[Amano]
[GEN] PAINTED LIPS
hkfoot
Ichi
"You are a beautiful child," his mother told him as she combed his long hair.
Fujiwara no Sai nodded absently. He was seven, and his mind was far away, reviewing a joseki his father had taught him the night before and mentally experimenting with different variations.
"Sai! Don't make such a face," his mother reprimanded when she noticed how he frowned into the mirror.
"Eh?" Her son blinked at her sharp tone. He had only been thinking of how playing at 3-4 instead of 2-5 worked poorly for black. "I'm sorry, Mother," he said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for.
She smiled back at him in the mirror, and his eyes were caught by her delicate, red-painted lips. It was a pretty color, he thought, watching as his mother's lips gradually became a vivid, cherry blur in his unblinking gaze.
"If you frown too much, you'll get ugly lines here," she said, snapping him out of his trance as she traced tickling lines down the sides of his mouth.
Sai giggled. "Then all the old men at court must have frowned too much when they were younger!"
"Yes, I think you must be right," his mother agreed good-humoredly.
She arranged his hair in two looping circles, one on each side of his head, and tied them in place with white ribbons. She patted his head, and her young son turned to look up at her. "Are you done?" he asked.
She turned him all the way around and checked his appearance. Very clean, very tidy, very beautiful. "Yes," she told him. "Let's go meet Suzuki-sensei for your biwa lesson."
Ni
"You are beautiful, Sai," his father told him. The senior Fujiwara looked thoughtfully at his fifteen-year-old son, unconsciously opening and closing his fan slowly, fold by fold, as he did so.
Sai flushed in embarrassment and lowered his flute. "Please don't say that, Father. I'm a boy!"
"You take after your mother," his father said, ignoring his son's fluster. He took in Sai's long, long, dark purple hair and nodded to himself. He closed his fan decisively and tapped it against his palm. "I've decided," he said. "We won't have your hair cut."
It took Sai a moment before he realized what his father was saying. "Ehhh? But all the other boys already have their hair cut! My hair is too long to put up like this, and Mother...she promised before she...well, she promised me that I could have my hair cut too." He finished in a resentful grumble, unable to look his father in the eye.
"Sai," his father said sternly, "You may not understand at your age, but there are greater things in life than doing what everyone else is doing. Your beauty is a gift from the heavens, and a gift from your mother. It would not do to throw such a gift away."
"I miss Mother too," Sai muttered. "But if I let my hair grow any longer, people will start thinking I'm a girl."
His father frowned. "If anyone thinks you are a girl, you may cut your hair."
Sai brightened. "Really?"
"Yes. But remember, my son, gentlemen are never mistaken for ladies, and I believe I have raised you to be a fine gentleman," his father continued. "I am ashamed to think that perhaps I have failed in your education after all." His solemn gaze sharpened as he waited for his son's response.
Sai knew he had lost. "You have not failed, Father," he sighed. "I was wrong in thinking that I could be mistaken for a girl." He aimed one last mournful look at his father to see if he would change his mind, but it went largely ignored.
"Then it's settled. Let's not speak of needlessly cutting your hair again." His father patted him on the shoulder. "Your flute still needs practice, but shall we play a game of go first?"
San
"You are beautiful, Sai-sensei," the young lady giggled. She hid her crimson smile behind a modest sleeve. "I am flattered, but I am afraid your beauty only accentuates my own inadequacy." At Sai's questioning look, she giggled again. "I must respectfully decline your request," she clarified. Bowing quickly over the goban, she said, "Thank you again for the game, sensei," then retreated from the veranda with her giggling cohorts.
"Thank you for the game," Sai said to the empty space across from him. The warm summer breeze echoed his relief and fanned away his already-fading disappointment. She had declined his request to visit her that evening, and he felt everlastingly grateful. He was eighteen, and it had been the first time he had ever asked a lady for the pleasure of her private company.
His peers, young men also finding their place in the imperial court, were already bragging about their exploits among the fairer sex. Sai had felt compelled to follow their lead, but he had not known how to until the young lady had shown up with her charming red smile and her playful, curious go. She was well-known and well-liked by many in the imperial court, and he had known from the start that a middle-ranked courtier like him stood little chance of capturing her attention. Only the bold daring of youth and the relentless teasing of his peers had spurred him to proposition her for an unlikely late-night rendezvous.
