[Asakawa]
[GEN] THE SOLEMN TRUTH ABOUT GO
harumi
Akira knew it was time to wake up when the beam of morning sunlight glittered across the top right corner of his pillow. On rainy or cloudy days, this was replaced by the soothing swish-swish of moving curtains, which his mother drew back every day, regardless of weather.
Akira couldn’t understand why his mother had to make it rain at all, but when he had tried to get his mother to stop the rain she had, instead of a proper answer, merely laughed, then sighed, and when she thought he wasn’t looking, chuckle quietly to herself.
Akira supposed that the reason was something Grown Up, which meant that he simply wasn’t ready to know. Still, he thought that it was quite unfair. He would have liked an answer at least.
After the futons had been put away Akira knew that it was time to get dressed. The clothes always appeared neatly folded next to him in the morning, though Akira had never been awake to see them appear. Sometimes, like on rainy days, the clothes would make a mistake, and Akira would have to wait while his mother took the clothes away and changed it to something more “suitable”.
It was then a matter of standing very still while his mother took off his pajamas. Clothes needed to be changed between day and night, or else Something Awful would happen. This was Truth, and Akira knew better than to question it, even though he didn’t like it very much.
Raising both his arms up high sped up the bothersome process, though the hardest was raising one foot at a time for the pants. Today the clothes were a periwinkle shirt that flared out and swirled when he swung his arms from side to side, though he never did that when his parents were watching, along with a pair of dark blue shorts that were soft and never itchy. They were comfortable, and the shirt had great big pockets in the front cut in the shape of clouds. Akira knew then that they weren’t going to leave the house that day, because on those days, it was always stiff, itchy clothes that were tight around the neck and tummy, which was, much to Akira’s disapproval, large and round. Neither his mother nor father had large tummies, and since Akira was often told that he resembled his father he had no idea where his tummy came from.
Someday, he decided, he was going to find out how to get his tummy to shrink. He’d said as much to his mother, who always seemed to find his comments funny. Sometimes if his father was still at home he’d hear the additional chuckle of his father along with the soft laughter of his mother. Akira knew then that his parents were making fun of him and from then on knew better than to bring up the matter again.
Meals were always at the dining table, and Akira always sat on his usual red cushion, while his parents sat on brown ones with patterns of leaves on them. His parents took the food directly from the plates, but Akira’s were always already mixed nicely into his bowl, those pieces, he’d notice, suspiciously matching the missing parts on his mother’s plates. He frowned slightly at his bowl, since he had a secret daydream that he would someday enter the dining room to find his place set up just like his parents. At least he had chopsticks, though his were small and had little trains drawn on them, but Akira liked them, so he didn’t mind the difference so much.
Sometimes his father would eat quickly, nod to his mother, then give Akira a pat on the head, and leave. Other times, like today, he ate slowly, taking time to ask Akira if he’d been a good boy that morning.
Akira always answered honestly that he had tried to be a good boy, and then his mother would confirm that he had been, in fact, a good boy. He loved it when people told him he was a good boy.
This usually earned him a smile from his father, and of all the things he loved best, he loved it most when his father smiled at him.
After meals the family would separate, and on slow days like this Akira was to follow his mother back into the kitchen, while his father went to the door to greet the men who’d always arrive shortly after they finished eating. Sometimes they’d enter the kitchen to say hello to his mother and to Akira, but they’d always quickly leave to follow the others into a special room that Akira was Not Allowed to Enter.
If there was anything Akira wanted more than anything in the world, it was to see what was going on in that mysterious room. He knew that it must be something wonderful, which Akira, for some odd reason, wasn’t allowed to see. Akira knew that his father was not mean, so it wasn’t because he didn’t want to share it with Akira. It had to be yet another Grown Up reason, though in this case, Akira wasn’t as content to wait.
There were times before when he’d sneak past his mother to go near the rooms, and hear clicking noises along with a strange rattling sound. Louder still though, were the voices of the men, which could sometimes get very excited.
His mother had left to take care of things in the garden, which gave Akira a chance to go near the room again, and he did it as quietly as he could, though he was never as quiet as his mother, who could slip through the house so silently that Akira was never exactly sure where she was. He’d gone to the garden to check already though, so he knew that at least, for a very long time, his mother would be in the garden.
She’d asked him where he was going, and Akira had answered that he was going to go play with his blocks.
Akira never lied.
He was going to go play with the blocks.
Later.
