[kansui]
by jedusor
Silenced
Sai isn't really a thousand years old.
He was born a thousand years ago, but he does not have the knowledge and experience to reflect such a long lifetime. He was young when he died, and he was only with Torajirou for twenty-five years. He has spent the rest of history trapped in limbo with no connection to the outside world. It is enough to drive him insane, perhaps; enough to make him forget what little he once knew of life and human nature; but it is not enough to make him wise.
He is wiser than Hikaru, but then, Ogata's fish are probably wiser than Hikaru. He helps the boy navigate the world of other people as best he can, but he is always thinking of when he will next get a chance to play, of how to convince Hikaru to let him guide the stones. Go is his life, as it has always been, and he slips back into the comfort of Go as Hikaru slowly lets him back into the world of black and white.
Then one day his Go is gone.
Before it happens, he feels that something is going to be torn away from him. He expects to be sent somewhere else, or to dissipate forever and be gone, and he clings to Hikaru in fear. Instead, that morning in May, he loses something even worse: his link to the world.
Hikaru looks around in confusion.
Sai speaks, and begs, and weeps, and Hikaru cannot hear; cannot see. Hikaru dashes around Japan, frantically seeking the lost ghost that trails his every movement. Then he gives up Go, and only then does Sai realize exactly what this means. If he is still bound to Hikaru, but Hikaru cannot see or hear him, than he will never play Go again. If Hikaru stops playing...
Sai loses his mind.
Submerged in despair, he has no idea how long it is before Isumi comes over and stuffs Hikaru's head in a goke like a bully with a toilet. At least, that's how Sai sees it. In reality, Isumi is gentle and pleading and deftly manipulates Hikaru's emotions with a shivering gaze, and on some level, Sai wonders how he does it. On every other level, he is still mourning his own game.
Then Hikaru and Touya begin to play every day, and he forgets to be sorry for himself in the beauty of them. They are each immersed in strategy for their own side of the game, and Sai is the only one who gets to see each and every game from the outside, as an observer of their art. It is difficult at first to keep from mentally overwriting the board with ideas of how he would have played instead, still sick with longing, but it becomes gradually easier over time to appreciate their matches for what they are. There is a chemistry between them that no one but them, not even Sai, can understand. It is the worst punishment possible, to be forced to watch them; it is the greatest privilege, to be allowed.
They play at Touya's house, often. When his mother is home from China, she brings them tea. She lingers sometimes, Sai notices. He finds it odd, since he remembers her saying once that she knows nothing of Go. Yet she is looking at the board, not at her son or his guest. Hikaru and Touya are oblivious to her presence, caught up in the stones.
Sai follows her when she leaves. He can't go far from Hikaru, but Akiko only walks into the next room, where she picks up a novel and turns to her bookmark. Sai feels as if he is intruding and returns to the game, although this is ridiculous; he would be unable to intrude if he tried.
Hikaru rises fast in the world of Go, as Sai has known for years that he would. Soon he is playing title matches and constantly being interviewed. During the interviews, Sai watches the journalists scribble notes Hikaru can't see. Sometimes they write down descriptions of how Hikaru is reacting to the questions, which Hikaru often loudly denies when he reads the final articles. The journalists are usually correct.
Even after Hikaru has an apartment of his own, they still play at Touya's house. There are fewer distractions there, and the atmosphere is restful, and tea appears at their elbows. Sometimes they look up and thank Akiko when she brings it to them. They never notice when she stands there for a few minutes, watching.
One day she has a friend over while Touya and Hikaru are playing. They sit in the kitchen, talking quietly. Sai stands in the doorway and listens. Akiko has clearly known the other woman for a long time, and tells her about life in China and her husband's failing health.
Behind him, Sai hears Hikaru and Touya arguing again. The topic under debate seems to be a part of the board he was watching with interest earlier, so he takes a look. As usual, Hikaru made a move that looks random and useless, and Touya is protesting loudly.
Akiko is telling her friend how glad she is that Akira has found a true friend and rival--she says "rival" with a little laugh, as if humoring them. He's never had many friends his own age, she says. He only seems comfortable around adults. She's pleased that he's found someone with whom he can relax and express himself.
The arguing has stopped. Sai looks over his shoulder. Touya is expressing himself by kissing Hikaru passionately. He is a little surprised, but not much. Touya pulls away and murmurs something, with a glance toward the kitchen, and they hurry off to Touya's room.
Akiko's friend takes her leave. Akiko looks into the empty game room. The unfinished match is still laid out on the goban. Sai checks the disputed area. The stone Hikaru laid is absent from the board. He spies a white stone lying on the floor seven feet away, and smiles to himself, imagining what must have happened.
Akiko sits seiza in Hikaru's spot and examines the board. Sai sits on the other side and examines her. Hikaru and Touya will not be back anytime soon, he knows. Akiko doesn't seem concerned, serious and intent on the game. Her expression takes Sai off guard--it's the same as her son's, when he is choosing his next move. He has never seen that look on the Meijin's face.
After nearly twenty minutes, Akiko takes a white stone and places it in the exact spot where Hikaru played.
