Touya Akira walked quickly through the cold November rain. It was only a couple of blocks from the bus stop to his parents' house, but he hadn't thought to bring an umbrella with him today and he was quickly getting wet through. Tightly he clutched an item carefully wrapped in a plastic bag, held under his coat for extra protection.
As he walked through the courtyard to the house, the familiar Plink! Plink! of the shishi-odoshi left no doubt that the rain was getting heavier.
"I'm home!"
"Akira-san! You're all wet! Let me get a towel and dry you off!"
Touya made a pro forma protest that this wasn't necessary, but submitted to his mother's attentions without any further objection. If he were to be honest with himself, he would have admitted that a part of him enjoyed being fussed over.
Back in his room, he changed out of his damp school uniform and into dry clothes. Only then did he remember to check inside the plastic bag. Good! The book had stayed dry. Not that father would have gotten angry with him. Father rarely got angry. But Touya was proud that he had been allowed to borrow a book from his father's library to lend to Shindou, and it would have made him very disappointed with himself if he had proven unworthy of that trust.
Once dressed, he quickly went to return the book. The door to his father's study was open. The Meijin was kneeling motionless before the goban, contemplating a rather complex position. He looks like a statue, Touya thought, kneeling there like that. Almost like a Buddha. But then the thought came into his head that Kurata-san was more like a Hotei. And the image that that put into his head made him laugh. His father, distracted, looked up sternly.
"Laughing about something, Akira?" he said, with a somewhat irritated tone in his voice.
"I'm returning the book I lent Shindou," Touya said, changing the subject. He held the book up for his father to see.
"Ah, the complete games of Honinbou Shusaku. Put it on the shelf. You've not had it long."
Touya searched for the proper spot on the shelves. Ah, there! Replacing the book, he turned.
"Shindou has so little to occupy him. He hasn't been able to go to school since the accident, and he can't play sports or do anything a healthy boy his age – I mean our age – might be able to do. I thought these kifu could keep him occupied for months."
"But evidently they did not. You only borrowed the book last week. So Shusaku's games failed to hold his interest?"
"Quite the opposite. By my next visit he had not only read the book, but he had memorized all of the kifu."
"Memorized them? Can such a thing be possible? There are over 400 game records in that book," the Meijin answered, gesturing in the direction of the heavy volume.
"He said it so casually too, 'Oh, you can take the book back, Touya, all of these games are in my head.' I thought it impossible too, so I tested him. I flipped to a page at random and asked him to replay the game from memory for me. He not only replayed it, but offered a detailed analysis of the game as he did so."
"Amazing that a boy your age, or anyone at all for that matter could do such a thing, especially after having suffered a serious brain injury. Perhaps I have not taken enough of an interest in this friend of yours. Do you think he would like to come to the study sessions?"
"I think he'd like to but I'm not sure his mother would like it. She doesn't seem to like the fact that he's taken up Go." Or to like me, Akira thought. "Also, it's difficult for Shindou to walk. I don't think he could get here very easily unless it was by taxi."
"A taxi could be arranged. Is there one of his games I could see?"
"Yes, the one we played today! I'll play it out for you now, if – " Touya hesitated before the position his father had so carefully laid out.
"You may clear this away. I can set the position up again easily enough if need be."
Touya cleared the stones and set about replaying his game with Shindou. He felt a bit apprehensive as he did so. Shindou, playful as a rule, and been in a more than usually whimsical mood today and had made some truly odd moves. Odd, even for him. Touya wasn't sure that his father would approve of this kind of Go.
"Here, I stopped for a while. I hadn't expected him to make that move."
"It's a very interesting move, a good move actually," the Meijin rumbled in approval. "He has a good sense of the board."
"Well, he asked me why it took me so long to respond and I said, because the move was unexpected. He said 'do you like it when I play unexpected moves?' I didn't say anything back because I could tell that he was up to something from the way he looked at me. After that, the play continued like this."
It hadn't occurred to Akira until now, but it would be perfect if Shindou could come to the study sessions. Shindou would surely enjoy it, and deserved that much at least, for all Touya had learned in their games together. Touya continued to set down stones, with growing nervousness. Shindou appeared to have been trying to make each of his moves more surprising than all that had gone before. Looking at them for the second time around, Touya couldn't help feeling impressed in a strange way. Shindou's moves were like those of a visitor from another planet. What would father think?
The answer came. The Meijin abruptly cleared the stones from the board with a sweep of his forearm.
"This is not Go!"
Touya reflexively began to gather the stones up. He painstakingly returned them to their boxes, moving perhaps a little more slowly and nervously than he normally would have. Father almost never got angry – or rather, Touya mentally corrected himself, almost never showed it.
He knew he couldn't just leave once the stones were cleared up, but father didn't say anything. A couple of minutes passed until finally the Meijin spoke.
"Akira, I hesitate to say such a thing to you, but unless Shindou begins to play seriously against you, I do not think that I can approve that you continue to play against him."
"But father, I – "
"Even if he is strong enough to beat you when playing moves like these," the Meijin said, frowning down at the now empty goban. "To play against someone who does not take the game seriously, is not only disrespectful to Go itself, but it will make you a weaker player."
Akira kept silent. Clearly he did not want to obey his father, but was not prepared to say as much aloud.
"Mind you, I do not say that I forbid you to play him," his father continued. "In fact, if he is prepared to play with all of his strength, I would encourage it. But that he does so is something upon which I must insist. Do you understand?"
"Yes, father."
A/N: As usual, my apologies for being slow to update. The good news, what little there is, is that although all I've managed after quite a long wait is a very brief chapter which hasn't advanced the plot (and I do know where it will go, trust me) much more than the previous one did. So there will be at least two more chapters.