Much to his surprise, the doors to the mysterious room were slightly open a crack when Akira walked past. He’d really only intended to listen to the sounds for a bit before going off to play with his blocks, but the urge to peek was too strong. After all, it was only peeking. Peeking wasn’t entering.
His father and the other men were all sitting on cushions bent over a very tiny table. Next to them were several other tables, with thick tops and stubby legs. On the tables were several bowls, some opened, others closed. At the moment Akira saw one of the men holding a bowl in his hand, which made a rattle each time he put his other hand in it. Each time he took his hand out, he’d place something on the table, which made the clicking noises Akira had heard before. The men were looking at the table very solemnly, occasionally making sounds that Akira knew was similar to his father’s Thinking Noises. Those times he knew he was supposed to be quiet, and he was quiet now, frozen in place against the door, which he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
That was when one of the men looked up, and saw Akira in the doorway, which had slid open a little wider in the time Akira had been busy staring. Akira knew the man was called Ogata-niisan, and he sometimes brought yummy treats for Akira to eat when he came to visit, which was very often.
Unable to move, Akira wondered if Ogata-niisan had forgotten to give him the snack this morning and was going to give it to him now.
Instead, Ogata-niisan walked to slid the doors completely open. Akira, still frozen, could only look up at him silently. Briefly he wondered if he’d done a bad thing, but Ogata-niisan was smiling, so it couldn’t be that bad. Perhaps it was to give him candy after all.
“Do you want to come in?”
Too startled to answer, Akira couldn’t answer the man except to keep staring. A moment later he felt a slight push against his back as Ogata-niisan gently maneuvered him into the room. At this point, all the other men had stopped, including his father, who was looking at him solemnly.
“Ogata-kun, the boy’s barely two,” one of the men said.
Ogata said something that Akira didn’t hear, then directed Akira to his father, who held out an arm to bring him close. Akira was so excited, it was all he could do to keep from squealing. Instead he looked up at his father, carefully copying his father’s face to match his own. This must be one of those Solemn Moments that Grown Ups talked about all the time, and Akira wanted his father to know that he was big enough to find out what this was all about.
He looked down on the table, and was surprised to find a bunch of black and white circles covering the top. Underneath them, he could see a bunch of odd squares, but those didn’t mean anything to Akira. There was a table in the living room that had pretty designs too, and Akira knew that this was the same thing.
“This is called Go, Akira-kun,” his father said to him.
“Go,” Akira repeated solemnly.
Akira tried to look down at the table again, but that was when Ogata-niisan held out a bowl filled with many, many black circles. Akira wasn’t sure how many, but he knew there had to be more than five.
“Take one,” he said.
Akira obediently took one and only one, and looked at the flat circle in his hand. It was smooth and cool, and very hard. Akira knew what these things were.
“Do you know what Go is?” one of the other men asked.
The question confused him. Of course he knew what Go was. After all, he knew what tables and bowls were for, and Go was the same thing.
“Let him play,” his father said.
The men fell silent as Akira stood next to his father, his face solemn as he looked at the table, then at the circle in his hand. The group of men was quiet, though aside from his father, all had smiles on their faces.
Akira held out the Go for everybody to see.
And then put it in his mouth.
And swallowed.
For a moment the quiet turned into a deathly silence, as everybody stared at him. Then Ogata-niisan pitched forward and began to howl in hysterical laughter. His laughter startled the others into movement, and he found himself suddenly in a whirlwind of shouts, as men ran out of the room while his father clutched at him with an expression on his face that Akira had never seen before.
That was when Akira knew that he had done something Very Wrong and Very Bad, and promptly burst into tears.
Later in the evening after a horrible day at the hospital where the doctor had made him drink something black and awful to make him throw up everything, along with the Go he ate, he was finally back at home with his mother to console him and his very injured pride. After being fed pudding, which was all Akira could take after everything, he was tucked into bed, knowing with the deepest conviction that his father would never allow him near the room again, never mind in it. That realization hurt more than the time with the doctor.
It was therefore a great shock and surprise when the next morning, as Akira rolled out of his futon to get ready in the morning, that his father directed him not to the dining table, but to the room with the Go inside.
His father looked at him quietly, and began to speak softly.
“Akira, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he said, and Akira listened the best he could.
From that day on, Akira learned that Go was many things, and each day taught him more and more, as he learned that the circles were called Go stones and that the bowls were there to hold the stones, much the same way boxes were there to hold his toys. But there was one Truth about Go that his father continue to emphasize in their early morning lessons, and would for many more days later.
