[kamaboko] & [soba]
by umarekawareru & chaineddove
A Ghost Story
As he walked down the empty halls of the Japanese Go Institute, Hikaru thought about his mom. He thought about all the times she had told him it was better to think before opening one’s mouth, and all the times he’d just shrugged off her advice as one of those stupid things every mom says, and then he wished he had listened to her. Looking out the window was supposed to help reassure him there was a world outside, but the moon in the sky was especially creepy that night, and even his own echoing footsteps scared him, and Sai was talking about evil demons of the night, and Hikaru just wanted to put a pillow to his face and scream like a little girl.
A noise of things falling came from somewhere down the hall, and Hikaru wished he wasn't so imaginative, because in his mind’s eye he could see a huge, vicious dragon roaring down the hall waiting for them, salivating, and he was getting more scared by the minute. He vowed in the future never to mention ghosts around Waya again, because then Waya got weird ideas that led nowhere good, and he dragged everyone down with him.
Small comfort was the fact that Waya seemed to be regretting his suggestion of "a test of courage" the most. Actually, his hands were shaking as he held the flashlight, and Hikaru would have pointed and laughed at him if he wasn’t so busy telling himself that the test of courage was stupid and Waya was stupid and there was no way any of the demons Sai was talking about would care to show up in the Go Institute of all places.
"This is ridiculous," Ochi muttered, and this was probably the only time in the history of, well, ever, that Hikaru was going to agree with Ochi about anything.
"Right. Totally. Ridiculous." If he kept to one-word sentences, then probably no one would notice that his teeth were threatening to chatter any second. "Why are we even doing this?"
"Hikaru!" Sai piped up oh-so-helpfully from behind him. "You’re the one who started talking about ghosts! Don’t forget!"
Hikaru gave a sullen look over his shoulder and muttered, "It’s not my fault Waya had to prove me right."
Nase - who, despite being a girl, darn it, seemed perfectly fine - gave him an amused look. "You know there’s no such thing as ghosts, Shindou," she said with a smothered giggle.
That’s what you think, Hikaru nearly said, but with the lesson about keeping his mouth shut fresh in his mind - better late than never - he only shook his head. Sai had now moved on to a detailed description of Kuchisake-onna and the best means of escaping her, and really, Sai’s superstitions had probably been bad enough before his introduction to the modern world; Hikaru swore to himself that he would never let Sai watch late night television again.
"You guys are just scared," said Waya who, in Hikaru's opinion, was being remarkably cheeky for someone whose teeth were chattering audibly. "If you’ve decided you’d rather go down in history as a total chicken rather than face the ghost of the angry Go master, well, you can turn right around and I’ll only tease you about it for the next, oh, five years."
"Like hell you will," muttered Hikaru under his breath.
"Let’s go back, Hikaru," whined Sai, pulling at Hikaru’s hoodie sleeve like a little kid. "It’s not too late. I don’t think the oni have noticed us yet."
"Waya would see us run," Hikaru said. "And this expedition is too stupid to be reminded of it for five whole years."
"You want to run, I won’t stop you, Shindou," said Waya, putting on the shakiest grin Hikaru had ever seen. He placed the flashlight under his chin, and added in a whisper, "You know when you disturb the ghost of the angry Go master, there’s no possible escape from his wrath."
Sai flailed. "Hikaru!"
"Whatever, my ghost kicks your ghost’s ass," Hikaru muttered. "Your ghost doesn’t even exist." If he said it enough times, it would become true. Hopefully.
"Anyway, the ghost of the angry Go master is just an urban legend." Nase rolled her eyes and adopted a tone of voice appropriate for talking to five-year-olds. "You know it doesn’t really exist or roar at night like they say."
"It’s probably just the pipes or something making that noise they say they’ve heard. Just the pipes," Hikaru told himself, over and over again.
