[Mekong]
by leilia
Choosing the Path
oOo
"Hikaru-kun, you have a visitor."
Shindo Hikaru tilted his head up from his computer screen first to his wife and then to the person standing next to her. "Go away," he ordered.
"Mou! Don't be rude! Toya-san has travel a long way just to see you."
Hikaru snorted. "And he can go the hell back there for all I care; I don't want to see anyone, least of all him. I told you that, Akari."
Akari turned to Akira. "He doesn't mean that," she soothed.
"He does mean that! Both of you get the hell out! Leave me the hell alone!"
But instead of listening to the man's shouted demands, Toya Akira turned to Akari. "Thank you for showing me to him, Shindo-san. I promise not to impose upon you for too long."
"You've already imposed too damn long! Get out!" Hikaru interjected.
Akari ignored him. "Oh it's no trouble, it's been ages since we've had a visitor. Please make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," Akira said, inclining his head slightly.
"Now be nice," she said firmly toward her husband. "I'll be back soon."
Hikaru's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" he growled.
"I thought I would come to play a game with you," Akira replied, simply.
"Well, I'm not interested! Go away!"
"I shall not. Not until you play me to your fullest capacity."
Again Hikaru snorted. "You're going to be disappointed. Haven't you heard, Toya? My career is finished."
Akira reached out to clasp one of Hikaru's hands. "Just because you are blind doesn't mean you can't play Go."
oOo
It had been a Tuesday when Toya Akira had first heard the news. Shindo Hikaru, one of the new wave of Go players, had been involved in a horrifying car accident. His son Saichi had been killed in the crash and Hikaru had been seriously injured by the broken glass. They said a drunk driver had caused the accident, plowing through the intersection with no regard for traffic signals or signs. The inebriated taxi driver had slammed into the small car Hikaru owned with such force that it pushed the vehicle off of the road and into a nearby apartment building. Shindo Saichi had died instantly, the news had said. Shindo Hikaru was in critical condition and his fate was uncertain.
Akira had wanted to go to him right then and there. Urge Hikaru to perservere. To not give up. To offer his condolences and support. But instead, he remained in Tokyo watching the drama unfold from afar.
Approximately two weeks after the tragedy, Hikaru had been released from the hospital. The prognosis was good; he would recover. However in addition to the loss of his son, he'd also lost his eyesight. The news said that the glass had pierced his retinas. Go Weekly reported that Shindo Hikaru, current Honinbo title holder, was on indefinite leave of absence. Rumor had it that Shindo would be forced to forfeit his title. And that was something Toya Akira, the current Meijin title holder, could not allow.
Which brought him to his present situation, six months later, standing uncertainly in Shindo Hikaru's bedroom.
oOo
Akira watched the emotions flit across Hikaru's face and the man took in what he had said.
After a few moments, Hikaru tilted his face toward him. "What do you mean I can still play Go? I'm blind! How am I supposed to see the patterns and the universe within the board if my damn eyes don't work?"
"Did you not tell me of one time when you and one of your classmates played one-color go? The principle is the same. You must visualize the board in your head and your opponent or an observer informs you of any moves that are made."
Hikaru frowned. "It still wouldn't work. No one in their right mind would want to play a cripple like me."
"Are you insinuating that I am not in my right mind?" Touya asked gently.
Hikaru snorted. "Have you ever been? From the first moment I met you, you've always been completely obsessed with Go."
Akira glanced down at Hikaru's hand still held in his grasp. "Not completely," he demurred.
"I'm not going to get into an argument over semantics with you. I'm tired, just please go."
"Not until you've played me with all of your strength," Akira asserted.
Hikaru sighed and pulled his hand away, resting his fingers atop the keyboard of the laptop next to him and started to slowly type something.
Akira followed the man's fingers, but he was confused as to how or why Hikaru was even on a computer.
"It's teaching me how to read and write all over again," Hikaru said abruptly.
"I didn't say anything," Akira protested.
"You didn't have to. I could hear you thinking all the way over here. Akari got it for me. She figured that if I couldn't play Go that I could at least write books about it or something like that in any case. I think she's trying to distract me."
