Fic: Jisatsu
Mar. 18th, 2013 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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hikarunogoTitle: Jisatsu
Author:pandoraculpa
Characters: Hikaru, Akira
Rating: PG-13? For Crazy?
Summary: Some things aren't meant to be known.
A/N: Sorry, this is kind of an odd piece. It grew out of a writing game I was playing with a few friends. We were writing trope subversions, and this piece was meant to subvert the room full of crazy trope. I did this in my usual manner; that is to say, sidestepping and then going completely off the rails.
This story is unbeta-ed, and any critiques would be welcomed and appreciated.
It's Sunday, and he and Shindou are arguing, as usual. The floor around them is littered with hundreds of kifu from a single player, extraordinary and elusive; an impressive collection of NetGo games. They've been dissecting his play for hours, and Akira feels his temper beginning to fray as he points at a shape in a particular game.
“Will you shut up and look? It's an obvious progression from the game with Matsuda5Dan! See right here, how he responds to Fireman583's invasion? It's the same situation he faced with Michi_chan the week prior, but here, his response is totally different. He used the same strategy his pro opponent did, only he did it better.”
Hikaru's brows draw in tighter, and Akira braces himself for another round of shouting. But in one of the whiplash shifts of mood he's come to associate with his rival, the other boy's eyes suddenly light in recognition. “Hey, you're right!” he exclaims before screwing up his face in a comical expression of indignation. “Not that you get to rub that in, Touya, I'd have seen it eventually anyway. Jeez. But this...” His words trail out into contemplative silence, and Touya- silently basking in his victory- rubs his chin, struck by an unexpected thought.
“There was always something unusual about Sai's games. The times I observed, I always felt he was playing something bigger than what I could see,” he says slowly, unsure of how Shindou will react. “I mean, he was always focused on the game at hand, but... it was as though he was seeing more. Beyond the board.” He shakes his head, frustrated. “I'm not explaining this well.”
Shindou just shrugs in reply. “He knew a lot,” he says, as if Touya doesn't know that already.
“Yes, but it was more than that-” He doesn't get any further, as Hikaru grabs a sheet from the pile with a cry of surprise.
“Hey, check this out!” Folding back the edges of the paper, he lays the new kifu alongside the Matsuda5Dan game they'd been studying. Oddly, the stones on the bottom line of the Matsuda game match up perfectly with the pattern of black and white on the top line of the new kifu, and Hikaru laughs, pointing at the two records. “Maybe it's a bigger game!”
Akira just snorts. “Right. Nevermind. You never take me seriously. Let's play a game, Shindou, we've been studying all morning.”
~*~
The next time Akira visits there's a collage of kifu decorating Shindou's bedroom wall above his bed.
“What in the world...?”
“Remember how those games of Sai's matched up? I thought it would be fun to see if any others did too,” he explains, laughing, but Akira thinks he might be serious. “And a lot of them do match up. See?”
Indeed they do. There is a messy pile of kifu still lying across the foot of his bed, but fifty or more game records, are taped to the wall, fitting neatly against one another, the shapes of their stones continuing seamlessly as though they had been played on one massive board. It doesn't make a perfect square, however; the edges are ragged, and open books lay scattered on Hikaru's bed and floor, more black and white designs on display. Following Akira's gaze, Hikaru laughs and rubs the back of his neck. He looks embarrassed.
“I thought I'd look at Shusaku's Castle games. See if they fit too.”
“Why?” The question is blunt, probably moreso than is polite, but Akira has long known that Hikaru doesn't care. And although the twining designs of black and white are interesting in their own way, Shindou has the Tengen League matches to prepare for, and some of the opponents he is scheduled to play won't give him easy games. What Shindou has made is a curious, but ultimately useless, collage.
But Shindou is looking at it with something like pride. “I got to thinking more about what you said. About how Sai's games felt like they were part of something bigger. And then I thought, wouldn't that be something to see? So I printed them out, and they did fit, and isn't it cool?”
He thinks Hikaru is waiting for him to say something. But all he can think to do is scold him for wasting time, or maybe pursue asking why he should add Shusaku's games to Sai's collage. But that would only start the kind of fight he doesn't care to have this afternoon, so after a moment Akira rolls his eyes, sighing. “I hope you don't think I'm going to go easy on you today just because you've been doing crafts instead of studying.”
Shindou's eyes gleam happily. “Hah, you wish! Do your worst, I'm still gonna make you resign before yose!”
“Big words,” Akira scoffs, and they adjourn to the goban to let their stones speak for them.
~*~
He forgets Shindou's strange new diversion the next week while he's in Hokkaido for a series of exhibitions. By the time he returns to Tokyo he's exhausted, and all he wants is a long soak in the bath and a long sleep on his own futon. But there has been an emergency reshuffling of games, and his own are affected, so instead of heading home he dutifully makes his way across the city to the Institute.
He's weary, his temples pounding with every beat of his heart and his feet ache badly enough to make him limp. So once he's finally straightened out his schedule and is free to leave, when he sees Waya talking loudly with a small group of insei in front of the elevators, he just doesn't have the energy to wait him out or take the stairs. Facing the other pro's poorly veiled dislike is uncomfortable, but still preferable to any further delays between him and his home. So he takes a deep breath, puts his head down, and shuffles past the crowd to the elevator.
