[tsukenmen]
by measuringlife
Silk Flowers
[ichi]
"They say there's a ghost that lives in there," Masumoto said. He pushed his fringe of black bangs from his eyes.
Shindou squinted at the house. It looked out of place with the modern buildings, skyscrapers and stores so close. It was aged, a manor that spoke of earlier times with high gates around it.
"You're such a liar, Masumoto," Shindou said.
"It's true! If you watch the windows something moves inside." Masumoto said.
"Well yeah someone lives there!" Shindou said. "Probably some old geezer who's too cheap to take care of his house."
"I dare you to go in there," Masumoto said.
"What? No way!" Shindou replied.
"What are you, chicken? Bawk bawk bawk-!"
Shindou wasn't about to be called a chicken, so he steeled himself and walked towards the door.
Even as his knees trembled a bit, he pulled himself up over the rusted gates and into the garden. There weren't any ghosts, really. He didn't believe in those old superstitions. Not at all.
He'd show Masumoto.
[ni]
Sai prepared himself. The water was cool, it slunk around him. He focused his mind on moves. Star. Upper left corner. Numbers flowed together.
He heard discordant sound, a knock at the doors. He had heard a rattle at the gates before, but ignored it. Children were always peering in, though few actually went any farther than that.
He came to the door, readying himself for the next game. Instead of the usual (older man, some younger, most higher range with unsatisfactory wives) he saw a young boy. Part of his hair was bleached blond. He wore a bright orange shirt with the number five on it.
The boy drew back, looking terrified. Sai smiled reassuringly.
It's been a while since Yamada had grown and gone to study abroad. Since then the stores have been dwindling down to nothing. He could not ask clients to fetch things for him.
For once, a bit of good fortune.
"Oh? A visitor?" Sai said. "How may I help you?"
"Wait, you're not a ghost," the boy said, looking almost offended that he'd ever mistaken Sai for a specter.
"I suppose not," Sai said. "Did you think I was?"
"Masumoto said there were ghosts here, but I said he was full of crap and came to prove that there weren't any. So I win," he said.
"Hmmm. That was a brave thing to do....Say, how would you like to learn how to play Go?"
The boy wrinkled his nose. "Go? That's an old man's sport."
"An old man's sport?" Sai said indignantly. "Go is the most important game in the universe! It is the universe spread out on a board!"
The boy cocked his head. "Really?"
"Would I lie to you?" Sai said, smiling wide.
"How would I know?! I just met you! I don't even know your name!"
"Fujiwara no Sai."
"What a weird name. You sound like that Abe no Seimei guy," the boy said.
"Ah, him...he played a very good game," Sai said.
"Huh?" the boy said.
"Nothing, nothing," Sai said.
"So you think I could make money playing Go?"
Sai frowned. "Don't even think that! Go isn't simply to be used as a tool for wealth!"
"Just asking!"
Later he would find out that his name was Shindou Hikaru, and he would send him off for supplies and lovingly prepare for the first lesson.
[san]
Ogata came to Sai's residence often. He was always slightly disheveled, his tie undone and shirt open to reveal his throat. He never tarried after the game, and then the act itself. Bodies meeting, crushing. Sai's passivity was a treasure. He would think of floating, and lie still while they took their rights.
The smell of cigarettes lingered on his skin and remained in every kiss. Always a bitter aftertaste. Always staying.
Sai remembered him not only for his notable habits: white suits and thick glasses, his slyness. It was his game that lingered. He was a difficult play, and Sai never gave in to him quickly - he never does with his games. He did not offer talk or dance, but the flourish of the game. It was his one victory before surrender.
Everything else was inevitable.
[yon]
"Why is there a bloodstain there?" Shindou said, tracing over the board.
"Oh...I tripped once," Sai said with a too-bright smile. "Now let's play!"
He was as eager as a child as he played Shindou. He loved playing teaching Go, shaping young minds as he showed them the beauty of the game. Shindou was awkward, and yet there seemed some innate talent as he played. At times he would miss obvious plays and yet it would come together in the end for something surprising, something Sai hadn't even seen forming.