"Ah, a wise woman, your wife."
"Hmph! She's a stubborn woman you mean. Still, it's nice to be able to read about what's going on in the Go world without having to beg Akari to read to me." He smiled half heartedly, then lowered his head letting his still-dyed bangs hide his sightless eyes. "It helps me keep my mind off of other things," he whispered.
"Saichi?"
"Yeah."
"I am so sorry for your loss," Akira murmured.
"It's not fair!" Hikaru burst out. "He was only five years old! He shouldn't be dead; he should be in school!" The man shook and Akira could see the tears start to leak from his eyes. "I was beginning to teach him Go. Did you know that? He loved the game, just like..." he trailed off seemingly unable to speak.
Akira hummed in sympathy, uncertain what to say.
After several long moments, Hikaru continued, "It was sweet and funny in a way. Saichi couldn't wait to play every evening with me. He would even pester Akari to play; he loved the game so much."
"I didn't know your wife played."
"Yeah, she's not too bad either. Nowhere near pro, of course, but Akari's a pretty talented amateur. She was in the Go club all though High School and College. Used to surprise the crap out of her friends there to find out that she actually knew not one but two of Go's rising stars."
"Two?" Akira asked.
"Me and Kaga."
Akira could vaguely place the name and said as much, "I think I recall who that is."
"He was an outsider the year he became pro," Hikaru explained quickly. "Caused a big stir a few years ago when he said he liked playing shogi more and was only a pro so he could pay the bills."
"Ah, him," Akira said with a sniff.
"Don't believe a word of it, Toya. Kaga loves the game. He's just, I don't know, stubborn. Shogi's what got him through some rough times in his past, but in his heart he still loves Go."
"Still, he should not have said it. Statements like those give the wrong impression."
"I guess, but Kaga's never been one to care about what kind of impression he makes."
Akira smiled then. "Reminds me of someone else I know."
"I guess I resemble that remark."
"Mmmm," Akira agreed. He looked around, uncertain how to bring the conversation back to the stated goal of his visit.
Thankfully he was saved by Akari returning with the tea, balanced carefully on one hip. "So how are you two doing up here? Are you two playing nice?"
"Hmph, we're not children, Akari."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So that tantrum when Toya-san got here was not childish?"
"Leave it alone. I didn't want visitors, okay? I still don't. Only Toya won't leave until I play him and I ain't playing him," he said crossing his arms with a pout.
Akari set the tray on the bedside table and shot Akira a sympathetic look. "Hikaru-kun, you're being childish again. Why can't you play Toya-san?"
"Because I'm blind and I can't see the board! I won't be able to remember what moves I've made let alone the ones my opponent did."
"Now you know that just isn't true. I've never seen anyone with a memory for the game like yours. Why, even when we were children, you could recall each game you'd played perfectly. Everyone was so shocked you could do that. How would this be any different?"
"Because then I could see the board and remember what moves were made."
"Shindo, don't you visualize the board in your head, playing out possible moves and counter-moves before you lay a stone?" Akira inserted. "I know I do."
"Of course I do!"
"This is just the same thing applied a little differently. I remember when I was back in middle school that some of my sempai tried to bully me by making me play them while my back was turned. I even managed to beat two. It was hard, but if I could do it when I was thirteen you should be able to do it now when you are thirty."
"That's different! Those people were beneath you, even then. I'd be playing with pros. You're asking the impossible."
"You won't know if you don't try," Akira reasoned.
"Hikaru, what's really bothering you?" Akari asked sitting down on the bed to take her husband in her arms. "You used to jump at all of the challenges thown at you. Playing multiple people at once, one color Go, impossible handicaps, taking a losing game and making it a winning one. Why are you fighting this so hard?"
Hikaru mumbled something unintelligible.
"What was that?" Akira asked.
"I just don't want to. Okay? Please just go away, your being here hurts too much."
