[otedama]
by issen4
What glimpses a goban
"Is that the haunted goban?" Waya asked when he saw what they were carrying out of the museum.
"It's not a haunted goban," Shindou said with a roll of his eyes, "and you're in our way. Come on, Touya, it's this room."
Waya obligingly made room as they squeezed past him into the newly created Go classroom. The Go Institute had been getting more and more crowded in recent years, and that had necessitated turning some of the old storerooms into classrooms. And rather than leaving the older gobans to languish in the Institute museum, Shindou had suggested choosing a few that were in better condition for daily use, which would also free up space at the soon-to-be downsized museum.
"It is!" Waya insisted as they set it down at one end of the room. "Kobayashi-sensei always said he heard weird noises coming from it."
Shindou snorted in disbelief. "What weird noises? Do you hear any weird noises, huh? I think Kobayashi-sensei's hearing things."
Waya was just about to retort his confidence in Kobayashi's hearing when Touya Akira said primly, "It is probably the wood in the goban creaking due to temperature changes."
It was exactly the sort of conciliatory answer that Waya loathed from that guy. Always playing the peacemaker; it was just typical of him, never coming right out and saying what he really thought, and instead giving such a diplomatic reply designed to impress. Well, it did not impress him, Waya thought as he crossed his arms.
Shindou did not seem to feel the same way, going by the way he grinned, "Exactly! And old stuff makes noise sometimes, right, and seeing that this goban is freaking ancient-"
"Probably made during the Heian period, according to Kobayashi-sensei," Waya interrupted.
He was startled when Shindou flinched, and dropped both go-ke all over the floor, scattering black and white stones everywhere.
"Shindou?" Touya said
Shindou was crouching on the ground immediately, grabbing at the stones. "Oops!" he exclaimed almost too loudly. "Yeah, this goban's so old, dinosaurs were probably using it to play Go, haha!"
Not understanding Shindou's tone, but sensing something was off, Waya studied his friend as he too bent down to pick up the stones. Shindou seemed to be holding himself carefully, as though afraid to jar an injury hidden somewhere under his clothes. "Shin-"
"I don't think there are enough stones here," Touya said as he helped to gather the stones.
Waya glared at Touya for interrupting.
But Shindou replied, in his normal voice, "Oh, you know Go stones, a few always go missing every year. I'd be surprised if there's a full set."
"We'll need to count them."
"I have a better idea. Let's play a game."
They're at it again, Waya thought, as Shindou and Touya looked up at each other, their gazes locked on each other. Lately they had been doing this more and more often. Intensity one could cut with a knife, hoo. Someone was going to be asking questions and speculating on the lack of answers, Waya thought, if they haven't already. He had tried to give Shindou a hint, but Shindou was the kind of person who would sooner be hit with a goban than take hints, and of course Waya wasn't going to say anything to Touya the spoilt brat!
He hovered around as they separated the stones into two go-ke and sat down before the goban, their movements oddly in synch. Theirs was an unusual rivalry and friendship, anyway. He wouldn't have thought that Touya, with his very traditional upbringing surrounded by Go and growing up in the household of Touya Meijin, could have anything in common with Shindou, who by his own account had slacked through school with baseball and soccer.
Considering their very different backgrounds and childhoods, it was amazing that they even understood each other's references. Well, except for Go, of course, Waya reminded himself. He dragged his attention back to the two of them, where Shindou had found two cushions to sit on and passed one to Touya while plunking himself on the other.
"Nigiri?" Touya was asking.
"I won the last time," Shindou said. He glanced around and seeing Waya, smirked at him. "By five moku!"
Waya guessed that Shindou was referring to one of their private games, as Shindou's official schedule in the past months had not included a game with Touya. His eyebrows rose in unwilling admiration: Touya he already knew was a formidable player, and for Shindou to win by five moku was a sign how fast he was progressing. Yet again. Waya stifled a sigh and pushed down on the urge to feel sorry for himself.
