Three Nights of Obon - Second Night
You know... I just started to wonder... if the Bon festival lasts for three days, how many nights are there? But, overall, it doesn't matter. My first night here was the one that started after the first day of the festival.
And another thing I realized: although Bon apparently most commonly takes place in August (when it would coincide with the pro test) of course Kanto area (including Tokyo) has to be different and have Bon in July. Which means that the pro test isn’t yet on. Now, they might (or might not) already have had the prelims, though, so I just decided that that’s the case. Whatever. Who cares, really? (Except me...)
Anyway, without further ado, here's the next part:
~*~
Mitsuko had the radio on as she prepared the supper. She didn’t usually listen to it, and she wasn’t really listening to it now, either; it was merely a background noise, to cover all other possible - or impossible - noises. A distraction.
As she had feared, Hikaru had got sick. He had woken up with a fever which had thankfully gone down a little during the day, but he was still quite drowsy, had a sore throat, and spent his time in bed using up a great amount of handkerchiefs.
Masao had called in the morning. There had been a delay. He wasn’t sure when he’d get home, but most likely it’d be late on the next day. Somehow she hadn’t been surprised. She hadn’t even bothered to get angry about it - and, in truth, she wasn’t, really… if anything she was weirdly thankful he didn’t come home quite yet. She needed some time alone, to think.
She stood by the oven, stirring the soup in slow, methodical movements. Now, Masao’s parents - they would be angry at their son, as most likely he would miss their family dinner next day. They would certainly take care of reproaching him the way only parents could, no need for her to bother about it. She hoped Hikaru would be well enough that she and he at least could go to visit them. She knew that Heihachi yearned to have yet another game of go with his prodigal grandson. He still, stubbornly, refused to have any handicap stones, though.
Prodigal grandson. Her hand stopped its movement and a moment she stood still. How strange the world had turned. Hikaru, a prodigy? A haunted one? She didn’t know which sounded more ridiculous. But thinking about the theoretical ghost (she still didn’t know whether to believe it or not) and Hikaru’s grandparents, she suddenly remembered that the ghost had claimed to have come from an old goban in their shed. Maybe she should ask Heihachi about it, if he knew anything about a curse or such connected to that goban. Or, if she was to talk about such things with him, maybe she could also ask him if he knew anything about ghosts. Go-playing ghosts.
She tasted the soup absentmindedly, and almost burned her tongue. Well, at least the taste was fine. And warm soup would be good for Hikaru. It could still cook for a moment, though. She started to set the table, but came then to wonder whether she should rather take Hikaru’s meal to his room. She was just about to shout to him and ask if he felt like coming down to eat, when a loud crash came from upstairs, followed by mumbled yelling.
“…sick of…! Can’t you ever… you!”
“Hikaru?” She laid the dishes down and ran to the stairs. “What are you doing?”
Silence fell as she reached his door, and she stopped, hesitating a moment before pushing it open. She stepped in, blatantly ignoring the silly butterflies fluttering around in her stomach.
Hikaru was sitting on the floor, in front of his goban, looking quite flushed. There were go stones spread all across the floor. It looked like he had thrown one of the bowls to the wall.
“Hikaru! What are you doing!?” she repeated her question. “You shouldn’t be up and playing! And why did you make such a mess…” She shook her head as she looked at the stones lying here and there.
Hikaru just shrugged. “I’m tired of losing,” he snapped angrily, and she shot a look at him.
“Losing? What do you mean? Weren’t you playing against yourself?”
“Just replaying one old game I lost.” Hikaru scrambled up from the floor. “Stupid game,” he muttered as he crawled into his bed and drew the blankets over himself.
Mitsuko stared at him a moment, but picked then up the bowl and started to collect the go stones from the floor.
“Say, eh…” she attempted after a moment’s silence, but didn’t know how to go on. Crawling there on the floor she felt suddenly very awkward and self-conscious, and totally at a loss of words. The whole day she had been planning to ask Hikaru if what she had experienced last night was real or just a dream, but simply couldn’t find a way to do it. I had such a strange dream last night. You were haunted in it. That wouldn’t actually be true, would it? Simple enough, but awfully hard to get out of her mouth.
In fact, she wondered if she hesitated simply because she was afraid of what the reply would be. Though could she even say for certain which it was she feared: his denial or admittance… no. That wasn’t quite true. Maybe, she pondered, picking up a black stone and turning it around in her hands, maybe if she was totally honest, it was the opposite: she didn’t want to ask because she knew. She knew what she wished for, and was afraid it’d be a fool’s dream.
“Hikaru,” she said suddenly, turning to look at her son. “I’ve noticed that you talk to yourself quite much these days. And yell, too; sometimes it sounds like you’re having a fight with yourself. What’s it all about?”
Hikaru was an unmoving lump on his bed, his back to her, and just a little bit of black and yellow hair was visible from underneath the blanket. Then the lump twitched a little.
“So what? Is it a crime to talk to yourself?”
“No, no, of course not…” She dropped the stones in her hand into the bowl. “I was merely wondering if you were in fact talking to someone, you know, someone else than yourself…”
“Well, I don’t know.” He sounded curt. “That’s nonsense.”
She opened her mouth to try again, but he cut her off. “Isn’t the supper ready soon? I’m hungry.”
“Supp…” She bounced to her feet. “I forgot the soup!”
“I wanna eat in my room!” Hikaru yelled after her as she rushed to save what could be saved.
And so the evening passed, and she didn’t voice her questions. Hikaru went back to bed after supper, and when she checked on him, he was fast asleep. She stood in the doorway and her gaze swept across the room, but there was no sign of anyone else there, Heian age or not. No sound of flute, reaching her ears as if from somewhere far away… She returned to the kitchen, washed the dishes, wondered briefly if she should make a goodnight call to Masao, but figured then he’d call her if he was in a place where he could talk in the phone. She wandered into the living room, turned on the TV, and after briefly surfing through the channels turned it off again and picked up her book instead. Half an hour passed, and she had read two pages - pages she would have to read again later, because she wasn’t quite sure what had happened in them.
She thought about going to bed, but knew it would be pointless; she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anyway. Besides, it was too early to go to sleep yet.
