[katsuobushi]
by lbell007
A Different Path
Wakageisn(pro initialtion)
Akira waited patiently in front of the Goban, it was almost time for the match to start and his curiosity was running wild. Was Fujisaki Hikaru, Shindou Hikaru? It had been the question that had been haunting him since he had noticed the so far undefeated player half way through the pro exam. He could have asked his student, they were still close with their Insei friends. But in the end he was more intrigued by the question, even the possibility, to ruin the fantasy. He knew it was a fantasy. The boy that he had chased and had chased him had disappeared 10 years ago. Why would he come back only now?
The clock began to strike the hour. The officials were starting to get frantic, whispering among themselves that the new pro must be nervous, despite his age. His age, that was the only fact in favor of Akira’s fantasy. Twenty-five years old, the same age as Akira. But as the clock chimed once more the fantasy Akira had been letting stream through his mind, froze and shattered. The man entering the (Name of the fancy room - Yugen no Ma) was Shindou Hikaru, but he wasn’t a boy any longer. His hair had lost it two tones and he looked comfortable in his suit that was almost as expensive as Ogata-sans. Akira inhaled sharply at the green eyes that practically impaled him as Hikaru sat across the goban from him. Those eyes dug deep searching for his secrets.
Akira smiled. This match was probably going to be the best of his life so far and he knew he was going to lose. Why you may ask, incredously. But Akira knew that though the man across from him hadn’t joined the pro world until now, he had not been idle. He knew how to play the game, more so than any beginner dan, he already had presence. The reverse komi would make this game a slaughter if he didn’t take preemptive steps. Smiling Akira said, “Hello, Shindou-san. How nice of you to finally join us.”
Hikaru’s eyes narrowed in delight, the dual meaning completely clear. ‘You finally made it to the pros asshole, what took you so long’ was what Akira was really saying but setting must be taken into account. “Touya-san I always arrive on time, never early and never late. Did you get lonely waiting for me?” Hikaru asked continuing the two faceted conversation.
Akira scowled, politeness and his own emotional response to that ridiculous provocation dueling it out. “I had almost given up hope, thinking your nervousness had chased you away.”
“Never only disaster could keep me from chasing the game.” From chasing you, Hikaru continued in his mind. But the unspoken words lingered in the air, lightening Akira’s expression only minutely.
“Shindou-san?” asked the thus ignored reporter.
Hikaru pulled out his profession distant smile and replied, “ I was adopted by my god parents, they wanted me to feel like part of the family.” The reporter smiled with confusion, his instincts telling him that there was much more to the man standing in front of him, more secrets. God parents, flashed through Akira life lightening, that implied that his parents were dead and he had no other family. Hmm, disaster indeed, but that doesn’t explain why it took so long.
“Did you know Touya 7 dans from before?” The reporter inquired, by know the Ki-in official was also interested as well as the insei drafted to record the game.
“Childhood friends, would be how you describe it, right Touya-san?”
Akira smiled minutely. They had met in person a grand total of five times. That didn’t usually make you childhood friends but anything else would be too personal, too intangible to put into words. And finally the game began, “Nigiri.”
“That was…” Hikaru said amazed
“Better than sex.” Akira replied immediately.
Hikaru started, falling out of seiza. “Would you know?” he asked disbelievingly.
Akira laughed, full out laughed. Gasping for breath he replied, “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t paying attention to the GO world a few years ago. I have been publicly outed, my golden pure halo ripped of vigorously.”
Hikaru raised his eyebrow inquiringly to see if he should take that statement for its true meaning. Wow, Touya Akira is gay. Thinking back to the beginning of the match, “ Is that why the reporter looked like he wanted to split my head open and strip me of my secrets when you called me Shindou.”
“At least he was better than the recorder who wanted to strip you of everything.” Hikaru laughed at this quip, he couldn’t hold it back. Touya Akira had turned into a hilarious person to be around with a biting sense of humor. “There will probably be a rumor tomorrow that you are my secret lover that I taught GO to and have now introduced into the world of the pros so that they can gape with jealousy.”
“Touya, what happened to the polite and restrained boy? You were certainly polite enough earlier.”
“Oh, on the outside I am still polite and restrained. I only share the occasional joke with Ogata-san. Do you remember him, white suit, glasses?”