Yes, Shindou was promising. Sai felt the mantle of teacher weigh heavily upon him.
Maybe Shindou could find the change, and play the perfect game which had eluded him so.
[go]
Touya Kouyo was different. When Sai stood in the hallway, unfinished ikebana left aside to deal with clients, he said "I grant another kind of wish."
The yukata hung low, revealing the whiteness of his skin and bones that seemed to small, too fragile.
Sai's skin never warmed.
Touya Kouyo considered him, but as a player would. When he finally spoke, it was as a deep rumble.
"I heard you play well."
Sai drew his yukata closer. He never used such shameless ploys to gain control of a game. He looked over Touya Kouyo's wizened face. He must have been young once, and Sai tried to turn back time in his mind, imagining the visions of what he must have once been.
The game was intense, a meeting of equals. Neither rushed, and yet Sai felt a flutter of anticipation through him at every move. It was a close game, one where territory was taken in equal amount, with no direct leads. Each time one of them would rise in advantage, the other would cut at their defenses, and break them down bit by bit.
Touya Kouyo won, but just barely. Sai looked down at the board with a sort of wonder at the beauty they had created. Constellations on a bloodstained board, such a pure game as to be almost sublime.
"You have a very old style," Touya Kouyo remarked.
"And you have a very sharp eye," Sai replied.
When they cleaned up the board and wash the stones together, he spoke of his family. A boy about Shindou's age, a wife of many years. Sai smiled and thought another hypocite but with an excuse, Touya Kouyo was gone before he could finish.
It was then that Sai realized Touya Kouyo had come simply for the love of the game, not for the lusts of the flesh. Perhaps he knew, and perhaps he didn't either way, Go was the only thing he desired.
A good man, Sai thought. Wistful.
He began to recreate the game on the board, almost dreamy as he remembered the controlled passion his opponent had for the game.
He didn't think there'd be anymore clients today. Even if there were, they could wait a little while longer.
[roku]
"Why don't you ever leave, Sai?" Shindou cocked his head in curiosity.
Sai smiled. "Because I can't. Everything is so new and I'd get lost if I went," he said flippantly.
He busied himself with putting away the groceries, and remarked over each new thing. Fresh Negi? Ahhh, I think I will have Sukiyakii tonight. Are you staying over?
He looked as sad as a child when Shindou said he wouldn't.
He looked to the door, closed as surely as if it was chained. He was tethered here. Bound with invisible threads and cold that never left.
Go was the only escape, the only reason he had not lost himself long ago.
"Besides, if I went out, then you couldn't get the groceries and I couldn't teach you, so isn't it good?" Sai said with more cheer than he felt.
"I guess," Shindou said, wrinkling his nose. "But couldn't you teach me without the groceries anyways? Those things are heavy!"
"Nope! It's groceries or nothing," Sai said. "But enough talk, you have more lessons to do!"
"I have homework," Shindou said.
"Another game, another game?" Sai pleaded. "Please Shindou, just one more?"
"No way, play with yourself! If I fail another test I'm grounded for a month," Shindou said.
He wept as Shindou left. Not just for the chance at the game he lost, but for himself. The rooms turned silent and cold in his absence.
He could hear the clock ticking from somewhere, some room, and it sounded so final, so damning. He laid down in the garden, uncaring if his silks grew dirty and remembered the games he had played, the lives he had lived.
[nana]
"I'm working for this guy. He plays really old Go and speaks like grandfather, but he acts like a little kid," Shindou said between bites of food. "He's a....whatcha call it, where you don't leave the house? A shut-door?"
"Shut-in," his mother said. "And how many times do I have to tell you - don't talk with your mouth full of food."
"That's it, a shut-in! But he's going to teach me lots. I think I'll even be ready for contests soon. He mentioned a Young Lions contest or something. I don't quite remember. Can I go?"
Shindou's mother smiled.
"I never thought I'd see the day when you would be going off to play Go. But please play with your grandfather sometime. I'm sure he'd love to show you off to the rest of his Go Salon."
