fragmentation;
01.
Touya Kouyo dies on a fine spring morning with his hands folded and the usual goban sitting no more than a few feet away from him. The atmosphere isn't dank though, Touya thinks; it feels like every other morning. His father is sleeping. Just sleeping, that's all. And he says so, when the interviewers surround him with microphones and cameras. "It doesn't feel like he's gone," he admits amidst the noise, the questions, and he watches the small red light on the camera blink before the camera switches off completely.
His mother's face is pale when it's all over, and Akira is careful with her when he leads her back into the house. When he does, she looks too thin and her shoulder blades look too sharp and her bones feel too fragile, too light and too old. The strength she uses to grip his hand doesn't feel real, feels like if he were to bump her wrist, the bone would shatter completely under his mere touch. He lets her rest under the dim light her husband's room and Akira takes notice, suddenly, of how old she looks, how old she must feel in that moment.
Then she begins to cry, a broken sob echoing in the empty room. Akira closes his eyes and listens to his mother's quiet sobbing, hands folded behind his back politely, wondering what exactly his father would do in this type of situation.
It takes a while for him to remember. Akira breathes in sharply and covers his mouth with his left hand. It hadn't just been another spring morning. Father had not been sleeping. Touya Kouyo is gone.
Akira excuses himself from the room quickly and gasps, head spinning. Father is gone. The words ring still so foreign in his ears, and still, Akira cannot bring himself to cry.
The night is quiet and sullen at the Touya household, and the sound of Go stones clacking against wood resounds according to.
to be continued.