To his pleasant surprise, Waya takes no notice of him at all, only continues to wave his arms expressively through whatever diatribe to which he's treating the others. He doesn't hear his name so it's not about him for once and, grateful for the other pro's distraction, he mashes the button for the first floor and waits for the elevator to arrive. Props his shoulder against the wall beside the doors, shuts his eyes and lets his mind drift.
He's not paying any attention to the conversation going on a few feet away; he's too well-bred to eavesdrop, but the lilt and cadence of speech creates a rhythm he sinks into. So it's unavoidable when he catches the incredulous rise in Waya's voice, pitched to emphasize the disbelief in his words. “.... his whole room! Ceiling and everything! I mean, Shindou's always been weird, but this...”
The elevator dings practically in his ear, the doors sliding apart. Akira's eyes fly open, but the others are still ignoring him, and he barely recalls himself enough to stumble inside. They are still talking about Shindou, and kifu wallpaper when the doors close again, blocking out the sounds of Waya's voice. In the silence Akira closes his eyes again, imagining Hikaru in atari in a room of black and white.
~*~
By the time his schedule has relaxed enough to allow him to visit, Shindou's bedroom is bare once again.
“I ran out of space,” Hikaru tells him cheerily, as if this is perfectly normal; as if this shift in interest isn't utterly bizarre. “So I talked to the owner of that new art co-op space, told him I had a big mural project. Those studios are huge, did you know that? And they're not too expensive either. Don't worry,” he says, obviously thinking that Akira's frown is due to his lie about murals, rather than because he's acting so foolishly. “I'll make sure I pay on time, and I probably won't be there that long anyway. I just want to make it a perfect square. It's already more than sixty boards on a side, did I tell you?”
He smiles then, pleased with himself, and an uncomfortable feeling settles in the depths of Akira's stomach. More than anything, he wants to tell Shindou that he's being ridiculous. Obsessive. That he's wasting his time, that he's falling behind, and he's an idiot if he thinks Touya Akira is going to wait for him to catch up again. Meeting Shindou's guileless green eyes, he notes for the first time something strange moving behind the humor shining there. It's nothing he's ever seen before, he doesn't know what it means and if he could possibly be honest with himself about this, he'd admit that it scares him.
So instead, what comes out, softly, is, “Please be careful.”
~*~
Every time they play, there is a pad of kifu paper at Shindou's side.
It shouldn't bother him, but it does. It wouldn't bother him, except for the stories he's heard recently; Shindou, at the Institute, raiding the records room and zealously gathering every official game he can find. Pestering the insei for copies of their own practice games. Arguing loudly in the hallways with Kuwabara about his own personal collection until the old Honinbou finally relented and allowed him access to his library.
Shindou has long since made copies of all of their games, and were the reason not so distressing to him, Akira would admit that his friend's memory is more than impressive, for he copied them out with neither reference nor error. But he knows what this archive is for, and he sees the effects of it in the deepening shadows under Hikaru's eyes, and in the dark roots growing longer at the base of his bleached bangs. It tempts him to refuse to play, to try and use their games to leverage his rival away from the brink of madness, but he cannot make himself do it. When they play, it's the only time he understands Hikaru now.
And if anything, Hikaru's Go is improving. Of course it is, his most constant companions these days are thousands of sheets of game records; it's no surprise at all. His hands are still startling and unpredictable, intrinsically Shindou, but their elegance grows more pronounced with every game, and Akira has had to work harder than ever to maintain his advantage. It would excite him, were it not for the hollow feeling echoing in the pit of his stomach at the scratch of pencil on paper as Shindou records a hand.
And for what? To tack up on some bizarre mural of go stones and coincidence? Probability alone dictates that of course some alignments are possible, but to spend so much time seeking out those sequences is folly. Madness. People have accused Shindou of instability in the past, pointing at his erratic behavior early in his pro career, his confounding debut game with Touya Meijin, but Akira has always stood by his friend. Always defended his actions. It is painful to find himself second-guessing now, and questioning whether he has been blinded by loyalty.
“I have nothing,” Hikaru murmurs, head bowing over the board, and Akira lets out a long sigh before thanking him for the game. He's sweating; their casual contest has taken more out of him than most League games. Even his opponent sags, but then Hikaru is pointing at the stones and chattering with animation about the hands they played, the flaws in Akira's game, the might-have-beens of his own strategies. Just as he has a thousand times before...
It wouldn't bother him, but for the way Shindou's eyes keep creeping to the paper where their game is recorded, as if he's already trying to place it with the others; simply another piece in the infinite and aimless puzzle he's assembling.
~*~
“What?!”
“I know!” Shindou grins maniacally, and he is so clearly missing the point that for one wild moment Akira wants to flip a table over just to get his attention. “Who knew you can rent a whole warehouse? I mean, businesses, sure, but me? But I talked to the office and there wasn't any problem...”
“Shindou.” Akira grabs him by the upper arms, ungentle in his urgency to break past whatever it is that keeps Hikaru from seeing his own obsession. “You cannot rent a warehouse!”
“What? I just told you, I can. I did! And it's so cool, Touya, you have to come see...”
“No.” He forces his hands to uncurl from arms so alarmingly thin that he fears they might snap in his grasp. “No,” he repeats, calmer, feeling his face falling into stern lines and his control reasserting itself. “No one ever sees you anymore! You're a Go player, Shindou, and that's bad enough, we're practically recluses already, between our games and our studies and tutoring...”
“Oh, tutoring? I gave that up a while ago, don't have time for it.”
