feeling that this move was not a conventional one? This isn't possible, is it?"
"A soul does not forget its destiny, even if the brain does." Touya Kouyou stood to his full height, towering over his still seated child. "You may find what you are looking for at the Go Institute."
Alone in the kitchen, Akira pushed away his plate of food so he could spread out the paper properly. If he was going to go to the Go Institute, he'd have to glean what little about the Go world he could from this paper.
After all, he couldn't go unprepared.
---
Yashiro Kiyoharu was running late, so he didn't see the unique black-hair-with-blond-bangs hairstyle pass him on the other side of the street, but if he had, he surely would have recognized Shindou Hikaru, 4-dan from the sheer number of appearances of his face in Weekly Go. Yashiro had been following his kifu closely, and when he made the trip to Tokyo, he grinned all the way from Kansai.
If he ran into Shindou Hikaru, he would challenge him. And it would be a stunning mess of a game. And Yashiro planned to win.
But there wasn't much time for thinking about that particular aspiration, because he was late, and being late is a terrible way to kick off the Pro Exam.