An unearthly wail echoed throughout the hall, exactly what Hikaru imagined the furious screech of an angered evil spirit might sound like. He crossed his fingers and prayed that nobody had seen him jump two feet in the air. Unfortunately, it seemed Nase had. She broke into a giggling fit, and had to hold her belly and grab the edge of a nearby table for support. "The pipes sure are loud tonight!" she said when she recovered her breath. Waya broke out laughing, and Hikaru decided if the ghost of the angry Go master grabbed him by the ankle or something, he was so dragging Waya down with him.
"I tripped, okay!" he denied, uselessly. "And anyway, Fuku jumped, too!"
Fuku, who was currently pressing his back to the wall, made a quiet whimpering sound.
"So you did jump?" Waya taunted. Just then, another wail echoed through the hall. Fuku grabbed onto Waya, who was closest, Waya yelped, and Nase, who had just barely gotten her giggles under control, started up again. Ochi glared at everyone, but his eyes were a bit wider than normal, and he didn’t look quite so nonchalant anymore.
As for Sai, he was now flailing frantically, his sleeves flapping like some sort of ghostly wings. "Hikaruuuuuuuuuuuuu! It’s going to get us! We need to get out of here! An angry ghost is not a joke!"
"If he’s some Go master’s ghost, you can challenge him and we’ll run away while you’re kicking his butt, okay!?" Hikaru responded, trying to get a handle on his hysteria. Everyone looked at him with varying degrees of confusion. "I said that out loud, didn’t I."
"You dare to challenge the angry Go master?" Waya asked, recovering from his earlier fright. Fuku was still clinging to him, and Waya seemed to be getting some courage from the fact. Probably, he just wanted something to hold on to himself, but wasn’t about to say so.
"No," Hikaru said crossly, trying to ignore Sai’s entreaties to get the hell out of there, especially because they sounded like a better idea than looking for the source of the sound. "You’re the one who thought of this stupid plan, so you can play him while the rest of us escape."
"You’re the one who says he’s seen a ghost before, Shindou!" Waya pointed out. "And you’re the one who said it wasn’t scary at all-"
"That’s a lie, Hikaru! You fainted!" was Sai’s interjection.
"Shut up!" Hikaru told them both.
"Don’t shout," suggested Nase. "If someone hears us..."
"We’ll all die!" Fuku wailed.
"Actually, I was thinking that if an adult finds us, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble," Nase pointed out.
"This is ridiculous," Ochi said again. "I’m going home."
"The door is that way." Waya pointed down the very long, very dark corridor. "If you’re too scared, go on running back to grandpa."
Ochi gave the darkness a considering look, then stayed put. "I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction."
"I would," said Sai, looking with longing back the way they had come.
More eerie wailing echoed. Hikaru imagined he could feel the ground shaking under his feet with the wrath of the angry Go master, which was just stupid, because there was no Go master in the Institute but the one currently screaming and flailing like a five-year-old.
"Hikaru! Pipes don’t make that sort of sound! I’ve been in this modern world long enough to know that!" Sai cried, hiding his face in his sleeve. "The horror! The tragedy! What will your mother say?!"
"This is stupid," Hikaru said, inching closer to Waya and the flashlight in the most casual way he could manage.
The same wailing echoed again even louder than before. "Oh, it seems we’re getting closer," said Nase conversationally, and threw Hikaru a positively evil look over her shoulder. "So scary."
Fuku whimpered, and gripped Waya’s arm tight enough to cut off all blood flow to his hand. "Dude, seriously," Waya pretended to complain, but didn’t try to pry Fuku’s fingers off.
"If this ghost doesn’t kill you, Waya, I will," Hikaru vowed, feeling the beginnings of a headache. "Slowly. After you buy me dinner."
"I don’t treat people who are about to kill me to dinner," Waya retorted. "It’s against my principles."
Hikaru blew a raspberry at him.