Touya had only nodded in response to Shindou's words, and took the go-ke with the black stones.
The loser of the previous game got to start, it seemed.
There was always a slight pause before a serious game started between two pros, as though battlelines were being drawn, then:
"Please."
"Please."
***
They were halfway into the game when Shindou sensed something strange. Not the game; that was going splendidly, and by his inner calculations if he blocked Touya there, and advanced ahead of Touya here, and pushed into the territory Touya was ignoring, he would...
There it was again, a small flicker out of the corner of his eyes that made him think of an insect buzzing around his head. He blinked, determined not to be distracted from the goban, but there was that lightning-quick movement again. And his heart was suddenly beating faster as he recalled Waya saying "It's a haunted goban!"
Hardly daring to imagine what it was he might see - he had been disappointed too many times already, trusting to wishful thinking what his rational mind told him cold not be - Shindou turned his head.
There was a boy watching their game, a boy he had never seen before. Shindou sighed inwardly, and was about to return to the goban when he noticed that there was a gossamer cast to the boy, as though he was about to turn transparent any moment. Like a ghost whose incorporeal body one could see though. Shindou swallowed, and looked more carefully. The boy was about ten, with a painfully neat haircut and wearing a school uniform that looked familiar somehow.
"Touya?" Shindou whispered, and acting on a hunch, glanced across the goban towards his rival. He froze for a moment, taking in the similar gossamer cast that was now on the older Touya who had just placed a stone.
That won't block my group, Touya, a corner of Shindou's mind observed before he looked down at his own hands to observe that he was starting to turn insubstantial too.
With only a vague suspicion of what was happening to stop him from freaking out, Shindou turned back to mini-Touya, who was watching their game with a concentration unlike most ten-year-olds, even the Go-obsessed variety that Shindou was starting to get used to as a Go tutor. Mini-Touya now looked brighter. Realer, like a television screen where all the colour values had been restored from "mute" to "normal".
"Touya-san!" Someone shouted from beyond the room. "Are you there?"
Mini-Touya - got to stop calling him that, Shindou thought - gave a start, as though he hadn't realised he was daydreaming. "Uchida-sensei, I'm in here," he replied.
Shindou glanced around and saw that the room was now back in its older incarnation as a storeroom, with stacks of books and low tables and cushions. Even Touya - the older one - was gone. Only the goban were still there too, a ghostly shadow almost seemed to disappear if one looked too closely.
Another man came in. Shindou knew him, except he looked younger now. "What are you doing in this dusty storeroom, Touya-san?"
Mini-Touya - no, Touya, ducked his head. "I was exploring. I'm sorry, Uchida-sensei, for wandering off."
"Oh. Well, the Institute is closing early today because Golden Week is starting tomorrow. I came to get you in case you didn't realise that. You need to be getting home soon anyway, right?"
Touya nodded. "Yes, thank you, Uchida-san," he said earnestly with a bow.
Uchida looked as though he might have wanted to pat Touya on the head but didn't quite dare. "All right, let's walk out together."
"Yes, Uchida-san." Touya's gaze turned in the direction of the goban once more, then frowned. If he was confused to see himself staring at piles of magazines instead, he didn't say so.
Shindou was puzzled by Touya's seeming composure. If it had been the Touya he knew, Touya would have been demanding answers, wanting to know what was the mystery with the goban and with Shindou and who was Sai - no, this was surely Touya before he met Shindou and Sai, always in control of himself. A young Touya, Shindou thought. Huh.
"Touya-san?" Uchida-san called when Touya continued to stand there. "What is it?"
Touya turned to him. "Nothing." He turned and followed the other man out of the room.
Unable to understand how this could be happening, but unwilling to let this child version of Touya out of his sight, Shindou got up and followed him.
***
The first hint that something unusual was happening was when he heard Shindou say, "Sai, look at this!"
