Three Nights of Obon - Third Night
Third Night
The dinner at Hikaru’s grandparents’ was quieter than usually, but still pleasant. Masao wasn’t there. Mitsuko had been quite right about the way his parents would react, though she would have been happy to ignore the matter. As the day passed, she found herself defending her husband.
“It’s hardly his fault that the meeting was delayed,” she said as they were moving to the desserts. “And in international business, it can’t be helped that at times the meetings take place over what is a holiday in one country.”
“Be that how it may, he could have skipped it,” Heihachi snorted. “But at least you two came here today. We’d been looking forward to this dinner, it would have been a shame if we’d had to eat it alone.”
Mitsuko nodded and glanced at Hikaru. Part of the reason for the dinner being unusually quiet was that he was still a little sick, quite tired, and so not quite his usual boisterous self.
“How are you feeling, Hikaru?” she asked. “Should we head straight home after dinner?”
He looked up, sniffling his nose quite loudly. “Nah, I’m okay. And I got to play at least one game with gramps before we go, or he’ll be whining about it the rest of the year.”
Heihachi gave another of his snorts. “Whining? Hah. But if you feel you’re up to it, by all means. Though I can’t help feeling I have an unfair advantage-”
“As if you’d win just cause I’m a bit sick,” Hikaru cut him off. “Dream on, old man.”
“That’s it.” Heihachi dropped his dessert spoon on the table with a clank. “Ready for the game, boy?”
Hikaru grinned at him. “Ready to crush you!”
The two left for the game and left to women to clean the table. “I’ll help you with the dishes,” Mitsuko offered, as she always did, and just as customarily Tamae, Hikaru’s grandmother, strongly declined. They still didn’t have a dishwasher, though Masao had been talking about getting one for them for Christmas. Mitsuko wondered if they’d be happy about it or not, but was cautiously optimistic. Most likely they would come around with time.
“Say,” she said conversationally as she carried dirty plates to the sink, “I was wondering if I could take a look at your attic? I have always loved old things, and I was wondering if you have there something lovely for which you’ve got no use. Unless you have some secrets hidden there,” she added lightly.
“Oh, if you want to, certainly,” Hikaru’s grandmother said, and if she was at all surprised at this sudden request and her newly found love of old things, she hid it well. “I’m not sure if we have anything that would spark your interest - though who knows, I barely remember what I have in my closets, so who knows what is hidden in the attic.” The women shared a laugh. “I have actually been thinking about going everything through there and throwing away some useless junk, so we could very well get started now. The boys will spend a while with their game.”
Mitsuko nodded, hiding her smile at how she called her husband a boy.
In the attic it didn’t take long for her to spot the go board - which of course was her real reason to go there. She didn’t go straight to it, though, first inspecting a couple of closets full of old clothes and linens together with Tamae. Then, pretending she had just noticed the board, she knelt down beside it.
To her eyes there was nothing special about the board. She ran her finger over it, feeling the polished surface of the wood and trying to catch some kind of an otherworldly vibe, but in vain. It was nothing but an ordinary go board, if quite old.
“Now, that would be something for Hikaru,” Tamae said behind her back, and she smiled a little crookedly, so that the old woman didn’t see it.
“I don’t know, he doesn’t really care about old things. Everything has to be brand new.”
“Hmm.” Tamae had turned to a big wooden chest and was peeking into it. “My sister was a similar case. No appreciation for anything old. Quite a lot of what we have here is something she’d deemed to be old junk, ready to be thrown away. And all thing’s considered…” she paused for a while, taking in the contents of the chest, “she was probably right.” She slammed it shut again. “Seen anything you like?”
Her eyes still on the go board Mitsuko stood slowly up. “I don’t know.” Disappointed she turned away from the board. She didn’t really know what she had been expecting, but she had thought that there would have to be something in the board out of ordinary.
Well, at least there was a go board in the attic. She didn’t really know what she’d have thought if there hadn’t been any.
They spent a long while going through the attic, and in the end to her surprise she actually did find something she was happy to take - an old hand-woven rug and a beautiful tea cup in a box full of old dishes. When they returned to the house, the game was just about to end
“How is it going?” Mitsuko asked, and her son grinned at her.
“What’d you think? Though grandpa did put up a proper fight.”
The old man was staring at the board, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Then he shook his head. “He’s grown stronger,” he said to Mitsuko. “I can’t help but wonder…” He left the sentence hanging.
Can’t help but wonder if he truly will become pro, Mitsuko finished in her mind. “We were exploring your attic,” she said instead. “You really have quite a lot of interesting things there. Hikaru, did you know there’s an old go board up there?”
Hikaru made a noncommittal sound, but she couldn’t help noticing how his shoulders momentarily stiffened.
“Certainly he does!” Heihachi said. “He even asked once if he could get it.”
“Oh? Hikaru, it’s clearly an antique. You shouldn’t ask for such expensive things.”
“Well, maybe one day, if you really will turn professional,” Heihachi said, beginning to clean the board. “It’s something I inherited from my brother. Supposed to be haunted.”
Mitsuko drew a sharp breath and tried to cover it with coughing. “Haunted? How is that?”
“They say that a spirit wearing that tall nobleman’s hat comes out of it. I don’t know about that - never seen it myself.”
“A ghost with an eboshi hat?” Mitsuko laughed a little and hoped it sounded natural. Her heart was thumping. That settled it. It was all real. She had been convinced about it last night, but somehow in the bright sun it had felt too impossible, too insane for her to truly believe it. But this… this couldn’t be a coincidence. “I wonder why there’d be a ghost in a go board,” she went on. “Must be an avid go player, don’t you think?”
Heihachi laughed. “Certainly. Wouldn’t that be interesting, to play against a ghost from the past? What do you think, Hikaru? Would this ghost be a great player?”
The boy snorted. “Who knows. Maybe it’d be the opposite - some poor sod who never learned to play and is still trying to grasp the basics.” Mitsuko watched him intently as he spoke, and there was something in the way he avoided looking into anyone, something in his grumpy tone, that from the experience acquired through years told her he was hiding something.
His grandfather noticed nothing. “Hmm. Perhaps. Do you want to play another game?”