"I'll play grandfather once I've beat the Young Lions. With my teacher, there's no way I'll lose!"
[hachi]
Touya Kouyo came often. Sai found himself looking forward to it. He'd never met someone who had such passion for the game. He spoke of games, past and recent that he had tried to recreate. He spoke with a love so visceral and deep it changed his features, and Sai could see to the beneath, the inner youth.
(In truth he considered Touya Kouyo quite handsome in his own wizened way.)
It was Touya Kouyo he imagined across him from the game, on top of him when the clients came.
Did he imagine himself in the place of his wife? Or was he the mistress, hidden away in silks and perfume, given only nights and fumbling lust in the shape of his life?
In truth, he wasn't even that. And yet he was honored to play beside Touya Kouyo.
The wanderings of his mind could never quite be tethered, but they were in themselves, separate worlds. Worlds where Sai leaves the manor and the scent of the gardens behind for true games against the best this era could offer.
[kyuu]
He wandered out into the overgrown garden at night. The air was chilly on his skin, but he didn't feel it. The stars above in this house were never lose in the lights of the city which had sprung up around it. Looking up through the mists was like a globe, a divining ball.
Why do you do it? asks the voice in the night. His beloved ghosts, his nighttime companions. They look like people he has known, in shapes of his family, the people he has taught and played.
Tonight, it was Honinbo Shusaku's voice who asked.
"Because I was cursed to this fate," he answered, his hand trailing to the dewy grass. "And this is the only way I can survive."
Why do you continue to live?
"For the game."
And your family? What of them?
"They are gone....there is nothing left but ashes and ghosts."
Sai looked up, all phantasmagoria and dream-visions, memories melting into what never was. He thought of the Heian era, Tokugawa, Meiji.
It had been such a very long time.
How much longer? the voice asked.
"Not long....not long..."
In the garden were many mysteries. Vines growing up with scents of lands before, and times long past. The silks of his clothes mirrored these as he walked barefoot, heedless of the dew.
No, it would not be much longer at all.
[juu]
"There's a boy I teach...I think he should play someone his own age," Sai said. "You said your son is an avid player."
Touya Kouyo nodded. "It sounds like a good match."
"I hope it will be. I can't be here forever to take care of him," Sai said. He was flippant, but his laughter sounded hollow.
"It is good to find a rival. I am glad to have met you, for our games have kept my mind sharp," Touya Kouyo said.
Sai felt the beating of his heart deep inside him. How long had he thought it had lain dead, a stone in his chest? He wondered if it was for Touya Kouyo, or his Go, or some mix between the two. Images of sex and images of the game mixing together, black and white, interspersed together.
"And I too, am thankful," Sai said. Even though he knew his gratitude was different, and to him Sai might as well be a spirit of the game, with skin of checks and black and white freckles, a star on his chest.
[juuichi]
Ogata left a little mark across his throat, as if he wanted to brand him if only for that space of time. He looked as if he knew where Sai's mind would pool, and his gaze was intense.
Look at me, only at me he didn't in words but actions. He held too tightly on Sai's wrists, kissed too deeply, and bit at his skin, marring the cold flesh.
And yet for all his skills, all his moves along their game, he could not elicit his name from Sai's lips.
He would never own him.
[juuni]
He only realized the last moments as they came to him. Shindou had gone home early for a soccer game, Touya Kouyo had canceled with apologies. A family affair - a family which was apart from him, a constant thorn to remind Sai that as much as Touya Kouyo loved Go, he loved his wife and child more.
Ogata had come, and two other clients. They had taken their turns and left their bruises. He had let the money fall to the floor as his unbound hair fell about him. His yukata was partly undone, revealing skin which was turning transparent.
He was turning to the mists that had always surrounded him in the manor. Guarded him. Trapped him.
He looked up to the sky and wished for just a little more.
A week. A day. An hour.
But if his prayer was heard, there was no response.
[juusan]
Shindou came back to nothingness. He let the paper bag drop, careless as he went from room to room, first calling in irritation, then in concern.
