by
verloren1983 Butterfly
When you have to wait hundreds of years at a time for someone to touch an old goban, it really gives you time to think.
Sai is no stranger to this. The empty space, the quiet. Sometimes he plays a little music, but most of the time he sits in front of the goban that's there, replaying games. It isn't a bad existence, but he longs for someone new to play with, new challenges. To get out in the world and experience new things, even if it's mostly secondhand.
He wonders, sometimes, which is the reality. Is it the empty space, or the living world? Will he wake up one day and find himself back in the Heian Era, before that fateful game? Sai isn't sure, some days. Time blurs, twists, completely unrecognizable. It feels like forever and mere moments at the same time. How long had it been since Torajirou? He doesn't even know anymore. Maybe he'd never existed in the living world. Maybe there isn't even a living world to go back to, and he'd imagined his life and everything he'd gone through. These are the kinds of thoughts Sai is left to after being alone so long. He missed having someone to talk to. Where is Torajirou? Had he moved on to heaven, or had he opted to stay behind like Sai did? Can you meet other ghosts, he wonders?
...maybe he's had a little bit too much time to think. It's a relief when he feels himself being drawn away from the board, toward the light, where he wants to be. God hasn't forgotten him.
"Can you hear me?"