They crept along the corridor at a snail’s pace, huddled together, as the wailing grew progressively louder. Nase was right - they were getting closer. Hikaru wondered idly if Touya Akira would notice if he died. He really didn’t want to die, seeing as he still had lots of stuff to do, but if... "If I die, I’m going to haunt you, Waya," he said in the most conversational tone possible. "I’m going to make your life miserable."
Ochi snorted. "That’s impossible."
"Kids who are too scared to go down the hallway by themselves shouldn’t talk," Hikaru retorted.
"If you’re not scared of the dark yourself, why don’t you just go home?" Ochi suggested acidly.
"Maybe I don’t want to," Hikaru said with false bravado. "Maybe I want to see the ghost."
"Hikaru!" Sai gasped. "Don’t say that!"
"That’s right," Hikaru repeated as everyone else looked at him. There was that thing about keeping his mouth shut, he remembered vaguely, and how he really needed to think before he spoke, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from rambling on. "You’ve seen one ghost, I figure you’ve pretty much seen them all. What’s it going to do, throw a goke at me? The last ghost I met couldn’t even pick up a-"
"Hikaru!" Sai exclaimed desperately, trying to shut him up by smothering his words with his long sleeves; the ensuing tussle most likely looked very strange to the others, because it took a fair amount of thrashing to get Sai off his back.
"Is he possessed?" Fuku asked in a hoarse whisper, his usually narrow eyes wide as saucers.
"Of course not," Waya said, but his voice was uncertain and he inched back a few steps.
"Yes," Hikaru replied with a grimace. "By the Go master’s ghost, obviously."
Nase gave an unladylike snort.
"Stop trying to scare us, Shindou," demanded Ochi, who looked positively rattled at this point.
"Hikaru, don’t compare me to that... that thing in there!" Sai wailed. Another terrifying roar rumbled through the wall; Ochi gave up on looking indifferent and latched on to Nase, leaving Hikaru alone in the middle of the corridor, glaring defiantly at everyone as Sai cowered behind him and tried his best to drag Hikaru backwards by the back of his shirt.
"Well, since you’re so brave, Shindou," Waya said in a decidedly shaky voice, "then I guess you can open the door to the Watching Room."
"Your ghost is kind of lame, guys," Nase commented. "You’d think it would choose the Room of Profound Darkness or something. It’s right down the hall and everything."
Seeing there was no way to go but forward, Hikaru took a step towards the door and declared, "Maybe I will." Secretly, he was really relieved that the ghost had not chosen the more appropriate venue, because Waya or no Waya, he suspected that he would never have been able to do this.
"Hikaru!" Sai whimpered pathetically. "I don’t want to die!"
"You’re already dead!" Hikaru pointed out in a loud voice, which earned him another weird and slightly disturbed look from Waya. Hikaru tried his best to ignore it as he reached out with a badly shaking hand to pull open the door.
Everyone held their breaths.
"Let’s go, Ghost Busters!" Hikaru figured if he was going to die, he at least wanted his last words to sound cool. In the end it didn’t matter, because nobody was listening to him at all. Hikaru cursed them all in his mind - several times - and led the way into the enemy lair.
On the other side, the darkness was almost absolute. Only a weak ray of moonlight filtered in through the cracks in the blinds. It reflected off a corner of the screen used to watch the games being played in the adjacent room, and made barely visible the outline of something on the chair in front of the TV. The eerie wailing was coming from the otherworldly being on the chair, whatever it was.
"Oh my god." Waya’s voice was an octave higher than usual. "There really is a ghost."
"We should probably turn the lights on," said Nase reasonably. "The switch should be somewhere near you, Ochi."
Ochi whimpered weakly in reply.
"It’s so lame that I’m going to die because of you, Waya," said Hikaru, torn between self-pity and utter terror. "I hope the ghost kills you first," he added as an afterthought.
"Oni, Kuchisake-onna, tengu, goryou, Hikaru!" cried Sai.
"Oh, for goodness’ sake!" Nase exclaimed, and threw her hands up in exasperation. "I’ll switch the light on myself!"