The rooms were dusty, like no one had been in there for ages. It was chilly , like stepping into a cold room. He listened for voices -for anything. Everything was still.
The ikebana was abandoned, the Go board left neat and clean. There was no trace of blood on it anymore. Beside it was the fan Sai had always had. Purple with flowers on it. Shindou took it up numbly.
He went into the overgrown garden and sat down, a strange feeling pooling in his stomach, a certainty. Sai wasn't here anymore. He knew he wouldn't leave, and he didn't see some gory body like in a horror movie.
All that was left was Sai's fan. He held it in his hand and remembered the lessons and how Sai had loved Go. He'd brighten up just at the mention of getting to play, even a novice like him.
He felt the sobs rising up in him and he didn't know why. Just that he kept thinking Stupid stupid stupid.
He hadn't even been able to tell Sai where he'd placed in the Young Lions tournament. He wouldn't be able to tell him now that he actually kind of liked this Go thing or that he was glad to have started coming here.
He'd never be able to tell him anything at all.
He stayed there a while, listening to the silence and thinking about what had happened. Eventually, it started to grow dark and cold, and he got up and dusted himself off. He took one last look around the house, but there was a cold so deep it chilled him to the marrow. Suddenly without Sai, the place seemed creepy - like a tomb.
A part of him wanted to take the Goban he and Sai had spent their time around, but it seemed wrong, somehow. Like the Goban should remain with Sai, even if Sai was no longer in this world. Besides, it was too big to carry.
He let the rusted gates close behind him as he left. As he did, the house looked a little less visible, a little more shrouded in mists, as if they would devour it entirely.
[juushi]
"Aren't you going to go play soccer today?" Masumoto said, a bit petulantly.
"Nah, I have to go to the Go Salon. I'm supposed to meet some Touya guy today. His parents contacted mine, said my teacher recommended him as a training partner or something," Shindou said.
"Hey, Shindou, why don't you go back to that place anymore?" Masumoto said. "You used to go there all the time."
"There's nothing there but ghosts," Shindou replied.
"I thought you said it wasn't haunted," Masumoto said.
"It is now."
Silk Flowers
[ichi]
"They say there's a ghost that lives in there," Masumoto said. He pushed his fringe of black bangs from his eyes.
Shindou squinted at the house. It looked out of place with the modern buildings, skyscrapers and stores so close. It was aged, a manor that spoke of earlier times with high gates around it.
"You're such a liar, Masumoto," Shindou said.
"It's true! If you watch the windows something moves inside." Masumoto said.
"Well yeah someone lives there!" Shindou said. "Probably some old geezer who's too cheap to take care of his house."
"I dare you to go in there," Masumoto said.
"What? No way!" Shindou replied.
"What are you, chicken? Bawk bawk bawk-!"
Shindou wasn't about to be called a chicken, so he steeled himself and walked towards the door.
Even as his knees trembled a bit, he pulled himself up over the rusted gates and into the garden. There weren't any ghosts, really. He didn't believe in those old superstitions. Not at all.
He'd show Masumoto.
[ni]
Sai prepared himself. The water was cool, it slunk around him. He focused his mind on moves. Star. Upper left corner. Numbers flowed together.
He heard discordant sound, a knock at the doors. He had heard a rattle at the gates before, but ignored it. Children were always peering in, though few actually went any farther than that.
He came to the door, readying himself for the next game. Instead of the usual (older man, some younger, most higher range with unsatisfactory wives) he saw a young boy. Part of his hair was bleached blond. He wore a bright orange shirt with the number five on it.
The boy drew back, looking terrified. Sai smiled reassuringly.
It's been a while since Yamada had grown and gone to study abroad. Since then the stores have been dwindling down to nothing. He could not ask clients to fetch things for him.
For once, a bit of good fortune.
"Oh? A visitor?" Sai said. "How may I help you?"
"Wait, you're not a ghost," the boy said, looking almost offended that he'd ever mistaken Sai for a specter.
"I suppose not," Sai said. "Did you think I was?"
"Masumoto said there were ghosts here, but I said he was full of crap and came to prove that there weren't any. So I win," he said.