Hikaru shook his head, and Heihachi put the go board away.
They didn’t talk more about the go board and its supposed ghost that day. Quite soon after, Mitsuko and Hikaru headed straight home. Tourou nagashi, the floating lanterns had always been her favorite part of the festival, but this year they would skip it. Hikaru had complained of being tired, and as she had this perhaps irrational fear that the lanterns truly would guide all the spirits away, she didn’t mind missing it.
Back at home, Hikaru retreated to his bed together with a big bunch of manga. After a while as she peeked in she saw he had fallen asleep and was happy she had made him to brush his teeth and change clothes before lying down. She quietly collected all the manga from his bed and turned off the lights.
In the kitchen she made herself some tea, drinking it from the cup she had just got, and wondered. Now the Bon was ending. Would the ghost - would Sai still appear? And if he did, who would come first, the ghost or her husband? She knew that Masao was already on his way home, and unless there were some delays, he would probably arrive around the same time the ghost had usually appeared.
She stared at her tea, an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. What if Masao would run across Sai? She wasn’t sure what he’d do - certainly he wouldn’t believe any ghost stories. But surely he’d have to believe what he saw? She remembered how hard it had been for her to come to accept this as true. Masao would, without doubt, be even more stubborn. But if he did believe… how would he react? He would certainly call an exorcist first thing in the morning… if he’d wait that long.
She stood up suddenly. Forgetting her tea, she tiptoed to Hikaru’s room, and, seeing him fast asleep, whispered quietly, “Sai? My husband’s coming home tonight. Please don’t let him see you. He might want to check on Hikaru when he comes, so… so hide in the closet or something, okay?”
Retreating from the room she felt a little silly. She couldn’t help feeling she had been talking to an empty room - and even if he was there, surely he didn’t need her to tell him to stay out of sight. Well, better safe than sorry. She returned to the kitchen, found her tea cup again, and settled down to wait.
It was the front door that opened first. She heard a thump as Masao dropped down his bag, and stood up.
“Welcome home,” she said, walking to the hall. She was surprised to see him just standing there, coat still on. He smiled at her - a little apologetic smile she knew well. The door was open behind him, and she could see a taxi waiting on the street.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “How’s Hikaru?”
“Sleeping. He’s getting better.”
“Good. Listen…” He glanced over his shoulder at the waiting car. “We did nail this contract, but it was quite a lot of work. We’re going to have some drinks… boss’ll be there too. I just wanted to drop my things here and wish you a good night first.”
“Good night, then. Have a good time, I’m sure you’ve earned it.” Leaning against the wall she watched as he nodded and closed the door behind his back. She bent to pick up his bag, feeling an odd combination of relief and guilt. At least for now, the danger had been dodged. Turning her back to the door she was about to start carrying the bag to their room, but came to a sudden stop.
Sai stood there at the end of the stairway, watching the closed door with a disapproving look.
She sighed and walked by him. “Don’t look like that. You just don’t understand, it’s…”
“You’re right, I don’t understand this modern world at all. One would imagine that when a man returns home he would want to spend the night with his family, not with friends, drinking.”
“I don’t think he really wanted to go,” Mitsuko said with a sigh as she opened the bag and started to sort out the contents. “Masao doesn’t care much about those things - but if everyone else goes, he too has to.”
She put unused shirts and pants into the closet and picked up the laundry. As she was carrying it to the laundry basket, she looked over her shoulder at the ghost still tailing her with a frown on his face, and gave him a little smile.
“I’m happy you’re here,” she said and paused. “And that he’s not…” she then admitted. “That probably makes me a rather bad wife. But the truth is… that I don’t really care.”
She stuffed the laundry into the basket, and turned back to him. “Do you think you’ll still be here next night?”
“Probably not,” he said. “The Obon is ending, I can feel it. It’s… a very peculiar sensation. I don’t remember reacting to it this strongly before. The past Obon festivals went by so that I didn’t even notice. I don’t know what makes this one different.”
They had come to the living room and sat down, both of them on the floor, he in seiza, she crosslegged.
“I’m glad that we could still spend some time together, then,” Mitsuko said. “This might be the last time we can meet like this.” The idea was overwhelmingly sad, and she had to pause for a moment. “But you’ll still be there, won’t you? With Hikaru?”
“I will.” Sai smiled at her. “Maybe we should tell him, in the end. Through him we could talk again.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I don’t want to tell him. Maybe it’s just that I too want to have a secret of my own…”
“We don’t have to tell him,” Sai said with a little laugh. “We can wait to the next Obon and see if this happens again, and if it doesn’t, then… maybe. But, say…” He looked around in the room and his eyes stopped on a family photo in the bookshelf. “I saw plenty of these, these photo-graphs at Hikaru’s grandparents’ home. Do you have more here? It’s such a fascinating thing, how they capture people’s essence. I think they had one there that had Hikaru as a little child…”
“I have plenty of photos, if that’s what you want to see.” She went to the bookshelf on her knees and opened a drawer. “I made some albums for Hikaru, would you like to see those?”
“Do you have any about your life?” Sai asked, sounding perhaps a little shy, and she shot him a surprised look.
“Of course.” She grasped an older album, one she had inherited from her parents. They hadn’t had such an awful lot of photos, so there was only one album, but it held everything that was important.
She settled down again with the album on the floor in front of her, and opened the first page. “Here. Can you guess who these are?”
He looked at the picture with a concentrated frown on his face, but shook then his head. “The woman looks a little like you, though.”
“She’s my mother. And this,” she pointed at the baby the woman was holding, “is me. And that’s my father.”
Sai stared at the picture with wide eyes, and she couldn’t help but laugh at his expression. “This is me too, with my brother,” she said, turning the page to show a toddler with a little older boy.
Sai watched the pictures quietly, and she kept on turning the pages, telling him about the events and people in them. It had been so long since she had been watching these photos, she had almost forgotten about some of them.
“There I am with my uncle on his motorbike. He wanted to take me on a ride, but mother said I was too young. Now I can understand her, but then I thought she was the unfairest.”