Rejection should have hurt more, but he felt overwhelmingly relieved that the trial was over and overwhelmingly grateful that she would no longer distract him from the long, long path of go that he now walked.
He felt shame that he had been even momentarily distracted--the game was all that he needed, all that he truly wanted. This he realized now, more clearly than ever.
On impulse, he bowed to the goban, folding himself over in seiza so that his head was level with the board. A part of him thought how silly he must appear, especially when his hat toppled off of his bowed head. It didn't matter. This was right, he thought warmly.
"Sai?"
Sai bolted upright, heat spreading across his face. He saw Takamatsu no Koichi, an older man he had played many games with, standing before him with a polite, yet clearly perplexed look.
"If you're not busy, may I have a game?" Takamatsu asked, kindly refraining from commenting on the peculiar position he had found the younger man in.
"Of course, of course, Takamatsu-dono," Sai said hastily, grabbing his hat and replacing it on his head. "Please, sit."
"I'll take four stones today if you don't mind," the older man said as he took a seat on the cushion opposite the goban.
"Certainly," Sai acquiesced. It was one stone more than the man usually took, but Sai had been winning all their games lately. His still-fresh embarrassment was forgotten as the board once again became his world.
"Onegaishimasu."
"Onegaishimasu."
Takamatsu was a noble of the fourth rank, one rank above Sai's own. He was in his late twenties and an acquaintance of Sai's father; as an enthusiastic go player, he had often sought out Sai when the elder Fujiwara had first introduced his son to the court. Even after Sai's father had passed away, Takamatsu had continued to support Sai's go, magnifying the boy's reputation until, very recently, it had reached even the emperor's ears.
Takamatsu's go was more confident today, more aggressive. Sai was being hard pressed to catch up under the four-stone handicap. Each corner, each side was a struggle for life and dominance, and Sai found that as they approached the open middle, he was still trailing by six moku. He could not close the gap simply by pushing.
Sai's searching eyes lighted on one black group extending out into the middle of the board. Its connection to the others was weak. He opened his fan and calculated. If he cut off the group, could he kill it and still live? It would be risky. If he cut off the group...
He shut his fan and cut. Raising his eyes in challenge, he saw that he had surprised his opponent.
----
"Thank you for the game."
"Thank you for the game," Sai echoed. His mind soared on post-game euphoria, liberated from the confines of its old limitations. "You played very well, Takamatsu-dono."
The other man laughed ruefully. "Not enough to beat you. You really are talented."
Sai shook his head, all smiles. He pointed with his fan at the board. "Here," he said, "you let me take advantage of this vulnerability. You needed to play this defensive hand before attacking my group over here." He motioned to the area at the far end of the board where black had prematurely attacked, and it was then that Takamatsu grabbed his hand.
Sai startled. He turned a perplexed look on the other man. "Takamatsu-dono?" He tried to politely extract his hand from the other's, but Takamatsu held on boldly.
"Sai," Takamatsu said, his voice turned suddenly strange, "won't you permit me to join you tonight?"
"Join me? For another game?" Sai tried again to free his hand, but it was no use. "Takamatsu-dono, what are you saying?"
"Not for more go." Takamatsu tugged him closer, so that Sai found himself leaning over the board. "I can't stop thinking about you, Sai," the older man murmured. "Let me visit and stay the night."
Sai flushed as Takamatsu's meaning sank in. "W-why? We're both men."
"It happens between men too. Didn't you know?" Dark eyes twinkled. "And as for why...I haven't been supporting you these past few years only because you're good at go, or just because I respect your father."
When had their games stopped being about go and started being about him? Sai didn't understand. "Then why?"
Takamatsu whispered into the go prodigy's ear: "Hasn't anyone ever told you that you're beautiful?"
For a moment, the world stopped with dizzying vertigo. Then a breeze tugged lightly on Sai's heavy, uncut hair. The world snapped back into sharp focus.