"Hmmm. That was a brave thing to do....Say, how would you like to learn how to play Go?"
The boy wrinkled his nose. "Go? That's an old man's sport."
"An old man's sport?" Sai said indignantly. "Go is the most important game in the universe! It is the universe spread out on a board!"
The boy cocked his head. "Really?"
"Would I lie to you?" Sai said, smiling wide.
"How would I know?! I just met you! I don't even know your name!"
"Fujiwara no Sai."
"What a weird name. You sound like that Abe no Seimei guy," the boy said.
"Ah, him...he played a very good game," Sai said.
"Huh?" the boy said.
"Nothing, nothing," Sai said.
"So you think I could make money playing Go?"
Sai frowned. "Don't even think that! Go isn't simply to be used as a tool for wealth!"
"Just asking!"
Later he would find out that his name was Shindou Hikaru, and he would send him off for supplies and lovingly prepare for the first lesson.
[san]
Ogata came to Sai's residence often. He was always slightly disheveled, his tie undone and shirt open to reveal his throat. He never tarried after the game, and then the act itself. Bodies meeting, crushing. Sai's passivity was a treasure. He would think of floating, and lie still while they took their rights.
The smell of cigarettes lingered on his skin and remained in every kiss. Always a bitter aftertaste. Always staying.
Sai remembered him not only for his notable habits: white suits and thick glasses, his slyness. It was his game that lingered. He was a difficult play, and Sai never gave in to him quickly - he never does with his games. He did not offer talk or dance, but the flourish of the game. It was his one victory before surrender.
Everything else was inevitable.
[yon]
"Why is there a bloodstain there?" Shindou said, tracing over the board.
"Oh...I tripped once," Sai said with a too-bright smile. "Now let's play!"
He was as eager as a child as he played Shindou. He loved playing teaching Go, shaping young minds as he showed them the beauty of the game. Shindou was awkward, and yet there seemed some innate talent as he played. At times he would miss obvious plays and yet it would come together in the end for something surprising, something Sai hadn't even seen forming.
Yes, Shindou was promising. Sai felt the mantle of teacher weigh heavily upon him.
Maybe Shindou could find the change, and play the perfect game which had eluded him so.
[go]
Touya Kouyo was different. When Sai stood in the hallway, unfinished ikebana left aside to deal with clients, he said "I grant another kind of wish."
The yukata hung low, revealing the whiteness of his skin and bones that seemed to small, too fragile.
Sai's skin never warmed.
Touya Kouyo considered him, but as a player would. When he finally spoke, it was as a deep rumble.
"I heard you play well."
Sai drew his yukata closer. He never used such shameless ploys to gain control of a game. He looked over Touya Kouyo's wizened face. He must have been young once, and Sai tried to turn back time in his mind, imagining the visions of what he must have once been.
The game was intense, a meeting of equals. Neither rushed, and yet Sai felt a flutter of anticipation through him at every move. It was a close game, one where territory was taken in equal amount, with no direct leads. Each time one of them would rise in advantage, the other would cut at their defenses, and break them down bit by bit.
Touya Kouyo won, but just barely. Sai looked down at the board with a sort of wonder at the beauty they had created. Constellations on a bloodstained board, such a pure game as to be almost sublime.
"You have a very old style," Touya Kouyo remarked.
"And you have a very sharp eye," Sai replied.
When they cleaned up the board and wash the stones together, he spoke of his family. A boy about Shindou's age, a wife of many years. Sai smiled and thought another hypocite but with an excuse, Touya Kouyo was gone before he could finish.
It was then that Sai realized Touya Kouyo had come simply for the love of the game, not for the lusts of the flesh. Perhaps he knew, and perhaps he didn't either way, Go was the only thing he desired.
A good man, Sai thought. Wistful.
He began to recreate the game on the board, almost dreamy as he remembered the controlled passion his opponent had for the game.
He didn't think there'd be anymore clients today. Even if there were, they could wait a little while longer.
[roku]
"Why don't you ever leave, Sai?" Shindou cocked his head in curiosity.