Sai said nothing, and a moment she wondered if he was even listening to her. To her, this picture was one of the saddest in the album - a few years later her uncle had lost his life crashing with that very same motorbike. Her mother had been right to forbid her…
“But he would have been more careful if I were with him,” she muttered, and Sai looked up at her.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“No, nothing,” she said with a start and turned the page. There she was with her friends, on the last day of elementary school. These days she kept in touch with only one of them anymore, occasionally going to a café or some art event. She wondered how the others were doing, how life had treated them. Did Yukiko really become a doctor like she had dreamed?
“Does it make you sad, to watch these pictures?” Sai asked softly, and she realized he was watching her and not the photos.
“No… just a little… melancholy, maybe?” She looked at the happily laughing girl in the photographs, and smiled a little sadly. “Look at her, she’s all set, ready to enter the junior high, excited about the new world it will be… without any idea what life will bring to her. Not that she’d worry about such things.”
She hadn’t had any particular dreams when she was a child. When people asked her what she wanted to be when she was grown up, she’d usually said she wanted to be a vet, just to say something. She had actually considered it at one point - she had always liked animals - but had soon decided that most likely she didn’t have what it took. For one thing, blood made her queasy.
And so she had ended up taking the easy path, marrying young her first boyfriend, and becoming a housewife. It wasn’t a bad life, but sometimes she wondered what else she could have been.
“You were very cute as a child,” Sai said suddenly, his eyes again on the photos. “Of course, you still are.”
Mitsuko gave a sudden, embarrassed laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
He gave her a surprised look. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’?” She was probably still blushing a little. “Did you just call me cute?”
“But you are, Mitsuko-san! Especially when you smile. You still have that same dimple you’ve got in these pictures. It’s… cute.”
She was sure he had to be teasing her. He just seemed so very serious and earnest that she didn’t know what to make of it. So she turned the page.
As they went on watching the pictures, Mitsuko realized she was suddenly painfully aware of herself, of the way she spoke, gestured, how she sat so very close to this ghost that didn’t, at the moment, feel like an ethereal entity at all. And after all, they were able to touch, weren’t they?
Suddenly she was feeling very hot, her thoughts returning to that quick kiss of the first night. Why, she wondered, had they been able to touch when he couldn’t touch anything else? Maybe he was able to touch other people, too. It couldn’t have been just her, could it? And whether or not it was, they could touch, and…
“This is the last photo of my cat, Miyu,” she said maybe a little too loudly, and her voice sounded strange to her ears. “She disappeared shortly after.”
“A beautiful cat,” Sai said, oblivious to her discomfort. He stopped to watch the picture for quite a long time. “We had cats too, back in the Heian age. My mother had one that looked a little like this one. I had all but forgotten about it… I can’t even remember what it was called.” He shook his head. “These photos really are a magnificent thing. Such an aid to memory! I… is it a wonder I’m forgetting my mother’s cat’s name, if her face is growing misty in my memory?”
Without thinking Mitsuko reached out her hand, placing it consolingly on his hand. “You might forget her face, but surely you won’t forget her,” she said gently. Only then she seemed to realize she was touching him, and how warm his hand was under hers, and she drew quickly back.
“Yes.” He smiled at her, and she couldn’t but wonder that if she was cute when she smiled, what word should she possibly use of him. As she said nothing, he turned back to the album. “A very beautiful cat,” he repeated. “Have you ever considered getting a new one?”
“Yes,” she said, “but Masao is allergic.”
“Allergic? Yes, I have heard of that. Hikaru has a classmate who is allergic to birch. It makes him sneeze. I think I had a cousin who was allergic too. He was sneezing all the time in the summer, and his eyes were all read. A few times they tried to drive evil spirits from him, but it never succeeded.”
“Poor guy,” Mitsuko said, but couldn’t help laughing a little. “As if having allergies wouldn’t have been bad enough.”
“Hmm?” Sai was already watching the photos on the next page, random sceneries of a summer vacation in Hokkaido. “Well, I was once gravely ill when I was a child. The exorcism was a strange experience, I admit. But it worked.” He turned the next page. “So it was certainly worth trying, also in my cousin’s case.”
“Are you sure it was the exor…” Mitsuko started to ask with a skeptical smile, but stopped mid-sentence. Only then did they both realize what Sai had just done.
A moment they sat in silence, staring at the album.
“I…” Sai breathed.
“Did you just turn the page?” Mitsuko whispered.
“I,” Sai repeated. Gingerly he took a hold of the page again and turned it back and forth, back and forth. “I was thinking that… that my legs are falling asleep, and… and that’s pretty strange…”
He started to stand up, cautiously, taking a hold of Mitsuko’s shoulder for support. His grip was quite firm. Back on his feet he leaned against the wall, thumped it with his fist. “Oh god,” he whispered. “Can it really be…”
He turned to Mitsuko who was still sitting on the floor, staring at him with her mouth a little open. “I… I am corporeal. I can touch. I can touch.” His eyes were ablaze when they met Mitsuko’s gaze. “Do you know what this means?”
A blush spread across her face, and she felt herself stiffen a little, anxious. “I…” she breathed, but didn’t get farther than that.
“I can play go!” Sai exclaimed joyously. After a moment of stunned silence, she burst into laughter.
“It is not a laughing matter,” Sai said indignantly. “Please, Mitsuko-san, I know you said you don’t play go, but… wouldn’t you play a little with me?”
“How could I decline?” she said, still chuckling a little. “Wait here, I go to get the go board.”
She headed upstairs shaking her head with a smile still on her lips. All things considered, if someone truly turned into a ghost just because he wanted to play a board game, she most likely shouldn’t have been surprised if the first thing he wanted to do after gaining a physical body was to play the said game - no matter how long time had passed. She entered quietly Hikaru’s room. Hikaru was fast asleep, and given what a sound sleeper he was, it was unlikely he would wake up easily. Still she did her best to make no noise as she placed the stone bowls on the board and carried everything downstairs.
“Alright, here we go,” she said, placing them down. She sat down by the board and took one of the bowls. “Black,” she said, looking into it. “I’m supposed to have black, right? How will we play? Will I have a handicap?”