When would a ghost appear if it were to appear? Sundown was long past. Midnight? Maybe. There was still time to that, though.
Making up her mind she got up and left her book on the sofa. She needed something to distract herself. If the ghost were to appear, this time it wouldn’t catch her unprepared.
Briefly she wished they’d had a computer - she knew that one could find almost anything on the internet. But lacking that, they did have a wide and comprehensive library, including quite a many books about history of Japan. She took out the volume that handled Heian age, and to her dismay realized she should dust the books more often. Blowing the dust away she sat down with the book. First she checked the name index. Fujiwara no… Michinaga, Michitaka, Morosuke, Naritoki, Nobunori, Nobutsuna, Norimichi, Sadako, Sukefuse, Suketada, Tadamichi… No Sai. Well, that would have been a little too easy. But she had thought that if someone was posing as a historical character, most likely they’d choose someone famous.
Sai. A peculiar name. She read through the list again, and shook her head. Sai. It just didn’t fit, so completely different from all the other names. Maybe it wasn’t his real name. She thought of Sei Shonagon, one of the Heian period’s famous authors. That wasn’t her real name, either - Sei was apparently based on her clan name, Kiyohara, if she remembered right. She wasn’t quite sure, but she thought that it was common in the Heian age to refer to people by their titles. Shonagon, Shikibu… was Sai a title? But he used it as a given name…
She shook her head again. That line wasn’t taking her anywhere. She checked go instead. There wasn’t much about the game in the book, though, just a mention that it had been introduced from China in the Nara period. Nothing about emperors’ go tutors. Sighing, she leafed through the index, and then the word ghosts caught her eye. She struck that part open. The world of Heian was heavily populated by goblins, demons, spirits, and other supernatural beings… foxes… the Demon of Rashomon…legends she was well familiar with. Then: The unappeased spirits of dead people haunted the world of the living and were a prime cause of illness, death, and other disasters.
She read on, but found nothing she wouldn’t have known before. Also, there was nothing to indicate that ghosts could have ever been seen as anything else than harbingers of misfortune. She paused to think, and took then out a piece of paper and a pen. First she wrote name on it, adding a big question mark, and then reason for staying here? She tried to recall the previous night. What had the ghost said back when she had threatened to call a priest to exorcize it (oh, and that wasn’t, maybe, such a bad idea?) Something about not having reached the hand of god? Hand of god? She checked the index, but found nothing. Could it be something religious? Maybe she had misunderstood and it was the other way round, the hand of god hadn’t reached him, to take him… wherever dead people went. Or… thinking about his enthusiasm about go, maybe it had something to do with the game. She made a note of it, too, planning to check Hikaru’s go books later.
Bent over the book, it took her a while to realize she wasn’t alone anymore. Someone stood behind her back, reading over her shoulder. With a start she snapped the book shut and turned to look.
He looked exactly like she remembered. She had thought that certainly alcohol had to have had some kind of an effect on her memory, but no; the eyes were the exact shade of violet she had recalled, the impossibly long hair just as shining, and the smile… she closed her eyes and told her heart to slow down.
“Evening, Shindou-san,” he said, and there was smile in his voice, too. “I’m so happy you can still see me, after all.”
“Yes, I…” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t see you before. Were you there?”
“In Hikaru’s room?” He nodded. Suddenly his expression turned worried, eyes clouded over. “I’m so sorry about earlier, I know I shouldn’t have played with him when he’s sick, but we were both so bored and I thought one little game wouldn’t hurt, though maybe I should have gone easy on him, just this once, but…”
“So it was you he was playing with,” Mitsuko cut him off. “I thought so. Say, why didn’t you tell him we met last night?”
He watched her thoughtfully a long while. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I just… I thought about it, but… I’m not sure how he would have reacted, and now that he’s sick, too…” He fell silent. “No,” he went then on, “I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to. I’m not sure why I didn’t want to, though. But you didn’t tell him either.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I was going to… ask him if it’s true, but… somehow I just couldn’t.”
A little smile played on his lips. “It might be for the best. As I said, who knows how he’d react.”
“Yeah.” She gave a little laugh, too, feeling strangely coy. She wanted to reach out and check if she still could touch him, but managed to restrain herself.
Had she really kissed him last night? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped not. Maybe. Actually she wasn’t quite sure about that either.
She didn’t have to reach for him; he reached for her. His hand touched softly her cheek, very lightly so that she barely felt it, and only for the shortest moment.
“Sorry,” he said, letting his hand fall back. She noted idly that it went straight through the back of her chair. “I just wanted to… check, if I… still… you know.”
She knew.
“You were reading about the Heian age,” Sai said after a while as she said nothing.
She shrugged. “Yes. I was… just a little curious.” She placed the book on the table, covering her notes with it so that he wouldn’t be able to read them, unless he already had. She wondered how long he’d been there, and if he had possibly seen the part about ghosts. Prime cause of illness, death, and other disasters…She hoped not. Looking at him, that superstition didn’t seem fair.
She sat still, the ghost behind her back, and for a moment didn’t know what to say. The notes being covered, she couldn’t read them either… but she hadn’t had time to write that much, had she?
“Your name,” she said suddenly. “How do you write it?”
“‘Sa’ is as in assist or help, and ‘i’ as in benefit or sake.”
“I see.” Her fingers twitched, wanting to take a pen and write it down. “It doesn’t seem like a very… Heian name, to me.”
“It was rather unusual, though there have been others with that name.” Again she heard the smile in his voice. “You can blame it on my mother. Father let her to decide.”
“Mmm.” She was already thinking about her next question - and all the other questions it brought to her mind - and wondering how to tactfully voice them. He had come to stand in front of her, and she smiled at him a little absentmindedly. “Please, sit down,” she said, and instead of the armchair he sat again on the floor in seiza.
“Is there something you would like to ask, Shindou-san?” he said giving her a look that was half amused, half knowing.
“There’s a lot I’d like to ask,” she replied, not really facing him. “For one thing, why are you here? What is it you want?”
“Play go…” he said softly. “To develop, and improve, as a go player, and one day, maybe…”
“Yes?”