Sai. The name, combined with the fact that Shindou's voice seemed to have suddenly changed to a softer, higher version made Touya look up.
A boy and a ghost were staring at the goban.
Or someone that looked like a ghost, because while the boy - Shindou, at twelve, he estimated, judging by his build and the elementary school uniform but easy to identify from the hair - looked translucent (Touya could see piles of boxes stacked behind him) the older man next to him had a faint, eerie glow to him that hinted at something otherworldly.
Well, even more otherworldly than finding yourself suddenly transported to the past in an incorporeal form, Touya thought as he found his previously solid body passing through a stack of old chairs as he stood up and tried to touch Shindou. Without success; as though a switch had been thrown, it was Shindou and everything else in the room that now looked substantial. Except for Sai.
Sai, who was inexplicably wearing a costume that looked as though it came out of history books, with white robes and a high black hat, not to mention the hair that hung past his hips. Touya had not realised that Sai would look so young.
Then again, Touya had not realised that the mysterious Sai was a ghost. The unseen person, the shadow that he had sensed all this time was inside Shindou was really a ghost, and an old one too, judging by the clothes. A ghost that loved Go. A real ghost and not the time-travelling sort, he corrected himself, looking down at hands that now appeared see-through.
"This is creepy," Shindou complained. "Who places a goban here of all places? And with a game half-played too!"
Touya realised two things at once: that Shindou - the older version - had disappeared, leaving only the goban, and that Shindou - the younger version - didn't realise that he was likely the only one in his reality who could see the ghostly goban.
"That's a very interesting game," Sai said. "I wonder who played black?" He stepped closer to study the goban, his gaze moving between the stones, and Touya saw him blink. "Hikaru, this is not a real-"
Someone outside the room called, "Where are you, Shindou-san?"
Shindou jerked, and turned to the entrance. "In here!" he replied.
Maeda-sensei, who usually helped with the insei classes on weekends, entered the storeroom. "So this is where you are. Did you get lost?"
Touya saw Shindou's eyes flicker in the direction of Sai, whose attention was still on the goban, but Maeda-sensei didn't seem to see Sai. Nor Touya, for that matter. "Just looking around. Sorry, sensei, were you looking for me?"
Maeda-sensei looked as though he wanted to sigh. "Nobody thought to tell you that the Go Institute is closing early today?"
Shindou scratched his head in embarrassment. "It is?"
Maeda-sensei gave in to temptation and sighed. "You're lucky I thought about coming up here to look for you. Waya-san said you'd gone home already. Come on, we should go." He turned towards the doorway.
"Oh, okay," Shindou mumbled, "I'm coming," and only Touya heard his whisper, "Sai, we got to go!"
"But Hikaru-" The ghost was still at the goban, his voice now a childish whine.
Maeda-sensei looked back. "Shindou-san, who are you talking to?"
"N-nothing, sensei!" Another whisper, "Sai!" and Shindou was at the doorway.
With a look of greatest reluctance, Sai shimmered over to his side, a pout on his face, and left with Shindou.
"Wait!" Touya said, and dashed towards them.
***
They crashed into each other in a tangle of limbs, ghost, and schoolbag. Touya might have noticed the way everything suddenly looked normal again and the way he was corporeal again, if he wasn't trying to get Shindou's elbow out of his stomach.
***
Waya had the strangest impression that lightning had just struck the room. It certainly explained the afterimages of first Shindou and then Touya turning transparent behind his eyelids. He rubbed his eyes and blinked them vigorously, allowing the double vision to change back to normal. Had he been dreaming?
Okay. Well, Shindou and Touya were still at their game. Nothing had changed. Unless you counted the fact that Touya had just played a stone and his hand was hovering - no, frozen - at he stared at Shindou. And Shindou was staring back, not speaking.
Blink, Waya suddenly found himself willing.
"Erm-" Shindou spoke first. "I saw-" he began, then stopped, frustrated.
Touya swallowed, then said, "I saw Sai."
