Title: Before Me
Author: Luce Red
Crossover of series: The Prince of Tennis, Hikaru no Go
Disclaimer: names, characters and situations are the property of Konomi,
Obata and Hotta, Jump, Shueisha, and their affiliated parts.
Notes: General, overuse of ellipsis, gratuitous Japanese. Related to
Rivals or
Not.
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Momoshiro saw it happen as though in slow motion, but he was powerless to stop it in time. He was, however, the first one on the scene, Ryouma closely behind him.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
The young man who had stumbled down the short flight of steps leading to the street courts nodded, his neat dark hair brushing his chin, but he was still crouched on the ground clutching his left ankle, visibly gritting his teeth.
"Here, let's get you to sit down first." With Ryouma lending an arm, he helped the injured man to a bench, and got him to shift his legs to the top of the bench as well. "If you don't mind..." he said, nodding towards the ankle. He had the feeling that the young man would likely not welcome being handled without permission. There was an air around him that told Momoshiro that he was used to more formal courtesies.
The young man hesitated, then nodded. "Sorry for the trouble," he said politely.
"It's okay," Momoshiro said, feeling slightly awkward at being so formal with someone his age. He helped the young man to pull his shoe off (staid-looking black shoes), and winced at the swelling that was visible from above the ankle-length socks. He probed carefully, noting with interest that the young man didn't make a murmur despite the obvious pain, judging by the whitened lips. "It's probably not broken, just badly sprained," he pronounced. "Better have a doctor bind it, though." He glanced up at the other two who had appeared as well, both watching the proceedings anxiously. "Oy, be careful where you aim your balls!" he chided.
"I'm... sorry!" His face red, Horio bowed deeply in apology. Beside him, Kachiro looked equally frantic.
"It's all right," the young man said, "It was my fault, for being careless."
"Che!" Momoshiro expressed his opinion of the apology, though not unkindly. "Well, he needs to see a doctor. You two, go to the entrance of the park. My bike's there, bring it up, and I can use it to give him a ride to the nearby clinic." He usually left his bike there because it was a hassle to wheel it up by the long way, when he could simply jog up the steps to the courts.
"Excuse me," the young man said before the two could rush off. "I was supposed to meet someone at the entrance as well. If you see a boy with yellow bangs, could you tell him that I'm here? My name is Touya Akira." He paused. "His name is Shindou Hikaru."
The name rang bells in Momoshiro's mind. "Oh, now I remember! I've met you before, right?" he said. "Shindou-kun said you were his rival." He nodded at Kachiro, the more polite of the two. "That's right, if you see him, ask him to come here."
"Yes, Momo-senpai!" They chorused, bowed and took off.
"Those guys..." Momoshirou groused, before he studied Touya's face. "Are you hurt anywhere else?"
Touya shook his head. Colour was coming back to his lips, which Momoshiro took as a good sign. "You're Momoshiro-san," he said. "I'm fine."
"Just the ankle, huh." Momoshiro thought, then nodded at Ryouma. "Go and buy a cold drink, will you? We can use it as a cold compress."
Ryouma grunted a reply, and walked in the direction of the vending machines.
"So, you are a Go pro?" Momoshiro asked, remembering the conversation he had first overheard and then barged in. "What do you do, anyway?"
"I play Go. Usually in title matches, or when I teach Go," Touya replied. Probably seeing Momoshiro's face of incomprehension, he went on, "There're about twenty titles, but only seven major ones."
"That doesn't seem like a lot," Momoshiro said thoughtfully.
Touya smiled a little. "Shindou said that when he first started playing too," he said. "But there're many levels of elimination matches for each title, and it takes about a year and a half, or more, to get to the final game, especially for the major titles."
"A year and a half?" Momoshiro couldn't imagine a tournament that would take as long.
Touya nodded. He would have said more, but Ryouma returned, holding out a can of his favourite grape-flavoured drink. Momoshiro took it with a muttered word of thanks and taught Touya to hold the ice-cold can on his ankle. Ryouma sat down beside Momoshiro, looking bored.
"How did you come to play Go, anyway?" Momoshiro asked, for lack of something to say.
"My father taught me to play. I've loved the game ever since I was small." Touya's lips curved in a slight smile at the memory.