“… Aah, of course, the man who looks like he perves on underage boys.” Akira couldn’t muffle his unrestrained laughter.
“He’s not a pervert. Why don’t you take up wearing white suits and smoking all the time? I bet you would look like one too.”
“Well, I’ve got the smoking part down. Disgusting habit I picked up from an old lover,” Hikaru explained with a wave of his hand at Akira’s curious look. “But I prefer my boys with a few more years on them.”
Akira serious inquired, his voice full of meaning, “Are you being straight with me.” The double meanings coming out to play once more.
“No, not at all. I’m more twisted than straight or bent. So,” Hikaru said returning to an earlier thought, “ is the GO world that full of gossips.” Hikaru couldn’t imagine what it had been like for the son of Touya-Meijin to be stripped of his golden boy status.
“Oh, yes. They are a misogynistic and inbred bunch.” Akira replied.
Hikaru sputtered, “Inbred??”Akira nodded sagely. Hikaru knew, just knew that he was going to enjoy everything about Akira Touya.
In the elevator Hikaru finally got onto a much more pertinent and important question, “So when can I play you again? I want to play you again without that humiliating reverse-komi. It was ridiculous.” Hikaru had won by 12 moku. Taking out the 8 moku given to him and subtracting Touya orginal komi of 5.5 had made it a 1.5 moku loss for him, but of course it wasn’t recorded like that since he was a beginner dan.
Akira smiled; he wanted to play again too. “Well officially, the earliest you could play me again would be about a half year from now and only if you kept on winning. But unofficially, how about we get a bite to eat and then have a game? “
“That sounds perfect. Let’s go have Ramen.”
XXXXXXXX
“Well I guess I have to take it back.”Hikaru sent an inquiring look at Akira, “ The sex was better than the game we just played, but only by a little bit,” Akira declared still panting a little bit, sprawled on top of the pillows of his double bed in his apartment. Hikaru equal breathless, reached down and pulled the sheets over their cooling bodies, coming down from the high.
“Do you want to play?”
“Now? … Yes… It official we are both totally obsessed.”
“Totally. Most people after having sex want one of three things, either more sex, sleep or a shower.” Hikaru
“All of those do sound nice but … I really would rather play another game.
~Flashback~
“Why did you stop playing”
My teacher … died. After that … I didn’t want to play go for a long time. Go had become part of every day. We played at least two games every single day, once after morning chores and the second before bed. The one before bed often turned into many games, even though I still had to get up the next day. He passed away when I was 14. We had been living together with my god family for years by then, losing him was like losing part of me.
I didn’t know what to do without him. I couldn’t play without him, by then he was the only person I played other than the occasional guest that wanted a teaching game. I lived in a Ryoukan, I’m not sure if you knew that or not.
“I knew. After you left I talked with Waya and Isumi about you. It was funny at first you dominated the conversation… talking about how you wouldn’t be taking the pro exams but after a while you would just drift into the stream of conversation. One time I was talking about how my grades were terrible in high school while being a pro, then Waya laughed in my face and said no matter how bad I did I couldn’t compare to you. It was funny, before that I didn’t even knew that you had bad grades.”
I did have bad grades back in middle school that changed though. After he left I threw myself into my studies and soccer just to do something. I not only couldn’t play go, but I didn’t have anyone to play with. So my life continued on for two years, just drifting about until my second year of high school. That when Akari … decided to fix me. I wasn’t broken, but something was definitely missing, empty, just plain gone.
Akari is my god-sister, she felt like my real sister back then. But in the typical shojo romance kind of way, she fell in love with me. Unfortunately, she didn’t face love rivals and in the end prevail. Instead, she reunited me with my first love and broke herself trying to get something from me that I was never going to give her. She reunited me with Go. She started learning how to play, and eventually brought me back to it.
“Your first love was … Go. Shindou … you are one of the few people in this world who could say that and have me take you seriously. What happened?”
Its odd, I didn’t notice for the longest time. We would always hangout together and go places together. We were friends, and anyway there weren’t that many other children close by. It changed in high school though, she dragged me off to keep her company shopping and things like that and then she would treat me to ramen.