“Reach the hand of god.”
“And what is that?”
He gave a little laugh. “Good question. I wonder if any two go players would really agree - even if it is everyone’s goal. The perfect move, some would say, as other simply call it a truly inspired and original move… One knows only for sure once one has played it.”
“Has anyone ever?”
He smiled again, this time a little smugly. “I was very close once. It’s still considered the best example of what the hand of god might be like.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “You must be really good, then.”
The smile was hardly just a little smug anymore. “I’d like to think so.”
She tried to gather her thoughts. “Ok. So. You’re here to play go.” Somehow, to her, playing go didn’t quite sound like an adequate reason to become a ghost, but then again, what did she know. “Play go. Yes. Umm…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering… if you don’t mind me asking, exactly how did you die?”
There was no trace left of the smile on his face. “It’s a long story… shortly put, the emperor had another go tutor who challenged me to a game over the position. He cheated during that game, and I was the only one to notice. Just when I was about to call him out, he claimed that I had done what he did, and I… I lost my composure. I couldn’t manage to win after that, though I definitely should have… So I lost my position, and together with it, my reputation. I was banished from the court… and I couldn’t face it, the life in the provinces, away from all the great go players…
“So I drowned myself.”
They sat in silence as she thought it through and through. “You were… banished for cheating in a game?” she finally asked, a little incredulously.
His smile was a strange combination of bitter and amused. “If you ask me, that is definitely a strong enough reason for banishment. But of course… no, it wasn’t just that. It was all about politics. I was so young when I entered the court, young and naïve. Too outspoken. I made the wrong enemies, and the wrong friends, and…” He shook his head. “That was the only way it could end.”
She tried to imagine this serene, beautiful, so kind-looking young man wading into a river to end his life, and couldn’t. “That’s awful,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Awful.”
“I guess. I… have had a long time to think about it,” he said at her questioning look. “Now I think it was mainly stupid.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
Now she had replies to all the questions she had had time to think of. She wished she had started preparing for this earlier. Made up a plan, or something. She didn’t want to feel this lost.
“Shindou-san,” the ghost started to say.
“I told you to call me Mitsuko, didn’t I?” she cut him off. “If I’m to call you Sai…”
“Of course.” He smiled a little. “Mitsuko. You seem… worried?”
“Not really….” She moved uncomfortably. “Not really worried. I just… This is so weird.”
“I know. But I want to thank you, Shin… Mitsuko. Not everyone would be so understanding about something like this.”
Oh. Was she understanding? She blushed a little. Hadn’t she just a while ago been thinking that maybe calling a priest wouldn’t be a bad idea after all? Now she couldn’t believe it. This ghost definitely was the exception that proved the rule. They weren’t all just heralds of death and misery. She refused to believe that, whatever the books said.
As she remained quiet the silence prolonged, and she tried fervently to come up with something to say. What would be appropriately Heian topics? Poetry, music - his flute playing, maybe - some other beautiful things…
No, no. She shook her head, tried to collect her thoughts. She wasn’t even drunk at all this night, why couldn’t she concentrate on what was important.
“How long will you stay with Hikaru? All his life?”
“Probably,” Sai admitted quietly. “I did stay with Torajiro to his death, after all.”
“Torajiro?” Hadn’t he mentioned someone named like that before? “Who is he?”
“My previous… host, you could say. I stayed with him some 150 years ago. You might know him by the name Shuusaku. Though I was the one who played those games…”
There was that smuggish smile again, though this time it was a little sad. Shuusaku? It sounded familiar, probably someone she should know. She tried to keep the fact that she didn’t quite recognize the name from her face.
“I see. Did you spend a long time with him?”
“He was but a boy when we met, but… he died much too early. No, not because of me, I swear - it was the cholera epidemic. He was a good man, trying to help others… and in the end paid for it with his own life.”
“I’m sorry,” Mitsuko said quietly. He seemed sincerely sad.
Sai shook his head softly. “It was a long time ago… by now he would be dead anyway. But…”
Whatever he had been going to say, he left unvoiced. Mitsuko cleared her throat self-consciously.
“I still don’t know what to think about this,” she said, deciding to change the subject. “But I… I think for now, I will let things lie. I’ll be keeping an eye on Hikaru, though.” She nailed what she hoped to be a stern and warning look at the ghost. “If I have the slightest reason to believe you are harmful for him in any way, you are gone.”
Sai nodded solemnly. “I understand. And you do not need to worry. I would never harm Hikaru in any way.”
“Good.” She relaxed a little, believing him, though she didn’t know why.
Silence took over again. She was beginning to feel a little awkward sitting up on her chair, watching down on him. On a spur of a moment she moved down to the floor too, sitting also in seiza.
“I really should do this more often,” she said at Sai’s surprised look. “It is so seldom these days one needs to sit in seiza, that when the need comes it is much more painful than it needs to be. Besides, I felt silly sitting up there, almost like you were kneeling in front me.”
Sai smiled a little. “Of course, there is no need for you to sitting with me at all. It is very kind of you to spend time with me.”
She didn’t know what to say. “I couldn’t just ignore you, could I? That would be weird.” She moved a little, searching a more comfortable position. “And I am not going to sleep yet, so… it is nice to spend the evening with someone.” She paused a moment to wonder what she had just said. She really had to be desperate for company, if, meeting a ghost in her living room, she was just happy she didn’t have to be alone. “Is there something you’d like to do?” she asked, pushing the thought away.
Sai looked surprised for a moment. “Play go?” he said then in a hopeful one, and Mitsuko gave out a little laugh.
“I really don’t play go at all,” she admitted. “Maybe you’d like to do something you normally don’t? Would you like to go out?”
“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea,” Sai said shaking his head. “I’d rather not go far from Hikaru - if he wakes up and I’m gone, he might get frightened. Besides, I can go out with him. Actually…” he looked at her with a smile, “what we’re currently doing is something I don’t normally do. Talking with someone. Someone else than Hikaru, that is.”
“Well, what do you want to talk about, then?” She moved her toes again. Her legs couldn’t be getting numb yet, could they?
Sai paused. A long while he sat still, staring ahead, and a moment Mitsuko wondered if he had entered some kind of a trance. She was about to repeat her question, when he shook his head softly.