Suddenly a light bulb went on in Akira's mind, he knew why Hikaru was balking so much and it didn't have anything to do with his blindness. "It's because of Sai and Saichi isn't it?" he asked shrewdly.
Hikaru's head jerked up and he stared sightlessly at Akira.
"You lost Sai so long ago and now you've lost Saichi and you think that it's all your fault and you're punishing yourself by refusing to play."
"No..." Hikaru started.
"My father told me about your tutor, Sai. When I asked if I could play him, he told me that he had heard from Ogata that he was no longer alive. All of a sudden, I understood why you had been missing matches so long ago. You were in mourning and you were punishing yourself by refusing to play. You're doing the same thing right now."
"No, I'm not! This is completely different! Sai had lived his life, and yeah I mourned Sai after he was gone, but I learned that Sai lived through me in my Go. Saichi..." he stumbled over the name. "Saichi didn't have a chance. I'll never be able to see him develop his Go or watch him defeat his first real opponent. I'll never be able to teach him how to hold the stones properly or how to spot and escape from a ladder. He's gone and I'm never going to get him back and even if I start playing Go again I'll never see my son in my stones! And nothing is going to change that!" Hikaru raged, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Akari pulled her husband closer to her body, her hands gently stroking his arms and face. "I know, Hikaru. He was my son too. But you can't torture yourself like this. It wasn't your fault."
"Yes, it was," he choked out hoarsely. "I should have seen the drunk coming. Turned the car. Gone a different way. I should have done something."
Tears filling her eyes, Akari murmured soothingly,"There was nothing you could do. It was an accident. A horrible and terrible accident and unless you have somehow become psychic there was nothing you could have done to prevent it."
"I wish I had died too."
The words chilled Akira to the bone. The thought of losing his rival and best friend was unthinkable, and yet here Hikaru was speaking the very words that he couldn't bear to stomach. Akira was ashamed to realize that when he had first heard about the accident that he did not feel sorrow at Akari and Hikaru's loss but instead had felt relief at Hikaru's survival. Go was a two player game, and without Hikaru there was no one with whom he wanted to journey toward the Hand of God. "You can't mean that!" Akira managed after several seconds.
"I do! I do mean it! I wish I were dead. I should have been dead. Not here, not some useless blind cripple!"
The crack of Akari's palm hitting Hikaru's cheek rang through the small bedroom. "Stop that, Hikaru! Stop it right now! How dare you wish you were dead? Are you really that selfish?"
"Akari-"
"No! You listen to me right now. You're not the only one who lost a child that day, I did too. And you think it doesn't hurt? That I don't keep waiting for Saichi to come skipping into the kitchen begging me to play a game with him? How dare you think your pain is the only pain that matters! How dare you wish that you had died too! I lost my son that day. I don't know if I could bear it if I lost my husband too!" she raged.
"Akari-" Hikaru tried again.
"I'm not done. If I could change the past I would, I'd roll back time so that the drunk had run off the road earlier or had lost his keys. But I can't do that, no one can. All I can do is keep walking down the path I have chosen and hope that Kami-sama has some kind of reward at the end. But you can't just stop, Hikaru. You can't. You can't just sit down in the middle of the road and stubbornly refuse to do anything just because something bad happened to you." She shifted on the bed so that she could take his head in her hands. "Oh, Hikaru, I know you're scared of being hurt again. But shutting yourself off from everyone and everything that you love isn't going bring Sai or Saichi back. And pushing away those of us who care for you isn't going to make the hurt any less. But you've got to understand, that shutting yourself away for the rest of your life and becoming a hermit isn't what Saichi would want."
"How do you know?" Hikaru snapped.
Akari rested her forehead against Hikaru's. "I know because more than anything Saichi would go on and on about how he was going to be a great Go player like his father and when he grew up he was going to challenge for the Honinbo title and win it on the first try like you did. He loved that you were a professional Go player. You were his idol. And if you can't play Go for yourself, then please, Hikaru, play for your son."
"Akari..." Hikaru mumbled gathering his wife into his arms.