After a little while, my friends started teasing me about ‘my girlfriend’. I just laughed it off despite the fact that after a while the whole school thought so. But it wasn’t until when she kissed me while we were watching a movie did I realize that she thought we were dating too. I was just reaching over for the candy so I shocked … don’t laugh at me Akira.
Akari isn’t a forward person, so it hit me then in the movie theater. With only another 45 minutes of darkness to think things over, I decided to give it a shot. I loved her. She obviously loved me too. I just didn’t love her the right way. But I didn’t figure that out until almost a year down the road. We officially started dating with her parent’s tact approval, though they never really said anything then.
Back then, Akari made me happy. We knew each other’s habits, so it was easy. But more than that she brought Go. The first time she asked to play a game with me I cried, but slowly step by step she eased me back into it. Pointing things out in Weekly Go and asking questions, help with tsumego, teaching her different joseki. I became comfortable with it again, though it wasn’t easy. And then after six months of being together, we played a game. I don’t remember a single part of the kifu but I was so happy afterwards that I couldn’t contain myself. It truly deepened our relationship, and I will always be grateful to her for it.
Once I started playing, I could barely stop. I played with Akari, I played online, and I even played with our customers. It was like an addiction, that I had kicked before but after the first real taste it all came flooding back. After a few months things got a little more reasonable, which means I basically worked myself back to my previous skill level. By then Akari had finally realized that she was losing me. I still played a ton of Go and I was planning to move back to Tokyo for college. So she decided to take drastic measures, she couldn’t let go of her dream of us running the Ryokan together. So she told me, and her parents that she was pregnant.
She wasn't. It had all been a bid to try and make me stay at the Ryokan and not got to college in Tokyo. I had gotten into Tokyo University, with a scholarship. I was headed to the top of the world. It took two weeks to figure out she wasn't pregnant and they were the most horrible weeks of my entire life. I had even called up the college to cancel my acceptance. She even let me cancel it, despite having worked by butt off to get in.
The only reason I even got into the university was that a regular customer was on one of the boards at Tokyo University and was able to get my situation reconsidered. But my relationship with Akari was dead. She had killed herself and threw away the bloodstained smile. I wonder, if it would have been better to stay and pretend but then I do things like meet you and everything seems so meant to be.
A Different Path
Wakageisn(pro initialtion)
Akira waited patiently in front of the Goban, it was almost time for the match to start and his curiosity was running wild. Was Fujisaki Hikaru, Shindou Hikaru? It had been the question that had been haunting him since he had noticed the so far undefeated player half way through the pro exam. He could have asked his student, they were still close with their Insei friends. But in the end he was more intrigued by the question, even the possibility, to ruin the fantasy. He knew it was a fantasy. The boy that he had chased and had chased him had disappeared 10 years ago. Why would he come back only now?
The clock began to strike the hour. The officials were starting to get frantic, whispering among themselves that the new pro must be nervous, despite his age. His age, that was the only fact in favor of Akira’s fantasy. Twenty-five years old, the same age as Akira. But as the clock chimed once more the fantasy Akira had been letting stream through his mind, froze and shattered. The man entering the (Name of the fancy room - Yugen no Ma) was Shindou Hikaru, but he wasn’t a boy any longer. His hair had lost it two tones and he looked comfortable in his suit that was almost as expensive as Ogata-sans. Akira inhaled sharply at the green eyes that practically impaled him as Hikaru sat across the goban from him. Those eyes dug deep searching for his secrets.
Akira smiled. This match was probably going to be the best of his life so far and he knew he was going to lose. Why you may ask, incredously. But Akira knew that though the man across from him hadn’t joined the pro world until now, he had not been idle. He knew how to play the game, more so than any beginner dan, he already had presence. The reverse komi would make this game a slaughter if he didn’t take preemptive steps. Smiling Akira said, “Hello, Shindou-san. How nice of you to finally join us.”
Hikaru’s eyes narrowed in delight, the dual meaning completely clear. ‘You finally made it to the pros asshole, what took you so long’ was what Akira was really saying but setting must be taken into account. “Touya-san I always arrive on time, never early and never late. Did you get lonely waiting for me?” Hikaru asked continuing the two faceted conversation.
Akira scowled, politeness and his own emotional response to that ridiculous provocation dueling it out. “I had almost given up hope, thinking your nervousness had chased you away.”