Above all else, Go was not meant to be eaten.
harumi
Akira knew it was time to wake up when the beam of morning sunlight glittered across the top right corner of his pillow. On rainy or cloudy days, this was replaced by the soothing swish-swish of moving curtains, which his mother drew back every day, regardless of weather.
Akira couldn’t understand why his mother had to make it rain at all, but when he had tried to get his mother to stop the rain she had, instead of a proper answer, merely laughed, then sighed, and when she thought he wasn’t looking, chuckle quietly to herself.
Akira supposed that the reason was something Grown Up, which meant that he simply wasn’t ready to know. Still, he thought that it was quite unfair. He would have liked an answer at least.
After the futons had been put away Akira knew that it was time to get dressed. The clothes always appeared neatly folded next to him in the morning, though Akira had never been awake to see them appear. Sometimes, like on rainy days, the clothes would make a mistake, and Akira would have to wait while his mother took the clothes away and changed it to something more “suitable”.
It was then a matter of standing very still while his mother took off his pajamas. Clothes needed to be changed between day and night, or else Something Awful would happen. This was Truth, and Akira knew better than to question it, even though he didn’t like it very much.
Raising both his arms up high sped up the bothersome process, though the hardest was raising one foot at a time for the pants. Today the clothes were a periwinkle shirt that flared out and swirled when he swung his arms from side to side, though he never did that when his parents were watching, along with a pair of dark blue shorts that were soft and never itchy. They were comfortable, and the shirt had great big pockets in the front cut in the shape of clouds. Akira knew then that they weren’t going to leave the house that day, because on those days, it was always stiff, itchy clothes that were tight around the neck and tummy, which was, much to Akira’s disapproval, large and round. Neither his mother nor father had large tummies, and since Akira was often told that he resembled his father he had no idea where his tummy came from.
Someday, he decided, he was going to find out how to get his tummy to shrink. He’d said as much to his mother, who always seemed to find his comments funny. Sometimes if his father was still at home he’d hear the additional chuckle of his father along with the soft laughter of his mother. Akira knew then that his parents were making fun of him and from then on knew better than to bring up the matter again.
Meals were always at the dining table, and Akira always sat on his usual red cushion, while his parents sat on brown ones with patterns of leaves on them. His parents took the food directly from the plates, but Akira’s were always already mixed nicely into his bowl, those pieces, he’d notice, suspiciously matching the missing parts on his mother’s plates. He frowned slightly at his bowl, since he had a secret daydream that he would someday enter the dining room to find his place set up just like his parents. At least he had chopsticks, though his were small and had little trains drawn on them, but Akira liked them, so he didn’t mind the difference so much.
Sometimes his father would eat quickly, nod to his mother, then give Akira a pat on the head, and leave. Other times, like today, he ate slowly, taking time to ask Akira if he’d been a good boy that morning.
Akira always answered honestly that he had tried to be a good boy, and then his mother would confirm that he had been, in fact, a good boy. He loved it when people told him he was a good boy.
This usually earned him a smile from his father, and of all the things he loved best, he loved it most when his father smiled at him.
After meals the family would separate, and on slow days like this Akira was to follow his mother back into the kitchen, while his father went to the door to greet the men who’d always arrive shortly after they finished eating. Sometimes they’d enter the kitchen to say hello to his mother and to Akira, but they’d always quickly leave to follow the others into a special room that Akira was Not Allowed to Enter.
If there was anything Akira wanted more than anything in the world, it was to see what was going on in that mysterious room. He knew that it must be something wonderful, which Akira, for some odd reason, wasn’t allowed to see. Akira knew that his father was not mean, so it wasn’t because he didn’t want to share it with Akira. It had to be yet another Grown Up reason, though in this case, Akira wasn’t as content to wait.
There were times before when he’d sneak past his mother to go near the rooms, and hear clicking noises along with a strange rattling sound. Louder still though, were the voices of the men, which could sometimes get very excited.
His mother had left to take care of things in the garden, which gave Akira a chance to go near the room again, and he did it as quietly as he could, though he was never as quiet as his mother, who could slip through the house so silently that Akira was never exactly sure where she was. He’d gone to the garden to check already though, so he knew that at least, for a very long time, his mother would be in the garden.
She’d asked him where he was going, and Akira had answered that he was going to go play with his blocks.
Akira never lied.
He was going to go play with the blocks.
Later.