“Don't have...?” The admission lands like a punch to the gut, shattering the remaining veneer of politeness and decorum; professional players make the majority of their money from tutoring. They depend on it. Even his father, who'd held multiple titles, had continued teaching throughout his career, well aware that prize monies only went so far. Not tutoring is unthinkable. The words slip out, harsher than he'd intended, but if Shindou has lost his mind, maybe Akira has too. “What the hell are you doing to yourself?”
Green eyes open wide, opaque with shock, but beneath them his cheeks are hollow and Akira brushes past his friend without giving him a chance to reply. Storms into his kitchen, throws open the refrigerator- empty, of course- rifles though cabinets stocked only with the cheapest instant ramen, not even a single, lousy bag of rice to be found...
Shindou's follows after him, protesting. “Touya, what are you doing? I eat at my parent's a couple times a week, jeez, do you think my mom'd let me starve?...” It's all background noise, however, his mind busy totting up the inventory of Shindou's subsistence: no tea, no vegetables, no soup, no anything but the noodle packages, almost out of date. Once he's assured that the contents of Shindou's kitchen have been measured in full, Akira whirls on his friend, one long go-callused finger pointed accusingly right between Hikaru's startled eyes.
“Get your coat,” he demands. “We're going out.”
Shindou starts to protest; he has things to do, he's fine, Touya, god!, and he's expecting a package from Hong Su-Yeong any time now... and Akira's eyes narrow.
“Now,” he grinds out between clenched teeth.
Maybe it's a measure of how much anger and worry has slipped out of his control that Shindou stops arguing and obeys. Not without some grumbling, but that's so achingly normal that Akira doesn't care about the litany of complaints. Right now the old Shindou is back- his vibrant, impossible, thick-headed friend- and he refuses to let him go again without a fight.
~*~
Akira takes him to Shindou's favorite ramen shop, and isn't satisfied until the other boy finishes off three bowls. The shop offers bowls to go as well, and he's toying with the notion when he notices Shindou's sated, drowsy-eyed stare, and that makes up his mind. Food is not all Shindou has been lacking, so he drags him back to his apartment, becoming an immovable object in the doorway of the bedroom until Hikaru finally concedes that yes, he's a little tired, and perhaps a short nap wouldn't be so bad.
His friend is asleep practically from the moment his head hits the pillow, but Akira waits another half hour just to be sure. Leaves a note on the front door that threatens bodily harm should Hikaru go anywhere before he returns, takes Shindou's keys from the pocket of his discarded coat, and heads to the market on a mission to restock the kitchen.
He has no idea how it has come to this. Shindou has always been impulsive, always been a little odd, always a little too focused on his interests, but to find that he has been neglecting himself brings all the worry Akira has managed to suppress surging to the fore. This is his friend, his rival, after all, and he knows what that means, how rare such a person is. How irreplaceable. Standing in the produce section, clutching the four renkon he holds like a lifeline, he knows he'll do anything to persuade Shindou to drop this foolish obsession.
To stay with him.
Only when food is teetering precariously over the sides of his basket does he consider his shopping trip complete. He dumps it on the conveyor, fishing his wallet out of his pocket while the cashier starts ringing up the small mountain of supplies he's collected. And that's when it catches his eye. A veritable rainbow of colors; a display right beside the register, cheap cigarette lighters like Ogata owns by the handful. Akira stares at them, remembering loose sheets of paper climbing up a wall, rustling in dry little whispers from the breeze through the window. As if it belonged to someone else, his hand reaches out and closes around a red one, adding it to the diminishing pile on the conveyor.
He doesn't ask himself why.
~*~
Shindou looks a little better, but Akira isn't fooled. Something is wrong with Hikaru, deeply wrong, as serious as the secret that once drove him from Go itself. If he's not at the Institute or a scheduled game, he's busy copying kifu for his project, or gone missing in his warehouse. More than once Akira calls his cell only to find the call routed to voicemail, and he shouts until he's hoarse and attracting stares, demanding that Hikaru stop this nonsense, rest for a change, or actually see his friends once in a while.
He grows preoccupied with Shindou's health, worry gnawing at him constantly. It frays the edges of his concentration, especially during his own games, where he finds himself struggling to make up lost territory in yose all too often. Cutthroat battles, every one, which he can see reflected in his own private life. His reputation for an icy demeanor slowly fades, transmuting into something fiery, angry, and though he's been reduced to clawing like an animal to win, there is still respect and awe in his opponents' eyes, and murmurs at his back that echo with Shindou's name. Filled with amazement at how similar the two rivals truly are.
Why do none of them see?
He goes so far as to approach Isumi-san, bringing up his concerns with delicate circumspection. He is certain that the practical young man must be just as troubled as he over Shindou's strange behavior, but is shocked to his core when Isumi gently brushes his distress aside.
“Shindou's stronger than we give him credit for,” he says in the soft, polite way that Akira has until now found reassuring. “He's a little intense sometimes,” as you well know, his eyes say, though his mouth bends slightly around the omission, “but I'm sure he's fine. If anything were wrong, his games would show it.”
“We're losing him!” Akira insists, frightened, desperate for help, but the compassion in Isumi's eyes isn't for the one who needs it.
“Touya? Are you alright?”
No one understands.
Not even Shindou-san shares his suspicions, simply happy that her bewildering son visits her regularly. She has missed him, Akira realizes, and in the same moment understands that she never really knew Hikaru to begin with. Not like he has known him, his Go, and his passion, over the past few years. But that familiar presence, his other half, has been slipping away into grids and obsession and when Akira imagines that loss it feels like the world yawing off its axis, hanging him out over empty space.
