Second Chance (live)
Sai is cold.
Cold, not in the sense of temperature but cold in the sense of emotion. He feels hollow, all too often these passing times and the goban, which he inhibits, is silent. There are no stones being gently placed on the lines, nor were they fiercely set onto the kaya with the will to fight. The days are dark and the nights are silent.
Days, months, years pass by in the blended continuity of his non-existence.
Being a ghost is so lonely. And sad: because he has no one to talk to, too many of his memories to think back on, and numerous regrets. He waits (days, weeks, years, centuries) because he knows, someday, someone will come. He just needs to hold on until then.
Torajiro was like a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stale place. He saw him - saw Sai - saw his brilliance and they had a warm, comforting partnership where they both benefited. They created a new name for themselves, Honinbou Shuusaku, and it was Sai's proof of his existence. His moves on the Goban shouting I am here!
But Hikaru, aptly name, was the light in the darkness: the end of the tunnel, the chance for a legacy (legacy - not legend), and the price of immortality.
Torajiro existed for him - Hikaru lived. Torajiro saw his brilliance, saw his powers, and allowed Sai to affirm his existence through his games. Hikaru saw him, and fought him, and challenged him, and questioned him, learned from him, and understood him. Torajiro slowly let himself be cocooned in the being that was Sai, and allowed him to leave his legend in the name Shuusaku. Hikaru provoked, defied, and forced Sai to move and change and remember that there is always more to learn. To live.
Life in death.
What an ironic concept.
After a lifetime of the stiff formalities of the Court, and another lifetime of the polite manners of Torajiro's time, Hikaru is brash, rude, uncultured, brimming with energy, free.
Freedom. And Life.
In Death.
The chance to experience all that he had never experienced before, the opportunity to see and marvel at things he would never understand, the prospect of taking another step closer to the Hand of God.
The price was too high. In the moment when the sand at last falls again from the last of the hourglass, Fujiwara no Sai doesn't want to leave. Even if it meant another eternity waiting in the silent goban, as long as Hikaru was waiting for him at the end, he would endure.
Because Hikaru is the best thing that has ever happened to Sai, and he would never regret it, even if he have had to die for it.
. : Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there : .