Much to his surprise, the doors to the mysterious room were slightly open a crack when Akira walked past. He’d really only intended to listen to the sounds for a bit before going off to play with his blocks, but the urge to peek was too strong. After all, it was only peeking. Peeking wasn’t entering.
His father and the other men were all sitting on cushions bent over a very tiny table. Next to them were several other tables, with thick tops and stubby legs. On the tables were several bowls, some opened, others closed. At the moment Akira saw one of the men holding a bowl in his hand, which made a rattle each time he put his other hand in it. Each time he took his hand out, he’d place something on the table, which made the clicking noises Akira had heard before. The men were looking at the table very solemnly, occasionally making sounds that Akira knew was similar to his father’s Thinking Noises. Those times he knew he was supposed to be quiet, and he was quiet now, frozen in place against the door, which he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.
That was when one of the men looked up, and saw Akira in the doorway, which had slid open a little wider in the time Akira had been busy staring. Akira knew the man was called Ogata-niisan, and he sometimes brought yummy treats for Akira to eat when he came to visit, which was very often.
Unable to move, Akira wondered if Ogata-niisan had forgotten to give him the snack this morning and was going to give it to him now.
Instead, Ogata-niisan walked to slid the doors completely open. Akira, still frozen, could only look up at him silently. Briefly he wondered if he’d done a bad thing, but Ogata-niisan was smiling, so it couldn’t be that bad. Perhaps it was to give him candy after all.
“Do you want to come in?”
Too startled to answer, Akira couldn’t answer the man except to keep staring. A moment later he felt a slight push against his back as Ogata-niisan gently maneuvered him into the room. At this point, all the other men had stopped, including his father, who was looking at him solemnly.
“Ogata-kun, the boy’s barely two,” one of the men said.
Ogata said something that Akira didn’t hear, then directed Akira to his father, who held out an arm to bring him close. Akira was so excited, it was all he could do to keep from squealing. Instead he looked up at his father, carefully copying his father’s face to match his own. This must be one of those Solemn Moments that Grown Ups talked about all the time, and Akira wanted his father to know that he was big enough to find out what this was all about.
He looked down on the table, and was surprised to find a bunch of black and white circles covering the top. Underneath them, he could see a bunch of odd squares, but those didn’t mean anything to Akira. There was a table in the living room that had pretty designs too, and Akira knew that this was the same thing.
“This is called Go, Akira-kun,” his father said to him.
“Go,” Akira repeated solemnly.
Akira tried to look down at the table again, but that was when Ogata-niisan held out a bowl filled with many, many black circles. Akira wasn’t sure how many, but he knew there had to be more than five.
“Take one,” he said.
Akira obediently took one and only one, and looked at the flat circle in his hand. It was smooth and cool, and very hard. Akira knew what these things were.
“Do you know what Go is?” one of the other men asked.
The question confused him. Of course he knew what Go was. After all, he knew what tables and bowls were for, and Go was the same thing.
“Let him play,” his father said.
The men fell silent as Akira stood next to his father, his face solemn as he looked at the table, then at the circle in his hand. The group of men was quiet, though aside from his father, all had smiles on their faces.
Akira held out the Go for everybody to see.
And then put it in his mouth.
And swallowed.
For a moment the quiet turned into a deathly silence, as everybody stared at him. Then Ogata-niisan pitched forward and began to howl in hysterical laughter. His laughter startled the others into movement, and he found himself suddenly in a whirlwind of shouts, as men ran out of the room while his father clutched at him with an expression on his face that Akira had never seen before.
That was when Akira knew that he had done something Very Wrong and Very Bad, and promptly burst into tears.
Later in the evening after a horrible day at the hospital where the doctor had made him drink something black and awful to make him throw up everything, along with the Go he ate, he was finally back at home with his mother to console him and his very injured pride. After being fed pudding, which was all Akira could take after everything, he was tucked into bed, knowing with the deepest conviction that his father would never allow him near the room again, never mind in it. That realization hurt more than the time with the doctor.
It was therefore a great shock and surprise when the next morning, as Akira rolled out of his futon to get ready in the morning, that his father directed him not to the dining table, but to the room with the Go inside.
His father looked at him quietly, and began to speak softly.
“Akira, I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he said, and Akira listened the best he could.
From that day on, Akira learned that Go was many things, and each day taught him more and more, as he learned that the circles were called Go stones and that the bowls were there to hold the stones, much the same way boxes were there to hold his toys. But there was one Truth about Go that his father continue to emphasize in their early morning lessons, and would for many more days later.
Above all else, Go was not meant to be eaten.