“How peculiar,” he said quietly. “During this past millennium, how often I wished I had someone to talk to, and now… I don’t know what I want to talk about. That is, if we are not going to discuss go…”
“How about… your life? If it’s not too… too painful or anything. What was it like in the Heian age?”
He smiled, looking a little relieved, perhaps happy she had given him a topic. “Very different from this age… life was slower, simpler, people had time to appreciate the beauty of the world around them much more deeply than it is possible nowadays. The days went by without tight schedules - except for the occasional rituals and ceremonies, of course.”
“Mmm. I remember reading somewhere it could have been quite a boring life for women, though. Shut behind their screens, with but a few ways to pass time…”
“I guess…” Sai frowned. “I’ve never really thought about it.” He paused for a moment. “You’re probably right. I guess it could have been quite a monotonous existence, at least for those who didn’t go to court. And I’m not saying life had been perfect then - for one thing, I’d give much if I could taste your cooking. Our time was quite lacking in the culinary… And the health problems people had… I could almost count myself lucky having escaped them.”
“Well, I guess I’m happy to live in this age,” Mitsuko stated. She might have been bored with her life, at times, but at least she could walk out of the house when she wanted, and talk with who she wanted. Not that she did that often. She frowned a little, wondering when she had raised this screen of her own between herself and the world. “Our world is hardly perfect either, though,” she went on, attempting to keep her tone light. “But I’m surely thankful for the free health care. I’m getting close to forty and I still have all my teeth!”
“I have often wondered how healthy your elderly are. Like Hikaru’s grandfather! And people live to such an old age…”
“Yes…” Mitsuko wasn’t really listening to him. Her mind had wandered back to the Heian age, and she realized how very little she in the end new about it. She thought of Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book which she had read a long, long time ago. Sei’s life hadn’t seemed that boring to her.
“You know, thinking about the old times does have a certain kind of… I don’t know, romantic feel about it,” she said a little dreamily, and blushed then. What a silly notion, as if she were just a teenage girl.
Her feet were falling asleep. She stood up, not giving Sai time to reply anything. “I’ll… have a glass of water. Do you…” She had been about to ask if he wanted anything, but caught herself in time. “I’ll have a glass of water,” she repeated a little weakly, and headed to the kitchen.
She got herself a glass of cold, cold water, and drank it slowly. Almost she sat down by the kitchen table, but then she suddenly remembered how last night she had as well went for a glass of water, and then, sitting by that table, had reached over it to… to check something, and the memory made her turn abruptly away from the table (sitting on the floor might actually be preferable), only to find herself face to face with a rather startled Sai.
“Mitsuko-san…” the ghost said carefully, taking a step back, as she fluttered, leaning against the table, probably bright red once again. “Somehow it seems to me that… you’re not… quite relaxed in my company.”
She gave a short, nervous laugh. Aren’t you observant, she though, and luckily managed to keep herself from saying it aloud. Instead she turned to get herself more water, to win some time while she drank it.
“I’m sorry,” Sai said quietly behind her back. “Perhaps it is better if I go back to Hikaru’s room? Maybe you should just ignore me, if you can… I wouldn’t want to make you feel awkward in your son’s company. But… I really wouldn’t want you to have me exorcised either, so…”
He fell silent. Mitsuko placed her glass in the kitchen sink, and leaned against it. Even without looking she could imagine the troubled expression on the ghost’s face. She couldn’t help laughing a little.
“Yes, we have the makings of something really awkward here, don’t we?” She turned to look at him, and saw that the troubled look was much more miserable than she had guessed. It made him look so young. Could this really be a thousand-year-old spirit?
“I am sorry,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I am behaving quite foolishly, aren’t I? Why don’t we go back to the living room. I’d like to hear more about the Heian age, if it’s alright for you.”
He returned the smile, relieved. In the living room she sat again on the floor, leaning against the sofa - so much for the seiza, but at least she’d sit on the same level with him. He settled down too, and they talked long, long into the night - it wasn’t just he talking about his life a thousand years ago, or the time he had spent with Torajiro, but Mitsuko too found herself telling him about her childhood and youth, and about Hikaru’s early years.
The horizon was already beginning to turn lighter when she finally fell asleep, still leaning against the sofa. Sai watched her a long while, wondering if he should wake her up so that she could sleep in her bed, but she did not seem to be uncomfortable, the way she perched against the seat.
There was a shawl on the back of the sofa, and he would have liked to spread it over her, if… if he only could. He looked down at his hands. When he had come to her this night, touched her cheek, he could have swore she had felt more… warm, real, than in the previous night. And when his hand had fallen down through the chair, it had… tingled, hadn’t it? He stood up and tried to pick up the shawl, but his hand passed right through it. Still, it did not feel the way it usually did - or, to be more precise, he could feel something, as opposed to nothing. Closing his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could, he attempted again to pick it up, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not grasp the shawl.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw it had dropped down from the sofa’s back and was lying on the seat. A moment he stared at it in stunned disbelief. Then he reached out again, and slowly, painfully slowly, although he couldn’t really feel the cloth, it moved across the sofa until he managed to spread it over the sleeping woman.
Still a moment he spent watching her sleep, and when the first rays of the morning sun entered the room, he turned away and returned to Hikaru’s room.
~*~
I’ve no clue if Sai actually was a common name or not, but somehow, looking at what kind of names people seemed to have in the Heian period, it kind of stands out. I know there were at least a Tachibana no Sai and Minamoto no Sai… though their names were written with different kanji.
You know, the sunset. I checked, and in mid-July, sun sets in Tokyo around 18:57. I was hoping for later, as then Sai could have appeared after sunset. (Where I live, it sets on the same day at 22:28. That would have been a good time.) But, this led me to think about random things… You know all these mythological creatures that have one form in daytime and another in night. So what if we're, say, so high up in the north that the sun doesn't set at all in the summer? Will it always be in the day form? And the opposite in winter… Somehow all these stories seem to always take place somewhere where day and night are of the same length.
