Three Lights
by Cat Who
Beta read by Lothar (thanks honey!)

Late at night, in the coffee shop. The light from the flood lamp on the table pooled in front of Hikaru's bleary eyes as Akari and one of the other students in his ninth grade class went over geometric proofs for the upcoming high school exam.

It's not fair, Hikaru whined to himself as Akari's calm face blurred in front of his eyes. He shook his head in irritation and sipped his coffee resolutely.

Waya didn't have to take the high school exams. Touya didn't have to take the exams. Even Ochi had proclaimed that he'd finish up middle school and nothing more. But Hikaru's mother had insisted he at least CONSIDER high school, and to her "considering" meant passing the exams to attend at least one high school, just to prove that he could do it.

So here he was, studying geometry at a cram session that evening when he should have been at home looking at kifu for his upcoming game with Ochi.

"Ne, Hikaru, can you tell me how to find the area of this triangle?" Akari said cheerily, shoving a hastily scribbled diagram in front of his face.

"Muh?" Hikaru managed to say, and then shook his head to clear it once again. He glanced at the diagram, looked at the numbers, and started mentally calculating the area.

"It looks like it'd be six units," he said, never having once touched a pencil.

Akari frowned. "But what's the equation? This is easy, you can probably tell by looking at it since it's the 3, 4, 5 right triangle, but how can you calculate a harder one if you don't do the math?"

Hikaru shoved the paper back toward her. "I count territory on a go board every time I make a move. I have to be able to look at the sides of something to guestimate area."

Akari rolled her eyes. "Sheesh, Hikaru, you're never going to pass these exams." She touched her toe to his under the table, causing Hikaru to blush instantly.

"I know I'm not," he grumbled, looking at the far wall, leaning his chin onto his hand. "I'm only doing this to avert World War III with my mother at home." He tucked his feet under his chair, hoping Akari would take the hint and stop trying to play footsie.

She sighed and picked up a pencil. "Anyway, this is an easy equation. You see, the Pythagorean theorem says . . ."

Hikaru tuned out his best friend and began to think of go.

My eternal rival. My mirror, the other side to my coin. The yin to my yang.

The only one who will ever understand me.

Later that night, Hikaru yawned mightily as he started at Ochi's kifu, wondering what had gotten into Akari lately. She'd always been clingy in a way that irritated Hikaru no end, but recently her attachment to him had really started to make him angry. Best friend or not, a guy needed some time to himself . . . it was as if she LIKED him, or something.

Wait a minute.

Hikaru immediately squelched the thought. His passion was for go; his own game and those who helped him achieve it -- namely Touya Akira, the only person in the world who could anger him beyond reason. The feeling was mutual; Touya was always so icy cold around everyone else. Hikaru found a secret thrill in being the only person to cause such intense emotion in Touya.

He gave up on the kifu. He'd beat Ochi anyway. Since he'd come to terms with Sai's leaving, he had concentrated on nothing but improving his game so that the next time he'd win against Akira. His rival. Hikaru sighed and placed the kifu in the go magazine on his chest and stared at the ceiling above him, immediately likening the square tiles to a go board.

His life was go. This was the life that Sai had left him with, and he intended to live it . . . that meant no bothering with other things the boys his age were doing, like angsting over a girl liking him when he didn't like her in return.

"Stupid Akari," Hikaru mumbled aloud, throwing the kifu down and wishing Sai were there to tell him what to do.

My friend . . . my reflection. My equal and opposite. The other half of my inner self.

The only one who will ever understand me.

The stars were bright outside as Akari left the coffee shop, munching on a sweet bun. Hikaru had escaped at least an hour before, claiming exhaustion and an important game the next day. Akari shrugged her coat on, her breath forming a cloud of fog in the chilly evening air. It was hard to believe that it was winter already. They'd take the exams next week, and the rest of her life would be determined by whether or not she got into the school she wanted to attend. She'd set her sights on the second best school in the district, although she'd try for the best as well.

Too bad Hikaru wouldn't be going to high school. Even if by some miracle he passed the exams for a school, he'd never actually attend. He had gloated about that all through ninth grade; at least he had until a few months ago, when he'd become suddenly subdued. She still hadn't figured out what had happened to him. It was as if the light in his eyes had died.

He seemed mostly back to normal now, although he was grumpier than usual. She put it down to stress. Tonight, however, he'd seemed especially cold an unresponsive. He had ignored her.

She sighed and dropped the wrapper from her sweet bun into a trashcan and resumed her walk home. It was getting colder.

Doesn't he realize it? she wondered for the hundredth time. Doesn't he know how much I love him?

The one I cannot see. My inner self. The one who is like me, yet not.

The only one who could ever understand me.

"Akira," Touya Kouyo, former Meijin, called to his son across the living room, his voice a pleasant bass rumble in their traditional home. He was sitting in front of the low table he used as a desk to fill out the paperwork that unfortunately still haunted him even during his retirement.

Akira had been kneeling in front of the go board studying Hikaru's most recent kifu in a match against Waya. The game had been extremely close; Hikaru had squeaked out a win by only one and a half moku. Waya had complained about it for days, saying that a guy who skipped work had no right winning against a dedicated person like himself. Hikaru had retorted that even though he was slacking he'd gotten better than Waya.

Akira smiled to himself. Since that last match against Hikaru, he'd pondered over the mystery that Hikaru had promised to tell him someday. Whatever the true story might be, Akira had a feeling it would be worth the wait.

His father's voice startled Akira, and he responded, "Yes, father?" without thinking.

"I have a favor to ask of you."

"Yes, father."