Sai smiled. "Because I can't. Everything is so new and I'd get lost if I went," he said flippantly.
He busied himself with putting away the groceries, and remarked over each new thing. Fresh Negi? Ahhh, I think I will have Sukiyakii tonight. Are you staying over?
He looked as sad as a child when Shindou said he wouldn't.
He looked to the door, closed as surely as if it was chained. He was tethered here. Bound with invisible threads and cold that never left.
Go was the only escape, the only reason he had not lost himself long ago.
"Besides, if I went out, then you couldn't get the groceries and I couldn't teach you, so isn't it good?" Sai said with more cheer than he felt.
"I guess," Shindou said, wrinkling his nose. "But couldn't you teach me without the groceries anyways? Those things are heavy!"
"Nope! It's groceries or nothing," Sai said. "But enough talk, you have more lessons to do!"
"I have homework," Shindou said.
"Another game, another game?" Sai pleaded. "Please Shindou, just one more?"
"No way, play with yourself! If I fail another test I'm grounded for a month," Shindou said.
He wept as Shindou left. Not just for the chance at the game he lost, but for himself. The rooms turned silent and cold in his absence.
He could hear the clock ticking from somewhere, some room, and it sounded so final, so damning. He laid down in the garden, uncaring if his silks grew dirty and remembered the games he had played, the lives he had lived.
[nana]
"I'm working for this guy. He plays really old Go and speaks like grandfather, but he acts like a little kid," Shindou said between bites of food. "He's a....whatcha call it, where you don't leave the house? A shut-door?"
"Shut-in," his mother said. "And how many times do I have to tell you - don't talk with your mouth full of food."
"That's it, a shut-in! But he's going to teach me lots. I think I'll even be ready for contests soon. He mentioned a Young Lions contest or something. I don't quite remember. Can I go?"
Shindou's mother smiled.
"I never thought I'd see the day when you would be going off to play Go. But please play with your grandfather sometime. I'm sure he'd love to show you off to the rest of his Go Salon."
"I'll play grandfather once I've beat the Young Lions. With my teacher, there's no way I'll lose!"
[hachi]
Touya Kouyo came often. Sai found himself looking forward to it. He'd never met someone who had such passion for the game. He spoke of games, past and recent that he had tried to recreate. He spoke with a love so visceral and deep it changed his features, and Sai could see to the beneath, the inner youth.
(In truth he considered Touya Kouyo quite handsome in his own wizened way.)
It was Touya Kouyo he imagined across him from the game, on top of him when the clients came.
Did he imagine himself in the place of his wife? Or was he the mistress, hidden away in silks and perfume, given only nights and fumbling lust in the shape of his life?
In truth, he wasn't even that. And yet he was honored to play beside Touya Kouyo.
The wanderings of his mind could never quite be tethered, but they were in themselves, separate worlds. Worlds where Sai leaves the manor and the scent of the gardens behind for true games against the best this era could offer.
[kyuu]
He wandered out into the overgrown garden at night. The air was chilly on his skin, but he didn't feel it. The stars above in this house were never lose in the lights of the city which had sprung up around it. Looking up through the mists was like a globe, a divining ball.
Why do you do it? asks the voice in the night. His beloved ghosts, his nighttime companions. They look like people he has known, in shapes of his family, the people he has taught and played.
Tonight, it was Honinbo Shusaku's voice who asked.
"Because I was cursed to this fate," he answered, his hand trailing to the dewy grass. "And this is the only way I can survive."
Why do you continue to live?
"For the game."
And your family? What of them?
"They are gone....there is nothing left but ashes and ghosts."
Sai looked up, all phantasmagoria and dream-visions, memories melting into what never was. He thought of the Heian era, Tokugawa, Meiji.
It had been such a very long time.
How much longer? the voice asked.
"Not long....not long..."
In the garden were many mysteries. Vines growing up with scents of lands before, and times long past. The silks of his clothes mirrored these as he walked barefoot, heedless of the dew.
No, it would not be much longer at all.
[juu]
"There's a boy I teach...I think he should play someone his own age," Sai said. "You said your son is an avid player."