…and now I've got a plot bunny. Someone shoot it... it might keep me from writing fanfics. xD
Next chapter
First chapter
And another thing I realized: although Bon apparently most commonly takes place in August (when it would coincide with the pro test) of course Kanto area (including Tokyo) has to be different and have Bon in July. Which means that the pro test isn’t yet on. Now, they might (or might not) already have had the prelims, though, so I just decided that that’s the case. Whatever. Who cares, really? (Except me...)
Anyway, without further ado, here's the next part:
~*~
Mitsuko had the radio on as she prepared the supper. She didn’t usually listen to it, and she wasn’t really listening to it now, either; it was merely a background noise, to cover all other possible - or impossible - noises. A distraction.
As she had feared, Hikaru had got sick. He had woken up with a fever which had thankfully gone down a little during the day, but he was still quite drowsy, had a sore throat, and spent his time in bed using up a great amount of handkerchiefs.
Masao had called in the morning. There had been a delay. He wasn’t sure when he’d get home, but most likely it’d be late on the next day. Somehow she hadn’t been surprised. She hadn’t even bothered to get angry about it - and, in truth, she wasn’t, really… if anything she was weirdly thankful he didn’t come home quite yet. She needed some time alone, to think.
She stood by the oven, stirring the soup in slow, methodical movements. Now, Masao’s parents - they would be angry at their son, as most likely he would miss their family dinner next day. They would certainly take care of reproaching him the way only parents could, no need for her to bother about it. She hoped Hikaru would be well enough that she and he at least could go to visit them. She knew that Heihachi yearned to have yet another game of go with his prodigal grandson. He still, stubbornly, refused to have any handicap stones, though.
Prodigal grandson. Her hand stopped its movement and a moment she stood still. How strange the world had turned. Hikaru, a prodigy? A haunted one? She didn’t know which sounded more ridiculous. But thinking about the theoretical ghost (she still didn’t know whether to believe it or not) and Hikaru’s grandparents, she suddenly remembered that the ghost had claimed to have come from an old goban in their shed. Maybe she should ask Heihachi about it, if he knew anything about a curse or such connected to that goban. Or, if she was to talk about such things with him, maybe she could also ask him if he knew anything about ghosts. Go-playing ghosts.
She tasted the soup absentmindedly, and almost burned her tongue. Well, at least the taste was fine. And warm soup would be good for Hikaru. It could still cook for a moment, though. She started to set the table, but came then to wonder whether she should rather take Hikaru’s meal to his room. She was just about to shout to him and ask if he felt like coming down to eat, when a loud crash came from upstairs, followed by mumbled yelling.
“…sick of…! Can’t you ever… you!”
“Hikaru?” She laid the dishes down and ran to the stairs. “What are you doing?”
Silence fell as she reached his door, and she stopped, hesitating a moment before pushing it open. She stepped in, blatantly ignoring the silly butterflies fluttering around in her stomach.
Hikaru was sitting on the floor, in front of his goban, looking quite flushed. There were go stones spread all across the floor. It looked like he had thrown one of the bowls to the wall.
“Hikaru! What are you doing!?” she repeated her question. “You shouldn’t be up and playing! And why did you make such a mess…” She shook her head as she looked at the stones lying here and there.
Hikaru just shrugged. “I’m tired of losing,” he snapped angrily, and she shot a look at him.
“Losing? What do you mean? Weren’t you playing against yourself?”
“Just replaying one old game I lost.” Hikaru scrambled up from the floor. “Stupid game,” he muttered as he crawled into his bed and drew the blankets over himself.
Mitsuko stared at him a moment, but picked then up the bowl and started to collect the go stones from the floor.
“Say, eh…” she attempted after a moment’s silence, but didn’t know how to go on. Crawling there on the floor she felt suddenly very awkward and self-conscious, and totally at a loss of words. The whole day she had been planning to ask Hikaru if what she had experienced last night was real or just a dream, but simply couldn’t find a way to do it. I had such a strange dream last night. You were haunted in it. That wouldn’t actually be true, would it? Simple enough, but awfully hard to get out of her mouth.
In fact, she wondered if she hesitated simply because she was afraid of what the reply would be. Though could she even say for certain which it was she feared: his denial or admittance… no. That wasn’t quite true. Maybe, she pondered, picking up a black stone and turning it around in her hands, maybe if she was totally honest, it was the opposite: she didn’t want to ask because she knew. She knew what she wished for, and was afraid it’d be a fool’s dream.
“Hikaru,” she said suddenly, turning to look at her son. “I’ve noticed that you talk to yourself quite much these days. And yell, too; sometimes it sounds like you’re having a fight with yourself. What’s it all about?”
Hikaru was an unmoving lump on his bed, his back to her, and just a little bit of black and yellow hair was visible from underneath the blanket. Then the lump twitched a little.
“So what? Is it a crime to talk to yourself?”
“No, no, of course not…” She dropped the stones in her hand into the bowl. “I was merely wondering if you were in fact talking to someone, you know, someone else than yourself…”
“Well, I don’t know.” He sounded curt. “That’s nonsense.”
She opened her mouth to try again, but he cut her off. “Isn’t the supper ready soon? I’m hungry.”
“Supp…” She bounced to her feet. “I forgot the soup!”
“I wanna eat in my room!” Hikaru yelled after her as she rushed to save what could be saved.
And so the evening passed, and she didn’t voice her questions. Hikaru went back to bed after supper, and when she checked on him, he was fast asleep. She stood in the doorway and her gaze swept across the room, but there was no sign of anyone else there, Heian age or not. No sound of flute, reaching her ears as if from somewhere far away… She returned to the kitchen, washed the dishes, wondered briefly if she should make a goodnight call to Masao, but figured then he’d call her if he was in a place where he could talk in the phone. She wandered into the living room, turned on the TV, and after briefly surfing through the channels turned it off again and picked up her book instead. Half an hour passed, and she had read two pages - pages she would have to read again later, because she wasn’t quite sure what had happened in them.
She thought about going to bed, but knew it would be pointless; she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep anyway. Besides, it was too early to go to sleep yet.
When would a ghost appear if it were to appear? Sundown was long past. Midnight? Maybe. There was still time to that, though.