Akira couldn't bear to watch the couple anymore. He was embarrassed that he had been privy to such a private scene, and he admitted that he was a bit jealous too that Akari and not him had seemed to get through to the grieving man.
After a few moments, he heard Akari's throat clear and he turned back toward the bed.
"Hikaru has something he wants to say to you, Toya-san."
Akira tilted his head. "Oh?"
"I'm sorry I was such a jerk, Toya."
"Apology accepted."
Akari looked over at her husband sternly, and poked him none-to-gently in the arm. "Hikaru, wasn't there something else that you wanted to say?"
The man looked sheepish but nodded slowly. "Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for caring about me. You know that you're the only person from the Go Institute to actually come see me in these last few months other than Kaga and, well, he doesn't count. So thanks."
"You're welcome. However, I am still not leaving, Shindo, until you play me to the best of your ability."
Hikaru sighed. "Yeah, I got that. I should warn you, I'm going to be pretty rusty. I haven't played since..."
"Understandable. I promise to be patient and allow you to take a one stone handicap."
"What?!" Hikaru spluttered. "A handicap?!"
Akira smiled slightly, this was the Hikaru he remembered. "Didn't you say it yourself, you're a cripple. It is only right that I go easy on you."
"Like hell! We're playing as equals. Complete with komi. I ain't going to have you feeling sorry for me."
"I will stop feeling sorry for you when you stop feeling sorry for yourself," Akira retorted.
Hikaru paused, his mouth agape. After a few moments, he shut it and lowered his head. "I guess I deserved that," he said softly.
"Yes, you did. But It is also very true. It is going to be hard to play you seriously if you don't take the game seriously. I cannot begin to understand your pain, nor, frankly, do I want to. However, I can do my best to see you through this rough patch so you can defend your title until the next generation comes along."
Hikaru nodded. "Let's play," he said firmly, holding out his hands for someone to lead him down to the living room where the Goban was.
As one, Akari and Akira reached out and each grasped one hand. "We'll help you through this, Hikaru," Akari stated, directing a smile toward Akira. "Together."
oOo
Choosing the Path
oOo
"Hikaru-kun, you have a visitor."
Shindo Hikaru tilted his head up from his computer screen first to his wife and then to the person standing next to her. "Go away," he ordered.
"Mou! Don't be rude! Toya-san has travel a long way just to see you."
Hikaru snorted. "And he can go the hell back there for all I care; I don't want to see anyone, least of all him. I told you that, Akari."
Akari turned to Akira. "He doesn't mean that," she soothed.
"He does mean that! Both of you get the hell out! Leave me the hell alone!"
But instead of listening to the man's shouted demands, Toya Akira turned to Akari. "Thank you for showing me to him, Shindo-san. I promise not to impose upon you for too long."
"You've already imposed too damn long! Get out!" Hikaru interjected.
Akari ignored him. "Oh it's no trouble, it's been ages since we've had a visitor. Please make yourself comfortable. Would you like some tea?"
"That would be lovely, thank you," Akira said, inclining his head slightly.
"Now be nice," she said firmly toward her husband. "I'll be back soon."
Hikaru's eyes narrowed. "What are you doing here?" he growled.
"I thought I would come to play a game with you," Akira replied, simply.
"Well, I'm not interested! Go away!"
"I shall not. Not until you play me to your fullest capacity."
Again Hikaru snorted. "You're going to be disappointed. Haven't you heard, Toya? My career is finished."
Akira reached out to clasp one of Hikaru's hands. "Just because you are blind doesn't mean you can't play Go."
oOo
It had been a Tuesday when Toya Akira had first heard the news. Shindo Hikaru, one of the new wave of Go players, had been involved in a horrifying car accident. His son Saichi had been killed in the crash and Hikaru had been seriously injured by the broken glass. They said a drunk driver had caused the accident, plowing through the intersection with no regard for traffic signals or signs. The inebriated taxi driver had slammed into the small car Hikaru owned with such force that it pushed the vehicle off of the road and into a nearby apartment building. Shindo Saichi had died instantly, the news had said. Shindo Hikaru was in critical condition and his fate was uncertain.