Sai jerked his hand away and stood. "Don't say that," he said, voice cold and eyes hard. "Please...don't approach me again." Cheeks aflame, he stalked off.
A perfectly well-played, hard-won game had been irreversibly ruined, he thought, tremendously upset. But he knew that wasn't the reason his eyes were burning.
You are beautiful, whispered a cherry-painted smile and gentle hands that arranged his hair.
You are beautiful, asserted stern, kind eyes and fingers that taught him how to hold a go stone.
You are beautiful, leered Takamatsu's greedy gaze, ugly with a desire that was all too shockingly human.
"I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!" Back in the privacy of his own room, Sai cried. Something precious had been destroyed.
Shi
"My go is beautiful," twenty-two-year-old Sai murmured as he leaned closer to the mirror. Using a small twist of cloth, he carefully dabbed his lips with color--not the deep, brilliant red of beribana that his mother and the other court ladies had always preferred, but a more somber, purple-red drawn from hibiscus flowers.
Sugawara no Akitada, discontent with Sai's equal status as the emperor's go instructor, had issued a formal challenge, and Sai had accepted. Today they would play to decide who would remain as the emperor's go instructor.
I refuse to continue teaching go with this disrespectful upstart, Sugawara had shouted after Sai had suggested an alternative, superior path for the emperor's black to live. It's either him or me.
Sai could not understand Sugawara's rage. If Sugawara loved go, then why did he become angry at being shown a better pattern? Why did Sugawara think that the path of go was only wide enough for one?
Sai combed the long, unbound bangs framing his face one last time, and placed his eboshi hat carefully on his head. He understood that Sugawara was a man driven by political ambition and material greed; Sugawara was not committed to the way of go. The true way of go was pure and unsullied, an ever-rising slope towards the one absolute revelation, the divine Hand of God.
Sugawara's go was equal to his in every way, but Sugawara was not climbing that shining, upward slope. Sai was. And that was the difference between their go.
Only the winner of this match would remain as the emperor's go instructor.
"I will make the emperor's go beautiful," Sai vowed. The impression of deep grape-red lingered in his mind as he turned to leave.
hkfoot
Ichi
"You are a beautiful child," his mother told him as she combed his long hair.
Fujiwara no Sai nodded absently. He was seven, and his mind was far away, reviewing a joseki his father had taught him the night before and mentally experimenting with different variations.
"Sai! Don't make such a face," his mother reprimanded when she noticed how he frowned into the mirror.
"Eh?" Her son blinked at her sharp tone. He had only been thinking of how playing at 3-4 instead of 2-5 worked poorly for black. "I'm sorry, Mother," he said, not quite sure what he was apologizing for.
She smiled back at him in the mirror, and his eyes were caught by her delicate, red-painted lips. It was a pretty color, he thought, watching as his mother's lips gradually became a vivid, cherry blur in his unblinking gaze.
"If you frown too much, you'll get ugly lines here," she said, snapping him out of his trance as she traced tickling lines down the sides of his mouth.
Sai giggled. "Then all the old men at court must have frowned too much when they were younger!"
"Yes, I think you must be right," his mother agreed good-humoredly.
She arranged his hair in two looping circles, one on each side of his head, and tied them in place with white ribbons. She patted his head, and her young son turned to look up at her. "Are you done?" he asked.
She turned him all the way around and checked his appearance. Very clean, very tidy, very beautiful. "Yes," she told him. "Let's go meet Suzuki-sensei for your biwa lesson."
Ni
"You are beautiful, Sai," his father told him. The senior Fujiwara looked thoughtfully at his fifteen-year-old son, unconsciously opening and closing his fan slowly, fold by fold, as he did so.
Sai flushed in embarrassment and lowered his flute. "Please don't say that, Father. I'm a boy!"
"You take after your mother," his father said, ignoring his son's fluster. He took in Sai's long, long, dark purple hair and nodded to himself. He closed his fan decisively and tapped it against his palm. "I've decided," he said. "We won't have your hair cut."
It took Sai a moment before he realized what his father was saying. "Ehhh? But all the other boys already have their hair cut! My hair is too long to put up like this, and Mother...she promised before she...well, she promised me that I could have my hair cut too." He finished in a resentful grumble, unable to look his father in the eye.