Everyone else began screaming in advance, just in case the sight of the ghost of the angry Go master robbed them of their ability to speak.
Which it did.
"Who’s there? And why are you screaming?" demanded the ghost as it stirred from its deep sleep.
"Wait," said Waya, the first to recover. "Kuwabara-sensei?"
Kuwabara Honninbou sat upright in the chair with a grunt. He blinked drowsily at them, then looked at the TV screen near him, and began to laugh in that evil-overlord way that made the hairs on the nape of Hikaru’s neck stand on end.
"Yes I am, now that you ask. Why, it seems I dozed off while I was watching Ogata-kun’s match!" said Kuwabara merrily, as if falling asleep inside the Japanese Go Institute was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. "It must have been quite boring! Ho-ho-ho-ho!"
All of a sudden, Hikaru missed the ghost of the angry Go master. Somehow, he thought meeting a wrathful ancestral being intent on giving them all an early death would have been considerably less disturbing than the actual situation. From the looks on the others’ faces, they agreed.
"Oh, if it isn’t Shindou." Kuwabara turned to look at Hikaru. "Won’t you and your friends go play somewhere else? This chair is actually quite comfortable for sleeping, you know. And close the door on your way out?"
"Uh," said Hikaru.
"Er, sensei, it’s one in the morning," Waya pointed out.
Kuwabara gave his watch a cursory look and cackled again. "My, that it is!" he said. He seemed completely unaffected by the fact. "Will you remember to switch off the light when you leave?"
Hikaru and company rushed out of the room, seized by a sudden urge to get as far away from the incident as possible. They did remember to switch off the light and close the door - firmly - behind them.
Inside the room, the wailing - Kuwabara’s snoring - started up again. Waya and Hikaru shared a look.
"We are never speaking about tonight again," said Hikaru.
Everyone else nodded vigorously.
"The terrors of the modern world!" wailed Sai. "I want to go back to the time before this happened! Torajirou!"
A Ghost Story
As he walked down the empty halls of the Japanese Go Institute, Hikaru thought about his mom. He thought about all the times she had told him it was better to think before opening one’s mouth, and all the times he’d just shrugged off her advice as one of those stupid things every mom says, and then he wished he had listened to her. Looking out the window was supposed to help reassure him there was a world outside, but the moon in the sky was especially creepy that night, and even his own echoing footsteps scared him, and Sai was talking about evil demons of the night, and Hikaru just wanted to put a pillow to his face and scream like a little girl.
A noise of things falling came from somewhere down the hall, and Hikaru wished he wasn't so imaginative, because in his mind’s eye he could see a huge, vicious dragon roaring down the hall waiting for them, salivating, and he was getting more scared by the minute. He vowed in the future never to mention ghosts around Waya again, because then Waya got weird ideas that led nowhere good, and he dragged everyone down with him.
Small comfort was the fact that Waya seemed to be regretting his suggestion of "a test of courage" the most. Actually, his hands were shaking as he held the flashlight, and Hikaru would have pointed and laughed at him if he wasn’t so busy telling himself that the test of courage was stupid and Waya was stupid and there was no way any of the demons Sai was talking about would care to show up in the Go Institute of all places.
"This is ridiculous," Ochi muttered, and this was probably the only time in the history of, well, ever, that Hikaru was going to agree with Ochi about anything.
"Right. Totally. Ridiculous." If he kept to one-word sentences, then probably no one would notice that his teeth were threatening to chatter any second. "Why are we even doing this?"
"Hikaru!" Sai piped up oh-so-helpfully from behind him. "You’re the one who started talking about ghosts! Don’t forget!"
Hikaru gave a sullen look over his shoulder and muttered, "It’s not my fault Waya had to prove me right."
Nase - who, despite being a girl, darn it, seemed perfectly fine - gave him an amused look. "You know there’s no such thing as ghosts, Shindou," she said with a smothered giggle.