From the kitchen, she couldn't have seen Hikaru place that stone. She couldn't have determined the exact move just from overhearing the argument. Somehow, she must have arrived at the same conclusion as Hikaru. Sai stares at the move, and at her.
She sighs and puts the stone back in the goke, then returns to the kitchen. Sai watches her go, still stunned.
Hikaru and Touya continue playing each other, of course, and the extra time they spend off alone together gives Sai more time with Akiko. She doesn't speak aloud except on the phone, and she never studies Go on her own. But whenever the boys leave a game unfinished, which is often these days, she places the next stone. Her moves are always brilliant. She always takes them back off the board.
For the first time, Sai wishes he could touch Go stones for the sake of someone besides himself. He wants to put one of those stones back where she played it, and leave it there for her family to see, for the world to see. He wants people to appreciate her, not just her playing but also her compassion and her grace and the way she smiles even when she's alone. When Hikaru and Akira are at the house, he finds himself drifting away from them and toward her even while they're playing Go. When she reads, he sits with her and reads the same words, and he learns about things he never paid attention to when Go was all he knew. When she cooks, he learns how to cook. When she naps, he watches her breathe, and somehow the panic and worry that he will forever be a helpless wraith is calmed. When he leaves and goes home with Hikaru, and Hikaru replays the day's match with Touya, Sai feels a peaceful fondness for the game that he hasn't felt in months of frantic obsession.
He wonders if he's fallen in love.
One afternoon, Hikaru goes to Touya's house and finds the Meijin in the garden with Akiko, back from China for a visit. Hikaru looks worried, and he and Touya do nothing but play Go that day. Sai stays and watches the game, trying to leave Akiko and her husband some privacy, but he can't concentrate. He stares out the window at them. They're planting flowers in one of the raised areas of the garden, where they can sit on the stone wall while they work instead of having to crouch on the ground. Akiko is showing the Meijin how to mound the earth just right around the newly planted stems. He watches her, and nods, and imitates her motions.
Sai knows why the Meijin married Akiko. He knows what it's like to live in a world of Go, and now he knows what it's like to be drawn out of that world for a rest. He thinks he understands why Akiko hides her talent. Perhaps only someone who knows the world of Go can truly realize how important rest is to a master. Akiko knows how valuable her husband is to the game of Go. She sacrifices her playing for his.
She could be valuable to the game of Go as well. She could be famous in her own right. She could play as much as she wanted, whoever she wanted. And for the sake of another, she doesn't.
Sai thinks of Hikaru, and silently apologizes. He thinks of Torajirou, and he silently weeps. He thinks of Akiko, and he is silently grateful.
Silenced
Sai isn't really a thousand years old.
He was born a thousand years ago, but he does not have the knowledge and experience to reflect such a long lifetime. He was young when he died, and he was only with Torajirou for twenty-five years. He has spent the rest of history trapped in limbo with no connection to the outside world. It is enough to drive him insane, perhaps; enough to make him forget what little he once knew of life and human nature; but it is not enough to make him wise.
He is wiser than Hikaru, but then, Ogata's fish are probably wiser than Hikaru. He helps the boy navigate the world of other people as best he can, but he is always thinking of when he will next get a chance to play, of how to convince Hikaru to let him guide the stones. Go is his life, as it has always been, and he slips back into the comfort of Go as Hikaru slowly lets him back into the world of black and white.
Then one day his Go is gone.
Before it happens, he feels that something is going to be torn away from him. He expects to be sent somewhere else, or to dissipate forever and be gone, and he clings to Hikaru in fear. Instead, that morning in May, he loses something even worse: his link to the world.
Hikaru looks around in confusion.
Sai speaks, and begs, and weeps, and Hikaru cannot hear; cannot see. Hikaru dashes around Japan, frantically seeking the lost ghost that trails his every movement. Then he gives up Go, and only then does Sai realize exactly what this means. If he is still bound to Hikaru, but Hikaru cannot see or hear him, than he will never play Go again. If Hikaru stops playing...
Sai loses his mind.
Submerged in despair, he has no idea how long it is before Isumi comes over and stuffs Hikaru's head in a goke like a bully with a toilet. At least, that's how Sai sees it. In reality, Isumi is gentle and pleading and deftly manipulates Hikaru's emotions with a shivering gaze, and on some level, Sai wonders how he does it. On every other level, he is still mourning his own game.
Then Hikaru and Touya begin to play every day, and he forgets to be sorry for himself in the beauty of them. They are each immersed in strategy for their own side of the game, and Sai is the only one who gets to see each and every game from the outside, as an observer of their art. It is difficult at first to keep from mentally overwriting the board with ideas of how he would have played instead, still sick with longing, but it becomes gradually easier over time to appreciate their matches for what they are. There is a chemistry between them that no one but them, not even Sai, can understand. It is the worst punishment possible, to be forced to watch them; it is the greatest privilege, to be allowed.
They play at Touya's house, often. When his mother is home from China, she brings them tea. She lingers sometimes, Sai notices. He finds it odd, since he remembers her saying once that she knows nothing of Go. Yet she is looking at the board, not at her son or his guest. Hikaru and Touya are oblivious to her presence, caught up in the stones.
