[kansui]
by jedusor
Subjunctive Go
If Akari were the one to be haunted by the ghost of Sai, no one would ever suspect her of a thing.
Akari wouldn't blather on about blood stains Hikaru couldn't see. She would touch them curiously, and when the ghost appeared to her and sent her to the emergency room, she would keep quiet about what had happened. Hikaru would spend the ambulance ride worrying about whether he was going to be in trouble for sneaking around his grandfather's shed, not about whether she was all right.
Akari would be bewildered when Sai spoke to her and told her that all he wanted was to play Go, but she wouldn't refuse him. If something interesting were so obviously going on, Akari would want to watch it, not prevent it. She wouldn't tell him to be quiet, and she would not accept his help on her history test.
They would find a Go salon after school, just off the subway, a place that looked clean and friendly. Akari would greet the lady behind the counter, and spot a child about her age, and ask to play him. He would emerge from the shadows, smiling, and tell the lady not to charge her. Akari would protest a socially appropriate number of times before putting away her money, because she is not Hikaru.
The boy would introduce himself as Touya Akira. He would play kindly, seeing her unsure eyes and shaky grip. Then he would look past her appearance and see her Go, and his gaze would turn hard, and he would forget that she was a pretty young girl and see nothing across the goban but a skilled opponent. And that would be the moment Akari would decide that she too wanted to learn to play Go.
Sai would win, of course, and Touya would crumple, and because Akari is more perceptive and less self-centered than Hikaru, she would foresee the problems flying at her from the future. She would excuse herself politely but quickly, and she would go home, and she would talk to Sai.
She would ask him everything. She would listen. She would want to hear about his life, and the life of Honinbou Shuusaku, and how his history had informed his perspective on the world. She wouldn't understand most of it, because at twelve years old she would have very little sense of the importance of history and context and experience, but she would ask and she would listen.
Then, if it were Akari, the solution would appear. Akari wouldn't wait any longer to discover internet Go, because Akari has always had more common sense than Hikaru, and because Akari has seen her father play chess online. She would ask permission to use his computer, and she would give Sai what he wanted without risking her own future in Go.
She would stop going to movies and buying silly things, and she would save up her allowance for a cheap folding goban and stones. She'd go to beginner classes, but with Sai providing a running commentary and tutoring her every night, she would quickly surpass the level of instruction she found there. She would learn to hold the stones correctly. She would not disrupt a children's tournament by calling out the answer to a life-or-death problem, thereby attracting attention from Touya Meijin and Ogata 9-dan, because really, how much of an idiot would you have to be?
When Touya Akira found her again, she would see immediately that he was the flaw in her plan to keep Sai's genius separate from herself. Stupid, she would tell herself, couldn't you have chosen someone else to test Sai's skill on besides Japan's next top pro? Touya would be disappointed when she refused to play him, but he wouldn't get angry, because she would be respectful and apologetic. It would be a bad idea to make an enemy of Touya Akira if she wanted to play Go seriously. Akari would see that.
She would study constantly, and with Sai always there to help, she would improve quickly. She would let him play online as much as possible, until her father got tired of it and restricted her to one game of internet Go per day. She would apologize to Sai, but Sai would understand. He would be grateful to be allowed to play even that much.
Akari would join her school's Go club. It would be just her and Tsutsui at first. Hikaru would show up and half-listen to the rules of the game and try to outplay her, but lose interest when he realized he couldn't. By the second tournament, she would have brought in Kumiko and Kaneko to fill a girls' team. Kaneko would be better than Akari at first, but Akari would learn from her and catch up quickly. The two of them would win and take the team to the second round of the tournament, in which they would lose to the Kaio girls' team.
The tournament would take place at Kaiou, and Touya would show up to watch. He would frown at Akari's second-board position, and he would shoot her a sharp look when he saw her game. Afterward, he would accost her and demand to know why she had played so poorly. Akari would bow, and apologize for having disappointed him, and leave him speechless and confused. She would promise herself and Sai that someday, she would be good enough to play Touya. Galvanized and determined, she would research the world of professional Go, and she would learn of the existence of insei.
Touya would become a pro, and Akari would begin to realize just what she was getting herself into. But she wouldn't back down.
