Hikaru no Go: The Tangled Wood
Title: The Tangled Wood
Author: Katharos
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Characters: Akira, Hikaru/Sai
Wordcount: 2345
Notes: Reply to Aethrin’s request for AU Sai/Hikaru, told from any point of view other than theirs. Not really my pairing of choice but somehow this thing grew, and grew, and grew.
Touya Akira had only ever known two loves in his young life. Two loves, and one hate.
The first love was obvious to anyone who knew him, and to anyone who knew of him. His mentors exchanged sage nods and spoke in fond tones of the little boy with the serious face, following every move his Father’s study group made with intent dark eyes. And the ins and outs of their tempestuous relationship were recorded faithfully between the pages of Go Weekly.
Go was Touya Akira’s first love, and like any first love it was intense and passionate. By the way the stones seemed to leap so eagerly to his hands, anyone might well claim it was reciprocated.
Touya Akira’s second love was not so clear. Those who merely knew of him might well be excused for thinking that it was, in truth, his only hate.
Touya Akira's fierce rival-ship with Shindou Hikaru, the wild-card of the Go world, was well known. Those who merely saw them from a distance or read about them in the pages of Go Weekly could easily take the looks Akira turned on his rival for hate, the burning glances over the go-board for resentment towards the only rival for his position as the crest of the new wave of go players.
Those who knew him knew better.
They remembered the serious little boy in Touya Meijin’s living room. Remembered watching that little boy grow up with no challenges to face, no rivals amongst his peers; only the distant targets of his mentors to look forward to. They remembered watching as formality and an adult manner far beyond his years enfolded around him like many layered walls. They remembered watching as that boy’s first love cooled into a familiar, steady fondness that seemed destined never to flare again into that first blazing passion that had promised to consume everything in its wake.
Then Shindou Hikaru had crashed his way into the go world, into Akira’s world, and in the process broke down the walls of coolness and formality with which he had surrounded himself with blithe, clumsy abandon. Barely even seeming to notice their presence, flushed as he was with first passion for the dance of black and white stones. For the interplay of wills, the meeting of minds over the goban.
They shared this first love, and although Go was a jealous lover, it was also a generous one to its most ardent suitors.
Shindou Hikaru was a strange figure in his obnoxious jumpers and bleached blond bangs, with his loud strident voice and obsession with ramen. Strange to see this figure settled comfortably in front of a goban, handling the smooth stones with assurance and familiarity. Stranger still to hear him rant about the latest chapter of Naruto one minute, then switch to an in depth, just as passionate discussion about Matsuo Basho’s poems the next.
And though their screaming matches were regular entertainment at his Father’s Go Parlour, Shindou Hikaru was far from being Touya Akira’s hate.
But Akira’s second love would never be reciprocated.
And this was the reason for his only hate.
For the strangest thing about Shindou Hikaru was that he seemed to have sprung, fully formed and taught, out of quite literally nowhere. No pro had taught him, he had belonged to no study group until a fellow insei, Waya, had invited him to join his sensei’s. To begin with this was little more than a curiosity for his circle of friends, who were alternatively amazed at his skill and exasperated at his lack of even basic knowledge about the Go world.
When he met the new pro Touya Akira in the Young Lion’s Tournament and fought him to a half-moku difference, the Go World sat up and took notice.
Suddenly Shindou’s lack of a mentor or any, formal training was a source of bafflement and interest to more people than his peers in the insei group.
Whenever pressed he grew evasive. And although he was clumsy in his attempts, his stubbornness more than stymied any attempts to pry further. That there was a secret to be discovered was in no doubt. Exactly what that secret was looked to be rather more difficult to pry out of him.
In those first heady weeks, Akira had little interest in anything but the rival that had appeared before him, the Shindo who was in front of him now. It was only later that he began to question, and then he found himself as stymied as the rest. The wondering never left Akira. Like a hand whose underlying meaning he couldn’t quite decipher, he poked and prodded at the mystery, incapable of letting it lie.
Finding the answer did not give him the triumph and pleasure of deciphering an obscure move. All he was left with was the bitter taste of ashes in his mouth, and a hand full of cautionary sayings whose cliché’s cut deep and sharp.
Be careful what you wish for.
You might be answered.
In middle school they had studied the Tale of Genji, although the copies they had used were translated, not Classical Japanese. Touya remembered being delighted when he discovered the passages about Go. But he also remembered his literary teacher’s lecture about the Heian cultural context in which Genji’s and his friends' discussion about the perfect woman must be read.