"Sai," his father said sternly, "You may not understand at your age, but there are greater things in life than doing what everyone else is doing. Your beauty is a gift from the heavens, and a gift from your mother. It would not do to throw such a gift away."
"I miss Mother too," Sai muttered. "But if I let my hair grow any longer, people will start thinking I'm a girl."
His father frowned. "If anyone thinks you are a girl, you may cut your hair."
Sai brightened. "Really?"
"Yes. But remember, my son, gentlemen are never mistaken for ladies, and I believe I have raised you to be a fine gentleman," his father continued. "I am ashamed to think that perhaps I have failed in your education after all." His solemn gaze sharpened as he waited for his son's response.
Sai knew he had lost. "You have not failed, Father," he sighed. "I was wrong in thinking that I could be mistaken for a girl." He aimed one last mournful look at his father to see if he would change his mind, but it went largely ignored.
"Then it's settled. Let's not speak of needlessly cutting your hair again." His father patted him on the shoulder. "Your flute still needs practice, but shall we play a game of go first?"
San
"You are beautiful, Sai-sensei," the young lady giggled. She hid her crimson smile behind a modest sleeve. "I am flattered, but I am afraid your beauty only accentuates my own inadequacy." At Sai's questioning look, she giggled again. "I must respectfully decline your request," she clarified. Bowing quickly over the goban, she said, "Thank you again for the game, sensei," then retreated from the veranda with her giggling cohorts.
"Thank you for the game," Sai said to the empty space across from him. The warm summer breeze echoed his relief and fanned away his already-fading disappointment. She had declined his request to visit her that evening, and he felt everlastingly grateful. He was eighteen, and it had been the first time he had ever asked a lady for the pleasure of her private company.
His peers, young men also finding their place in the imperial court, were already bragging about their exploits among the fairer sex. Sai had felt compelled to follow their lead, but he had not known how to until the young lady had shown up with her charming red smile and her playful, curious go. She was well-known and well-liked by many in the imperial court, and he had known from the start that a middle-ranked courtier like him stood little chance of capturing her attention. Only the bold daring of youth and the relentless teasing of his peers had spurred him to proposition her for an unlikely late-night rendezvous.
Rejection should have hurt more, but he felt overwhelmingly relieved that the trial was over and overwhelmingly grateful that she would no longer distract him from the long, long path of go that he now walked.
He felt shame that he had been even momentarily distracted--the game was all that he needed, all that he truly wanted. This he realized now, more clearly than ever.
On impulse, he bowed to the goban, folding himself over in seiza so that his head was level with the board. A part of him thought how silly he must appear, especially when his hat toppled off of his bowed head. It didn't matter. This was right, he thought warmly.
"Sai?"
Sai bolted upright, heat spreading across his face. He saw Takamatsu no Koichi, an older man he had played many games with, standing before him with a polite, yet clearly perplexed look.
"If you're not busy, may I have a game?" Takamatsu asked, kindly refraining from commenting on the peculiar position he had found the younger man in.
"Of course, of course, Takamatsu-dono," Sai said hastily, grabbing his hat and replacing it on his head. "Please, sit."
"I'll take four stones today if you don't mind," the older man said as he took a seat on the cushion opposite the goban.
"Certainly," Sai acquiesced. It was one stone more than the man usually took, but Sai had been winning all their games lately. His still-fresh embarrassment was forgotten as the board once again became his world.
"Onegaishimasu."
"Onegaishimasu."
Takamatsu was a noble of the fourth rank, one rank above Sai's own. He was in his late twenties and an acquaintance of Sai's father; as an enthusiastic go player, he had often sought out Sai when the elder Fujiwara had first introduced his son to the court. Even after Sai's father had passed away, Takamatsu had continued to support Sai's go, magnifying the boy's reputation until, very recently, it had reached even the emperor's ears.
Takamatsu's go was more confident today, more aggressive. Sai was being hard pressed to catch up under the four-stone handicap. Each corner, each side was a struggle for life and dominance, and Sai found that as they approached the open middle, he was still trailing by six moku. He could not close the gap simply by pushing.