(The end)
What glimpses a goban
"Is that the haunted goban?" Waya asked when he saw what they were carrying out of the museum.
"It's not a haunted goban," Shindou said with a roll of his eyes, "and you're in our way. Come on, Touya, it's this room."
Waya obligingly made room as they squeezed past him into the newly created Go classroom. The Go Institute had been getting more and more crowded in recent years, and that had necessitated turning some of the old storerooms into classrooms. And rather than leaving the older gobans to languish in the Institute museum, Shindou had suggested choosing a few that were in better condition for daily use, which would also free up space at the soon-to-be downsized museum.
"It is!" Waya insisted as they set it down at one end of the room. "Kobayashi-sensei always said he heard weird noises coming from it."
Shindou snorted in disbelief. "What weird noises? Do you hear any weird noises, huh? I think Kobayashi-sensei's hearing things."
Waya was just about to retort his confidence in Kobayashi's hearing when Touya Akira said primly, "It is probably the wood in the goban creaking due to temperature changes."
It was exactly the sort of conciliatory answer that Waya loathed from that guy. Always playing the peacemaker; it was just typical of him, never coming right out and saying what he really thought, and instead giving such a diplomatic reply designed to impress. Well, it did not impress him, Waya thought as he crossed his arms.
Shindou did not seem to feel the same way, going by the way he grinned, "Exactly! And old stuff makes noise sometimes, right, and seeing that this goban is freaking ancient-"
"Probably made during the Heian period, according to Kobayashi-sensei," Waya interrupted.
He was startled when Shindou flinched, and dropped both go-ke all over the floor, scattering black and white stones everywhere.
"Shindou?" Touya said
Shindou was crouching on the ground immediately, grabbing at the stones. "Oops!" he exclaimed almost too loudly. "Yeah, this goban's so old, dinosaurs were probably using it to play Go, haha!"
Not understanding Shindou's tone, but sensing something was off, Waya studied his friend as he too bent down to pick up the stones. Shindou seemed to be holding himself carefully, as though afraid to jar an injury hidden somewhere under his clothes. "Shin-"
"I don't think there are enough stones here," Touya said as he helped to gather the stones.
Waya glared at Touya for interrupting.
But Shindou replied, in his normal voice, "Oh, you know Go stones, a few always go missing every year. I'd be surprised if there's a full set."
"We'll need to count them."
"I have a better idea. Let's play a game."
They're at it again, Waya thought, as Shindou and Touya looked up at each other, their gazes locked on each other. Lately they had been doing this more and more often. Intensity one could cut with a knife, hoo. Someone was going to be asking questions and speculating on the lack of answers, Waya thought, if they haven't already. He had tried to give Shindou a hint, but Shindou was the kind of person who would sooner be hit with a goban than take hints, and of course Waya wasn't going to say anything to Touya the spoilt brat!
He hovered around as they separated the stones into two go-ke and sat down before the goban, their movements oddly in synch. Theirs was an unusual rivalry and friendship, anyway. He wouldn't have thought that Touya, with his very traditional upbringing surrounded by Go and growing up in the household of Touya Meijin, could have anything in common with Shindou, who by his own account had slacked through school with baseball and soccer.
Considering their very different backgrounds and childhoods, it was amazing that they even understood each other's references. Well, except for Go, of course, Waya reminded himself. He dragged his attention back to the two of them, where Shindou had found two cushions to sit on and passed one to Touya while plunking himself on the other.
"Nigiri?" Touya was asking.
"I won the last time," Shindou said. He glanced around and seeing Waya, smirked at him. "By five moku!"
Waya guessed that Shindou was referring to one of their private games, as Shindou's official schedule in the past months had not included a game with Touya. His eyebrows rose in unwilling admiration: Touya he already knew was a formidable player, and for Shindou to win by five moku was a sign how fast he was progressing. Yet again. Waya stifled a sigh and pushed down on the urge to feel sorry for himself.