He pulls his mind back from the precipice, instead idly flicking the red lighter and watching the flame dip and dance above the hood. Thinks with quiet desperation of interventions and ramen stands, and secrets shared in the pa-chi of stones on kaya.
~*~
He doesn't see Shindou for weeks. Their schedules are perpetually at odds, and his calls ring through to voicemail so often that he wonders if Hikaru even checks it anymore. Maybe his friend's bright yellow cellphone is lying somewhere in his apartment, dead and forgotten, a relic of its owner's former life. Maybe Hikaru doesn't even go home anymore.
He cannot breathe.
Some nights it feels like the past repeating itself, like that horrible time when Shindou fell out of Akira's life completely. Something like panic tries to seize him then, freezing in his chest, and Akira will fumble for the red lighter, watching the flame lick up each time he strikes it. It soothes the fear, but never quite fills the emptiness.
He finally catches Shindou leaving the Institute one chilly afternoon, and after a short but vehement squabble just outside the door Hikaru shrugs, and invites him along. “I'd planned on showing you eventually,” he explains with a smile that makes Akira ache, “but if you're interested now...”
They end up traveling through stations he's has never visited before, following some obscure map in Shindou's head, until the train carries them to the kind of seedy industrial district he's only seen on television programs. Tall warehouses line the roads, and there are only a few people moving briskly between them as they go about their business. It's the exact kind of place he'd never have gone on his own, but Hikaru walks past the buildings with the same ease he shows everywhere, an obvious outsider, yet perfectly at home.
They stop before a large, square building, distinguishable from all the others only in that this is their destination. “Sorry, it's kind of messy,” Hikaru tells him, still grinning, fumbling a set of keys free from his pocket. “I would have cleaned it up a little if I'd known I'd be bringing you along today.” His cheeks are chapped red from the wind and the cold, and Akira thinks things like, this has gone too far, and, it has to stop, but says nothing. The red lighter is tucked in his coat pocket, and he closes his fist around it, imagining pale flame and the clean expanse of an empty goban.
The hallway that the door opens into is dusty, making his nose tingle as he fights back a sneeze, but Shindou plows forward, unaffected. “You were right, you know,” he tosses over his shoulder, his voice conversational and light as he points the way down the hall. “About Sai's game. About all of them. Only... it's so much bigger than that, Touya. So much more.”
There's another door, opening into blackness and dry little whispers like the voices of ghosts. They crawl across his skin with little insect feet, but Hikaru steps forward and vanishes, swallowed by the void, his words reaching back to Akira as though he were still at his side. “I wanted to wait until it was finished to show you,” he says. “But I think I've figured out that it won't ever be done...”
His nerves jangle like the echoes of Shindou's voice, bouncing between the dirty walls, but his throat may as well be solid for all he can force out speech. And he thinks no, and stop, and please, but he knows with utter certainty that Shindou can't hear him. He can't hear anyone now, only those horrible, spidery voices, pushing him further into obsession, deeper into madness, and he just wants his friend to be the way he once was. Back in the world, across the goban, safe and sane and with him where he belongs.
Light floods the cavernous space, unexpectedly bright, and Akira throws an arm up to shield his eyes while the whispers swell into a sibilant chorus; paper and history, and it ends here. The lighter presses against his palm, and as the dazzle in his eyes fades, for one mad instant he wonders if the hush of its flame would drown out the chatter of Shindou's folly, burn through it and leave pure, clean silence in its wake. Then the thought is gone, he can see, and he looks up--
There is no beginning, no end. Tiny squares of paper, each perfectly matched to their companions, climb up the walls, across the ceilings, and if he could only breathe he might wonder at how Shindou managed to place them there. But Akira cannot manage a single coherent thought. Forms climb around him, circle and twine above him, in shapes both familiar and phantasmagoric. A universe in binary; black and white pinpoints in a dance as elegant as the constellations, a conversation between God and infinity in an ancient, cryptic language, and if he tries hard enough he can almost understand...
The lighter drops from a nerveless hand.
He's sinking; he's flying; he's caught in the middle of everything, and Akira's legs give way beneath him but he never feels the impact. Vaguely, he senses Hikaru at his side, a flutter of words in his ear, but he's laughing now, wild and helpless, caught amid the vast weave of go stones, of life, his sense of self lost in the lattices of the grand game. A stone, a word, a breath from the God of Go, a dust mote drifting across the vastness of the universe. Nothing at all.
Hikaru is frantic now, shouting; hands tug at him, eyes wide and red, but it's too much, too great. He sways to and fro, insensate, as Hikaru tries desperately to haul him back from the abyss; Akira's eyes fall shut, laughing, crying, and he is already gone.
*jisatsu is the Japanese term for a suicide play in Go, or self-capture. This is illegal under the Japanese ruleset, although there are other rulesets (Chinese rules, for example) that do allow this kind of play.
Author:
pandoraculpaCharacters: Hikaru, Akira
Rating: PG-13? For Crazy?
Summary: Some things aren't meant to be known.
A/N: Sorry, this is kind of an odd piece. It grew out of a writing game I was playing with a few friends. We were writing trope subversions, and this piece was meant to subvert the room full of crazy trope. I did this in my usual manner; that is to say, sidestepping and then going completely off the rails.
This story is unbeta-ed, and any critiques would be welcomed and appreciated.