She would try to make the current insei examination, but she would be refused because she would have no sponsor to excuse the lateness of her application. She would turn away from the counter, dejected, and spy Ogata 9-dan passing in the hall. He would look her up and down and smirk, and she would burn holes in his pristine white suit with her glare. Someday, she would tell herself, they will see more than a lithe young body in a too-short uniform skirt. Someday, she would tell Sai furiously, she will be good enough that her looks won't matter.
Sai would remember the giggling squealing girl she had been when she walked into Hikaru's grandfather's shed, and he would be quietly proud.
For her birthday, and possibly for the sake of her increasingly frustrated father, her parents would buy her a laptop of her own. She would set up a screen name for herself, and she and Sai would switch off playing games every night. By encountering playing styles from all over the world in her own opponents, and by increasing the number of Sai's games running through her head, her strength would expand immensely in just a few months. She would beat Tsutsui and Kaneko, and by the next round of insei examinations, she would pass easily.
On her first day as an insei, Akari would gravitate toward Nase, the strongest female in the group. Nase would see her drive and intensity, and pay attention as Akari moved slowly but surely higher in the ranks. Akari would be invited to join Nase's group of friends. They wouldn't take her too seriously at first, but Akari would prove herself, and they would take notice of her skill.
Before long, someone would mention the internet player Sai. Akari would discreetly ask about it, and learn that Sai had been a topic of international interest for months. She would be neither surprised nor alarmed, because she would have expected this, but she would pay close attention whenever the subject arose.
At the Wakajishisen, Akari would lose in the first round. Touya would ask Akari's opponent how the game went. Mashiba wouldn't think it was worth replaying for him, and Akari would refuse to replay it as well. But she would ask Touya to replay his match for her, and he would sit across from her and lay it out, and the two of them would sit there talking about Go until Touya was called up for the second round. As he got up to leave, Touya's eyes would become serious, and he would tell her that since their first and only game, he had wanted nothing more than to play her again. He would wish her luck in the pro examination.
The pro exam would be the hardest ordeal of Akari's life, but she would survive. She would beat Nase, and realize with a shock that this meant she was now the strongest female insei. She would beat Fukui, who always played too fast. She would lose to Waya, and it would hit her hard because she usually played well against Waya, but she would press on. At night, Sai would whisper stories in her ear about the noblewomen at the palace who played Go, and how some of them were much better than the emperor. Akari would take comfort in this for a while, then the stress would get to her and she would snap at him that she wanted to be considered good, not just good for a girl. Being better than Nase wouldn't be enough for her.
The last game of the pro examinations, against Ochi, would feel odd until he revealed that Touya had been tutoring him all month. Akari would shake her head and play her best, and after a grueling battle on the goban that clearly showed Ochi had seen Sai's game against Touya, she would win. She would feel a little bad about it, because Ochi would better than her and lose only because he was off-balance from having seen that game. But she would pass. Her New Shodan game would be against Ogata, and she would lose. No one would pay much attention, and Ogata would not recognize her from that day in the Ki'in, but it would feel good and right nonetheless to face him across the goban as a serious player.
After that match, she would visit Hikaru's grandfather. Shindou-san would tell her that he saw her match, and that he wished his grandson would show such dedication to something. Akari would murmur that it was difficult to motivate oneself, and that she'd had a good deal of help in getting this far. She would offer to play him, and during the game, she would ask to buy the goban in the shed. He would look vaguely surprised, then remember that she had once passed out in that shed. Is that why you want it, he would ask. Akari would nod. It would inspire me to be a better player, she would say, and Shindou-san would give it to her for free.
Her first game as a pro would be against Touya. She would be nervous, because she would not yet be good enough to face him, but she would resolve to do her best.
Touya would default on the match because his father had suffered a heart attack.
Touya would call her later, to apologize for having missed the match. Akari would tell him not to be silly, and ask after the Meijin, who would be in the hospital but stable. Touya would mention that his father had begun playing internet Go from his bed. Akari would fall silent, then ask what his screen name was. Touya would tell her, but warn her that many people requested games from him, so it would be difficult to play him if that was her intention.