Touya had only nodded in response to Shindou's words, and took the go-ke with the black stones.
The loser of the previous game got to start, it seemed.
There was always a slight pause before a serious game started between two pros, as though battlelines were being drawn, then:
"Please."
"Please."
***
They were halfway into the game when Shindou sensed something strange. Not the game; that was going splendidly, and by his inner calculations if he blocked Touya there, and advanced ahead of Touya here, and pushed into the territory Touya was ignoring, he would...
There it was again, a small flicker out of the corner of his eyes that made him think of an insect buzzing around his head. He blinked, determined not to be distracted from the goban, but there was that lightning-quick movement again. And his heart was suddenly beating faster as he recalled Waya saying "It's a haunted goban!"
Hardly daring to imagine what it was he might see - he had been disappointed too many times already, trusting to wishful thinking what his rational mind told him cold not be - Shindou turned his head.
There was a boy watching their game, a boy he had never seen before. Shindou sighed inwardly, and was about to return to the goban when he noticed that there was a gossamer cast to the boy, as though he was about to turn transparent any moment. Like a ghost whose incorporeal body one could see though. Shindou swallowed, and looked more carefully. The boy was about ten, with a painfully neat haircut and wearing a school uniform that looked familiar somehow.
"Touya?" Shindou whispered, and acting on a hunch, glanced across the goban towards his rival. He froze for a moment, taking in the similar gossamer cast that was now on the older Touya who had just placed a stone.
That won't block my group, Touya, a corner of Shindou's mind observed before he looked down at his own hands to observe that he was starting to turn insubstantial too.
With only a vague suspicion of what was happening to stop him from freaking out, Shindou turned back to mini-Touya, who was watching their game with a concentration unlike most ten-year-olds, even the Go-obsessed variety that Shindou was starting to get used to as a Go tutor. Mini-Touya now looked brighter. Realer, like a television screen where all the colour values had been restored from "mute" to "normal".
"Touya-san!" Someone shouted from beyond the room. "Are you there?"
Mini-Touya - got to stop calling him that, Shindou thought - gave a start, as though he hadn't realised he was daydreaming. "Uchida-sensei, I'm in here," he replied.
Shindou glanced around and saw that the room was now back in its older incarnation as a storeroom, with stacks of books and low tables and cushions. Even Touya - the older one - was gone. Only the goban were still there too, a ghostly shadow almost seemed to disappear if one looked too closely.
Another man came in. Shindou knew him, except he looked younger now. "What are you doing in this dusty storeroom, Touya-san?"
Mini-Touya - no, Touya, ducked his head. "I was exploring. I'm sorry, Uchida-sensei, for wandering off."
"Oh. Well, the Institute is closing early today because Golden Week is starting tomorrow. I came to get you in case you didn't realise that. You need to be getting home soon anyway, right?"
Touya nodded. "Yes, thank you, Uchida-san," he said earnestly with a bow.
Uchida looked as though he might have wanted to pat Touya on the head but didn't quite dare. "All right, let's walk out together."
"Yes, Uchida-san." Touya's gaze turned in the direction of the goban once more, then frowned. If he was confused to see himself staring at piles of magazines instead, he didn't say so.
Shindou was puzzled by Touya's seeming composure. If it had been the Touya he knew, Touya would have been demanding answers, wanting to know what was the mystery with the goban and with Shindou and who was Sai - no, this was surely Touya before he met Shindou and Sai, always in control of himself. A young Touya, Shindou thought. Huh.
"Touya-san?" Uchida-san called when Touya continued to stand there. "What is it?"
Touya turned to him. "Nothing." He turned and followed the other man out of the room.
Unable to understand how this could be happening, but unwilling to let this child version of Touya out of his sight, Shindou got up and followed him.
***
The first hint that something unusual was happening was when he heard Shindou say, "Sai, look at this!"
