Marked (Hikaru no Go - snippet)
First snippet in ages and kind of HEAVY HANDED because I'm just at the bit where Touya says, "Mou, nido to kimi no mae ni wa arawarenai," and I'm still hung up on the bit where he says, "Utsukushi ikkyoku da ta... demo kuyashii yo, taikyokusha ga naze boku janaindarou?"




Marked


The first time they had played in Hikaru's room, it was really weird. Hikaru had been creeped out and nervy because Touya, still not quite his friend, was bringing the intensity of their go into his room; and, sure, he'd played Isumi here and Akari but more than anyone else this was the place where he had played Sai.

"Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

Remembering kicking back here over lunch and go with Akari, Hikaru said, "I dunno if you have to say that when we're playing just the two of us for fun."

Touya paused; in fact Touya stopped as though he had ground to a halt in the face of a new idea.

"Does that mean . . . we're not taking this game seriously?"

"Uh, no. No," said Hikaru quickly. "Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

They played here sometimes. The games were different. They took chances, experimented as they might not around onlookers or any whiff of a kifu.

Sometimes patterns emerged that were too well-remembered and Hikaru had to shy away from them, feeling his way in the dark. He thought at first that Touya was drawing him intentionally into the familiar, but maybe there was something about Sai's hands that drew them both. He wished his games with Touya were not fraught with this kind of danger.

It had never occurred to Hikaru to pretend that he was Sai. Hikaru was Hikaru and Sai was Sai, a distinct and separate person; occasionally kind of a pain in the ass who caused confusion by playing games through Hikaru's body. He'd never thought as far as--that if he'd let Sai play more often he'd have won more often and people would have thought, That Shindou kid's cool. What was the point of people thinking that if they were just thinking it about Sai?

But as he grew older, he realized that was what Shuusaku must have done: hidden behind Sai's go and pretended that Sai's ability was his own. When he studied those old kifu he sometimes wondered about Shuusaku. Had he been a strong player in his own right? What had he felt when people slapped him on the back and said, Yo Shuusaku, great game?

His mother brought them tea, smiling and knocking on the door of Hikaru's room. She seemed to like Touya; still smiling, impressed that he went to Kaio and answered, "Yes, Mrs Shindou," when she asked if he was keeping up his studies.

Sunlight streamed in his window. Touya was developing a complex attack in the top right hand corner of the board, and Hikaru could see the way through, the moves clear points of light.

His mother left the tea steaming on its wooden tray; Hikaru was barely aware of it, somewhere he heard Touya say, "Thank you, Mrs Shindou," somewhere he heard the door of his room close. The still silence of concentration tied him to the goban, because the answer was--

Hand poised to place his stone Hikaru paused and felt the single beat in his chest as though on an anvil. This was exactly the hand that Sai had played against Touya on the internet, and Touya was watching him.

He played his stone on the other side of the board, angry that it was suddenly about this, and giving up a great deal of territory.

He saw that Touya's hand had become a fist.

"You did that on purpose."

"Well, yeah, I'm building up my defences in this corner."

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I've got no clue what you meant. You're stalling 'cause you're stumped by my awesome move."

The next stone was on the board before Hikaru had time to blink. Touya hadn't bothered replying verbally, the speed of his play was answer enough: Hikaru had played a crappy hand and Touya was going to have no trouble finishing him off. He knew that look in Touya's eyes. Jeez, and he'd been doing so well until that last hopeless move.

A few stone clicks later Hikaru sprawled back, leaning his weight on his hands.

"I resign."

"You threw the game."

"I wish."

"You threw the game," said Touya.

"What is with you today? I think we should quit it and play, like, Monopoly or something."

Touya's eyes were grey storm clouds.

"I thought you threw that game as well. I thought you were just--fooling around with me, refusing to show me your real strength. I thought you were pretending to be this weak useless sanshou because you didn't take your true ability seriously and you just wanted to goof off with your friends in the Go Club."

"You don't have to go on and on about how bad I was back then," muttered Hikaru. "Look, that's not how it was. I wasn't playing around. You were just better than me. I don't want to--Can't we just play without bringing up all of this? I've told you, someday I'll explain everything." His brows had drawn into a frown.

"Someday," said Touya.

"That's right," said Hikaru.

Touya said, "You know how he played against me that time."

"I'm not Sai," Hikaru said, flushing slowly. "I'm Hikaru."

He watched Touya not accept it. He'd wanted to tell Touya about it, some day when they were comfortable together, hanging out, when he could express the intangible stuff of Sai, his childish demands and his ineffable genius. He wanted to share all of that with Touya, not have it dragged from him. But the past, he knew, was like an unsolvable problem to Touya, who poured over it, who was tangled up in it for all of his driving progress forward.

This was another aspect of Sai that Hikaru was slowly coming to understand: his selfishness. Sai had thrown lives into confusion without a second thought in his single-minded obsession with go; from the height of a thousand years experience he'd challenged a sixth grader and demolished him, not caring what he was leaving in his wake, or what he was setting in motion. Hikaru wondered that about Shuusaku, about how much of himself he had allowed to be flattened by the burning desire that had brought Sai back from the dead. Just one more game. Let me play.

"I think if I keep playing you," said Touya, "I'll get to the heart of it. I'll unlock the thing I've been chasing. You. Your power. And mine--my true power, One day we'll face each other like that. And more than anything I want to be your equal when that day comes. Is that how it is for you?"

"Yes," lied Hikaru, because he knew that what they were chasing was not quite each other; a memory, and he'd never thought of anyone but Touya as his rival, but that day wouldn't come until they'd grown strong enough to challenge what they'd both learned to judge themselves by: Sai.