HnG belongs to Hotta and Obata.
Prompt: Middles
Akira's Go
Akira would occasionally wonder what happened to some of the children he used to play at his go school. There had been another boy, a few years older and with good potential. He wasn't and would probably never be up to Akira's own level, but that wasn't unusual. Akira had never met another kid his age who could match him in go.
The older boy had quit going just a few months before Akira's father had decided the boy had outgrown the class. He had stopped coming after the day Akira had thrown a game to him, allowing the older boy to win for once. Akira couldn't understand why – he'd given Kaga what he'd wanted, hadn't he?
When he'd been younger, Akira had been thrilled at being so much better at go than other kids his age. He'd been proud that he could match – and often best – kids several years older. By the time he'd thrown his match to Kaga, he could even beat most adults. It was around then that Akira came to realize that ability in go and age are not correlated in the least, and he began to feel a little less proud and a bit more discontent at being so much better than anyone else.
Akira's father must have felt his son's go losing momentum as the boy searched blindly for what he was missing. Touya Koyo was as unhappy as his son, though he at least knew why. Akira had no one to balance him. There was nobody near his age who could be a peer. As Japan's best go player, Touya Koyo could understand that feeling all too well – something fundamental was missing for both father and son.
As Akira came once more into his go salon, a bright smile on his face hiding the terrible loneliness Koyo knew the boy must feel, Koyo wondered what was to become of Akira. He would never reach his peak unless he had someone to push him – a peer, a rival to motivate him to work that much harder and reach that much farther. Without that, he would lose motivation and stagnate, perhaps burning out beyond repair before the others his age caught up.
What was to become of Akira's go?