“Never only disaster could keep me from chasing the game.” From chasing you, Hikaru continued in his mind. But the unspoken words lingered in the air, lightening Akira’s expression only minutely.
“Shindou-san?” asked the thus ignored reporter.
Hikaru pulled out his profession distant smile and replied, “ I was adopted by my god parents, they wanted me to feel like part of the family.” The reporter smiled with confusion, his instincts telling him that there was much more to the man standing in front of him, more secrets. God parents, flashed through Akira life lightening, that implied that his parents were dead and he had no other family. Hmm, disaster indeed, but that doesn’t explain why it took so long.
“Did you know Touya 7 dans from before?” The reporter inquired, by know the Ki-in official was also interested as well as the insei drafted to record the game.
“Childhood friends, would be how you describe it, right Touya-san?”
Akira smiled minutely. They had met in person a grand total of five times. That didn’t usually make you childhood friends but anything else would be too personal, too intangible to put into words. And finally the game began, “Nigiri.”
“That was…” Hikaru said amazed
“Better than sex.” Akira replied immediately.
Hikaru started, falling out of seiza. “Would you know?” he asked disbelievingly.
Akira laughed, full out laughed. Gasping for breath he replied, “Oh, I guess you wouldn’t know if you hadn’t paying attention to the GO world a few years ago. I have been publicly outed, my golden pure halo ripped of vigorously.”
Hikaru raised his eyebrow inquiringly to see if he should take that statement for its true meaning. Wow, Touya Akira is gay. Thinking back to the beginning of the match, “ Is that why the reporter looked like he wanted to split my head open and strip me of my secrets when you called me Shindou.”
“At least he was better than the recorder who wanted to strip you of everything.” Hikaru laughed at this quip, he couldn’t hold it back. Touya Akira had turned into a hilarious person to be around with a biting sense of humor. “There will probably be a rumor tomorrow that you are my secret lover that I taught GO to and have now introduced into the world of the pros so that they can gape with jealousy.”
“Touya, what happened to the polite and restrained boy? You were certainly polite enough earlier.”
“Oh, on the outside I am still polite and restrained. I only share the occasional joke with Ogata-san. Do you remember him, white suit, glasses?”
“… Aah, of course, the man who looks like he perves on underage boys.” Akira couldn’t muffle his unrestrained laughter.
“He’s not a pervert. Why don’t you take up wearing white suits and smoking all the time? I bet you would look like one too.”
“Well, I’ve got the smoking part down. Disgusting habit I picked up from an old lover,” Hikaru explained with a wave of his hand at Akira’s curious look. “But I prefer my boys with a few more years on them.”
Akira serious inquired, his voice full of meaning, “Are you being straight with me.” The double meanings coming out to play once more.
“No, not at all. I’m more twisted than straight or bent. So,” Hikaru said returning to an earlier thought, “ is the GO world that full of gossips.” Hikaru couldn’t imagine what it had been like for the son of Touya-Meijin to be stripped of his golden boy status.
“Oh, yes. They are a misogynistic and inbred bunch.” Akira replied.
Hikaru sputtered, “Inbred??”Akira nodded sagely. Hikaru knew, just knew that he was going to enjoy everything about Akira Touya.
In the elevator Hikaru finally got onto a much more pertinent and important question, “So when can I play you again? I want to play you again without that humiliating reverse-komi. It was ridiculous.” Hikaru had won by 12 moku. Taking out the 8 moku given to him and subtracting Touya orginal komi of 5.5 had made it a 1.5 moku loss for him, but of course it wasn’t recorded like that since he was a beginner dan.
Akira smiled; he wanted to play again too. “Well officially, the earliest you could play me again would be about a half year from now and only if you kept on winning. But unofficially, how about we get a bite to eat and then have a game? “
“That sounds perfect. Let’s go have Ramen.”
XXXXXXXX
“Well I guess I have to take it back.”Hikaru sent an inquiring look at Akira, “ The sex was better than the game we just played, but only by a little bit,” Akira declared still panting a little bit, sprawled on top of the pillows of his double bed in his apartment. Hikaru equal breathless, reached down and pulled the sheets over their cooling bodies, coming down from the high.
“Do you want to play?”
“Now? … Yes… It official we are both totally obsessed.”