Making up her mind she got up and left her book on the sofa. She needed something to distract herself. If the ghost were to appear, this time it wouldn’t catch her unprepared.
Briefly she wished they’d had a computer - she knew that one could find almost anything on the internet. But lacking that, they did have a wide and comprehensive library, including quite a many books about history of Japan. She took out the volume that handled Heian age, and to her dismay realized she should dust the books more often. Blowing the dust away she sat down with the book. First she checked the name index. Fujiwara no… Michinaga, Michitaka, Morosuke, Naritoki, Nobunori, Nobutsuna, Norimichi, Sadako, Sukefuse, Suketada, Tadamichi… No Sai. Well, that would have been a little too easy. But she had thought that if someone was posing as a historical character, most likely they’d choose someone famous.
Sai. A peculiar name. She read through the list again, and shook her head. Sai. It just didn’t fit, so completely different from all the other names. Maybe it wasn’t his real name. She thought of Sei Shonagon, one of the Heian period’s famous authors. That wasn’t her real name, either - Sei was apparently based on her clan name, Kiyohara, if she remembered right. She wasn’t quite sure, but she thought that it was common in the Heian age to refer to people by their titles. Shonagon, Shikibu… was Sai a title? But he used it as a given name…
She shook her head again. That line wasn’t taking her anywhere. She checked go instead. There wasn’t much about the game in the book, though, just a mention that it had been introduced from China in the Nara period. Nothing about emperors’ go tutors. Sighing, she leafed through the index, and then the word ghosts caught her eye. She struck that part open. The world of Heian was heavily populated by goblins, demons, spirits, and other supernatural beings… foxes… the Demon of Rashomon…legends she was well familiar with. Then: The unappeased spirits of dead people haunted the world of the living and were a prime cause of illness, death, and other disasters.
She read on, but found nothing she wouldn’t have known before. Also, there was nothing to indicate that ghosts could have ever been seen as anything else than harbingers of misfortune. She paused to think, and took then out a piece of paper and a pen. First she wrote name on it, adding a big question mark, and then reason for staying here? She tried to recall the previous night. What had the ghost said back when she had threatened to call a priest to exorcize it (oh, and that wasn’t, maybe, such a bad idea?) Something about not having reached the hand of god? Hand of god? She checked the index, but found nothing. Could it be something religious? Maybe she had misunderstood and it was the other way round, the hand of god hadn’t reached him, to take him… wherever dead people went. Or… thinking about his enthusiasm about go, maybe it had something to do with the game. She made a note of it, too, planning to check Hikaru’s go books later.
Bent over the book, it took her a while to realize she wasn’t alone anymore. Someone stood behind her back, reading over her shoulder. With a start she snapped the book shut and turned to look.
He looked exactly like she remembered. She had thought that certainly alcohol had to have had some kind of an effect on her memory, but no; the eyes were the exact shade of violet she had recalled, the impossibly long hair just as shining, and the smile… she closed her eyes and told her heart to slow down.
“Evening, Shindou-san,” he said, and there was smile in his voice, too. “I’m so happy you can still see me, after all.”
“Yes, I…” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t see you before. Were you there?”
“In Hikaru’s room?” He nodded. Suddenly his expression turned worried, eyes clouded over. “I’m so sorry about earlier, I know I shouldn’t have played with him when he’s sick, but we were both so bored and I thought one little game wouldn’t hurt, though maybe I should have gone easy on him, just this once, but…”
“So it was you he was playing with,” Mitsuko cut him off. “I thought so. Say, why didn’t you tell him we met last night?”
He watched her thoughtfully a long while. “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I just… I thought about it, but… I’m not sure how he would have reacted, and now that he’s sick, too…” He fell silent. “No,” he went then on, “I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want to. I’m not sure why I didn’t want to, though. But you didn’t tell him either.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I was going to… ask him if it’s true, but… somehow I just couldn’t.”
A little smile played on his lips. “It might be for the best. As I said, who knows how he’d react.”
“Yeah.” She gave a little laugh, too, feeling strangely coy. She wanted to reach out and check if she still could touch him, but managed to restrain herself.
Had she really kissed him last night? She wasn’t sure, but she hoped not. Maybe. Actually she wasn’t quite sure about that either.
She didn’t have to reach for him; he reached for her. His hand touched softly her cheek, very lightly so that she barely felt it, and only for the shortest moment.
“Sorry,” he said, letting his hand fall back. She noted idly that it went straight through the back of her chair. “I just wanted to… check, if I… still… you know.”
She knew.
“You were reading about the Heian age,” Sai said after a while as she said nothing.
She shrugged. “Yes. I was… just a little curious.” She placed the book on the table, covering her notes with it so that he wouldn’t be able to read them, unless he already had. She wondered how long he’d been there, and if he had possibly seen the part about ghosts. Prime cause of illness, death, and other disasters…She hoped not. Looking at him, that superstition didn’t seem fair.
She sat still, the ghost behind her back, and for a moment didn’t know what to say. The notes being covered, she couldn’t read them either… but she hadn’t had time to write that much, had she?
“Your name,” she said suddenly. “How do you write it?”
“‘Sa’ is as in assist or help, and ‘i’ as in benefit or sake.”
“I see.” Her fingers twitched, wanting to take a pen and write it down. “It doesn’t seem like a very… Heian name, to me.”
“It was rather unusual, though there have been others with that name.” Again she heard the smile in his voice. “You can blame it on my mother. Father let her to decide.”
“Mmm.” She was already thinking about her next question - and all the other questions it brought to her mind - and wondering how to tactfully voice them. He had come to stand in front of her, and she smiled at him a little absentmindedly. “Please, sit down,” she said, and instead of the armchair he sat again on the floor in seiza.
“Is there something you would like to ask, Shindou-san?” he said giving her a look that was half amused, half knowing.
“There’s a lot I’d like to ask,” she replied, not really facing him. “For one thing, why are you here? What is it you want?”
“Play go…” he said softly. “To develop, and improve, as a go player, and one day, maybe…”
“Yes?”
“Reach the hand of god.”
“And what is that?”