Heian culture, she told them, contained the myth of the perfect woman, beautiful and intelligent, in whose hands even the most prosaic and familiar of skills was transformed into something divinely inspired. For these skills were honed for their own sake rather than the adulation they could buy from the court, for she was imprisoned in some crumbling edifice, guarded jealously by a rough, ill-favoured male relative.
She had also gone on to talk about the irony of this scene, for when, later, Genji finds the woman in a ‘Palace in a Tangled-Wood,’ she is not an exquisite beauty but gawky and red-nosed.
There was no such irony here. Or if there was, it lay only in the gender of its principle player.
After the truth had been discovered, Akira tracked down those pros who had been solicited to instruct a strange pupil by a stranger man. They spoke of an old, large house set in unkempt grounds, itself in disrepair and with many of its rooms closed up.
They never saw their pupil. He was kept hidden behind embroidered screens, like noble ladies of the Heian era. Most of them admitted that they had thought it was a woman who spoke to them, and soaked up their tuition so eagerly. It had been easier to believe that than to entertain the thought that it was a young boy, a child, who so quickly demonstrated such consummate skill.
When Akira questioned Shindou about it, his rival had rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and admitted he’d snuck into the grounds on a dare.
Akira could just picture it.
Nine year old Shindou in one of his obnoxious yellow jumpers and worn ragged jeans with his multicoloured, bleached blond hair. Poking around where he wasn’t meant to be. Crashing through the embroidered screens as easily as he had crashed through the walls Akira had surrounded himself with.
Going back at first for the thrill of the forbidden, then for the sake of his trapped, lonely friend and the desire to help him.
And then for the love of Go both of them shared.
When had they begun to share more? Akira wondered. Was it even before the fifteen year old Shindou had become an Insei? Had everything entered end game before Akira was even aware there was a game being played?
And would it be worse if it hadn’t?
Sai was so childlike, in some ways. He was fascinated with the simplest aspects of the world, with the vending machines and aquariums and the planes over head. Shindou was quick to express his annoyance at this, loudly and with lots of hand gestures, often directed towards random strangers accosted in the hall. But the affection and pleasure that underlay those strident rants made Akira’s heart clench up in his chest, and his fists clench by his sides.
Akira knew it was his own fault.
It had been an idle mention, as they set out the goban in his Father’s Go parlour. Making conversation over the familiar motions before they began their game.
It was to be the last game in which Akira could believe Shindou was his.
Only a few weeks before, his Father had suffered a heart attack. And yet it wasn’t this brush with his own mortality that left him restless and driven. While he had been in the hospital he had been defeated by the NetGo player, Sai, whose strength and identity had obsessed the Go world since his appearance.
A simple mention. Of the way his Father’s Go had become both stronger and more focused, renewed and reborn, young again since then. And the way his Father was searching, yearning for another game, to meet the one who could be his rival across the goban once more. A simple mention, to one he knew would understand.
Later, he would learn that Shindou had learned about NetGo from his friend, Waya, and had smuggled a laptop into Sai, who had expressed wistful envy that Shindou had so many opponents to play.
But at that moment Shindou had frozen, his expression strange. “Him too, huh?” He had said softly.
“Shindou?” Touya asked, frowning.
“Nothing.” Shindou shook himself, but his gaze remained distant, thoughtful. And edging into determined. “He deserves to play him again, doesn’t he?”
And less than a week later there had been Sai.
Old-fashioned and almost shy until Go was mentioned at which time he rivalved Shindou for loudness and enthusiasm, holding a fan the twin of Shindou’s. That alone would have been enough to clue people into the connection between them, even if it weren’t for Shindou shadowing his every move, alternatively beaming proudly as Sai crushed his growing number of competitors one by one, and glowering darkly at anyone who got too close.
Then Shindou mentioned his name as he congratulated him.
Sai.
After that the whispers ran like wildfire around the room and, Akira learnt later, across the internet and around the world mere minutes later. The press of potential opponents tripled. Sai watched them all, his expression almost greedy, as Shindou alternatively beamed and glowered at his back.
Then Touya’s Father had turned up, closely followed by Ogata-san.
Akira suspected Ashiwara of calling them both.
They checked themselves in the doorway as their eyes fell upon the young boy at the centre of the commotion and Akira could read the startlement and doubt in their expressions.
Then the crowd noticed his Father and parted for him like the red sea, whispers of anticipation running rampant. His father approached measuredly, his face neutral but his eyes doubtful as he requested a game. A doubt struggling to hold back a desperate hope.
The joy in Sai’s eyes as he bowed over the goban held no such reservations.