Sai. The name, combined with the fact that Shindou's voice seemed to have suddenly changed to a softer, higher version made Touya look up.
A boy and a ghost were staring at the goban.
Or someone that looked like a ghost, because while the boy - Shindou, at twelve, he estimated, judging by his build and the elementary school uniform but easy to identify from the hair - looked translucent (Touya could see piles of boxes stacked behind him) the older man next to him had a faint, eerie glow to him that hinted at something otherworldly.
Well, even more otherworldly than finding yourself suddenly transported to the past in an incorporeal form, Touya thought as he found his previously solid body passing through a stack of old chairs as he stood up and tried to touch Shindou. Without success; as though a switch had been thrown, it was Shindou and everything else in the room that now looked substantial. Except for Sai.
Sai, who was inexplicably wearing a costume that looked as though it came out of history books, with white robes and a high black hat, not to mention the hair that hung past his hips. Touya had not realised that Sai would look so young.
Then again, Touya had not realised that the mysterious Sai was a ghost. The unseen person, the shadow that he had sensed all this time was inside Shindou was really a ghost, and an old one too, judging by the clothes. A ghost that loved Go. A real ghost and not the time-travelling sort, he corrected himself, looking down at hands that now appeared see-through.
"This is creepy," Shindou complained. "Who places a goban here of all places? And with a game half-played too!"
Touya realised two things at once: that Shindou - the older version - had disappeared, leaving only the goban, and that Shindou - the younger version - didn't realise that he was likely the only one in his reality who could see the ghostly goban.
"That's a very interesting game," Sai said. "I wonder who played black?" He stepped closer to study the goban, his gaze moving between the stones, and Touya saw him blink. "Hikaru, this is not a real-"
Someone outside the room called, "Where are you, Shindou-san?"
Shindou jerked, and turned to the entrance. "In here!" he replied.
Maeda-sensei, who usually helped with the insei classes on weekends, entered the storeroom. "So this is where you are. Did you get lost?"
Touya saw Shindou's eyes flicker in the direction of Sai, whose attention was still on the goban, but Maeda-sensei didn't seem to see Sai. Nor Touya, for that matter. "Just looking around. Sorry, sensei, were you looking for me?"
Maeda-sensei looked as though he wanted to sigh. "Nobody thought to tell you that the Go Institute is closing early today?"
Shindou scratched his head in embarrassment. "It is?"
Maeda-sensei gave in to temptation and sighed. "You're lucky I thought about coming up here to look for you. Waya-san said you'd gone home already. Come on, we should go." He turned towards the doorway.
"Oh, okay," Shindou mumbled, "I'm coming," and only Touya heard his whisper, "Sai, we got to go!"
"But Hikaru-" The ghost was still at the goban, his voice now a childish whine.
Maeda-sensei looked back. "Shindou-san, who are you talking to?"
"N-nothing, sensei!" Another whisper, "Sai!" and Shindou was at the doorway.
With a look of greatest reluctance, Sai shimmered over to his side, a pout on his face, and left with Shindou.
"Wait!" Touya said, and dashed towards them.
***
They crashed into each other in a tangle of limbs, ghost, and schoolbag. Touya might have noticed the way everything suddenly looked normal again and the way he was corporeal again, if he wasn't trying to get Shindou's elbow out of his stomach.
***
Waya had the strangest impression that lightning had just struck the room. It certainly explained the afterimages of first Shindou and then Touya turning transparent behind his eyelids. He rubbed his eyes and blinked them vigorously, allowing the double vision to change back to normal. Had he been dreaming?
Okay. Well, Shindou and Touya were still at their game. Nothing had changed. Unless you counted the fact that Touya had just played a stone and his hand was hovering - no, frozen - at he stared at Shindou. And Shindou was staring back, not speaking.
Blink, Waya suddenly found himself willing.
"Erm-" Shindou spoke first. "I saw-" he began, then stopped, frustrated.
Touya swallowed, then said, "I saw Sai."
(The end)