He gave a little laugh. “Good question. I wonder if any two go players would really agree - even if it is everyone’s goal. The perfect move, some would say, as other simply call it a truly inspired and original move… One knows only for sure once one has played it.”
“Has anyone ever?”
He smiled again, this time a little smugly. “I was very close once. It’s still considered the best example of what the hand of god might be like.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip. “You must be really good, then.”
The smile was hardly just a little smug anymore. “I’d like to think so.”
She tried to gather her thoughts. “Ok. So. You’re here to play go.” Somehow, to her, playing go didn’t quite sound like an adequate reason to become a ghost, but then again, what did she know. “Play go. Yes. Umm…”
“Yes?”
“I was just wondering… if you don’t mind me asking, exactly how did you die?”
There was no trace left of the smile on his face. “It’s a long story… shortly put, the emperor had another go tutor who challenged me to a game over the position. He cheated during that game, and I was the only one to notice. Just when I was about to call him out, he claimed that I had done what he did, and I… I lost my composure. I couldn’t manage to win after that, though I definitely should have… So I lost my position, and together with it, my reputation. I was banished from the court… and I couldn’t face it, the life in the provinces, away from all the great go players…
“So I drowned myself.”
They sat in silence as she thought it through and through. “You were… banished for cheating in a game?” she finally asked, a little incredulously.
His smile was a strange combination of bitter and amused. “If you ask me, that is definitely a strong enough reason for banishment. But of course… no, it wasn’t just that. It was all about politics. I was so young when I entered the court, young and naïve. Too outspoken. I made the wrong enemies, and the wrong friends, and…” He shook his head. “That was the only way it could end.”
She tried to imagine this serene, beautiful, so kind-looking young man wading into a river to end his life, and couldn’t. “That’s awful,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Awful.”
“I guess. I… have had a long time to think about it,” he said at her questioning look. “Now I think it was mainly stupid.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing.
Now she had replies to all the questions she had had time to think of. She wished she had started preparing for this earlier. Made up a plan, or something. She didn’t want to feel this lost.
“Shindou-san,” the ghost started to say.
“I told you to call me Mitsuko, didn’t I?” she cut him off. “If I’m to call you Sai…”
“Of course.” He smiled a little. “Mitsuko. You seem… worried?”
“Not really….” She moved uncomfortably. “Not really worried. I just… This is so weird.”
“I know. But I want to thank you, Shin… Mitsuko. Not everyone would be so understanding about something like this.”
Oh. Was she understanding? She blushed a little. Hadn’t she just a while ago been thinking that maybe calling a priest wouldn’t be a bad idea after all? Now she couldn’t believe it. This ghost definitely was the exception that proved the rule. They weren’t all just heralds of death and misery. She refused to believe that, whatever the books said.
As she remained quiet the silence prolonged, and she tried fervently to come up with something to say. What would be appropriately Heian topics? Poetry, music - his flute playing, maybe - some other beautiful things…
No, no. She shook her head, tried to collect her thoughts. She wasn’t even drunk at all this night, why couldn’t she concentrate on what was important.
“How long will you stay with Hikaru? All his life?”
“Probably,” Sai admitted quietly. “I did stay with Torajiro to his death, after all.”
“Torajiro?” Hadn’t he mentioned someone named like that before? “Who is he?”
“My previous… host, you could say. I stayed with him some 150 years ago. You might know him by the name Shuusaku. Though I was the one who played those games…”
There was that smuggish smile again, though this time it was a little sad. Shuusaku? It sounded familiar, probably someone she should know. She tried to keep the fact that she didn’t quite recognize the name from her face.
“I see. Did you spend a long time with him?”
“He was but a boy when we met, but… he died much too early. No, not because of me, I swear - it was the cholera epidemic. He was a good man, trying to help others… and in the end paid for it with his own life.”
“I’m sorry,” Mitsuko said quietly. He seemed sincerely sad.
Sai shook his head softly. “It was a long time ago… by now he would be dead anyway. But…”
Whatever he had been going to say, he left unvoiced. Mitsuko cleared her throat self-consciously.
“I still don’t know what to think about this,” she said, deciding to change the subject. “But I… I think for now, I will let things lie. I’ll be keeping an eye on Hikaru, though.” She nailed what she hoped to be a stern and warning look at the ghost. “If I have the slightest reason to believe you are harmful for him in any way, you are gone.”
Sai nodded solemnly. “I understand. And you do not need to worry. I would never harm Hikaru in any way.”
“Good.” She relaxed a little, believing him, though she didn’t know why.
Silence took over again. She was beginning to feel a little awkward sitting up on her chair, watching down on him. On a spur of a moment she moved down to the floor too, sitting also in seiza.
“I really should do this more often,” she said at Sai’s surprised look. “It is so seldom these days one needs to sit in seiza, that when the need comes it is much more painful than it needs to be. Besides, I felt silly sitting up there, almost like you were kneeling in front me.”
Sai smiled a little. “Of course, there is no need for you to sitting with me at all. It is very kind of you to spend time with me.”
She didn’t know what to say. “I couldn’t just ignore you, could I? That would be weird.” She moved a little, searching a more comfortable position. “And I am not going to sleep yet, so… it is nice to spend the evening with someone.” She paused a moment to wonder what she had just said. She really had to be desperate for company, if, meeting a ghost in her living room, she was just happy she didn’t have to be alone. “Is there something you’d like to do?” she asked, pushing the thought away.
Sai looked surprised for a moment. “Play go?” he said then in a hopeful one, and Mitsuko gave out a little laugh.
“I really don’t play go at all,” she admitted. “Maybe you’d like to do something you normally don’t? Would you like to go out?”
“I’m not sure if it’s a good idea,” Sai said shaking his head. “I’d rather not go far from Hikaru - if he wakes up and I’m gone, he might get frightened. Besides, I can go out with him. Actually…” he looked at her with a smile, “what we’re currently doing is something I don’t normally do. Talking with someone. Someone else than Hikaru, that is.”
“Well, what do you want to talk about, then?” She moved her toes again. Her legs couldn’t be getting numb yet, could they?
Sai paused. A long while he sat still, staring ahead, and a moment Mitsuko wondered if he had entered some kind of a trance. She was about to repeat her question, when he shook his head softly.