Sai said nothing, and she looked up at him expectantly. He was standing on the other side of the go board, his face half-hidden behind his fan, eyes closed.
“Sai?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
He drew a ragged breath, but remained silent. Mitsuko watched quietly as he lowered his fan and sat down. As he reached over the board to take the other bowl and opened it, gently pushing his fingers into the stones, she thought he might burst into tears. He held them back, though, and pulled his hand out with a stone between his fingers.
“Let’s play an even game,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “There won’t be much point in handicap stones, no matter how many you’d use. You do know how go is played?”
“Basically,” Mitsuko said. “I did play a little with my father when I was a child. I lost my interest around the time I was old enough to realize he was letting me win. I didn’t have the patience to really try to learn it.”
“Let’s start, then.” He smiled at her, something still glistening in the corner of his eye. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as Mitsuko hesitated. “Just relax and play - I am simply happy to hold a go stone in my hand.”
Mitsuko nodded, but didn’t start yet. “I could go to wake Hikaru,” she offered. “You could play a proper game with him.”
Now it was Sai’s turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. “No. I’ll rather play with you.” He bowed a little. “Onegaishimasu.”
“Onegaishimasu,” Mitsuko replied automatically, and placed her stone down.
Sai fingered the stone in his hand, eyes on the board, and took his time to play his opening move. Mitsuko watched him as he watched the board. His face was impassive, unreadable, more so than she had ever seen before - there had always seemed to be some emotion flickering over his face. But when he finally did snap the stone down, right on the upper left star point, he looked up, and Mitsuko realized he wasn’t quite as blank as she had thought.
A moment she met his gaze, and found herself happy that this wasn’t a serious game. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to see such a look in your opponents eyes when the game was just starting - or was this normal for go players? Briefly she wondered what Hikaru looked like when playing his games, and she realized she had never seen her son playing. Then Sai smiled a little, the intense look in his eyes softening slightly, and with a little laugh Mitsuko played on.
“I hope you understand I truly don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” she said. “I do remember the rules, I think - about the eyes, and the ko rule… but other than that…”
“I told you not to worry about it,” Sai cut her off gently. “I’ll guide you.”
And he did. Half of the time she didn’t even notice it, the way he subtly led her moves through his own. Sometimes he stopped to explain something, to show different variations of how the game could proceed, but overall they didn’t speak much, as Sai’s policy seemed to be show, not tell - or even more preferably, make Mitsuko find the right way herself. Gradually she found herself submerging into the game, growing more focused on it than on her opponent. In the quiet of the night, she listened to the soft sounds the go stones made as they snapped against the wooden board, and something was stirring inside of her, a feeling akin to wonder, and for a moment she thought she could understand how this game had such a deep hold on Sai’s very soul that he would still cling to it even after a thousand years.
She heaved a deep sigh once their game was over. “Thank you for the game,” she said quietly, and truly meant it. “It was... quite an experience. Not at all what I thought it would be. I’m just sorry that I can’t offer you a proper game...”
Sai was shaking his head. “I enjoy teaching,” he said. “And you are a lovely student. If you truly haven’t played since your childhood, I would say you have some skill.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mitsuko said laughing a little, “but it was surprisingly fun. Maybe I should ask Hikaru to teach me... though I’m not sure what he’d think about it, he might find it annoying...”
“Perhaps,” Sai admitted. “But I am sure that as he grows up and matures, he would appreciate it if his parents showed interest in what is important to him. And as long as I am with him, I would be happy to teach you through him.”
They looked at each other, sharing a smile over the go board. “Do you want to play more?” Mitsuko asked.
Sai looked down at the board, then, slowly, up at her, and there was something new in his eyes. Before Mitsuko had time to figure it out, he in his turn leaned over the board to place a kiss on her mouth.
“No,” he muttered when he finally draw back a little. “I don’t want to... play go... right now.” His hand was warm on her arm, and she could swear she felt his breath against her neck, and in that instant all the feelings he had ever awoken in her were back. Now she did not hesitate or feel shy, but pushed the go board out of the way and leaned against him, finally burying her hands into his hair - hair that was even silkier than she had imagined.
“Good,” she whispered. “Neither do I.”
...
In the small hours of the night they lay together on the sofa, Mitsuko’s head resting on Sai’s shoulder, her fingers intertwined with his, and they were both quiet. She didn’t feel like talking, for there was nothing to say, and she was happy he seemed to share her sentiment. What they had right then could not last, she knew that with a grim certainty, and that made it all even more precious. She listened to her breathing, and felt the steady rise and fall of his chest under her hand, and she held onto that, banishing all thoughts from her mind.
They had stayed in the living room for somehow she did not feel comfortable taking him to her marriage bed, and in the end she was glad about it. Masao had come home at some point, and she had listened to the noises he made surprisingly calmly. She could hear he was drunk, very drunk, probably - he didn’t have a good head for alcohol. She listened how he stumbled to their bedroom and wondered if he ever noticed she wasn’t in the bed - if he even made it all the way to the bed. She knew she should have felt something about the situation, guilt and shame, and maybe she would, later, but right then she didn’t care. Briefly she wondered what Sai thought of it all - though if even half the happenings she remembered from The Tale of Genji were realistic, this probably didn’t offend his Heian age sensibilities too badly.
Still they were quiet, holding onto each other, but she could feel him change - he didn’t really grow colder, but somehow the warmth next to her slowly dissipated, his hand in hers lost some of its substance, and when she turned her head a little to look at him, she could see, dimly, through him. He looked at her, too, meeting her gaze, smiled a little, but only when the first sun rays slipped into the room she could hear him whisper a quiet thank you.
“Thank you,” she whispered too, but he had already disappeared. She closed her eyes with a soft sigh, lying there unmoving, for she knew he was still there even if she could not see him.
THE END
Well, yes. That's it. ETA: Except that it isn't, I wrote an epilogue! Link below.
Do we know Hikaru’s grandma’s name? Is she still alive in the first place?
Btw, I just realized that though I’ve never cared much for that Sai-turns-real cliché, now I’ve written two fics in which (something like) that happens. Funny.