Akari would sit on her bed with her laptop and log on under Sai's name, and wait. Sure enough, as soon as the Meijin had finished his current game, the request box would pop up. Of course the Meijin would have heard of Sai. All the pros would have known about him by then. Sai would have been haunting the internet for two years, and never lost a game. Touya Meijin wouldn't be able to resist.
Akari would accept, and Sai would weep, motionless, for six straight minutes before making his first move.
The game would be the most incredible Go that Akari had ever seen. She would feel the power streaming through Sai's fan onto the screen. She would be caught up in it, in the privilege of being the one to bring this game to the world. Screen names would pour into the chatroom until the list of spectators scrolled off the screen. Akari would forget to breathe.
Sai would win by half a moku. Akari would peer at the screen for a long time, then ask if perhaps the Meijin could have won by making this move instead of that one. Sai would look at her, and look at the game, and realize that this was it. He would know, without a doubt, that he had been kept in the world to show Akari this game. He would feel the life force beginning to drain out of him once more.
He would tell Akari this, and she would not brush it off, because Akari is not Hikaru. If Akari had been given the gift of Sai, she would listen. She would hear Sai's fear, and she would ask:
Sai, do you believe the Hand of God exists?
He would blink and say of course, he has been striving for the Hand of God his whole life. Akari would close the laptop, dismissing the game, and cross her legs. She would say, Sai, thank you for all you've done. But Sai, she would say, I still need you. The Go world still needs you. You weren't left on this earth just to show one game to one student. You're here for Torajirou, and you're here for me, and for Touya Meijin, Touya Akira, Waya, Nase, Tsutsui, everyone you've played on the internet, everyone who plays Go, everyone who will ever play Go. You've touched all of our lives, Sai.
I don't think the Hand of God is attainable, she would say. I don't think perfection can ever be achieved. I think the idea of the perfect move exists so that we can try to get as close as we can to it. That move I just saw wasn't the Hand of God. It was as close as I've come. But I can get closer. I have to. I need you for that, and the rest of the world needs you too. I think you're here to help us all get as close as we can.
I'm going to be gone someday, Sai, she would say. I'm going to die. And when I do, you can move on to another student in need. My time in the world of Go is limited, and the game may change after I'm gone. It may even be lost. But you, Sai. You have the power to keep Go alive forever. I think that's your purpose.
And the sands of time would slow and cease to fall once more, because Sai would believe her. If Akari were haunted by the ghost of Sai, he would not vanish.
Years later, Fujisaki Honinbou would walk into a Go salon and sit down across from Touya Jyudan, as usual. Touya would look up from the game he was replaying and say, I lost to Sai again last night. Akari would smile and say, again? Touya would scowl and ask if she'd ever played Sai. Akari would smile innocently and tell him, yes, I've played Sai, and no, I've never won.
Touya would say, I'd like to watch you play a game with him. Akari would say, all right, I'll play him tonight. Touya would raise an eyebrow and ask, how do you know he'll be online?
I think he will, Akari would say, and she and Touya would stop talking to focus on playing a title-caliber game in the corner of the grubby salon. That evening, Akari would go back to her apartment and sit down at her desktop computer, and set her laptop down next to it. She would log herself on one and Sai on the other, leaving enough time between that Touya (who would be watching from his own computer) wouldn't notice anything odd.
She and Sai would play, Akari moving back and forth between computers. Two-thirds of the way through the game, Akari would turn to Sai, bow, and say, I resign. Then she would turn back to the computer and click the button. The next day Touya would yell at her, insisting she could have turned it around, and she would yell right back, and Sai would yell along with her, the two of them describing at top volume exactly how wrong Touya was.
At the age of sixty-three, having lost and regained a few titles a few times, Akari would undergo respiratory failure and pass away in her living room. It would happen right next to the old goban, the one with the bloodstains only she could see. Sai would not realize at first that she was truly dead, but when the paramedics would come to carry her away and he could not follow, he would know.
Akari would have left careful instructions in her will, and the goban would be donated to a school with no Go club. It would sit in the back of a classroom, the teacher completely unaware of its value and history, until one day a child would walk in for the first day of lab and be greeted by a hovering specter asking each student, can you see me? Can you hear my voice?
If Akari were the one to be haunted by the ghost of Sai, the world of Go would never know how much it owed her.