“Totally. Most people after having sex want one of three things, either more sex, sleep or a shower.” Hikaru
“All of those do sound nice but … I really would rather play another game.
~Flashback~
“Why did you stop playing”
My teacher … died. After that … I didn’t want to play go for a long time. Go had become part of every day. We played at least two games every single day, once after morning chores and the second before bed. The one before bed often turned into many games, even though I still had to get up the next day. He passed away when I was 14. We had been living together with my god family for years by then, losing him was like losing part of me.
I didn’t know what to do without him. I couldn’t play without him, by then he was the only person I played other than the occasional guest that wanted a teaching game. I lived in a Ryoukan, I’m not sure if you knew that or not.
“I knew. After you left I talked with Waya and Isumi about you. It was funny at first you dominated the conversation… talking about how you wouldn’t be taking the pro exams but after a while you would just drift into the stream of conversation. One time I was talking about how my grades were terrible in high school while being a pro, then Waya laughed in my face and said no matter how bad I did I couldn’t compare to you. It was funny, before that I didn’t even knew that you had bad grades.”
I did have bad grades back in middle school that changed though. After he left I threw myself into my studies and soccer just to do something. I not only couldn’t play go, but I didn’t have anyone to play with. So my life continued on for two years, just drifting about until my second year of high school. That when Akari … decided to fix me. I wasn’t broken, but something was definitely missing, empty, just plain gone.
Akari is my god-sister, she felt like my real sister back then. But in the typical shojo romance kind of way, she fell in love with me. Unfortunately, she didn’t face love rivals and in the end prevail. Instead, she reunited me with my first love and broke herself trying to get something from me that I was never going to give her. She reunited me with Go. She started learning how to play, and eventually brought me back to it.
“Your first love was … Go. Shindou … you are one of the few people in this world who could say that and have me take you seriously. What happened?”
Its odd, I didn’t notice for the longest time. We would always hangout together and go places together. We were friends, and anyway there weren’t that many other children close by. It changed in high school though, she dragged me off to keep her company shopping and things like that and then she would treat me to ramen.
After a little while, my friends started teasing me about ‘my girlfriend’. I just laughed it off despite the fact that after a while the whole school thought so. But it wasn’t until when she kissed me while we were watching a movie did I realize that she thought we were dating too. I was just reaching over for the candy so I shocked … don’t laugh at me Akira.
Akari isn’t a forward person, so it hit me then in the movie theater. With only another 45 minutes of darkness to think things over, I decided to give it a shot. I loved her. She obviously loved me too. I just didn’t love her the right way. But I didn’t figure that out until almost a year down the road. We officially started dating with her parent’s tact approval, though they never really said anything then.
Back then, Akari made me happy. We knew each other’s habits, so it was easy. But more than that she brought Go. The first time she asked to play a game with me I cried, but slowly step by step she eased me back into it. Pointing things out in Weekly Go and asking questions, help with tsumego, teaching her different joseki. I became comfortable with it again, though it wasn’t easy. And then after six months of being together, we played a game. I don’t remember a single part of the kifu but I was so happy afterwards that I couldn’t contain myself. It truly deepened our relationship, and I will always be grateful to her for it.
Once I started playing, I could barely stop. I played with Akari, I played online, and I even played with our customers. It was like an addiction, that I had kicked before but after the first real taste it all came flooding back. After a few months things got a little more reasonable, which means I basically worked myself back to my previous skill level. By then Akari had finally realized that she was losing me. I still played a ton of Go and I was planning to move back to Tokyo for college. So she decided to take drastic measures, she couldn’t let go of her dream of us running the Ryokan together. So she told me, and her parents that she was pregnant.
She wasn't. It had all been a bid to try and make me stay at the Ryokan and not got to college in Tokyo. I had gotten into Tokyo University, with a scholarship. I was headed to the top of the world. It took two weeks to figure out she wasn't pregnant and they were the most horrible weeks of my entire life. I had even called up the college to cancel my acceptance. She even let me cancel it, despite having worked by butt off to get in.
The only reason I even got into the university was that a regular customer was on one of the boards at Tokyo University and was able to get my situation reconsidered. But my relationship with Akari was dead. She had killed herself and threw away the bloodstained smile. I wonder, if it would have been better to stay and pretend but then I do things like meet you and everything seems so meant to be.