Akira had wanted to go to him right then and there. Urge Hikaru to perservere. To not give up. To offer his condolences and support. But instead, he remained in Tokyo watching the drama unfold from afar.
Approximately two weeks after the tragedy, Hikaru had been released from the hospital. The prognosis was good; he would recover. However in addition to the loss of his son, he'd also lost his eyesight. The news said that the glass had pierced his retinas. Go Weekly reported that Shindo Hikaru, current Honinbo title holder, was on indefinite leave of absence. Rumor had it that Shindo would be forced to forfeit his title. And that was something Toya Akira, the current Meijin title holder, could not allow.
Which brought him to his present situation, six months later, standing uncertainly in Shindo Hikaru's bedroom.
oOo
Akira watched the emotions flit across Hikaru's face and the man took in what he had said.
After a few moments, Hikaru tilted his face toward him. "What do you mean I can still play Go? I'm blind! How am I supposed to see the patterns and the universe within the board if my damn eyes don't work?"
"Did you not tell me of one time when you and one of your classmates played one-color go? The principle is the same. You must visualize the board in your head and your opponent or an observer informs you of any moves that are made."
Hikaru frowned. "It still wouldn't work. No one in their right mind would want to play a cripple like me."
"Are you insinuating that I am not in my right mind?" Touya asked gently.
Hikaru snorted. "Have you ever been? From the first moment I met you, you've always been completely obsessed with Go."
Akira glanced down at Hikaru's hand still held in his grasp. "Not completely," he demurred.
"I'm not going to get into an argument over semantics with you. I'm tired, just please go."
"Not until you've played me with all of your strength," Akira asserted.
Hikaru sighed and pulled his hand away, resting his fingers atop the keyboard of the laptop next to him and started to slowly type something.
Akira followed the man's fingers, but he was confused as to how or why Hikaru was even on a computer.
"It's teaching me how to read and write all over again," Hikaru said abruptly.
"I didn't say anything," Akira protested.
"You didn't have to. I could hear you thinking all the way over here. Akari got it for me. She figured that if I couldn't play Go that I could at least write books about it or something like that in any case. I think she's trying to distract me."
"Ah, a wise woman, your wife."
"Hmph! She's a stubborn woman you mean. Still, it's nice to be able to read about what's going on in the Go world without having to beg Akari to read to me." He smiled half heartedly, then lowered his head letting his still-dyed bangs hide his sightless eyes. "It helps me keep my mind off of other things," he whispered.
"Saichi?"
"Yeah."
"I am so sorry for your loss," Akira murmured.
"It's not fair!" Hikaru burst out. "He was only five years old! He shouldn't be dead; he should be in school!" The man shook and Akira could see the tears start to leak from his eyes. "I was beginning to teach him Go. Did you know that? He loved the game, just like..." he trailed off seemingly unable to speak.
Akira hummed in sympathy, uncertain what to say.
After several long moments, Hikaru continued, "It was sweet and funny in a way. Saichi couldn't wait to play every evening with me. He would even pester Akari to play; he loved the game so much."
"I didn't know your wife played."
"Yeah, she's not too bad either. Nowhere near pro, of course, but Akari's a pretty talented amateur. She was in the Go club all though High School and College. Used to surprise the crap out of her friends there to find out that she actually knew not one but two of Go's rising stars."
"Two?" Akira asked.
"Me and Kaga."
Akira could vaguely place the name and said as much, "I think I recall who that is."
"He was an outsider the year he became pro," Hikaru explained quickly. "Caused a big stir a few years ago when he said he liked playing shogi more and was only a pro so he could pay the bills."
"Ah, him," Akira said with a sniff.
"Don't believe a word of it, Toya. Kaga loves the game. He's just, I don't know, stubborn. Shogi's what got him through some rough times in his past, but in his heart he still loves Go."
"Still, he should not have said it. Statements like those give the wrong impression."
"I guess, but Kaga's never been one to care about what kind of impression he makes."
Akira smiled then. "Reminds me of someone else I know."
"I guess I resemble that remark."