It's Sunday, and he and Shindou are arguing, as usual. The floor around them is littered with hundreds of kifu from a single player, extraordinary and elusive; an impressive collection of NetGo games. They've been dissecting his play for hours, and Akira feels his temper beginning to fray as he points at a shape in a particular game.
“Will you shut up and look? It's an obvious progression from the game with Matsuda5Dan! See right here, how he responds to Fireman583's invasion? It's the same situation he faced with Michi_chan the week prior, but here, his response is totally different. He used the same strategy his pro opponent did, only he did it better.”
Hikaru's brows draw in tighter, and Akira braces himself for another round of shouting. But in one of the whiplash shifts of mood he's come to associate with his rival, the other boy's eyes suddenly light in recognition. “Hey, you're right!” he exclaims before screwing up his face in a comical expression of indignation. “Not that you get to rub that in, Touya, I'd have seen it eventually anyway. Jeez. But this...” His words trail out into contemplative silence, and Touya- silently basking in his victory- rubs his chin, struck by an unexpected thought.
“There was always something unusual about Sai's games. The times I observed, I always felt he was playing something bigger than what I could see,” he says slowly, unsure of how Shindou will react. “I mean, he was always focused on the game at hand, but... it was as though he was seeing more. Beyond the board.” He shakes his head, frustrated. “I'm not explaining this well.”
Shindou just shrugs in reply. “He knew a lot,” he says, as if Touya doesn't know that already.
“Yes, but it was more than that-” He doesn't get any further, as Hikaru grabs a sheet from the pile with a cry of surprise.
“Hey, check this out!” Folding back the edges of the paper, he lays the new kifu alongside the Matsuda5Dan game they'd been studying. Oddly, the stones on the bottom line of the Matsuda game match up perfectly with the pattern of black and white on the top line of the new kifu, and Hikaru laughs, pointing at the two records. “Maybe it's a bigger game!”
Akira just snorts. “Right. Nevermind. You never take me seriously. Let's play a game, Shindou, we've been studying all morning.”
The next time Akira visits there's a collage of kifu decorating Shindou's bedroom wall above his bed.
“What in the world...?”
“Remember how those games of Sai's matched up? I thought it would be fun to see if any others did too,” he explains, laughing, but Akira thinks he might be serious. “And a lot of them do match up. See?”
Indeed they do. There is a messy pile of kifu still lying across the foot of his bed, but fifty or more game records, are taped to the wall, fitting neatly against one another, the shapes of their stones continuing seamlessly as though they had been played on one massive board. It doesn't make a perfect square, however; the edges are ragged, and open books lay scattered on Hikaru's bed and floor, more black and white designs on display. Following Akira's gaze, Hikaru laughs and rubs the back of his neck. He looks embarrassed.
“I thought I'd look at Shusaku's Castle games. See if they fit too.”
“Why?” The question is blunt, probably moreso than is polite, but Akira has long known that Hikaru doesn't care. And although the twining designs of black and white are interesting in their own way, Shindou has the Tengen League matches to prepare for, and some of the opponents he is scheduled to play won't give him easy games. What Shindou has made is a curious, but ultimately useless, collage.
But Shindou is looking at it with something like pride. “I got to thinking more about what you said. About how Sai's games felt like they were part of something bigger. And then I thought, wouldn't that be something to see? So I printed them out, and they did fit, and isn't it cool?”
He thinks Hikaru is waiting for him to say something. But all he can think to do is scold him for wasting time, or maybe pursue asking why he should add Shusaku's games to Sai's collage. But that would only start the kind of fight he doesn't care to have this afternoon, so after a moment Akira rolls his eyes, sighing. “I hope you don't think I'm going to go easy on you today just because you've been doing crafts instead of studying.”
Shindou's eyes gleam happily. “Hah, you wish! Do your worst, I'm still gonna make you resign before yose!”
“Big words,” Akira scoffs, and they adjourn to the goban to let their stones speak for them.
He forgets Shindou's strange new diversion the next week while he's in Hokkaido for a series of exhibitions. By the time he returns to Tokyo he's exhausted, and all he wants is a long soak in the bath and a long sleep on his own futon. But there has been an emergency reshuffling of games, and his own are affected, so instead of heading home he dutifully makes his way across the city to the Institute.
He's weary, his temples pounding with every beat of his heart and his feet ache badly enough to make him limp. So once he's finally straightened out his schedule and is free to leave, when he sees Waya talking loudly with a small group of insei in front of the elevators, he just doesn't have the energy to wait him out or take the stairs. Facing the other pro's poorly veiled dislike is uncomfortable, but still preferable to any further delays between him and his home. So he takes a deep breath, puts his head down, and shuffles past the crowd to the elevator.
To his pleasant surprise, Waya takes no notice of him at all, only continues to wave his arms expressively through whatever diatribe to which he's treating the others. He doesn't hear his name so it's not about him for once and, grateful for the other pro's distraction, he mashes the button for the first floor and waits for the elevator to arrive. Props his shoulder against the wall beside the doors, shuts his eyes and lets his mind drift.
He's not paying any attention to the conversation going on a few feet away; he's too well-bred to eavesdrop, but the lilt and cadence of speech creates a rhythm he sinks into. So it's unavoidable when he catches the incredulous rise in Waya's voice, pitched to emphasize the disbelief in his words. “.... his whole room! Ceiling and everything! I mean, Shindou's always been weird, but this...”