Sai's searching eyes lighted on one black group extending out into the middle of the board. Its connection to the others was weak. He opened his fan and calculated. If he cut off the group, could he kill it and still live? It would be risky. If he cut off the group...
He shut his fan and cut. Raising his eyes in challenge, he saw that he had surprised his opponent.
----
"Thank you for the game."
"Thank you for the game," Sai echoed. His mind soared on post-game euphoria, liberated from the confines of its old limitations. "You played very well, Takamatsu-dono."
The other man laughed ruefully. "Not enough to beat you. You really are talented."
Sai shook his head, all smiles. He pointed with his fan at the board. "Here," he said, "you let me take advantage of this vulnerability. You needed to play this defensive hand before attacking my group over here." He motioned to the area at the far end of the board where black had prematurely attacked, and it was then that Takamatsu grabbed his hand.
Sai startled. He turned a perplexed look on the other man. "Takamatsu-dono?" He tried to politely extract his hand from the other's, but Takamatsu held on boldly.
"Sai," Takamatsu said, his voice turned suddenly strange, "won't you permit me to join you tonight?"
"Join me? For another game?" Sai tried again to free his hand, but it was no use. "Takamatsu-dono, what are you saying?"
"Not for more go." Takamatsu tugged him closer, so that Sai found himself leaning over the board. "I can't stop thinking about you, Sai," the older man murmured. "Let me visit and stay the night."
Sai flushed as Takamatsu's meaning sank in. "W-why? We're both men."
"It happens between men too. Didn't you know?" Dark eyes twinkled. "And as for why...I haven't been supporting you these past few years only because you're good at go, or just because I respect your father."
When had their games stopped being about go and started being about him? Sai didn't understand. "Then why?"
Takamatsu whispered into the go prodigy's ear: "Hasn't anyone ever told you that you're beautiful?"
For a moment, the world stopped with dizzying vertigo. Then a breeze tugged lightly on Sai's heavy, uncut hair. The world snapped back into sharp focus.
Sai jerked his hand away and stood. "Don't say that," he said, voice cold and eyes hard. "Please...don't approach me again." Cheeks aflame, he stalked off.
A perfectly well-played, hard-won game had been irreversibly ruined, he thought, tremendously upset. But he knew that wasn't the reason his eyes were burning.
You are beautiful, whispered a cherry-painted smile and gentle hands that arranged his hair.
You are beautiful, asserted stern, kind eyes and fingers that taught him how to hold a go stone.
You are beautiful, leered Takamatsu's greedy gaze, ugly with a desire that was all too shockingly human.
"I'm not, I'm not, I'm not!" Back in the privacy of his own room, Sai cried. Something precious had been destroyed.
Shi
"My go is beautiful," twenty-two-year-old Sai murmured as he leaned closer to the mirror. Using a small twist of cloth, he carefully dabbed his lips with color--not the deep, brilliant red of beribana that his mother and the other court ladies had always preferred, but a more somber, purple-red drawn from hibiscus flowers.
Sugawara no Akitada, discontent with Sai's equal status as the emperor's go instructor, had issued a formal challenge, and Sai had accepted. Today they would play to decide who would remain as the emperor's go instructor.
I refuse to continue teaching go with this disrespectful upstart, Sugawara had shouted after Sai had suggested an alternative, superior path for the emperor's black to live. It's either him or me.
Sai could not understand Sugawara's rage. If Sugawara loved go, then why did he become angry at being shown a better pattern? Why did Sugawara think that the path of go was only wide enough for one?
Sai combed the long, unbound bangs framing his face one last time, and placed his eboshi hat carefully on his head. He understood that Sugawara was a man driven by political ambition and material greed; Sugawara was not committed to the way of go. The true way of go was pure and unsullied, an ever-rising slope towards the one absolute revelation, the divine Hand of God.
Sugawara's go was equal to his in every way, but Sugawara was not climbing that shining, upward slope. Sai was. And that was the difference between their go.
Only the winner of this match would remain as the emperor's go instructor.
"I will make the emperor's go beautiful," Sai vowed. The impression of deep grape-red lingered in his mind as he turned to leave.