For stillskies after request 3: Akari - giving up and letting go
'Walking the dog'
or 'What if'
Every evening she walks the dog. It's not her dog but her older sister's, but since Fujisaki Meiko left to live in a collage dorm where no pets are allowed, it has fallen on Akari to walk the dog.
Not that she minds in the least; it's a very nice dog and the walk gives her time to think about her day. It also gives her a good excuse to walk by her best friend's house and there is no one who can blame her for looking up to his window wistfully, to see if there is a light on inside.
Shindou Hikaru used to be her very best friend, but what with him attending a different class in school and going to Go school on Saturdays and pretty much dropping out of the the school Go club altogether, they really talked maybe only once a week when Akari came around on her dog-walk on Sundays. Sometimes he'd join her, but not often anymore.
On the plus side, he seems to get into trouble less than he used to, and Akari has to admit that means she herself was staying out of trouble too. And she loves Go, something that Hikaru has given her. If only he'd come back to the school Go club, as a tutor maybe, ah, that would be so nice.
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Even though Meiko is back home for the summer break, Akari still walks the dog every day. And every evening she still walks by Hikaru's house. For a while, last spring, the upstairs bedroom, Hikaru's room, was brightly lit every night, no matter how late Akari passes by. And then for a week or so, there is no light at all, just over spring break. And when Akari sees Hikaru in school afterwards he has much changed. The sad look in his eyes makes her want to cry and she tries to ask him if he was okay, but he brushes her off.
It takes many months for the look to fade, but Akari notes that it never quite disappears.
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Over the next years, Akari goes to school and the school Go club and walks the dog every night. She even manages to play in the girl team of the Junior High Go tournament. But she knows she's the weakest link in her team, and when a stronger girl player appears among the firsties, she graciously relinquishes her third seat, and settles for cheering her team on at the next tournaments.
She very rarely sees Hikaru anymore, as he has dropped out of school to concentrate on his Go career, and so Akari starts to buy Weekly Go magazine to keep up with how he is doing. She starts a scrap book, too. And pretty soon she needs to start a second one; he's doing so well.
But it worries her that in none of the photos he's smiling, and in none of the interviews he speaks of anything but Go strategy.
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In senior high, Akari meets Ishida Yoji. He's a first year medical student who likes the dog and doesn't mind that Akari talks and worries about her erstwhile best friend. Yoji joins her now on the daily dog-walks and doesn't comment at all when Akari one day changes the route to include Hikaru's new apartment.
The light in Hikaru's place is on most nights and that fact comforts Akari more than she's willing to say.
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Akari decides she doesn't want to go off to collage; there is a doctor's assistant's training course not far from home, and since she and Yoji got engaged, and Akari was never the ambitious type, it seems like the perfect solution; she will become her future husband's assistant.
The training course even pays for the three days per week of work she'd do assisting a series of doctors, so she is glad she isn't going to be a financial burden on her family and later on her own family. Ah, that sounds wonderful, she thinks, my own family.
It's only a little voice in her heart that says that maybe she would have liked to have that with Hikaru, but she shushes it; you can't have everything you want. And she has to admit, with Yoji she has quite a good catch.
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As luck would have it, Yoji is offered a chance to buy himself into the medical practice of old Yamada-sensei in Akari's own neighborhood. And the newly wedded Mr. and Mrs. Ishida find a nice house close by.
The dog moves in with them and Akari figures out a new route that will lead her by Hikaru's apartment.
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Four scrapbooks become five as Akari is pregnant with her first child. And on summer days, she can hear the patchi of Go stones being played on a wooden Goban drift down through Hikaru's open window as she passes below, pushing a stroller with the old dog tethered to the handle, moving slowly down the street.
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After her third child is born, the dog walking stops for a while, but then Yoji comes home with an adorable puppy and Akari, who had been inconsolable at the death of her dog, realizes that life is circular and she doesn't have to give up her one escape, her one moment of tranquility, her one moment of what if.
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Mrs. Ishida is proud to note the progress of the illustrious career of one Shindou Hikaru, Go pro. Most of what she reads in Weekly Go is about games won and titles gained. Hikaru does lose, but only against the very best and not always. So he can by rights be counted amongst the Greats of Go.
Akari jr. learns to play Go after having found some of her mother's old beginner Go books. Mrs. Ishida is proud that her daughter is good enough to take the intake exam for the insei program. And she's still proud when Akari jr. fails the exam and ends up taking piano classes on Saturdays instead. She learns to ignore the endless scales Akari jr. has to play and teaches the dog how to give paw.
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Old Mrs. Ishida still walks the route she used to with her dog. Being an old lady, she decides against getting yet another puppy when her dog dies, after all, who'd take care of it after she was gone? But she can't give up her daily walk, not after so many years.
Shindou Honinbou still lives in the apartment he had bought with his first tittle win. Now there is an simple elevator attached to the place, so the occupants can get in and out more easily.
It is twilight on a spring day that old Mrs Ishida takes her customary walk down his street, by his apartment. And she notes that tonight the light is not yet on and, while the window is wide open, no sound of Go stones can be heard.
She thinks nothing of it, as he could be in his kitchen eating dinner; it is still within that sort of hour. And she decides to continue on to the park, when the hairs on the back of her neck suddenly stand on end. Slowly she turns around.
In the middle of the street two figures stand. One a young punk with bleached hair, worse, partially bleached hair, wearing t-shirt, jeans and trainers. The bright yellow T sprouts a big black five on the front. The other is a figure Mrs. Ishida has not ever seen outside a traditional No play; all white silk sleeves and old-fashioned tall hat. The two figures face each other and it looks as if they are holding hands.
Then, to Mrs. Ishida's horror, the figures draw closer and lips are pressed against each other. And Mrs. Ishida is about to lift her cane and start shouting at the brazen pair kissing out in public, when a flock of birds suddenly rises from a tree top and her attention is drawn away in surprise. When she again looks at the street, it is quite empty, and all of a sudden Mrs Ishida feels tired and old and decides to go home instead of on to the park.
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Ishida Akari, born Fujisaki, adds the last clipping to her scrapbook; 'Honinbou dies peaceful death at home.'
After that she doesn't go out for walks anymore and she always wonders if the day before, when the birds startled her so and she didn't finish her walk, Hikaru had already died and the birds had somehow known.
She also, finally, let herself think on 'what if'. What if Akari hadn't had a good comfortable marriage to Yoji, with three beautiful children and seven grand kids and counting? What if she had never met Yoji, or some one like him, and had gone to college instead?
What if she had been really good at Go and been able to give Hikaru some competition, something to play for? What if Hikaru had never become interested in Go in the first place? What if she'd stopped him from trying to burgle his Gramps' attic and had never seen or touched that Goban?
What if?
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The End
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