The elevator dings practically in his ear, the doors sliding apart. Akira's eyes fly open, but the others are still ignoring him, and he barely recalls himself enough to stumble inside. They are still talking about Shindou, and kifu wallpaper when the doors close again, blocking out the sounds of Waya's voice. In the silence Akira closes his eyes again, imagining Hikaru in atari in a room of black and white.
By the time his schedule has relaxed enough to allow him to visit, Shindou's bedroom is bare once again.
“I ran out of space,” Hikaru tells him cheerily, as if this is perfectly normal; as if this shift in interest isn't utterly bizarre. “So I talked to the owner of that new art co-op space, told him I had a big mural project. Those studios are huge, did you know that? And they're not too expensive either. Don't worry,” he says, obviously thinking that Akira's frown is due to his lie about murals, rather than because he's acting so foolishly. “I'll make sure I pay on time, and I probably won't be there that long anyway. I just want to make it a perfect square. It's already more than sixty boards on a side, did I tell you?”
He smiles then, pleased with himself, and an uncomfortable feeling settles in the depths of Akira's stomach. More than anything, he wants to tell Shindou that he's being ridiculous. Obsessive. That he's wasting his time, that he's falling behind, and he's an idiot if he thinks Touya Akira is going to wait for him to catch up again. Meeting Shindou's guileless green eyes, he notes for the first time something strange moving behind the humor shining there. It's nothing he's ever seen before, he doesn't know what it means and if he could possibly be honest with himself about this, he'd admit that it scares him.
So instead, what comes out, softly, is, “Please be careful.”
Every time they play, there is a pad of kifu paper at Shindou's side.
It shouldn't bother him, but it does. It wouldn't bother him, except for the stories he's heard recently; Shindou, at the Institute, raiding the records room and zealously gathering every official game he can find. Pestering the insei for copies of their own practice games. Arguing loudly in the hallways with Kuwabara about his own personal collection until the old Honinbou finally relented and allowed him access to his library.
Shindou has long since made copies of all of their games, and were the reason not so distressing to him, Akira would admit that his friend's memory is more than impressive, for he copied them out with neither reference nor error. But he knows what this archive is for, and he sees the effects of it in the deepening shadows under Hikaru's eyes, and in the dark roots growing longer at the base of his bleached bangs. It tempts him to refuse to play, to try and use their games to leverage his rival away from the brink of madness, but he cannot make himself do it. When they play, it's the only time he understands Hikaru now.
And if anything, Hikaru's Go is improving. Of course it is, his most constant companions these days are thousands of sheets of game records; it's no surprise at all. His hands are still startling and unpredictable, intrinsically Shindou, but their elegance grows more pronounced with every game, and Akira has had to work harder than ever to maintain his advantage. It would excite him, were it not for the hollow feeling echoing in the pit of his stomach at the scratch of pencil on paper as Shindou records a hand.
And for what? To tack up on some bizarre mural of go stones and coincidence? Probability alone dictates that of course some alignments are possible, but to spend so much time seeking out those sequences is folly. Madness. People have accused Shindou of instability in the past, pointing at his erratic behavior early in his pro career, his confounding debut game with Touya Meijin, but Akira has always stood by his friend. Always defended his actions. It is painful to find himself second-guessing now, and questioning whether he has been blinded by loyalty.
“I have nothing,” Hikaru murmurs, head bowing over the board, and Akira lets out a long sigh before thanking him for the game. He's sweating; their casual contest has taken more out of him than most League games. Even his opponent sags, but then Hikaru is pointing at the stones and chattering with animation about the hands they played, the flaws in Akira's game, the might-have-beens of his own strategies. Just as he has a thousand times before...
It wouldn't bother him, but for the way Shindou's eyes keep creeping to the paper where their game is recorded, as if he's already trying to place it with the others; simply another piece in the infinite and aimless puzzle he's assembling.
“What?!”
“I know!” Shindou grins maniacally, and he is so clearly missing the point that for one wild moment Akira wants to flip a table over just to get his attention. “Who knew you can rent a whole warehouse? I mean, businesses, sure, but me? But I talked to the office and there wasn't any problem...”
“Shindou.” Akira grabs him by the upper arms, ungentle in his urgency to break past whatever it is that keeps Hikaru from seeing his own obsession. “You cannot rent a warehouse!”
“What? I just told you, I can. I did! And it's so cool, Touya, you have to come see...”
“No.” He forces his hands to uncurl from arms so alarmingly thin that he fears they might snap in his grasp. “No,” he repeats, calmer, feeling his face falling into stern lines and his control reasserting itself. “No one ever sees you anymore! You're a Go player, Shindou, and that's bad enough, we're practically recluses already, between our games and our studies and tutoring...”
“Oh, tutoring? I gave that up a while ago, don't have time for it.”
“Don't have...?” The admission lands like a punch to the gut, shattering the remaining veneer of politeness and decorum; professional players make the majority of their money from tutoring. They depend on it. Even his father, who'd held multiple titles, had continued teaching throughout his career, well aware that prize monies only went so far. Not tutoring is unthinkable. The words slip out, harsher than he'd intended, but if Shindou has lost his mind, maybe Akira has too. “What the hell are you doing to yourself?”
Green eyes open wide, opaque with shock, but beneath them his cheeks are hollow and Akira brushes past his friend without giving him a chance to reply. Storms into his kitchen, throws open the refrigerator- empty, of course- rifles though cabinets stocked only with the cheapest instant ramen, not even a single, lousy bag of rice to be found...