And as they played their first hands, the doubt in his Father’s eyes melted away, replaced by a focus that left room for nothing else.
His father won by a single moku.
But they only realised that later.
After the last stone was placed, no one was interested in counting territories. A reverent stillness had settled about the room, and no one was willing to break the hushed stillness grown from what was surely one of the finest games the go world had ever seen.
Then Shindou had crowed with delight and flung his arms around Sai’s neck. It broke the sacred silence, and the gathered watchers began to murmur excitedly among themselves.
There had been a peace in his Father’s eyes, that Akira hadn’t seen since that game of NetGo which he lost, and a renewed hunger as he stared at the young man across from him over the goban.
Akira had almost felt friendly towards Sai then, just for that look he had put in his Father’s eyes.
That died as Sai, laughingly accepting Shindou’s loud congratulations, reached up to touch his rivals cheek with an unconsciousness that spoke of long familiarity and easy intimacy.
No one else seemed to notice it.
But then, no one seemed too surprised when it was revealed a few weeks later that Shindou and Sai were moving into an apartment together.
Akira was a familiar guest in their apartment, where Shindou greeted him loudly and eagerly and Sai called a welcome too, apparently just as pleased to see him, and Hikaru isn’t the dinner burning?
And while one rival thundered around the kitchen with many despairing wails as he attempted to save their dinner, Akira would sit across from his other rival. The one he could never acknowledge. And Sai would smile at him, serve tea, and chat about the kifu spread in no discernable order across the table. And Akira would watch him narrowly, answer politely, and see no hint of what he sought to see. No resentment. No dislike. No watchful, wary jealousy.
And when Shindou would finally join them, extravagantly proclaiming his genius in saving the dinner he had burned, Sai would laugh and tease him and Shindou would grumble and Sai would kiss him lightly on the lips until Shindou drew him closer for something deeper.
Touya would sit, watching them, tea slowly cooling on the low table in front of him, and feel the knot of jealous hatred wind still tighter in his chest.
Shindou is Akira’s rival. That is part of him that Sai will never have.
But Akira will never have the lazy mornings in bed. He will never have familiar kisses.
He will never have to take over grocery shopping to ensure their diet consists of something more than Ramen.
He will never have those little spaces that lie between each game.
But Shindou is Akira’s rival.
That will have to be enough.
Author: Katharos
Fandom: Hikaru no Go
Characters: Akira, Hikaru/Sai
Wordcount: 2345
Notes: Reply to Aethrin’s request for AU Sai/Hikaru, told from any point of view other than theirs. Not really my pairing of choice but somehow this thing grew, and grew, and grew.
Touya Akira had only ever known two loves in his young life. Two loves, and one hate.
The first love was obvious to anyone who knew him, and to anyone who knew of him. His mentors exchanged sage nods and spoke in fond tones of the little boy with the serious face, following every move his Father’s study group made with intent dark eyes. And the ins and outs of their tempestuous relationship were recorded faithfully between the pages of Go Weekly.
Go was Touya Akira’s first love, and like any first love it was intense and passionate. By the way the stones seemed to leap so eagerly to his hands, anyone might well claim it was reciprocated.
Touya Akira’s second love was not so clear. Those who merely knew of him might well be excused for thinking that it was, in truth, his only hate.
Touya Akira's fierce rival-ship with Shindou Hikaru, the wild-card of the Go world, was well known. Those who merely saw them from a distance or read about them in the pages of Go Weekly could easily take the looks Akira turned on his rival for hate, the burning glances over the go-board for resentment towards the only rival for his position as the crest of the new wave of go players.
Those who knew him knew better.
They remembered the serious little boy in Touya Meijin’s living room. Remembered watching that little boy grow up with no challenges to face, no rivals amongst his peers; only the distant targets of his mentors to look forward to. They remembered watching as formality and an adult manner far beyond his years enfolded around him like many layered walls. They remembered watching as that boy’s first love cooled into a familiar, steady fondness that seemed destined never to flare again into that first blazing passion that had promised to consume everything in its wake.
Then Shindou Hikaru had crashed his way into the go world, into Akira’s world, and in the process broke down the walls of coolness and formality with which he had surrounded himself with blithe, clumsy abandon. Barely even seeming to notice their presence, flushed as he was with first passion for the dance of black and white stones. For the interplay of wills, the meeting of minds over the goban.
They shared this first love, and although Go was a jealous lover, it was also a generous one to its most ardent suitors.