"Mmmm," Akira agreed. He looked around, uncertain how to bring the conversation back to the stated goal of his visit.
Thankfully he was saved by Akari returning with the tea, balanced carefully on one hip. "So how are you two doing up here? Are you two playing nice?"
"Hmph, we're not children, Akari."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Oh? So that tantrum when Toya-san got here was not childish?"
"Leave it alone. I didn't want visitors, okay? I still don't. Only Toya won't leave until I play him and I ain't playing him," he said crossing his arms with a pout.
Akari set the tray on the bedside table and shot Akira a sympathetic look. "Hikaru-kun, you're being childish again. Why can't you play Toya-san?"
"Because I'm blind and I can't see the board! I won't be able to remember what moves I've made let alone the ones my opponent did."
"Now you know that just isn't true. I've never seen anyone with a memory for the game like yours. Why, even when we were children, you could recall each game you'd played perfectly. Everyone was so shocked you could do that. How would this be any different?"
"Because then I could see the board and remember what moves were made."
"Shindo, don't you visualize the board in your head, playing out possible moves and counter-moves before you lay a stone?" Akira inserted. "I know I do."
"Of course I do!"
"This is just the same thing applied a little differently. I remember when I was back in middle school that some of my sempai tried to bully me by making me play them while my back was turned. I even managed to beat two. It was hard, but if I could do it when I was thirteen you should be able to do it now when you are thirty."
"That's different! Those people were beneath you, even then. I'd be playing with pros. You're asking the impossible."
"You won't know if you don't try," Akira reasoned.
"Hikaru, what's really bothering you?" Akari asked sitting down on the bed to take her husband in her arms. "You used to jump at all of the challenges thown at you. Playing multiple people at once, one color Go, impossible handicaps, taking a losing game and making it a winning one. Why are you fighting this so hard?"
Hikaru mumbled something unintelligible.
"What was that?" Akira asked.
"I just don't want to. Okay? Please just go away, your being here hurts too much."
Suddenly a light bulb went on in Akira's mind, he knew why Hikaru was balking so much and it didn't have anything to do with his blindness. "It's because of Sai and Saichi isn't it?" he asked shrewdly.
Hikaru's head jerked up and he stared sightlessly at Akira.
"You lost Sai so long ago and now you've lost Saichi and you think that it's all your fault and you're punishing yourself by refusing to play."
"No..." Hikaru started.
"My father told me about your tutor, Sai. When I asked if I could play him, he told me that he had heard from Ogata that he was no longer alive. All of a sudden, I understood why you had been missing matches so long ago. You were in mourning and you were punishing yourself by refusing to play. You're doing the same thing right now."
"No, I'm not! This is completely different! Sai had lived his life, and yeah I mourned Sai after he was gone, but I learned that Sai lived through me in my Go. Saichi..." he stumbled over the name. "Saichi didn't have a chance. I'll never be able to see him develop his Go or watch him defeat his first real opponent. I'll never be able to teach him how to hold the stones properly or how to spot and escape from a ladder. He's gone and I'm never going to get him back and even if I start playing Go again I'll never see my son in my stones! And nothing is going to change that!" Hikaru raged, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Akari pulled her husband closer to her body, her hands gently stroking his arms and face. "I know, Hikaru. He was my son too. But you can't torture yourself like this. It wasn't your fault."
"Yes, it was," he choked out hoarsely. "I should have seen the drunk coming. Turned the car. Gone a different way. I should have done something."
Tears filling her eyes, Akari murmured soothingly,"There was nothing you could do. It was an accident. A horrible and terrible accident and unless you have somehow become psychic there was nothing you could have done to prevent it."
"I wish I had died too."
The words chilled Akira to the bone. The thought of losing his rival and best friend was unthinkable, and yet here Hikaru was speaking the very words that he couldn't bear to stomach. Akira was ashamed to realize that when he had first heard about the accident that he did not feel sorrow at Akari and Hikaru's loss but instead had felt relief at Hikaru's survival. Go was a two player game, and without Hikaru there was no one with whom he wanted to journey toward the Hand of God. "You can't mean that!" Akira managed after several seconds.