Subjunctive Go
If Akari were the one to be haunted by the ghost of Sai, no one would ever suspect her of a thing.
Akari wouldn't blather on about blood stains Hikaru couldn't see. She would touch them curiously, and when the ghost appeared to her and sent her to the emergency room, she would keep quiet about what had happened. Hikaru would spend the ambulance ride worrying about whether he was going to be in trouble for sneaking around his grandfather's shed, not about whether she was all right.
Akari would be bewildered when Sai spoke to her and told her that all he wanted was to play Go, but she wouldn't refuse him. If something interesting were so obviously going on, Akari would want to watch it, not prevent it. She wouldn't tell him to be quiet, and she would not accept his help on her history test.
They would find a Go salon after school, just off the subway, a place that looked clean and friendly. Akari would greet the lady behind the counter, and spot a child about her age, and ask to play him. He would emerge from the shadows, smiling, and tell the lady not to charge her. Akari would protest a socially appropriate number of times before putting away her money, because she is not Hikaru.
The boy would introduce himself as Touya Akira. He would play kindly, seeing her unsure eyes and shaky grip. Then he would look past her appearance and see her Go, and his gaze would turn hard, and he would forget that she was a pretty young girl and see nothing across the goban but a skilled opponent. And that would be the moment Akari would decide that she too wanted to learn to play Go.
Sai would win, of course, and Touya would crumple, and because Akari is more perceptive and less self-centered than Hikaru, she would foresee the problems flying at her from the future. She would excuse herself politely but quickly, and she would go home, and she would talk to Sai.
She would ask him everything. She would listen. She would want to hear about his life, and the life of Honinbou Shuusaku, and how his history had informed his perspective on the world. She wouldn't understand most of it, because at twelve years old she would have very little sense of the importance of history and context and experience, but she would ask and she would listen.
Then, if it were Akari, the solution would appear. Akari wouldn't wait any longer to discover internet Go, because Akari has always had more common sense than Hikaru, and because Akari has seen her father play chess online. She would ask permission to use his computer, and she would give Sai what he wanted without risking her own future in Go.
She would stop going to movies and buying silly things, and she would save up her allowance for a cheap folding goban and stones. She'd go to beginner classes, but with Sai providing a running commentary and tutoring her every night, she would quickly surpass the level of instruction she found there. She would learn to hold the stones correctly. She would not disrupt a children's tournament by calling out the answer to a life-or-death problem, thereby attracting attention from Touya Meijin and Ogata 9-dan, because really, how much of an idiot would you have to be?
When Touya Akira found her again, she would see immediately that he was the flaw in her plan to keep Sai's genius separate from herself. Stupid, she would tell herself, couldn't you have chosen someone else to test Sai's skill on besides Japan's next top pro? Touya would be disappointed when she refused to play him, but he wouldn't get angry, because she would be respectful and apologetic. It would be a bad idea to make an enemy of Touya Akira if she wanted to play Go seriously. Akari would see that.
She would study constantly, and with Sai always there to help, she would improve quickly. She would let him play online as much as possible, until her father got tired of it and restricted her to one game of internet Go per day. She would apologize to Sai, but Sai would understand. He would be grateful to be allowed to play even that much.
Akari would join her school's Go club. It would be just her and Tsutsui at first. Hikaru would show up and half-listen to the rules of the game and try to outplay her, but lose interest when he realized he couldn't. By the second tournament, she would have brought in Kumiko and Kaneko to fill a girls' team. Kaneko would be better than Akari at first, but Akari would learn from her and catch up quickly. The two of them would win and take the team to the second round of the tournament, in which they would lose to the Kaio girls' team.
The tournament would take place at Kaiou, and Touya would show up to watch. He would frown at Akari's second-board position, and he would shoot her a sharp look when he saw her game. Afterward, he would accost her and demand to know why she had played so poorly. Akari would bow, and apologize for having disappointed him, and leave him speechless and confused. She would promise herself and Sai that someday, she would be good enough to play Touya. Galvanized and determined, she would research the world of professional Go, and she would learn of the existence of insei.
Touya would become a pro, and Akari would begin to realize just what she was getting herself into. But she wouldn't back down.