Shindou's follows after him, protesting. “Touya, what are you doing? I eat at my parent's a couple times a week, jeez, do you think my mom'd let me starve?...” It's all background noise, however, his mind busy totting up the inventory of Shindou's subsistence: no tea, no vegetables, no soup, no anything but the noodle packages, almost out of date. Once he's assured that the contents of Shindou's kitchen have been measured in full, Akira whirls on his friend, one long go-callused finger pointed accusingly right between Hikaru's startled eyes.
“Get your coat,” he demands. “We're going out.”
Shindou starts to protest; he has things to do, he's fine, Touya, god!, and he's expecting a package from Hong Su-Yeong any time now... and Akira's eyes narrow.
“Now,” he grinds out between clenched teeth.
Maybe it's a measure of how much anger and worry has slipped out of his control that Shindou stops arguing and obeys. Not without some grumbling, but that's so achingly normal that Akira doesn't care about the litany of complaints. Right now the old Shindou is back- his vibrant, impossible, thick-headed friend- and he refuses to let him go again without a fight.
Akira takes him to Shindou's favorite ramen shop, and isn't satisfied until the other boy finishes off three bowls. The shop offers bowls to go as well, and he's toying with the notion when he notices Shindou's sated, drowsy-eyed stare, and that makes up his mind. Food is not all Shindou has been lacking, so he drags him back to his apartment, becoming an immovable object in the doorway of the bedroom until Hikaru finally concedes that yes, he's a little tired, and perhaps a short nap wouldn't be so bad.
His friend is asleep practically from the moment his head hits the pillow, but Akira waits another half hour just to be sure. Leaves a note on the front door that threatens bodily harm should Hikaru go anywhere before he returns, takes Shindou's keys from the pocket of his discarded coat, and heads to the market on a mission to restock the kitchen.
He has no idea how it has come to this. Shindou has always been impulsive, always been a little odd, always a little too focused on his interests, but to find that he has been neglecting himself brings all the worry Akira has managed to suppress surging to the fore. This is his friend, his rival, after all, and he knows what that means, how rare such a person is. How irreplaceable. Standing in the produce section, clutching the four renkon he holds like a lifeline, he knows he'll do anything to persuade Shindou to drop this foolish obsession.
To stay with him.
Only when food is teetering precariously over the sides of his basket does he consider his shopping trip complete. He dumps it on the conveyor, fishing his wallet out of his pocket while the cashier starts ringing up the small mountain of supplies he's collected. And that's when it catches his eye. A veritable rainbow of colors; a display right beside the register, cheap cigarette lighters like Ogata owns by the handful. Akira stares at them, remembering loose sheets of paper climbing up a wall, rustling in dry little whispers from the breeze through the window. As if it belonged to someone else, his hand reaches out and closes around a red one, adding it to the diminishing pile on the conveyor.
He doesn't ask himself why.
Shindou looks a little better, but Akira isn't fooled. Something is wrong with Hikaru, deeply wrong, as serious as the secret that once drove him from Go itself. If he's not at the Institute or a scheduled game, he's busy copying kifu for his project, or gone missing in his warehouse. More than once Akira calls his cell only to find the call routed to voicemail, and he shouts until he's hoarse and attracting stares, demanding that Hikaru stop this nonsense, rest for a change, or actually see his friends once in a while.
He grows preoccupied with Shindou's health, worry gnawing at him constantly. It frays the edges of his concentration, especially during his own games, where he finds himself struggling to make up lost territory in yose all too often. Cutthroat battles, every one, which he can see reflected in his own private life. His reputation for an icy demeanor slowly fades, transmuting into something fiery, angry, and though he's been reduced to clawing like an animal to win, there is still respect and awe in his opponents' eyes, and murmurs at his back that echo with Shindou's name. Filled with amazement at how similar the two rivals truly are.
Why do none of them see?
He goes so far as to approach Isumi-san, bringing up his concerns with delicate circumspection. He is certain that the practical young man must be just as troubled as he over Shindou's strange behavior, but is shocked to his core when Isumi gently brushes his distress aside.
“Shindou's stronger than we give him credit for,” he says in the soft, polite way that Akira has until now found reassuring. “He's a little intense sometimes,” as you well know, his eyes say, though his mouth bends slightly around the omission, “but I'm sure he's fine. If anything were wrong, his games would show it.”
“We're losing him!” Akira insists, frightened, desperate for help, but the compassion in Isumi's eyes isn't for the one who needs it.
“Touya? Are you alright?”
No one understands.
Not even Shindou-san shares his suspicions, simply happy that her bewildering son visits her regularly. She has missed him, Akira realizes, and in the same moment understands that she never really knew Hikaru to begin with. Not like he has known him, his Go, and his passion, over the past few years. But that familiar presence, his other half, has been slipping away into grids and obsession and when Akira imagines that loss it feels like the world yawing off its axis, hanging him out over empty space.
He pulls his mind back from the precipice, instead idly flicking the red lighter and watching the flame dip and dance above the hood. Thinks with quiet desperation of interventions and ramen stands, and secrets shared in the pa-chi of stones on kaya.
He doesn't see Shindou for weeks. Their schedules are perpetually at odds, and his calls ring through to voicemail so often that he wonders if Hikaru even checks it anymore. Maybe his friend's bright yellow cellphone is lying somewhere in his apartment, dead and forgotten, a relic of its owner's former life. Maybe Hikaru doesn't even go home anymore.
He cannot breathe.