Shindou Hikaru was a strange figure in his obnoxious jumpers and bleached blond bangs, with his loud strident voice and obsession with ramen. Strange to see this figure settled comfortably in front of a goban, handling the smooth stones with assurance and familiarity. Stranger still to hear him rant about the latest chapter of Naruto one minute, then switch to an in depth, just as passionate discussion about Matsuo Basho’s poems the next.
And though their screaming matches were regular entertainment at his Father’s Go Parlour, Shindou Hikaru was far from being Touya Akira’s hate.
But Akira’s second love would never be reciprocated.
And this was the reason for his only hate.
For the strangest thing about Shindou Hikaru was that he seemed to have sprung, fully formed and taught, out of quite literally nowhere. No pro had taught him, he had belonged to no study group until a fellow insei, Waya, had invited him to join his sensei’s. To begin with this was little more than a curiosity for his circle of friends, who were alternatively amazed at his skill and exasperated at his lack of even basic knowledge about the Go world.
When he met the new pro Touya Akira in the Young Lion’s Tournament and fought him to a half-moku difference, the Go World sat up and took notice.
Suddenly Shindou’s lack of a mentor or any, formal training was a source of bafflement and interest to more people than his peers in the insei group.
Whenever pressed he grew evasive. And although he was clumsy in his attempts, his stubbornness more than stymied any attempts to pry further. That there was a secret to be discovered was in no doubt. Exactly what that secret was looked to be rather more difficult to pry out of him.
In those first heady weeks, Akira had little interest in anything but the rival that had appeared before him, the Shindo who was in front of him now. It was only later that he began to question, and then he found himself as stymied as the rest. The wondering never left Akira. Like a hand whose underlying meaning he couldn’t quite decipher, he poked and prodded at the mystery, incapable of letting it lie.
Finding the answer did not give him the triumph and pleasure of deciphering an obscure move. All he was left with was the bitter taste of ashes in his mouth, and a hand full of cautionary sayings whose cliché’s cut deep and sharp.
Be careful what you wish for.
You might be answered.
In middle school they had studied the Tale of Genji, although the copies they had used were translated, not Classical Japanese. Touya remembered being delighted when he discovered the passages about Go. But he also remembered his literary teacher’s lecture about the Heian cultural context in which Genji’s and his friends' discussion about the perfect woman must be read.
Heian culture, she told them, contained the myth of the perfect woman, beautiful and intelligent, in whose hands even the most prosaic and familiar of skills was transformed into something divinely inspired. For these skills were honed for their own sake rather than the adulation they could buy from the court, for she was imprisoned in some crumbling edifice, guarded jealously by a rough, ill-favoured male relative.
She had also gone on to talk about the irony of this scene, for when, later, Genji finds the woman in a ‘Palace in a Tangled-Wood,’ she is not an exquisite beauty but gawky and red-nosed.
There was no such irony here. Or if there was, it lay only in the gender of its principle player.
After the truth had been discovered, Akira tracked down those pros who had been solicited to instruct a strange pupil by a stranger man. They spoke of an old, large house set in unkempt grounds, itself in disrepair and with many of its rooms closed up.
They never saw their pupil. He was kept hidden behind embroidered screens, like noble ladies of the Heian era. Most of them admitted that they had thought it was a woman who spoke to them, and soaked up their tuition so eagerly. It had been easier to believe that than to entertain the thought that it was a young boy, a child, who so quickly demonstrated such consummate skill.
When Akira questioned Shindou about it, his rival had rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and admitted he’d snuck into the grounds on a dare.
Akira could just picture it.
Nine year old Shindou in one of his obnoxious yellow jumpers and worn ragged jeans with his multicoloured, bleached blond hair. Poking around where he wasn’t meant to be. Crashing through the embroidered screens as easily as he had crashed through the walls Akira had surrounded himself with.
Going back at first for the thrill of the forbidden, then for the sake of his trapped, lonely friend and the desire to help him.
And then for the love of Go both of them shared.
When had they begun to share more? Akira wondered. Was it even before the fifteen year old Shindou had become an Insei? Had everything entered end game before Akira was even aware there was a game being played?
And would it be worse if it hadn’t?
Sai was so childlike, in some ways. He was fascinated with the simplest aspects of the world, with the vending machines and aquariums and the planes over head. Shindou was quick to express his annoyance at this, loudly and with lots of hand gestures, often directed towards random strangers accosted in the hall. But the affection and pleasure that underlay those strident rants made Akira’s heart clench up in his chest, and his fists clench by his sides.
Akira knew it was his own fault.
It had been an idle mention, as they set out the goban in his Father’s Go parlour. Making conversation over the familiar motions before they began their game.