"Oh? Is your father very good?"
Touya's face lighted with pride. "Yes. He's very strong, and before he retired he held five titles: Meijin, Jyudan, Tengen, Ouza and Kosei."
"Er... that's impressive, " said Momoshiro, who had no idea what the titles meant, except, well, they sounded impressive. "So your goal is to beat your father, huh. Kinda like Echizen here." He nodded towards Echizen, who looked mutinous.
"Oh, not exactly," Touya said. "After I met Shindou..."
"You became rivals!"
Touya nodded. "I realized that Shindou was the one who could truly challenge me," he looked slightly embarrassed at revealing what was for him, Momoshiro realized, a rather personal opinion. "It takes two to play Go," he explained. "And you can go higher if you have the right opponent."
"Huh. Guess it's not too different from tennis," Momoshiro said, trying to work it out in his mind. "Echizen is always trying to go higher too."
"Does Echizen-san have a rival, then?" Touya asked.
Momoshiro snorted his opinion. "Not in the way you mean. He's obsessed with trying to beat his old man, aren't you, Eichzen?"
Eichizen ignored him and turned directly to Touya instead. "Isn't your father your rival?"
Touya looked startled, and shook his head. "No."
"Akira!" A vaguely familiar voice yelled, and they looked up to see Shindou Hikaru approaching them at a run. Momoshiro was a little surprised by the look of agitation on the blond-haired boy, and Touya's sudden warm expression. They weren't just rivals, he guessed, but were close... very close.
"Aki..." Shindou came close enough to see for himself that Touya appeared to be in no dire straits, and reverted to "Eh. Touya. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Touya said, before glancing down at his feet. "I hurt my ankle, however. Momoshiro-san here thinks I better see a doctor."
"It's sprained. He'll have a bit of trouble moving around for the next few days, I think, but he'll be all right after a few days," Momoshiro wondered why he was doing so much reassuring.
"Ahh." Shindou sat down beside Touya. "Is it painful?" he asked.
"Now that it feels numb, no," Touya said. "Did you wait long?"
"Nah..." Shindou shrugged. He thought about it. "Wait, you have that game tomorrow with Tanaka-sensei. How are you going to play that?"
Touya gave him a look of limited amusement. "Unlike you, Shindou, I play Go with my head," he pointed out. "An injured ankle won't stop me."
"Huh. You play with your head, but it's kinda hard to move the stones if you can't use your hands. So maybe you should be thankful you didn't sprain your hands or anything." He looked up and down Touya once, as if to ascertain that there was no damage. He turned to Momoshiro. "Momoshiro-san. Er, hello. I met your kohai at the entrance. They're bringing your bike up by the long way."
Momoshiro nodded. He'd expected that. "Yeah," he said. "I'll need it to bring Touya-san to the nearby clinic."
"Ahh. What were the three of you talking about when I arrived, anyway? Echizen actually looked interested." Shindou settled himself, pulling up his legs to sit cross-legged on the bench.
"We were talking about rivals, and Echizen asked why Touya-san doesn't think of his father as his rival," Momoshiro said.
Shindou glanced at Echizen. "You're still on that?"
Touya interrupted, seemingly before Shindou could let his mouth run away with him by saying something unwise about Ryouma's sense of competition with his father. "My father is not my rival. But I want to play him as an equal one day, even though it will not be easy. Winning or losing is not so important. What is more important is that we can reach a higher level."
Shindou nodded in agreement.
"Shindou also has his own goal," Touya went on, surprising a look from Shindou. "There are people that we admire, or acknowledge as being truly great, and they can also be our goals, but the most important goal is to climb higher."
"Towards the 'hand of god'," Shindou murmured.
"What?" Momoshiro asked.
Shindou burst out laughing. "Nothing! Nothing! Just something we say in the Go world. To reach 'the hand of God' is like, to play the highest level of Go." He nodded at Touya. "And in Go, you need an opponent to do that. One day," he proclaimed expansively, "I'm going to play like that, and it'll probably with Touya." The two Go players nodded as if at a challenge, before Shindou turned to the youngest of the group. "So, Eichizen, do you want to learn Go, after all? Your cousin is getting quite good!"
Echizen frowned. "No, I want to play tennis."
Shindou nodded. "It's good to have a target."
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