"I do! I do mean it! I wish I were dead. I should have been dead. Not here, not some useless blind cripple!"
The crack of Akari's palm hitting Hikaru's cheek rang through the small bedroom. "Stop that, Hikaru! Stop it right now! How dare you wish you were dead? Are you really that selfish?"
"Akari-"
"No! You listen to me right now. You're not the only one who lost a child that day, I did too. And you think it doesn't hurt? That I don't keep waiting for Saichi to come skipping into the kitchen begging me to play a game with him? How dare you think your pain is the only pain that matters! How dare you wish that you had died too! I lost my son that day. I don't know if I could bear it if I lost my husband too!" she raged.
"Akari-" Hikaru tried again.
"I'm not done. If I could change the past I would, I'd roll back time so that the drunk had run off the road earlier or had lost his keys. But I can't do that, no one can. All I can do is keep walking down the path I have chosen and hope that Kami-sama has some kind of reward at the end. But you can't just stop, Hikaru. You can't. You can't just sit down in the middle of the road and stubbornly refuse to do anything just because something bad happened to you." She shifted on the bed so that she could take his head in her hands. "Oh, Hikaru, I know you're scared of being hurt again. But shutting yourself off from everyone and everything that you love isn't going bring Sai or Saichi back. And pushing away those of us who care for you isn't going to make the hurt any less. But you've got to understand, that shutting yourself away for the rest of your life and becoming a hermit isn't what Saichi would want."
"How do you know?" Hikaru snapped.
Akari rested her forehead against Hikaru's. "I know because more than anything Saichi would go on and on about how he was going to be a great Go player like his father and when he grew up he was going to challenge for the Honinbo title and win it on the first try like you did. He loved that you were a professional Go player. You were his idol. And if you can't play Go for yourself, then please, Hikaru, play for your son."
"Akari..." Hikaru mumbled gathering his wife into his arms.
Akira couldn't bear to watch the couple anymore. He was embarrassed that he had been privy to such a private scene, and he admitted that he was a bit jealous too that Akari and not him had seemed to get through to the grieving man.
After a few moments, he heard Akari's throat clear and he turned back toward the bed.
"Hikaru has something he wants to say to you, Toya-san."
Akira tilted his head. "Oh?"
"I'm sorry I was such a jerk, Toya."
"Apology accepted."
Akari looked over at her husband sternly, and poked him none-to-gently in the arm. "Hikaru, wasn't there something else that you wanted to say?"
The man looked sheepish but nodded slowly. "Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for caring about me. You know that you're the only person from the Go Institute to actually come see me in these last few months other than Kaga and, well, he doesn't count. So thanks."
"You're welcome. However, I am still not leaving, Shindo, until you play me to the best of your ability."
Hikaru sighed. "Yeah, I got that. I should warn you, I'm going to be pretty rusty. I haven't played since..."
"Understandable. I promise to be patient and allow you to take a one stone handicap."
"What?!" Hikaru spluttered. "A handicap?!"
Akira smiled slightly, this was the Hikaru he remembered. "Didn't you say it yourself, you're a cripple. It is only right that I go easy on you."
"Like hell! We're playing as equals. Complete with komi. I ain't going to have you feeling sorry for me."
"I will stop feeling sorry for you when you stop feeling sorry for yourself," Akira retorted.
Hikaru paused, his mouth agape. After a few moments, he shut it and lowered his head. "I guess I deserved that," he said softly.
"Yes, you did. But It is also very true. It is going to be hard to play you seriously if you don't take the game seriously. I cannot begin to understand your pain, nor, frankly, do I want to. However, I can do my best to see you through this rough patch so you can defend your title until the next generation comes along."
Hikaru nodded. "Let's play," he said firmly, holding out his hands for someone to lead him down to the living room where the Goban was.
As one, Akari and Akira reached out and each grasped one hand. "We'll help you through this, Hikaru," Akari stated, directing a smile toward Akira. "Together."
oOo