She would try to make the current insei examination, but she would be refused because she would have no sponsor to excuse the lateness of her application. She would turn away from the counter, dejected, and spy Ogata 9-dan passing in the hall. He would look her up and down and smirk, and she would burn holes in his pristine white suit with her glare. Someday, she would tell herself, they will see more than a lithe young body in a too-short uniform skirt. Someday, she would tell Sai furiously, she will be good enough that her looks won't matter.
Sai would remember the giggling squealing girl she had been when she walked into Hikaru's grandfather's shed, and he would be quietly proud.
For her birthday, and possibly for the sake of her increasingly frustrated father, her parents would buy her a laptop of her own. She would set up a screen name for herself, and she and Sai would switch off playing games every night. By encountering playing styles from all over the world in her own opponents, and by increasing the number of Sai's games running through her head, her strength would expand immensely in just a few months. She would beat Tsutsui and Kaneko, and by the next round of insei examinations, she would pass easily.
On her first day as an insei, Akari would gravitate toward Nase, the strongest female in the group. Nase would see her drive and intensity, and pay attention as Akari moved slowly but surely higher in the ranks. Akari would be invited to join Nase's group of friends. They wouldn't take her too seriously at first, but Akari would prove herself, and they would take notice of her skill.
Before long, someone would mention the internet player Sai. Akari would discreetly ask about it, and learn that Sai had been a topic of international interest for months. She would be neither surprised nor alarmed, because she would have expected this, but she would pay close attention whenever the subject arose.
At the Wakajishisen, Akari would lose in the first round. Touya would ask Akari's opponent how the game went. Mashiba wouldn't think it was worth replaying for him, and Akari would refuse to replay it as well. But she would ask Touya to replay his match for her, and he would sit across from her and lay it out, and the two of them would sit there talking about Go until Touya was called up for the second round. As he got up to leave, Touya's eyes would become serious, and he would tell her that since their first and only game, he had wanted nothing more than to play her again. He would wish her luck in the pro examination.
The pro exam would be the hardest ordeal of Akari's life, but she would survive. She would beat Nase, and realize with a shock that this meant she was now the strongest female insei. She would beat Fukui, who always played too fast. She would lose to Waya, and it would hit her hard because she usually played well against Waya, but she would press on. At night, Sai would whisper stories in her ear about the noblewomen at the palace who played Go, and how some of them were much better than the emperor. Akari would take comfort in this for a while, then the stress would get to her and she would snap at him that she wanted to be considered good, not just good for a girl. Being better than Nase wouldn't be enough for her.
The last game of the pro examinations, against Ochi, would feel odd until he revealed that Touya had been tutoring him all month. Akari would shake her head and play her best, and after a grueling battle on the goban that clearly showed Ochi had seen Sai's game against Touya, she would win. She would feel a little bad about it, because Ochi would better than her and lose only because he was off-balance from having seen that game. But she would pass. Her New Shodan game would be against Ogata, and she would lose. No one would pay much attention, and Ogata would not recognize her from that day in the Ki'in, but it would feel good and right nonetheless to face him across the goban as a serious player.
After that match, she would visit Hikaru's grandfather. Shindou-san would tell her that he saw her match, and that he wished his grandson would show such dedication to something. Akari would murmur that it was difficult to motivate oneself, and that she'd had a good deal of help in getting this far. She would offer to play him, and during the game, she would ask to buy the goban in the shed. He would look vaguely surprised, then remember that she had once passed out in that shed. Is that why you want it, he would ask. Akari would nod. It would inspire me to be a better player, she would say, and Shindou-san would give it to her for free.
Her first game as a pro would be against Touya. She would be nervous, because she would not yet be good enough to face him, but she would resolve to do her best.
Touya would default on the match because his father had suffered a heart attack.
Touya would call her later, to apologize for having missed the match. Akari would tell him not to be silly, and ask after the Meijin, who would be in the hospital but stable. Touya would mention that his father had begun playing internet Go from his bed. Akari would fall silent, then ask what his screen name was. Touya would tell her, but warn her that many people requested games from him, so it would be difficult to play him if that was her intention.