“How peculiar,” he said quietly. “During this past millennium, how often I wished I had someone to talk to, and now… I don’t know what I want to talk about. That is, if we are not going to discuss go…”
“How about… your life? If it’s not too… too painful or anything. What was it like in the Heian age?”
He smiled, looking a little relieved, perhaps happy she had given him a topic. “Very different from this age… life was slower, simpler, people had time to appreciate the beauty of the world around them much more deeply than it is possible nowadays. The days went by without tight schedules - except for the occasional rituals and ceremonies, of course.”
“Mmm. I remember reading somewhere it could have been quite a boring life for women, though. Shut behind their screens, with but a few ways to pass time…”
“I guess…” Sai frowned. “I’ve never really thought about it.” He paused for a moment. “You’re probably right. I guess it could have been quite a monotonous existence, at least for those who didn’t go to court. And I’m not saying life had been perfect then - for one thing, I’d give much if I could taste your cooking. Our time was quite lacking in the culinary… And the health problems people had… I could almost count myself lucky having escaped them.”
“Well, I guess I’m happy to live in this age,” Mitsuko stated. She might have been bored with her life, at times, but at least she could walk out of the house when she wanted, and talk with who she wanted. Not that she did that often. She frowned a little, wondering when she had raised this screen of her own between herself and the world. “Our world is hardly perfect either, though,” she went on, attempting to keep her tone light. “But I’m surely thankful for the free health care. I’m getting close to forty and I still have all my teeth!”
“I have often wondered how healthy your elderly are. Like Hikaru’s grandfather! And people live to such an old age…”
“Yes…” Mitsuko wasn’t really listening to him. Her mind had wandered back to the Heian age, and she realized how very little she in the end new about it. She thought of Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book which she had read a long, long time ago. Sei’s life hadn’t seemed that boring to her.
“You know, thinking about the old times does have a certain kind of… I don’t know, romantic feel about it,” she said a little dreamily, and blushed then. What a silly notion, as if she were just a teenage girl.
Her feet were falling asleep. She stood up, not giving Sai time to reply anything. “I’ll… have a glass of water. Do you…” She had been about to ask if he wanted anything, but caught herself in time. “I’ll have a glass of water,” she repeated a little weakly, and headed to the kitchen.
She got herself a glass of cold, cold water, and drank it slowly. Almost she sat down by the kitchen table, but then she suddenly remembered how last night she had as well went for a glass of water, and then, sitting by that table, had reached over it to… to check something, and the memory made her turn abruptly away from the table (sitting on the floor might actually be preferable), only to find herself face to face with a rather startled Sai.
“Mitsuko-san…” the ghost said carefully, taking a step back, as she fluttered, leaning against the table, probably bright red once again. “Somehow it seems to me that… you’re not… quite relaxed in my company.”
She gave a short, nervous laugh. Aren’t you observant, she though, and luckily managed to keep herself from saying it aloud. Instead she turned to get herself more water, to win some time while she drank it.
“I’m sorry,” Sai said quietly behind her back. “Perhaps it is better if I go back to Hikaru’s room? Maybe you should just ignore me, if you can… I wouldn’t want to make you feel awkward in your son’s company. But… I really wouldn’t want you to have me exorcised either, so…”
He fell silent. Mitsuko placed her glass in the kitchen sink, and leaned against it. Even without looking she could imagine the troubled expression on the ghost’s face. She couldn’t help laughing a little.
“Yes, we have the makings of something really awkward here, don’t we?” She turned to look at him, and saw that the troubled look was much more miserable than she had guessed. It made him look so young. Could this really be a thousand-year-old spirit?
“I am sorry,” she said with a reassuring smile. “I am behaving quite foolishly, aren’t I? Why don’t we go back to the living room. I’d like to hear more about the Heian age, if it’s alright for you.”
He returned the smile, relieved. In the living room she sat again on the floor, leaning against the sofa - so much for the seiza, but at least she’d sit on the same level with him. He settled down too, and they talked long, long into the night - it wasn’t just he talking about his life a thousand years ago, or the time he had spent with Torajiro, but Mitsuko too found herself telling him about her childhood and youth, and about Hikaru’s early years.
The horizon was already beginning to turn lighter when she finally fell asleep, still leaning against the sofa. Sai watched her a long while, wondering if he should wake her up so that she could sleep in her bed, but she did not seem to be uncomfortable, the way she perched against the seat.
There was a shawl on the back of the sofa, and he would have liked to spread it over her, if… if he only could. He looked down at his hands. When he had come to her this night, touched her cheek, he could have swore she had felt more… warm, real, than in the previous night. And when his hand had fallen down through the chair, it had… tingled, hadn’t it? He stood up and tried to pick up the shawl, but his hand passed right through it. Still, it did not feel the way it usually did - or, to be more precise, he could feel something, as opposed to nothing. Closing his eyes, concentrating as hard as he could, he attempted again to pick it up, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not grasp the shawl.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw it had dropped down from the sofa’s back and was lying on the seat. A moment he stared at it in stunned disbelief. Then he reached out again, and slowly, painfully slowly, although he couldn’t really feel the cloth, it moved across the sofa until he managed to spread it over the sleeping woman.
Still a moment he spent watching her sleep, and when the first rays of the morning sun entered the room, he turned away and returned to Hikaru’s room.
~*~
I’ve no clue if Sai actually was a common name or not, but somehow, looking at what kind of names people seemed to have in the Heian period, it kind of stands out. I know there were at least a Tachibana no Sai and Minamoto no Sai… though their names were written with different kanji.
You know, the sunset. I checked, and in mid-July, sun sets in Tokyo around 18:57. I was hoping for later, as then Sai could have appeared after sunset. (Where I live, it sets on the same day at 22:28. That would have been a good time.) But, this led me to think about random things… You know all these mythological creatures that have one form in daytime and another in night. So what if we're, say, so high up in the north that the sun doesn't set at all in the summer? Will it always be in the day form? And the opposite in winter… Somehow all these stories seem to always take place somewhere where day and night are of the same length.
…and now I've got a plot bunny. Someone shoot it... it might keep me from writing fanfics. xD
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