Some nights it feels like the past repeating itself, like that horrible time when Shindou fell out of Akira's life completely. Something like panic tries to seize him then, freezing in his chest, and Akira will fumble for the red lighter, watching the flame lick up each time he strikes it. It soothes the fear, but never quite fills the emptiness.
He finally catches Shindou leaving the Institute one chilly afternoon, and after a short but vehement squabble just outside the door Hikaru shrugs, and invites him along. “I'd planned on showing you eventually,” he explains with a smile that makes Akira ache, “but if you're interested now...”
They end up traveling through stations he's has never visited before, following some obscure map in Shindou's head, until the train carries them to the kind of seedy industrial district he's only seen on television programs. Tall warehouses line the roads, and there are only a few people moving briskly between them as they go about their business. It's the exact kind of place he'd never have gone on his own, but Hikaru walks past the buildings with the same ease he shows everywhere, an obvious outsider, yet perfectly at home.
They stop before a large, square building, distinguishable from all the others only in that this is their destination. “Sorry, it's kind of messy,” Hikaru tells him, still grinning, fumbling a set of keys free from his pocket. “I would have cleaned it up a little if I'd known I'd be bringing you along today.” His cheeks are chapped red from the wind and the cold, and Akira thinks things like, this has gone too far, and, it has to stop, but says nothing. The red lighter is tucked in his coat pocket, and he closes his fist around it, imagining pale flame and the clean expanse of an empty goban.
The hallway that the door opens into is dusty, making his nose tingle as he fights back a sneeze, but Shindou plows forward, unaffected. “You were right, you know,” he tosses over his shoulder, his voice conversational and light as he points the way down the hall. “About Sai's game. About all of them. Only... it's so much bigger than that, Touya. So much more.”
There's another door, opening into blackness and dry little whispers like the voices of ghosts. They crawl across his skin with little insect feet, but Hikaru steps forward and vanishes, swallowed by the void, his words reaching back to Akira as though he were still at his side. “I wanted to wait until it was finished to show you,” he says. “But I think I've figured out that it won't ever be done...”
His nerves jangle like the echoes of Shindou's voice, bouncing between the dirty walls, but his throat may as well be solid for all he can force out speech. And he thinks no, and stop, and please, but he knows with utter certainty that Shindou can't hear him. He can't hear anyone now, only those horrible, spidery voices, pushing him further into obsession, deeper into madness, and he just wants his friend to be the way he once was. Back in the world, across the goban, safe and sane and with him where he belongs.
Light floods the cavernous space, unexpectedly bright, and Akira throws an arm up to shield his eyes while the whispers swell into a sibilant chorus; paper and history, and it ends here. The lighter presses against his palm, and as the dazzle in his eyes fades, for one mad instant he wonders if the hush of its flame would drown out the chatter of Shindou's folly, burn through it and leave pure, clean silence in its wake. Then the thought is gone, he can see, and he looks up--
There is no beginning, no end. Tiny squares of paper, each perfectly matched to their companions, climb up the walls, across the ceilings, and if he could only breathe he might wonder at how Shindou managed to place them there. But Akira cannot manage a single coherent thought. Forms climb around him, circle and twine above him, in shapes both familiar and phantasmagoric. A universe in binary; black and white pinpoints in a dance as elegant as the constellations, a conversation between God and infinity in an ancient, cryptic language, and if he tries hard enough he can almost understand...
The lighter drops from a nerveless hand.
He's sinking; he's flying; he's caught in the middle of everything, and Akira's legs give way beneath him but he never feels the impact. Vaguely, he senses Hikaru at his side, a flutter of words in his ear, but he's laughing now, wild and helpless, caught amid the vast weave of go stones, of life, his sense of self lost in the lattices of the grand game. A stone, a word, a breath from the God of Go, a dust mote drifting across the vastness of the universe. Nothing at all.
Hikaru is frantic now, shouting; hands tug at him, eyes wide and red, but it's too much, too great. He sways to and fro, insensate, as Hikaru tries desperately to haul him back from the abyss; Akira's eyes fall shut, laughing, crying, and he is already gone.
*jisatsu is the Japanese term for a suicide play in Go, or self-capture. This is illegal under the Japanese ruleset, although there are other rulesets (Chinese rules, for example) that do allow this kind of play.
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Date: 2013-03-19 06:03 am (UTC)Touya makes for a great unreliable narrator. I think the scene with Isumi really clinched it for me.
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Date: 2013-03-19 05:43 pm (UTC)And of course, my brain switched out 'laughing place' with 'crazy room', and also inverted the pronouns, and suddenly Hikaru is creating this room full of obsession and insanity and weird truths that no one was ever meant to see, and becoming a Divine Fool type of character in the process, too naive to be endangered by the arcane, dangerous shit he's tapped into. And it's Akira, led by his concern for Hikaru and his inflexible nature, who becomes the victim of the place Hikaru has made.
Also, I play Go, and may be a little nuts as well. There is that. ;)
So- that's probably a longer answer than you really cared about, but there you go. I'm glad that you enjoyed the story. Hopefully, I'll have another one up as well sometime; there's a much longer piece I'm trying to wrestle into submission, but it's a cantankerous, tricksome beast, with a very odd structure. Been working on it for over a year now, but I sincerely hope to have it under control before too long. It's one of those weird monster children writers give birth to from time to time, but I love it all the same.
Thanks for reading! And I hope I didn't scare you off with all my silly blather! :D
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Date: 2013-03-20 12:11 am (UTC)I like your brand of crazy and am looking forward to seeing your next monster! (Why am I not surprised that you play go?)