Akari would sit on her bed with her laptop and log on under Sai's name, and wait. Sure enough, as soon as the Meijin had finished his current game, the request box would pop up. Of course the Meijin would have heard of Sai. All the pros would have known about him by then. Sai would have been haunting the internet for two years, and never lost a game. Touya Meijin wouldn't be able to resist.
Akari would accept, and Sai would weep, motionless, for six straight minutes before making his first move.
The game would be the most incredible Go that Akari had ever seen. She would feel the power streaming through Sai's fan onto the screen. She would be caught up in it, in the privilege of being the one to bring this game to the world. Screen names would pour into the chatroom until the list of spectators scrolled off the screen. Akari would forget to breathe.
Sai would win by half a moku. Akari would peer at the screen for a long time, then ask if perhaps the Meijin could have won by making this move instead of that one. Sai would look at her, and look at the game, and realize that this was it. He would know, without a doubt, that he had been kept in the world to show Akari this game. He would feel the life force beginning to drain out of him once more.
He would tell Akari this, and she would not brush it off, because Akari is not Hikaru. If Akari had been given the gift of Sai, she would listen. She would hear Sai's fear, and she would ask:
Sai, do you believe the Hand of God exists?
He would blink and say of course, he has been striving for the Hand of God his whole life. Akari would close the laptop, dismissing the game, and cross her legs. She would say, Sai, thank you for all you've done. But Sai, she would say, I still need you. The Go world still needs you. You weren't left on this earth just to show one game to one student. You're here for Torajirou, and you're here for me, and for Touya Meijin, Touya Akira, Waya, Nase, Tsutsui, everyone you've played on the internet, everyone who plays Go, everyone who will ever play Go. You've touched all of our lives, Sai.
I don't think the Hand of God is attainable, she would say. I don't think perfection can ever be achieved. I think the idea of the perfect move exists so that we can try to get as close as we can to it. That move I just saw wasn't the Hand of God. It was as close as I've come. But I can get closer. I have to. I need you for that, and the rest of the world needs you too. I think you're here to help us all get as close as we can.
I'm going to be gone someday, Sai, she would say. I'm going to die. And when I do, you can move on to another student in need. My time in the world of Go is limited, and the game may change after I'm gone. It may even be lost. But you, Sai. You have the power to keep Go alive forever. I think that's your purpose.
And the sands of time would slow and cease to fall once more, because Sai would believe her. If Akari were haunted by the ghost of Sai, he would not vanish.
Years later, Fujisaki Honinbou would walk into a Go salon and sit down across from Touya Jyudan, as usual. Touya would look up from the game he was replaying and say, I lost to Sai again last night. Akari would smile and say, again? Touya would scowl and ask if she'd ever played Sai. Akari would smile innocently and tell him, yes, I've played Sai, and no, I've never won.
Touya would say, I'd like to watch you play a game with him. Akari would say, all right, I'll play him tonight. Touya would raise an eyebrow and ask, how do you know he'll be online?
I think he will, Akari would say, and she and Touya would stop talking to focus on playing a title-caliber game in the corner of the grubby salon. That evening, Akari would go back to her apartment and sit down at her desktop computer, and set her laptop down next to it. She would log herself on one and Sai on the other, leaving enough time between that Touya (who would be watching from his own computer) wouldn't notice anything odd.
She and Sai would play, Akari moving back and forth between computers. Two-thirds of the way through the game, Akari would turn to Sai, bow, and say, I resign. Then she would turn back to the computer and click the button. The next day Touya would yell at her, insisting she could have turned it around, and she would yell right back, and Sai would yell along with her, the two of them describing at top volume exactly how wrong Touya was.
At the age of sixty-three, having lost and regained a few titles a few times, Akari would undergo respiratory failure and pass away in her living room. It would happen right next to the old goban, the one with the bloodstains only she could see. Sai would not realize at first that she was truly dead, but when the paramedics would come to carry her away and he could not follow, he would know.
Akari would have left careful instructions in her will, and the goban would be donated to a school with no Go club. It would sit in the back of a classroom, the teacher completely unaware of its value and history, until one day a child would walk in for the first day of lab and be greeted by a hovering specter asking each student, can you see me? Can you hear my voice?
If Akari were the one to be haunted by the ghost of Sai, the world of Go would never know how much it owed her.