Epilogue
Previous chapter
First chapter
The dinner at Hikaru’s grandparents’ was quieter than usually, but still pleasant. Masao wasn’t there. Mitsuko had been quite right about the way his parents would react, though she would have been happy to ignore the matter. As the day passed, she found herself defending her husband.
“It’s hardly his fault that the meeting was delayed,” she said as they were moving to the desserts. “And in international business, it can’t be helped that at times the meetings take place over what is a holiday in one country.”
“Be that how it may, he could have skipped it,” Heihachi snorted. “But at least you two came here today. We’d been looking forward to this dinner, it would have been a shame if we’d had to eat it alone.”
Mitsuko nodded and glanced at Hikaru. Part of the reason for the dinner being unusually quiet was that he was still a little sick, quite tired, and so not quite his usual boisterous self.
“How are you feeling, Hikaru?” she asked. “Should we head straight home after dinner?”
He looked up, sniffling his nose quite loudly. “Nah, I’m okay. And I got to play at least one game with gramps before we go, or he’ll be whining about it the rest of the year.”
Heihachi gave another of his snorts. “Whining? Hah. But if you feel you’re up to it, by all means. Though I can’t help feeling I have an unfair advantage-”
“As if you’d win just cause I’m a bit sick,” Hikaru cut him off. “Dream on, old man.”
“That’s it.” Heihachi dropped his dessert spoon on the table with a clank. “Ready for the game, boy?”
Hikaru grinned at him. “Ready to crush you!”
The two left for the game and left to women to clean the table. “I’ll help you with the dishes,” Mitsuko offered, as she always did, and just as customarily Tamae, Hikaru’s grandmother, strongly declined. They still didn’t have a dishwasher, though Masao had been talking about getting one for them for Christmas. Mitsuko wondered if they’d be happy about it or not, but was cautiously optimistic. Most likely they would come around with time.
“Say,” she said conversationally as she carried dirty plates to the sink, “I was wondering if I could take a look at your attic? I have always loved old things, and I was wondering if you have there something lovely for which you’ve got no use. Unless you have some secrets hidden there,” she added lightly.
“Oh, if you want to, certainly,” Hikaru’s grandmother said, and if she was at all surprised at this sudden request and her newly found love of old things, she hid it well. “I’m not sure if we have anything that would spark your interest - though who knows, I barely remember what I have in my closets, so who knows what is hidden in the attic.” The women shared a laugh. “I have actually been thinking about going everything through there and throwing away some useless junk, so we could very well get started now. The boys will spend a while with their game.”
Mitsuko nodded, hiding her smile at how she called her husband a boy.
In the attic it didn’t take long for her to spot the go board - which of course was her real reason to go there. She didn’t go straight to it, though, first inspecting a couple of closets full of old clothes and linens together with Tamae. Then, pretending she had just noticed the board, she knelt down beside it.
To her eyes there was nothing special about the board. She ran her finger over it, feeling the polished surface of the wood and trying to catch some kind of an otherworldly vibe, but in vain. It was nothing but an ordinary go board, if quite old.
“Now, that would be something for Hikaru,” Tamae said behind her back, and she smiled a little crookedly, so that the old woman didn’t see it.
“I don’t know, he doesn’t really care about old things. Everything has to be brand new.”
“Hmm.” Tamae had turned to a big wooden chest and was peeking into it. “My sister was a similar case. No appreciation for anything old. Quite a lot of what we have here is something she’d deemed to be old junk, ready to be thrown away. And all thing’s considered…” she paused for a while, taking in the contents of the chest, “she was probably right.” She slammed it shut again. “Seen anything you like?”
Her eyes still on the go board Mitsuko stood slowly up. “I don’t know.” Disappointed she turned away from the board. She didn’t really know what she had been expecting, but she had thought that there would have to be something in the board out of ordinary.
Well, at least there was a go board in the attic. She didn’t really know what she’d have thought if there hadn’t been any.
They spent a long while going through the attic, and in the end to her surprise she actually did find something she was happy to take - an old hand-woven rug and a beautiful tea cup in a box full of old dishes. When they returned to the house, the game was just about to end
“How is it going?” Mitsuko asked, and her son grinned at her.
“What’d you think? Though grandpa did put up a proper fight.”
The old man was staring at the board, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Then he shook his head. “He’s grown stronger,” he said to Mitsuko. “I can’t help but wonder…” He left the sentence hanging.
Can’t help but wonder if he truly will become pro, Mitsuko finished in her mind. “We were exploring your attic,” she said instead. “You really have quite a lot of interesting things there. Hikaru, did you know there’s an old go board up there?”
Hikaru made a noncommittal sound, but she couldn’t help noticing how his shoulders momentarily stiffened.
“Certainly he does!” Heihachi said. “He even asked once if he could get it.”
“Oh? Hikaru, it’s clearly an antique. You shouldn’t ask for such expensive things.”
“Well, maybe one day, if you really will turn professional,” Heihachi said, beginning to clean the board. “It’s something I inherited from my brother. Supposed to be haunted.”
Mitsuko drew a sharp breath and tried to cover it with coughing. “Haunted? How is that?”
“They say that a spirit wearing that tall nobleman’s hat comes out of it. I don’t know about that - never seen it myself.”
“A ghost with an eboshi hat?” Mitsuko laughed a little and hoped it sounded natural. Her heart was thumping. That settled it. It was all real. She had been convinced about it last night, but somehow in the bright sun it had felt too impossible, too insane for her to truly believe it. But this… this couldn’t be a coincidence. “I wonder why there’d be a ghost in a go board,” she went on. “Must be an avid go player, don’t you think?”
Heihachi laughed. “Certainly. Wouldn’t that be interesting, to play against a ghost from the past? What do you think, Hikaru? Would this ghost be a great player?”
The boy snorted. “Who knows. Maybe it’d be the opposite - some poor sod who never learned to play and is still trying to grasp the basics.” Mitsuko watched him intently as he spoke, and there was something in the way he avoided looking into anyone, something in his grumpy tone, that from the experience acquired through years told her he was hiding something.
His grandfather noticed nothing. “Hmm. Perhaps. Do you want to play another game?”
Hikaru shook his head, and Heihachi put the go board away.