It was to be the last game in which Akira could believe Shindou was his.
Only a few weeks before, his Father had suffered a heart attack. And yet it wasn’t this brush with his own mortality that left him restless and driven. While he had been in the hospital he had been defeated by the NetGo player, Sai, whose strength and identity had obsessed the Go world since his appearance.
A simple mention. Of the way his Father’s Go had become both stronger and more focused, renewed and reborn, young again since then. And the way his Father was searching, yearning for another game, to meet the one who could be his rival across the goban once more. A simple mention, to one he knew would understand.
Later, he would learn that Shindou had learned about NetGo from his friend, Waya, and had smuggled a laptop into Sai, who had expressed wistful envy that Shindou had so many opponents to play.
But at that moment Shindou had frozen, his expression strange. “Him too, huh?” He had said softly.
“Shindou?” Touya asked, frowning.
“Nothing.” Shindou shook himself, but his gaze remained distant, thoughtful. And edging into determined. “He deserves to play him again, doesn’t he?”
And less than a week later there had been Sai.
Old-fashioned and almost shy until Go was mentioned at which time he rivalved Shindou for loudness and enthusiasm, holding a fan the twin of Shindou’s. That alone would have been enough to clue people into the connection between them, even if it weren’t for Shindou shadowing his every move, alternatively beaming proudly as Sai crushed his growing number of competitors one by one, and glowering darkly at anyone who got too close.
Then Shindou mentioned his name as he congratulated him.
Sai.
After that the whispers ran like wildfire around the room and, Akira learnt later, across the internet and around the world mere minutes later. The press of potential opponents tripled. Sai watched them all, his expression almost greedy, as Shindou alternatively beamed and glowered at his back.
Then Touya’s Father had turned up, closely followed by Ogata-san.
Akira suspected Ashiwara of calling them both.
They checked themselves in the doorway as their eyes fell upon the young boy at the centre of the commotion and Akira could read the startlement and doubt in their expressions.
Then the crowd noticed his Father and parted for him like the red sea, whispers of anticipation running rampant. His father approached measuredly, his face neutral but his eyes doubtful as he requested a game. A doubt struggling to hold back a desperate hope.
The joy in Sai’s eyes as he bowed over the goban held no such reservations.
And as they played their first hands, the doubt in his Father’s eyes melted away, replaced by a focus that left room for nothing else.
His father won by a single moku.
But they only realised that later.
After the last stone was placed, no one was interested in counting territories. A reverent stillness had settled about the room, and no one was willing to break the hushed stillness grown from what was surely one of the finest games the go world had ever seen.
Then Shindou had crowed with delight and flung his arms around Sai’s neck. It broke the sacred silence, and the gathered watchers began to murmur excitedly among themselves.
There had been a peace in his Father’s eyes, that Akira hadn’t seen since that game of NetGo which he lost, and a renewed hunger as he stared at the young man across from him over the goban.
Akira had almost felt friendly towards Sai then, just for that look he had put in his Father’s eyes.
That died as Sai, laughingly accepting Shindou’s loud congratulations, reached up to touch his rivals cheek with an unconsciousness that spoke of long familiarity and easy intimacy.
No one else seemed to notice it.
But then, no one seemed too surprised when it was revealed a few weeks later that Shindou and Sai were moving into an apartment together.
Akira was a familiar guest in their apartment, where Shindou greeted him loudly and eagerly and Sai called a welcome too, apparently just as pleased to see him, and Hikaru isn’t the dinner burning?
And while one rival thundered around the kitchen with many despairing wails as he attempted to save their dinner, Akira would sit across from his other rival. The one he could never acknowledge. And Sai would smile at him, serve tea, and chat about the kifu spread in no discernable order across the table. And Akira would watch him narrowly, answer politely, and see no hint of what he sought to see. No resentment. No dislike. No watchful, wary jealousy.
And when Shindou would finally join them, extravagantly proclaiming his genius in saving the dinner he had burned, Sai would laugh and tease him and Shindou would grumble and Sai would kiss him lightly on the lips until Shindou drew him closer for something deeper.
Touya would sit, watching them, tea slowly cooling on the low table in front of him, and feel the knot of jealous hatred wind still tighter in his chest.
Shindou is Akira’s rival. That is part of him that Sai will never have.
But Akira will never have the lazy mornings in bed. He will never have familiar kisses.
He will never have to take over grocery shopping to ensure their diet consists of something more than Ramen.
He will never have those little spaces that lie between each game.
But Shindou is Akira’s rival.
That will have to be enough.