That’s what you think, Hikaru nearly said, but with the lesson about keeping his mouth shut fresh in his mind - better late than never - he only shook his head. Sai had now moved on to a detailed description of Kuchisake-onna and the best means of escaping her, and really, Sai’s superstitions had probably been bad enough before his introduction to the modern world; Hikaru swore to himself that he would never let Sai watch late night television again.
"You guys are just scared," said Waya who, in Hikaru's opinion, was being remarkably cheeky for someone whose teeth were chattering audibly. "If you’ve decided you’d rather go down in history as a total chicken rather than face the ghost of the angry Go master, well, you can turn right around and I’ll only tease you about it for the next, oh, five years."
"Like hell you will," muttered Hikaru under his breath.
"Let’s go back, Hikaru," whined Sai, pulling at Hikaru’s hoodie sleeve like a little kid. "It’s not too late. I don’t think the oni have noticed us yet."
"Waya would see us run," Hikaru said. "And this expedition is too stupid to be reminded of it for five whole years."
"You want to run, I won’t stop you, Shindou," said Waya, putting on the shakiest grin Hikaru had ever seen. He placed the flashlight under his chin, and added in a whisper, "You know when you disturb the ghost of the angry Go master, there’s no possible escape from his wrath."
Sai flailed. "Hikaru!"
"Whatever, my ghost kicks your ghost’s ass," Hikaru muttered. "Your ghost doesn’t even exist." If he said it enough times, it would become true. Hopefully.
"Anyway, the ghost of the angry Go master is just an urban legend." Nase rolled her eyes and adopted a tone of voice appropriate for talking to five-year-olds. "You know it doesn’t really exist or roar at night like they say."
"It’s probably just the pipes or something making that noise they say they’ve heard. Just the pipes," Hikaru told himself, over and over again.
An unearthly wail echoed throughout the hall, exactly what Hikaru imagined the furious screech of an angered evil spirit might sound like. He crossed his fingers and prayed that nobody had seen him jump two feet in the air. Unfortunately, it seemed Nase had. She broke into a giggling fit, and had to hold her belly and grab the edge of a nearby table for support. "The pipes sure are loud tonight!" she said when she recovered her breath. Waya broke out laughing, and Hikaru decided if the ghost of the angry Go master grabbed him by the ankle or something, he was so dragging Waya down with him.
"I tripped, okay!" he denied, uselessly. "And anyway, Fuku jumped, too!"
Fuku, who was currently pressing his back to the wall, made a quiet whimpering sound.
"So you did jump?" Waya taunted. Just then, another wail echoed through the hall. Fuku grabbed onto Waya, who was closest, Waya yelped, and Nase, who had just barely gotten her giggles under control, started up again. Ochi glared at everyone, but his eyes were a bit wider than normal, and he didn’t look quite so nonchalant anymore.
As for Sai, he was now flailing frantically, his sleeves flapping like some sort of ghostly wings. "Hikaruuuuuuuuuuuuu! It’s going to get us! We need to get out of here! An angry ghost is not a joke!"
"If he’s some Go master’s ghost, you can challenge him and we’ll run away while you’re kicking his butt, okay!?" Hikaru responded, trying to get a handle on his hysteria. Everyone looked at him with varying degrees of confusion. "I said that out loud, didn’t I."
"You dare to challenge the angry Go master?" Waya asked, recovering from his earlier fright. Fuku was still clinging to him, and Waya seemed to be getting some courage from the fact. Probably, he just wanted something to hold on to himself, but wasn’t about to say so.
"No," Hikaru said crossly, trying to ignore Sai’s entreaties to get the hell out of there, especially because they sounded like a better idea than looking for the source of the sound. "You’re the one who thought of this stupid plan, so you can play him while the rest of us escape."
"You’re the one who says he’s seen a ghost before, Shindou!" Waya pointed out. "And you’re the one who said it wasn’t scary at all-"
"That’s a lie, Hikaru! You fainted!" was Sai’s interjection.