They didn’t talk more about the go board and its supposed ghost that day. Quite soon after, Mitsuko and Hikaru headed straight home. Tourou nagashi, the floating lanterns had always been her favorite part of the festival, but this year they would skip it. Hikaru had complained of being tired, and as she had this perhaps irrational fear that the lanterns truly would guide all the spirits away, she didn’t mind missing it.
Back at home, Hikaru retreated to his bed together with a big bunch of manga. After a while as she peeked in she saw he had fallen asleep and was happy she had made him to brush his teeth and change clothes before lying down. She quietly collected all the manga from his bed and turned off the lights.
In the kitchen she made herself some tea, drinking it from the cup she had just got, and wondered. Now the Bon was ending. Would the ghost - would Sai still appear? And if he did, who would come first, the ghost or her husband? She knew that Masao was already on his way home, and unless there were some delays, he would probably arrive around the same time the ghost had usually appeared.
She stared at her tea, an unpleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach. What if Masao would run across Sai? She wasn’t sure what he’d do - certainly he wouldn’t believe any ghost stories. But surely he’d have to believe what he saw? She remembered how hard it had been for her to come to accept this as true. Masao would, without doubt, be even more stubborn. But if he did believe… how would he react? He would certainly call an exorcist first thing in the morning… if he’d wait that long.
She stood up suddenly. Forgetting her tea, she tiptoed to Hikaru’s room, and, seeing him fast asleep, whispered quietly, “Sai? My husband’s coming home tonight. Please don’t let him see you. He might want to check on Hikaru when he comes, so… so hide in the closet or something, okay?”
Retreating from the room she felt a little silly. She couldn’t help feeling she had been talking to an empty room - and even if he was there, surely he didn’t need her to tell him to stay out of sight. Well, better safe than sorry. She returned to the kitchen, found her tea cup again, and settled down to wait.
It was the front door that opened first. She heard a thump as Masao dropped down his bag, and stood up.
“Welcome home,” she said, walking to the hall. She was surprised to see him just standing there, coat still on. He smiled at her - a little apologetic smile she knew well. The door was open behind him, and she could see a taxi waiting on the street.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, giving her a quick peck on the cheek. “How’s Hikaru?”
“Sleeping. He’s getting better.”
“Good. Listen…” He glanced over his shoulder at the waiting car. “We did nail this contract, but it was quite a lot of work. We’re going to have some drinks… boss’ll be there too. I just wanted to drop my things here and wish you a good night first.”
“Good night, then. Have a good time, I’m sure you’ve earned it.” Leaning against the wall she watched as he nodded and closed the door behind his back. She bent to pick up his bag, feeling an odd combination of relief and guilt. At least for now, the danger had been dodged. Turning her back to the door she was about to start carrying the bag to their room, but came to a sudden stop.
Sai stood there at the end of the stairway, watching the closed door with a disapproving look.
She sighed and walked by him. “Don’t look like that. You just don’t understand, it’s…”
“You’re right, I don’t understand this modern world at all. One would imagine that when a man returns home he would want to spend the night with his family, not with friends, drinking.”
“I don’t think he really wanted to go,” Mitsuko said with a sigh as she opened the bag and started to sort out the contents. “Masao doesn’t care much about those things - but if everyone else goes, he too has to.”
She put unused shirts and pants into the closet and picked up the laundry. As she was carrying it to the laundry basket, she looked over her shoulder at the ghost still tailing her with a frown on his face, and gave him a little smile.
“I’m happy you’re here,” she said and paused. “And that he’s not…” she then admitted. “That probably makes me a rather bad wife. But the truth is… that I don’t really care.”
She stuffed the laundry into the basket, and turned back to him. “Do you think you’ll still be here next night?”
“Probably not,” he said. “The Obon is ending, I can feel it. It’s… a very peculiar sensation. I don’t remember reacting to it this strongly before. The past Obon festivals went by so that I didn’t even notice. I don’t know what makes this one different.”
They had come to the living room and sat down, both of them on the floor, he in seiza, she crosslegged.
“I’m glad that we could still spend some time together, then,” Mitsuko said. “This might be the last time we can meet like this.” The idea was overwhelmingly sad, and she had to pause for a moment. “But you’ll still be there, won’t you? With Hikaru?”
“I will.” Sai smiled at her. “Maybe we should tell him, in the end. Through him we could talk again.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “I don’t know why I don’t want to tell him. Maybe it’s just that I too want to have a secret of my own…”
“We don’t have to tell him,” Sai said with a little laugh. “We can wait to the next Obon and see if this happens again, and if it doesn’t, then… maybe. But, say…” He looked around in the room and his eyes stopped on a family photo in the bookshelf. “I saw plenty of these, these photo-graphs at Hikaru’s grandparents’ home. Do you have more here? It’s such a fascinating thing, how they capture people’s essence. I think they had one there that had Hikaru as a little child…”
“I have plenty of photos, if that’s what you want to see.” She went to the bookshelf on her knees and opened a drawer. “I made some albums for Hikaru, would you like to see those?”
“Do you have any about your life?” Sai asked, sounding perhaps a little shy, and she shot him a surprised look.
“Of course.” She grasped an older album, one she had inherited from her parents. They hadn’t had such an awful lot of photos, so there was only one album, but it held everything that was important.
She settled down again with the album on the floor in front of her, and opened the first page. “Here. Can you guess who these are?”
He looked at the picture with a concentrated frown on his face, but shook then his head. “The woman looks a little like you, though.”
“She’s my mother. And this,” she pointed at the baby the woman was holding, “is me. And that’s my father.”
Sai stared at the picture with wide eyes, and she couldn’t help but laugh at his expression. “This is me too, with my brother,” she said, turning the page to show a toddler with a little older boy.
Sai watched the pictures quietly, and she kept on turning the pages, telling him about the events and people in them. It had been so long since she had been watching these photos, she had almost forgotten about some of them.
“There I am with my uncle on his motorbike. He wanted to take me on a ride, but mother said I was too young. Now I can understand her, but then I thought she was the unfairest.”