Touya Kouyo nodded. "It sounds like a good match."
"I hope it will be. I can't be here forever to take care of him," Sai said. He was flippant, but his laughter sounded hollow.
"It is good to find a rival. I am glad to have met you, for our games have kept my mind sharp," Touya Kouyo said.
Sai felt the beating of his heart deep inside him. How long had he thought it had lain dead, a stone in his chest? He wondered if it was for Touya Kouyo, or his Go, or some mix between the two. Images of sex and images of the game mixing together, black and white, interspersed together.
"And I too, am thankful," Sai said. Even though he knew his gratitude was different, and to him Sai might as well be a spirit of the game, with skin of checks and black and white freckles, a star on his chest.
[juuichi]
Ogata left a little mark across his throat, as if he wanted to brand him if only for that space of time. He looked as if he knew where Sai's mind would pool, and his gaze was intense.
Look at me, only at me he didn't in words but actions. He held too tightly on Sai's wrists, kissed too deeply, and bit at his skin, marring the cold flesh.
And yet for all his skills, all his moves along their game, he could not elicit his name from Sai's lips.
He would never own him.
[juuni]
He only realized the last moments as they came to him. Shindou had gone home early for a soccer game, Touya Kouyo had canceled with apologies. A family affair - a family which was apart from him, a constant thorn to remind Sai that as much as Touya Kouyo loved Go, he loved his wife and child more.
Ogata had come, and two other clients. They had taken their turns and left their bruises. He had let the money fall to the floor as his unbound hair fell about him. His yukata was partly undone, revealing skin which was turning transparent.
He was turning to the mists that had always surrounded him in the manor. Guarded him. Trapped him.
He looked up to the sky and wished for just a little more.
A week. A day. An hour.
But if his prayer was heard, there was no response.
[juusan]
Shindou came back to nothingness. He let the paper bag drop, careless as he went from room to room, first calling in irritation, then in concern.
The rooms were dusty, like no one had been in there for ages. It was chilly , like stepping into a cold room. He listened for voices -for anything. Everything was still.
The ikebana was abandoned, the Go board left neat and clean. There was no trace of blood on it anymore. Beside it was the fan Sai had always had. Purple with flowers on it. Shindou took it up numbly.
He went into the overgrown garden and sat down, a strange feeling pooling in his stomach, a certainty. Sai wasn't here anymore. He knew he wouldn't leave, and he didn't see some gory body like in a horror movie.
All that was left was Sai's fan. He held it in his hand and remembered the lessons and how Sai had loved Go. He'd brighten up just at the mention of getting to play, even a novice like him.
He felt the sobs rising up in him and he didn't know why. Just that he kept thinking Stupid stupid stupid.
He hadn't even been able to tell Sai where he'd placed in the Young Lions tournament. He wouldn't be able to tell him now that he actually kind of liked this Go thing or that he was glad to have started coming here.
He'd never be able to tell him anything at all.
He stayed there a while, listening to the silence and thinking about what had happened. Eventually, it started to grow dark and cold, and he got up and dusted himself off. He took one last look around the house, but there was a cold so deep it chilled him to the marrow. Suddenly without Sai, the place seemed creepy - like a tomb.
A part of him wanted to take the Goban he and Sai had spent their time around, but it seemed wrong, somehow. Like the Goban should remain with Sai, even if Sai was no longer in this world. Besides, it was too big to carry.
He let the rusted gates close behind him as he left. As he did, the house looked a little less visible, a little more shrouded in mists, as if they would devour it entirely.
[juushi]
"Aren't you going to go play soccer today?" Masumoto said, a bit petulantly.
"Nah, I have to go to the Go Salon. I'm supposed to meet some Touya guy today. His parents contacted mine, said my teacher recommended him as a training partner or something," Shindou said.
"Hey, Shindou, why don't you go back to that place anymore?" Masumoto said. "You used to go there all the time."
"There's nothing there but ghosts," Shindou replied.
"I thought you said it wasn't haunted," Masumoto said.
"It is now."