"Shut up!" Hikaru told them both.
"Don’t shout," suggested Nase. "If someone hears us..."
"We’ll all die!" Fuku wailed.
"Actually, I was thinking that if an adult finds us, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble," Nase pointed out.
"This is ridiculous," Ochi said again. "I’m going home."
"The door is that way." Waya pointed down the very long, very dark corridor. "If you’re too scared, go on running back to grandpa."
Ochi gave the darkness a considering look, then stayed put. "I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction."
"I would," said Sai, looking with longing back the way they had come.
More eerie wailing echoed. Hikaru imagined he could feel the ground shaking under his feet with the wrath of the angry Go master, which was just stupid, because there was no Go master in the Institute but the one currently screaming and flailing like a five-year-old.
"Hikaru! Pipes don’t make that sort of sound! I’ve been in this modern world long enough to know that!" Sai cried, hiding his face in his sleeve. "The horror! The tragedy! What will your mother say?!"
"This is stupid," Hikaru said, inching closer to Waya and the flashlight in the most casual way he could manage.
The same wailing echoed again even louder than before. "Oh, it seems we’re getting closer," said Nase conversationally, and threw Hikaru a positively evil look over her shoulder. "So scary."
Fuku whimpered, and gripped Waya’s arm tight enough to cut off all blood flow to his hand. "Dude, seriously," Waya pretended to complain, but didn’t try to pry Fuku’s fingers off.
"If this ghost doesn’t kill you, Waya, I will," Hikaru vowed, feeling the beginnings of a headache. "Slowly. After you buy me dinner."
"I don’t treat people who are about to kill me to dinner," Waya retorted. "It’s against my principles."
Hikaru blew a raspberry at him.
They crept along the corridor at a snail’s pace, huddled together, as the wailing grew progressively louder. Nase was right - they were getting closer. Hikaru wondered idly if Touya Akira would notice if he died. He really didn’t want to die, seeing as he still had lots of stuff to do, but if... "If I die, I’m going to haunt you, Waya," he said in the most conversational tone possible. "I’m going to make your life miserable."
Ochi snorted. "That’s impossible."
"Kids who are too scared to go down the hallway by themselves shouldn’t talk," Hikaru retorted.
"If you’re not scared of the dark yourself, why don’t you just go home?" Ochi suggested acidly.
"Maybe I don’t want to," Hikaru said with false bravado. "Maybe I want to see the ghost."
"Hikaru!" Sai gasped. "Don’t say that!"
"That’s right," Hikaru repeated as everyone else looked at him. There was that thing about keeping his mouth shut, he remembered vaguely, and how he really needed to think before he spoke, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself from rambling on. "You’ve seen one ghost, I figure you’ve pretty much seen them all. What’s it going to do, throw a goke at me? The last ghost I met couldn’t even pick up a-"
"Hikaru!" Sai exclaimed desperately, trying to shut him up by smothering his words with his long sleeves; the ensuing tussle most likely looked very strange to the others, because it took a fair amount of thrashing to get Sai off his back.
"Is he possessed?" Fuku asked in a hoarse whisper, his usually narrow eyes wide as saucers.
"Of course not," Waya said, but his voice was uncertain and he inched back a few steps.
"Yes," Hikaru replied with a grimace. "By the Go master’s ghost, obviously."
Nase gave an unladylike snort.
"Stop trying to scare us, Shindou," demanded Ochi, who looked positively rattled at this point.
"Hikaru, don’t compare me to that... that thing in there!" Sai wailed. Another terrifying roar rumbled through the wall; Ochi gave up on looking indifferent and latched on to Nase, leaving Hikaru alone in the middle of the corridor, glaring defiantly at everyone as Sai cowered behind him and tried his best to drag Hikaru backwards by the back of his shirt.