Sai said nothing, and a moment she wondered if he was even listening to her. To her, this picture was one of the saddest in the album - a few years later her uncle had lost his life crashing with that very same motorbike. Her mother had been right to forbid her…
“But he would have been more careful if I were with him,” she muttered, and Sai looked up at her.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?”
“No, nothing,” she said with a start and turned the page. There she was with her friends, on the last day of elementary school. These days she kept in touch with only one of them anymore, occasionally going to a café or some art event. She wondered how the others were doing, how life had treated them. Did Yukiko really become a doctor like she had dreamed?
“Does it make you sad, to watch these pictures?” Sai asked softly, and she realized he was watching her and not the photos.
“No… just a little… melancholy, maybe?” She looked at the happily laughing girl in the photographs, and smiled a little sadly. “Look at her, she’s all set, ready to enter the junior high, excited about the new world it will be… without any idea what life will bring to her. Not that she’d worry about such things.”
She hadn’t had any particular dreams when she was a child. When people asked her what she wanted to be when she was grown up, she’d usually said she wanted to be a vet, just to say something. She had actually considered it at one point - she had always liked animals - but had soon decided that most likely she didn’t have what it took. For one thing, blood made her queasy.
And so she had ended up taking the easy path, marrying young her first boyfriend, and becoming a housewife. It wasn’t a bad life, but sometimes she wondered what else she could have been.
“You were very cute as a child,” Sai said suddenly, his eyes again on the photos. “Of course, you still are.”
Mitsuko gave a sudden, embarrassed laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
He gave her a surprised look. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’?” She was probably still blushing a little. “Did you just call me cute?”
“But you are, Mitsuko-san! Especially when you smile. You still have that same dimple you’ve got in these pictures. It’s… cute.”
She was sure he had to be teasing her. He just seemed so very serious and earnest that she didn’t know what to make of it. So she turned the page.
As they went on watching the pictures, Mitsuko realized she was suddenly painfully aware of herself, of the way she spoke, gestured, how she sat so very close to this ghost that didn’t, at the moment, feel like an ethereal entity at all. And after all, they were able to touch, weren’t they?
Suddenly she was feeling very hot, her thoughts returning to that quick kiss of the first night. Why, she wondered, had they been able to touch when he couldn’t touch anything else? Maybe he was able to touch other people, too. It couldn’t have been just her, could it? And whether or not it was, they could touch, and…
“This is the last photo of my cat, Miyu,” she said maybe a little too loudly, and her voice sounded strange to her ears. “She disappeared shortly after.”
“A beautiful cat,” Sai said, oblivious to her discomfort. He stopped to watch the picture for quite a long time. “We had cats too, back in the Heian age. My mother had one that looked a little like this one. I had all but forgotten about it… I can’t even remember what it was called.” He shook his head. “These photos really are a magnificent thing. Such an aid to memory! I… is it a wonder I’m forgetting my mother’s cat’s name, if her face is growing misty in my memory?”
Without thinking Mitsuko reached out her hand, placing it consolingly on his hand. “You might forget her face, but surely you won’t forget her,” she said gently. Only then she seemed to realize she was touching him, and how warm his hand was under hers, and she drew quickly back.
“Yes.” He smiled at her, and she couldn’t but wonder that if she was cute when she smiled, what word should she possibly use of him. As she said nothing, he turned back to the album. “A very beautiful cat,” he repeated. “Have you ever considered getting a new one?”
“Yes,” she said, “but Masao is allergic.”
“Allergic? Yes, I have heard of that. Hikaru has a classmate who is allergic to birch. It makes him sneeze. I think I had a cousin who was allergic too. He was sneezing all the time in the summer, and his eyes were all read. A few times they tried to drive evil spirits from him, but it never succeeded.”
“Poor guy,” Mitsuko said, but couldn’t help laughing a little. “As if having allergies wouldn’t have been bad enough.”
“Hmm?” Sai was already watching the photos on the next page, random sceneries of a summer vacation in Hokkaido. “Well, I was once gravely ill when I was a child. The exorcism was a strange experience, I admit. But it worked.” He turned the next page. “So it was certainly worth trying, also in my cousin’s case.”
“Are you sure it was the exor…” Mitsuko started to ask with a skeptical smile, but stopped mid-sentence. Only then did they both realize what Sai had just done.
A moment they sat in silence, staring at the album.
“I…” Sai breathed.
“Did you just turn the page?” Mitsuko whispered.
“I,” Sai repeated. Gingerly he took a hold of the page again and turned it back and forth, back and forth. “I was thinking that… that my legs are falling asleep, and… and that’s pretty strange…”
He started to stand up, cautiously, taking a hold of Mitsuko’s shoulder for support. His grip was quite firm. Back on his feet he leaned against the wall, thumped it with his fist. “Oh god,” he whispered. “Can it really be…”
He turned to Mitsuko who was still sitting on the floor, staring at him with her mouth a little open. “I… I am corporeal. I can touch. I can touch.” His eyes were ablaze when they met Mitsuko’s gaze. “Do you know what this means?”
A blush spread across her face, and she felt herself stiffen a little, anxious. “I…” she breathed, but didn’t get farther than that.
“I can play go!” Sai exclaimed joyously. After a moment of stunned silence, she burst into laughter.
“It is not a laughing matter,” Sai said indignantly. “Please, Mitsuko-san, I know you said you don’t play go, but… wouldn’t you play a little with me?”
“How could I decline?” she said, still chuckling a little. “Wait here, I go to get the go board.”
She headed upstairs shaking her head with a smile still on her lips. All things considered, if someone truly turned into a ghost just because he wanted to play a board game, she most likely shouldn’t have been surprised if the first thing he wanted to do after gaining a physical body was to play the said game - no matter how long time had passed. She entered quietly Hikaru’s room. Hikaru was fast asleep, and given what a sound sleeper he was, it was unlikely he would wake up easily. Still she did her best to make no noise as she placed the stone bowls on the board and carried everything downstairs.
“Alright, here we go,” she said, placing them down. She sat down by the board and took one of the bowls. “Black,” she said, looking into it. “I’m supposed to have black, right? How will we play? Will I have a handicap?”
Sai said nothing, and she looked up at him expectantly. He was standing on the other side of the go board, his face half-hidden behind his fan, eyes closed.
