Chapter 2

It takes some running, but you find him again.

There's a children's tournament today at the Go Institute today, you hear. Shindou is there—you don't know how you know, but maybe someone gave you the info at your father's go salon. You have to hurry to catch him, you hear the voice say…

You don't run very often. You're completely out of breath by the time you find him. You probably look a bit wild, covered in sweat and hair all dishevelled, yelling at this clueless boy in a hoarse, almost feverish voice.

You don't care.

"Play me again," you demand. "Not shidougo this time!"

"Akira-kun?"

Ichikawa's hand falls on your shoulder. "Akira-kun, are you okay?"

You raise your head. You've been glad for the way your hair forms a protective curtain around your lowered eyes—that way no one can see how red they are. You shouldn't have taken Shindou to your father's go salon again—too many people know you here.

But it must be near closing time now. Ichikawa wants you out of the chair. You stand.

"Anything you want to talk about?" she says, hand falling from your shoulder. "Did something happen?"

Shindou Hikaru happened, you refuse to say. To speak would make it true. What you just experienced…it couldn't have been real. A boy like that, clumsy young fingers like that…they couldn't have played the hands they played. The way they cut into you, like a blade piercing your formation. Cutting your trust in yourself, your go, your father's go.

Shindou Hikaru—what was he?

"Akira-kun?"

You look up and see Ichikawa's frown. Right, she needs to close the building. "Sorry to be a bother. I'll go now." You put on your best smile.

"No, no, it's not trouble at all!" she says as you expect. "I'm just wondering if you're being…you know, bullied or anything at school…"

Your smile turns into a different one. "Oh no, it's nothing like that."

"Then what is it?"

You know that she won't close the salon until she has an answer. So you tell her, "It's nothing, just…that game."

"What game?"

It seems inconceivable that she doesn't know what you're talking about. But of course she doesn't—she was in the front, watching the till and taking care of customers, and you took Shindou to the back, hid him away…

"The game I played just now."

You gesture at the board, the black pieces still arrayed against you. Still cutting into your heart. You stare, eyes drawn down to your defeat.

"Oh," says Ichikawa. "But, Akira-kun…" she bites her lip. "I thought your mom was going to talk to you about this."

You're not sure what she's talking about, but you nod. You're finding it hard to pay much attention to her. You're replaying the last fifteen moves in your mind, over and over…

"Are you sure there's nothing wrong? I know you're under a lot of pressure."

You turn away, plucking your jacket from the back of your chair. "I should probably let you close up. Thank you, Ichikawa-san."

You give her your best smile again, the one you know she likes. And then you leave for home—where Shindou Hikaru's clumsy, devastating hands will still haunt you, ghostlike.

"You've been out and about a lot recently," your father observes.

You do not look up. The board has most of your attention. You consider your father's last move. A kosumi where you were expecting a hane. Why?

"Your mother mentioned you've been taking the train a lot."

You nod absently. "I'm sorry. I spent more money than usual this month." Reading deeper into the shape on the goban, you see your father's intent: the kosumi will give him better board position later in the centre, where the final battle will be decided. You decide to play aggressively to cut off that future path. "If the money is a problem," you say aloud, "I'll try to use my transit card less."

"It's not an issue." Your father is perturbed. You can tell from his intonation. Was your move so strange? "I only wondered where you've been going."

You place your next stone, a dodging move.

"I've been observing different schools," you explain. You do not mention that one of those schools was Shindou Hikaru's school, Haze Elementary, and the other hosted a tournament he took part in. "I want to make the right choice for junior high."

"You came home quite late today. Were you visiting a school?"

Your father places a pincer movement. You respond elsewhere, forcing an atari.

"Yes, but that school is too inconvenient," you say. "Our house is not so far away, but it's too far from the go salon and the Institute." You are talking about Haze Junior High, which you have never once considered attending. You would never attend a school with such…distractions. "I decided on Kaio," you tell your father.

He gives an approving nod and his shoulders seem to relax. You see it from the corner of your eye. "I am glad that you show such independence."

"Kaio seems like a good school."

His next move—a large keima—surprises you again. "They do have nice uniforms," he says as his stone leaps boldly into the centre.

You cover your mouth with one hand, unable to help the tiny smile bubbling forth.

The game unfolds with a vivid grace, as all games with your father do. The door to the veranda is open; outside, the bamboo water spout rises and falls at intervals, clack clack clack, a familiar punctuation to the warm pachi pachi pachi of the stones. It is as close to contentment as you can get. It's the person you were before Shindou barged into your life.

Then Ogata comes in and the spell is broken.

"Your go is different today, Akira," Ogata says as smoke clouds his features.

"I noticed it too," says your father, "but I chose not to bring it up in the middle of a game."

If Ogata notices the rebuke, he does not make sign of it.

"I guess I can't say much about your go when I haven't seen you lately. Not since that children's tournament, I believe?"

Ogata blows more smoke. You're used to it, but you turn your face aside anyways. There's grey ash in the air, red cinder flakes drifting into your hair. Slow and awful, the smoke thickens and grows.

"You were at a children's tournament?" Your eyes are averted, but you can hear the frown in your father's voice. "Akira, didn't I tell you not to enter any of those?"

A worming, itchy feeling crawls up from your stomach into your chest.

"He didn't play," Ogata says smugly. "He only came to watch. He got a bit too excited, the way kids do—your son here blurted out some advice for a boy in the middle of a game, which rendered the whole thing moot and landed him in a pot of hot water with the organizers."

"Akira did that?" Your father turns his eyes on you, the brown irises clouded white with smoke. The worm wraps tighter around your heart; Ogata should not be saying these things.

"It wasn't me," you say in a voice unlike your own. "It was another boy."

Ogata's voice is also unlike his own: it is taken aback, bewildered. "Another boy? What are you talking about? I was right there. It was you."

"No, it wasn't. It was the boy with the dyed hair."

"I didn't see anyone like that."

"But he was there. At the children's tournament."

"What are you talking about?"

"Akira?" says your father.

Later, you will regret your words. But in the face of Ogata's confusion, your father's worry, the remembered crease between your mother's brows, the memory of that game that cut your go in two (you are in atari, a pincer attack from all sides, you must respond or your stones will die), your mouth opens without your consent and it's as if the worm has crawled all the way up your throat. You blurt out—

"Shindou Hikaru. It was all Shindou's fault, not mine!"

—and like a broken spell, like a solved tsumego, the game unravels.