"Well, since you’re so brave, Shindou," Waya said in a decidedly shaky voice, "then I guess you can open the door to the Watching Room."
"Your ghost is kind of lame, guys," Nase commented. "You’d think it would choose the Room of Profound Darkness or something. It’s right down the hall and everything."
Seeing there was no way to go but forward, Hikaru took a step towards the door and declared, "Maybe I will." Secretly, he was really relieved that the ghost had not chosen the more appropriate venue, because Waya or no Waya, he suspected that he would never have been able to do this.
"Hikaru!" Sai whimpered pathetically. "I don’t want to die!"
"You’re already dead!" Hikaru pointed out in a loud voice, which earned him another weird and slightly disturbed look from Waya. Hikaru tried his best to ignore it as he reached out with a badly shaking hand to pull open the door.
Everyone held their breaths.
"Let’s go, Ghost Busters!" Hikaru figured if he was going to die, he at least wanted his last words to sound cool. In the end it didn’t matter, because nobody was listening to him at all. Hikaru cursed them all in his mind - several times - and led the way into the enemy lair.
On the other side, the darkness was almost absolute. Only a weak ray of moonlight filtered in through the cracks in the blinds. It reflected off a corner of the screen used to watch the games being played in the adjacent room, and made barely visible the outline of something on the chair in front of the TV. The eerie wailing was coming from the otherworldly being on the chair, whatever it was.
"Oh my god." Waya’s voice was an octave higher than usual. "There really is a ghost."
"We should probably turn the lights on," said Nase reasonably. "The switch should be somewhere near you, Ochi."
Ochi whimpered weakly in reply.
"It’s so lame that I’m going to die because of you, Waya," said Hikaru, torn between self-pity and utter terror. "I hope the ghost kills you first," he added as an afterthought.
"Oni, Kuchisake-onna, tengu, goryou, Hikaru!" cried Sai.
"Oh, for goodness’ sake!" Nase exclaimed, and threw her hands up in exasperation. "I’ll switch the light on myself!"
Everyone else began screaming in advance, just in case the sight of the ghost of the angry Go master robbed them of their ability to speak.
Which it did.
"Who’s there? And why are you screaming?" demanded the ghost as it stirred from its deep sleep.
"Wait," said Waya, the first to recover. "Kuwabara-sensei?"
Kuwabara Honninbou sat upright in the chair with a grunt. He blinked drowsily at them, then looked at the TV screen near him, and began to laugh in that evil-overlord way that made the hairs on the nape of Hikaru’s neck stand on end.
"Yes I am, now that you ask. Why, it seems I dozed off while I was watching Ogata-kun’s match!" said Kuwabara merrily, as if falling asleep inside the Japanese Go Institute was the kind of thing that could happen to anyone. "It must have been quite boring! Ho-ho-ho-ho!"
All of a sudden, Hikaru missed the ghost of the angry Go master. Somehow, he thought meeting a wrathful ancestral being intent on giving them all an early death would have been considerably less disturbing than the actual situation. From the looks on the others’ faces, they agreed.
"Oh, if it isn’t Shindou." Kuwabara turned to look at Hikaru. "Won’t you and your friends go play somewhere else? This chair is actually quite comfortable for sleeping, you know. And close the door on your way out?"
"Uh," said Hikaru.
"Er, sensei, it’s one in the morning," Waya pointed out.
Kuwabara gave his watch a cursory look and cackled again. "My, that it is!" he said. He seemed completely unaffected by the fact. "Will you remember to switch off the light when you leave?"
Hikaru and company rushed out of the room, seized by a sudden urge to get as far away from the incident as possible. They did remember to switch off the light and close the door - firmly - behind them.
Inside the room, the wailing - Kuwabara’s snoring - started up again. Waya and Hikaru shared a look.
"We are never speaking about tonight again," said Hikaru.
Everyone else nodded vigorously.
"The terrors of the modern world!" wailed Sai. "I want to go back to the time before this happened! Torajirou!"