"I need these papers to be faxed over to the Go Institute of China by tomorrow. I'd prefer it be done tonight. Could you run to the copy store for me?"

Akira nodded and put down the kifu, clearing his mind of the mystery of Sai. Reality and the present -- his upcoming game against Waya -- took precedence.

He took the papers from his father and put them in an envelope for safekeeping. He knew what they were and understood just how important it was to get them faxed. His father gave him the telephone number and a thousand yen, knowing his son would bring back the change without him asking. Akira made his own money now.

"I'll be back shortly," he called, putting his shoes on.

"Go and come back safely," his father answered, starting on another stack of less vital paperwork.

Sometimes stars and planets align themselves in such a way that strange things happen. Such a meeting of celestial beings, even if it is only perceived here on earth, is believed to have a significant impact on events throughout the world. It is called a conjunction.

Akari had taken a longer route through one of the more upscale districts, which added at least twenty minutes to her walk but made her feel a great deal safer. She wished Hikaru had stuck around long enough to walk her home.

As she turned around a corner, she spotted a familiar figure walking about half a block in front of her. Surprised to see the reclusive Touya Akira out so late, she trotted up behind him quietly just to verify that it was truly him.

They'd only met a few times, really. He lived in a different world from her; in Hikaru's world, which was filled with go, more go, professional go players and not much else.

"Touya-kun," she said quietly, and he immediately turned around. If he was startled, he hid it well.

"Akari-san?" he said calmly, blinking in an innocent way that made him look much younger than fifteen. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Studying," she said with an infectious grin, and walked the few steps to be next to him. "Hikaru and the others abandoned me long ago. We've got high school exams soon."

Akira nodded, and they both began walking again, in step. "Shindou would do something like leave a girl to walk home by herself, wouldn't he?"

Akari huffed. "Yeah, he would, the thoughtless dolt. All night he kept whining about his upcoming game with Ochi-san. I don't think he got any work done. But at least he's playing again."

"Do you know why he stopped?" Akira inquired, his voice with a strangely tense edge that caused Akari to look at him with a sly glance.

"No. No one does. He just suddenly fell apart, like someone died. And then he started playing again. But he hasn't really been the same since."

Akira looked straight ahead, digesting her words for a moment. Like someone died . . . yes, Hikaru's behavior was as if he'd lost someone extremely close to him. But the Institute had checked. No one in his family or his class at school had passed away.

"I was rather hoping you'd know more than I did," Akari admitted. "I feel so . . . frustrated, since I knew he was suffering, but I couldn't break through his wall."

"I couldn't either. But someone must have because he came back."

"I wish I knew who it was. I want to thank them."

They walked in friendly silence for a few moments, both sending mental prayers of gratitude to whatever gods had given back their Hikaru.

"How did you meet Shindou, Akari-san?" Akira finally inquired politely.

She grinned again, her entire face lighting up with the action. "We grew up about a block away from each other. Hikaru and I have been pestering each other since before we were in school." She frowned suddenly, and shrugged, as if she couldn't comprehend something. "Then one day, a little over three years ago, we were in his grandpa's attic and we found a really old go board. Hikaru acted all weird and passed out -- we even took him to the hospital -- and then all he could talk about was go." She sighed a world-weary sigh. "I even learned to play myself because I wanted to keep up with him . . . but he was never the same since. He also started talking to himself all the time, even --"

"Fighting with himself," Akira interrupted. "I've seen that."

"Yup. I completely lost him to the game." She sighed again. "That was okay, because he was happy. If he was happy, then I was happy . . . and then suddenly three months ago he wasn't happy at all."

Akira had a sudden flash of insight. "You love him, don't you?" he said before he could stop himself.

"Isn't it obvious? But ever since he recovered, he's been getting angrier and angrier with me for some reason. I don't think he even likes me as a friend anymore."

She looked so forlorn that Akira wondered just what Hikaru had done to her. His father, in one of those rare moments of advice that had nothing to do with go, had told him once to never make a pretty girl cry. Yet Hikaru had almost done just that, because Akari looked almost on the verge of tears.

They came to an intersection where Akari started to go straight while Akira moved to turn left.

"Oh, your home is that way?" he asked, and then wondered for the first time in his life where Shindou and Akari lived. It couldn't be farther than just the next district over, of course, but he had never once been to Hikaru's home.

"Yes," she said, trying to restore her former cheerfulness with a falsely bright tone of voice. "You must be going to the copy shop across the way there, then," she indicated with a tilt of her head.

Akira nodded. "Will you be all right on the way home?"

"Sure thing. I'll tell Hikaru I saw you this evening next time I see him. He's always interested in news about you."

"And I'll talk to him about you next time." Akari looked startled, so he amended, "I meant, I'll ask him why he's been treating you so differently. If there is anyone he is honest with, it's me."

"Thank you!" Akari bowed, then fairly skipped across the intersection when the crosswalk light changed. "Bye bye," she said with an exuberant, friendly wave.

"Good bye, and good evening," he answered with a much more restrained wave, but with a smile that reached up to his eyes for once. He watched her continue on her way for a few moments before turning the corner toward the copy shop, lost in thought.

Hikaru didn't realize that Akari loved him. And he had made her cry.

Akira balled his fists at his side, his eyes narrowing in the anger he felt all too often at Hikaru. Treating such a sweet girl like that . . . the next time he spoke with Hikaru, the other boy was going to get an earful, all right.

Next chapter: Akira confronts Hikaru about his recent treatment of Akari, and Hikaru makes a startling confession that shocks Akira more than anything else Hikaru has said before.