Listen

Hikaru, at the age of twelve, was loud, bright, present. He did what he wanted to and spoke without thinking but he was never a deliberately mean person. He was just the centre of his own universe, much like any other teenage boy.

Sai was also someone who drew attention to himself, though in a very different way. Hikaru was now the only one who could see him, and he was not the most observant of people, but even he recognized that there was something about Sai that stood out. The ghost was childish at times, but sometimes, sometimes he was as silent and mysterious as an ocean by night or cloud covered mountains in the distance.

It took Hikaru a while to get used to having a constant companion. One who would annoy him, lecture him, pester him for games, and ask him about modern inventions. At times, though he would never admit it, he felt like he had an older brother.

And at times he felt like he was the older brother himself.

Either way, he got used to it. He learned to tune out Sai's dramatic gestures and chatter – managed to ignore the ghost when he was once again overcome with emotions by a game of Go or by Hikaru's supposed rudeness.

What he never managed to block out were the moments of silence. At first, when he had just met the ghost, he didn't even notice, or was glad for a moment's peace. But as the months passed and Hikaru got used to the ghost constantly by his side those silences became louder than Sai's words.

Hikaru had never paid that much attention to Sai's lectures. But there were some that he had heard so many times now that he could predict them and sometimes chose to avoid them – because of that he gained a slight hint of politeness whenever he wasn't in the mood for Sai's loud admonishments.

The teenage boy had never cared much for studying either, but he had learned that it was different when it came to Go. That Go wasn't just an old man's game, but a whole new world, a battlefield, a dynamic – almost living – thing.

He had learned that he was not the centre of his own universe – that a universe was far bigger than just its central part. That every one of those spaces on a 19-by-19 grid could be of the utmost importance.

He still tuned out his ghostly friend, teased him or distracted him with a game of Go. But by now Hikaru also knew to take notice when those silences stretched between them. When Sai's focus seemed far away from the world he now inhabited and the ghost finally started speaking again, softly, almost hesitantly, with a voice still as distant as the stars – that was when he listened, that was when Sai would get his full attention. Not because Hikaru was all that interested with what Sai had to say – because half the time he didn't fully understand it, couldn't fully understand what the ghost was talking about – but because a part of him knew that more than anything that was when Sai needed him to listen.

So through the months, with a chattering, ghostly companion, Hikaru learned the value of black and white stones that could build universes – and he learned that his own universe, filled with his own large presence, had room for others as well. He learned about words that, whether spoken or unspoken in the silence, needed to be heard.

Now, with Sai far beyond his reach, Hikaru could still hear his voice. Not only in the lectures that he knew by heart, or in the ghost's childish enthusiasm for Go that he could almost picture whenever a tournament or Go event took place. But also in the silent universe of the Go board, where Sai still showed him that an universe was build from black and white, from words and silence, from speaking and listening – and showed him that there was always a path that would lead him to where he needed to go.