“Sai?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
He drew a ragged breath, but remained silent. Mitsuko watched quietly as he lowered his fan and sat down. As he reached over the board to take the other bowl and opened it, gently pushing his fingers into the stones, she thought he might burst into tears. He held them back, though, and pulled his hand out with a stone between his fingers.
“Let’s play an even game,” he said, his voice a little hoarse. “There won’t be much point in handicap stones, no matter how many you’d use. You do know how go is played?”
“Basically,” Mitsuko said. “I did play a little with my father when I was a child. I lost my interest around the time I was old enough to realize he was letting me win. I didn’t have the patience to really try to learn it.”
“Let’s start, then.” He smiled at her, something still glistening in the corner of his eye. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as Mitsuko hesitated. “Just relax and play - I am simply happy to hold a go stone in my hand.”
Mitsuko nodded, but didn’t start yet. “I could go to wake Hikaru,” she offered. “You could play a proper game with him.”
Now it was Sai’s turn to hesitate, but only for a moment. “No. I’ll rather play with you.” He bowed a little. “Onegaishimasu.”
“Onegaishimasu,” Mitsuko replied automatically, and placed her stone down.
Sai fingered the stone in his hand, eyes on the board, and took his time to play his opening move. Mitsuko watched him as he watched the board. His face was impassive, unreadable, more so than she had ever seen before - there had always seemed to be some emotion flickering over his face. But when he finally did snap the stone down, right on the upper left star point, he looked up, and Mitsuko realized he wasn’t quite as blank as she had thought.
A moment she met his gaze, and found herself happy that this wasn’t a serious game. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to see such a look in your opponents eyes when the game was just starting - or was this normal for go players? Briefly she wondered what Hikaru looked like when playing his games, and she realized she had never seen her son playing. Then Sai smiled a little, the intense look in his eyes softening slightly, and with a little laugh Mitsuko played on.
“I hope you understand I truly don’t have a clue what I’m doing,” she said. “I do remember the rules, I think - about the eyes, and the ko rule… but other than that…”
“I told you not to worry about it,” Sai cut her off gently. “I’ll guide you.”
And he did. Half of the time she didn’t even notice it, the way he subtly led her moves through his own. Sometimes he stopped to explain something, to show different variations of how the game could proceed, but overall they didn’t speak much, as Sai’s policy seemed to be show, not tell - or even more preferably, make Mitsuko find the right way herself. Gradually she found herself submerging into the game, growing more focused on it than on her opponent. In the quiet of the night, she listened to the soft sounds the go stones made as they snapped against the wooden board, and something was stirring inside of her, a feeling akin to wonder, and for a moment she thought she could understand how this game had such a deep hold on Sai’s very soul that he would still cling to it even after a thousand years.
She heaved a deep sigh once their game was over. “Thank you for the game,” she said quietly, and truly meant it. “It was... quite an experience. Not at all what I thought it would be. I’m just sorry that I can’t offer you a proper game...”
Sai was shaking his head. “I enjoy teaching,” he said. “And you are a lovely student. If you truly haven’t played since your childhood, I would say you have some skill.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mitsuko said laughing a little, “but it was surprisingly fun. Maybe I should ask Hikaru to teach me... though I’m not sure what he’d think about it, he might find it annoying...”
“Perhaps,” Sai admitted. “But I am sure that as he grows up and matures, he would appreciate it if his parents showed interest in what is important to him. And as long as I am with him, I would be happy to teach you through him.”
They looked at each other, sharing a smile over the go board. “Do you want to play more?” Mitsuko asked.
Sai looked down at the board, then, slowly, up at her, and there was something new in his eyes. Before Mitsuko had time to figure it out, he in his turn leaned over the board to place a kiss on her mouth.
“No,” he muttered when he finally draw back a little. “I don’t want to... play go... right now.” His hand was warm on her arm, and she could swear she felt his breath against her neck, and in that instant all the feelings he had ever awoken in her were back. Now she did not hesitate or feel shy, but pushed the go board out of the way and leaned against him, finally burying her hands into his hair - hair that was even silkier than she had imagined.
“Good,” she whispered. “Neither do I.”
...
In the small hours of the night they lay together on the sofa, Mitsuko’s head resting on Sai’s shoulder, her fingers intertwined with his, and they were both quiet. She didn’t feel like talking, for there was nothing to say, and she was happy he seemed to share her sentiment. What they had right then could not last, she knew that with a grim certainty, and that made it all even more precious. She listened to her breathing, and felt the steady rise and fall of his chest under her hand, and she held onto that, banishing all thoughts from her mind.
They had stayed in the living room for somehow she did not feel comfortable taking him to her marriage bed, and in the end she was glad about it. Masao had come home at some point, and she had listened to the noises he made surprisingly calmly. She could hear he was drunk, very drunk, probably - he didn’t have a good head for alcohol. She listened how he stumbled to their bedroom and wondered if he ever noticed she wasn’t in the bed - if he even made it all the way to the bed. She knew she should have felt something about the situation, guilt and shame, and maybe she would, later, but right then she didn’t care. Briefly she wondered what Sai thought of it all - though if even half the happenings she remembered from The Tale of Genji were realistic, this probably didn’t offend his Heian age sensibilities too badly.
Still they were quiet, holding onto each other, but she could feel him change - he didn’t really grow colder, but somehow the warmth next to her slowly dissipated, his hand in hers lost some of its substance, and when she turned her head a little to look at him, she could see, dimly, through him. He looked at her, too, meeting her gaze, smiled a little, but only when the first sun rays slipped into the room she could hear him whisper a quiet thank you.
“Thank you,” she whispered too, but he had already disappeared. She closed her eyes with a soft sigh, lying there unmoving, for she knew he was still there even if she could not see him.
THE END
Well, yes. That's it. ETA: Except that it isn't, I wrote an epilogue! Link below.
Do we know Hikaru’s grandma’s name? Is she still alive in the first place?
Btw, I just realized that though I’ve never cared much for that Sai-turns-real cliché, now I’ve written two fics in which (something like) that happens. Funny.
Epilogue
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