Sai follows her when she leaves. He can't go far from Hikaru, but Akiko only walks into the next room, where she picks up a novel and turns to her bookmark. Sai feels as if he is intruding and returns to the game, although this is ridiculous; he would be unable to intrude if he tried.
Hikaru rises fast in the world of Go, as Sai has known for years that he would. Soon he is playing title matches and constantly being interviewed. During the interviews, Sai watches the journalists scribble notes Hikaru can't see. Sometimes they write down descriptions of how Hikaru is reacting to the questions, which Hikaru often loudly denies when he reads the final articles. The journalists are usually correct.
Even after Hikaru has an apartment of his own, they still play at Touya's house. There are fewer distractions there, and the atmosphere is restful, and tea appears at their elbows. Sometimes they look up and thank Akiko when she brings it to them. They never notice when she stands there for a few minutes, watching.
One day she has a friend over while Touya and Hikaru are playing. They sit in the kitchen, talking quietly. Sai stands in the doorway and listens. Akiko has clearly known the other woman for a long time, and tells her about life in China and her husband's failing health.
Behind him, Sai hears Hikaru and Touya arguing again. The topic under debate seems to be a part of the board he was watching with interest earlier, so he takes a look. As usual, Hikaru made a move that looks random and useless, and Touya is protesting loudly.
Akiko is telling her friend how glad she is that Akira has found a true friend and rival--she says "rival" with a little laugh, as if humoring them. He's never had many friends his own age, she says. He only seems comfortable around adults. She's pleased that he's found someone with whom he can relax and express himself.
The arguing has stopped. Sai looks over his shoulder. Touya is expressing himself by kissing Hikaru passionately. He is a little surprised, but not much. Touya pulls away and murmurs something, with a glance toward the kitchen, and they hurry off to Touya's room.
Akiko's friend takes her leave. Akiko looks into the empty game room. The unfinished match is still laid out on the goban. Sai checks the disputed area. The stone Hikaru laid is absent from the board. He spies a white stone lying on the floor seven feet away, and smiles to himself, imagining what must have happened.
Akiko sits seiza in Hikaru's spot and examines the board. Sai sits on the other side and examines her. Hikaru and Touya will not be back anytime soon, he knows. Akiko doesn't seem concerned, serious and intent on the game. Her expression takes Sai off guard--it's the same as her son's, when he is choosing his next move. He has never seen that look on the Meijin's face.
After nearly twenty minutes, Akiko takes a white stone and places it in the exact spot where Hikaru played.
From the kitchen, she couldn't have seen Hikaru place that stone. She couldn't have determined the exact move just from overhearing the argument. Somehow, she must have arrived at the same conclusion as Hikaru. Sai stares at the move, and at her.
She sighs and puts the stone back in the goke, then returns to the kitchen. Sai watches her go, still stunned.
Hikaru and Touya continue playing each other, of course, and the extra time they spend off alone together gives Sai more time with Akiko. She doesn't speak aloud except on the phone, and she never studies Go on her own. But whenever the boys leave a game unfinished, which is often these days, she places the next stone. Her moves are always brilliant. She always takes them back off the board.
For the first time, Sai wishes he could touch Go stones for the sake of someone besides himself. He wants to put one of those stones back where she played it, and leave it there for her family to see, for the world to see. He wants people to appreciate her, not just her playing but also her compassion and her grace and the way she smiles even when she's alone. When Hikaru and Akira are at the house, he finds himself drifting away from them and toward her even while they're playing Go. When she reads, he sits with her and reads the same words, and he learns about things he never paid attention to when Go was all he knew. When she cooks, he learns how to cook. When she naps, he watches her breathe, and somehow the panic and worry that he will forever be a helpless wraith is calmed. When he leaves and goes home with Hikaru, and Hikaru replays the day's match with Touya, Sai feels a peaceful fondness for the game that he hasn't felt in months of frantic obsession.
He wonders if he's fallen in love.
One afternoon, Hikaru goes to Touya's house and finds the Meijin in the garden with Akiko, back from China for a visit. Hikaru looks worried, and he and Touya do nothing but play Go that day. Sai stays and watches the game, trying to leave Akiko and her husband some privacy, but he can't concentrate. He stares out the window at them. They're planting flowers in one of the raised areas of the garden, where they can sit on the stone wall while they work instead of having to crouch on the ground. Akiko is showing the Meijin how to mound the earth just right around the newly planted stems. He watches her, and nods, and imitates her motions.
Sai knows why the Meijin married Akiko. He knows what it's like to live in a world of Go, and now he knows what it's like to be drawn out of that world for a rest. He thinks he understands why Akiko hides her talent. Perhaps only someone who knows the world of Go can truly realize how important rest is to a master. Akiko knows how valuable her husband is to the game of Go. She sacrifices her playing for his.
She could be valuable to the game of Go as well. She could be famous in her own right. She could play as much as she wanted, whoever she wanted. And for the sake of another, she doesn't.
Sai thinks of Hikaru, and silently apologizes. He thinks of Torajirou, and he silently weeps. He thinks of Akiko, and he is silently grateful.